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penvisions · 3 months

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one fish, two fish {chapter 2}

Pairing: Local! Frankie Morales x Transplant! Reader

Summary: Reaching out and another chance encounter undoes the wonderful night you shared with Frankie. But maybe a chance encounter with his friend from the bar can undo all that...

Word Count: 4.1k

Warnings: canon typical language, canon typical bad luck, angst, unlucky encounters, misunderstandings, reader gets ghosted, then frankie gets ghosted, feelings of inadequacy, recovery, ptsd symptoms, past drug use, na meeting setting, conversations with a sponsor, a lot of feelings, reader has imposter syndrome, rude people, entitlement, workplace politics, degrading language, reader has a callsign nickname but no assigned name, lemme know if i missed any (nicely) please!

A/N: kind of scared to post this, i know i have other fics that are 'due for' an update but inspiration is low as i prepare to start working again and recoup from a camping trip. this'll be the heaviest chapter, wanting to do more fluff for this fic and go back to funny moments and silly times with frankie! thank y'all for reading and as always, hope the days are good to you ♡♡

ao3 link || series masterlist || frankie masterlist || ko-fi

Radio check for Fish, come in Fish.

Read out loud and clear, Angel. Go ahead for Fish.

Roger that, requesting communication.

Request granted. Glad you’re back on the airwaves. Everything okay?

Affirmative.

Copy that. Standby…

Phone poised in hand, you wait for the speech bubble to pop back up, indicating his return to the conversation. But when half an hour, an hour goes by you sigh and load the inactive thing into your bag to continue your errands. After a rather frustrating visit to the phone provider you had chosen, a weak argument of ‘but it was an accident’ when told that the damage to the phone looked purposeful and just in time for the newest phone release, you had sat down at a coffee shop to grab breakfast and set up the new device. Now though, you guessed it was time to get the rest of the day’s errands done.

The paper Frankie had handed you nearly a week ago had found itself tacked to the half corkboard, half whiteboard calendar you kept in the kitchen. Your eyes sliding to it more often than you’d like to admit as you made dashes through in the morning on the way to work or cooked in the evenings.

An entire week goes by and you try to put it out of your mind. New phone heavy in your hands when you settle with it on the edge of the couch, or check it each morning before work, at the office on your lunch break. But no new messages come in, just that once funny copy that, standby. Standby…. Standby….

You had thought things were getting better, but the girls at work were being weird and conversations hushed whenever you walked into the breakroom or entered the bathroom and more than two were together. You hadn’t even bothered to bring up the fact that they ditched you at the bar the night you officially met Frankie…because it didn’t matter.

They had done it and it was over. If it had been intentional then that was on you for not seeing through their false offers of genuine camaraderie. If it had been accidental, then that was on you for not noticing how short their attention spans were. If it had been to give you a chance to go home with the not one, but two guys that approached you the second you were alone, then it was appreciated but a bit vapid of an assumption of what type of person you were.

The atmosphere at work and the novelty of being a new person to the team had quickly vanished. You were now the one whose desk was piled high with files and sticky note reminders of tasks to complete that carried over into the next day in an endless cycle. The routine of it all was so monotonous and draining.

Wake up, breakfast, commute.

Work, lunch, return emails about work that won’t be finished.

Commute, run, prep lunch, make dinner, clean.

Shower, pace the house, sleep.

It was dizzying as much as the errant thoughts of visiting one of the dance clubs downtown and tracking down the sirens call of pills or powder, anything to help you get out of your head and the endlessly swirling thoughts of doing everything wrong.

But you couldn’t, even if relapse was a part of recovery. It was not a part you wanted to end up being complicit with, one you were trying to avoid with every fiber of your being. The feeling of drowning and sinking down to the bottom of the ocean an all too real one that consumes you from the second you wake up to the second you finally pass out at the end of the day. Waterlogged clothing and the weight of water in your lungs too real.

Memories of turbulent water and debris raining down into it all around you only adding to the chaos of your mind.

You could hear the higher pitched prattle of a little girl on the next aisle over and you find yourself smiling despite the exhaustion that makes your body heavy. The basket hanging from your arm is laden with a bunch of bananas, a few other fruits, a carton of coffee creamer, and a pack of gummy sharks. Just one more thing to gather was a box of oatmeal, on the cereal aisle that you turn on.

There’s the broad back of Frankie, standing in front of one of the larger carts the store offers for shoppers. He’s quietly speaking to someone on the other side of the cart, eclipsed by the big form of him. The cart is nearly full though, you can see the colored boxes and wrappers of various foods inside as he leans over to grab a box of plain corn flakes.

You’re about to call out to him, your cheek tingling where he had pressed his plush lips to you nearly two weeks ago now. But a shrill peel of happy laughter from a child that is revealed to be in the seat of his cart.

“Daaaaddy, that’s the wrong one, silly! We need the frosted corn flakes.” Daddy. Dad. Frankie was a father. Your entire body freezes as you’re faced with the reason for his radio silence for the past several days. He had been so…charming and down to earth once the miscommunication had been cleared up but apparently he hadn’t shared with you one of the biggest parts of himself.

“No, mija, we don’t.” His shoulders are shaking with his own laughter as he places the box into the cart and goes to pull it behind him as he nears closer to you in front of the oatmeal. The little girl in his cart turns her eyes toward you, catching sight of your surprised expression.

“Dad! That girl is really pretty, her dress is so cute!”

“Who- Oh.” He’s looking up from the suddenly too bright boxes of cereal with their mascots and large block lettering. His eyes widen and he looks like he’s been caught, something you don’t have the energy to dissect at the moment. But one thing is glaringly obvious, he’s a father and family man. You went out on what was essentially a first date with a man who had a family. The realization slams into you and you’re blindly grabbing the closest box of oatmeal, throwing it into your basket before turning on your feet and fleeing to the checkout lanes.

“A-“ But before he could even get your name out you were down the aisle and turning out of sight, heart beating far too fast and anxiety thrumming. The entire process of checking out and paying for your groceries was a blur, you weren’t even sure if you thanked the cashier or bid her a good day. The slam of your car door was loud as you quickly shut it behind you. The image of him across from you in a diner, the easy conversation and goodnight kiss now tainted with the fact that he hadn’t been responsive and was a father. He could very well have a wife or girlfriend and you hadn’t even thought to ask that of him, his behavior so willing to help clear the air and ensure you had a way home.

Had you misread the vibe?

Had you just not picked up on the signals he was giving you, reading too much into the shared meal?

Had you done wrong by not asking?

The what ifs plagued you as you made your way back home, realizing that you weren’t too far from where he lived, most likely with his family. Your stomach churns and your temples throb, your lunch not settling well in the wake of your fast exit.

A migraine, you’ve worked yourself up to the point of a migraine.

The rest of your evening is spent putting the groceries away, brewing a small pot of coffee, and taking a too hot, too long shower before laying down in total darkness. You don’t flip on a switch for lights for the entire weekend as you try to keep the curtains drawn over the windows and the sounds down to a minimum as the pounding in your head persists. You don’t hear your phone go off in your purse by the front door but even if you had, you wouldn’t have known how to respond through squinting eyes.

When you manage to drag yourself out of bed on Monday, the world is still too bright and loud, but you have to get to work. Calling out would be a bad reflection and you didn’t want to disappoint the boss, someone who knew someone in your family. A favor, that you had been considered for the job in the first place, especially in a new city where you had no experience or connections. The entirety of your screen was grouped messages from your brother, from your coworkers asking after emails you hadn’t responded to. One voicemail from a mechanic to check out the weird sound your car was making when you braked, too tired to look into it yourself. And then there was the block of notifications from Fish.

Two questioning texts in the joking manner dragged on from the previous thread he had abandoned. A single one of your actual name, asking if everything was okay and if you could just message him back to let him know. A missed call and a voicemail.

‘Hey, um, so I realize how that may have looked. At the grocery store. I just…I wanted to apologize- again, for the way our interactions seem to spiral. But I swear to you, I was going to tell you. I get it if…if you don’t want to see me again or feel like you can’t trust me even if you only did for those few hours in the diner. But…I really do like you, Angel. You’re…never mind. Just…reach out if you need anything or a nudge in the right direction for businesses and shops….Bye.”

You weren’t sure what to think, emotions warring with each other inside your chest and mind. The deep velvet of his voice soothing even if you didn’t want it to be. The words never mind repeating in your head over and over again. But the one thing you were sure of was that this job was turning out not to be the one for you. The pile of files stacked on your desk was so tall you could see it across the room, the cubicle partition doing nothing to hide them from view.

The seat is barely squeaking with your weight when your boss is approaching you with a too sweet smile and a big hand on the back of your chair. His fingers brush the hair you’ve kept down today to avoid another wave of the migraine that had kept you down all weekend. The sunglasses you had worn the entire drive downtown had been only mildly helpful. Your hopeful mood for a decent day swirls from your chest and down to the bottom of your stomach, settling heavily.

“My office. End of day.”

“Yes, sir, of course.”

The day is a blur of emails, finishing up file notes that aren’t even under your name, of a salad you forgot to add dressing to, and finally you’re sitting across from the boss with your bag settled in your lap.

“It’s been brought to my attention that you’re having trouble finishing daily tasks. Most are being started either too late in the day or the day after they were due.”

“I’ve submitted everything assigned to me on time. And while I have no problem with the additional tasks, the submissions that are late tend to be the ones dropped off on my desk after I return from lunch.”

“Then perhaps you need to skip lunch in order to ensure the get completed.” He’s not even looking up from the paperwork he’s going over, the scratch of his ballpoint pen never stopping as he makes notes on it and circles large chunks of text.

“Excuse me?”

“There have been a few complaints that you aren’t doing enough to aid your superiors, they rely on new people to help pick up the slack. The files moved under your name for completion often go undone. A few complaints have been made about the language of your email signoffs as well. The phrase ‘passive-aggressive’ has been brought up.”

“So I’m getting reprimanded for work other people aren’t completing? And then scrutinized for the more than professional communications I ensure to include when emailing finished work to the people responsible for it?”

“We all work together here, there is no ‘my work, her work, his work’. We all help each other to get stuff done in a timely manner.”

“There certainly is. I have files assigned to me, Shannon has files assigned to her. Mark has filed assigned to him. Even if their files are dropped off on my desk to be done, that doesn’t negate the fact that they aren’t assigned to me.”

“Then perhaps you need to start taking work home. But at home hours are a privilege, so there will be no compensation for-“

“I quit.”

“Excuse me?” He finally looks up from the paperwork, surprise coloring his features.

“I quit, I’m not about to play office politics with you all. If someone has a problem with my work or the way I speak, then they should confront me and not run off to HR. I haven’t done anything wrong to warrant this write up.”

“I see…” His hands are clasped over that damn document, the pen neatly lined up beside it. He’s schooled his face into one of thinly veiled politeness, but you can see the disappointment in his eyes.

“Yup, thank you for the opportunity.” You go to shoulder your bag, the strap falling from your fingers as his next words. It thuds to the floor, but you don’t reach for it.

“Not much of those for…someone like you.” He’s not even looking at you, his eyes focused on the bag partially opened on the floor. On the prescription bottle peeking out from the now busted zipper.

“A simple ‘thank you for your service’ goes a long way, you know. But it’s nice to know you don’t really give a fuck what I’ve sacrificed for you all to sit here in your offices all day and make fun of me for how I dealt with the things I’ve see and experienced.”

“Most people don’t turn to hard drugs to deal with the difficulties of life.” The words sting as they cut into your chest, the judgement and disgust aching. It’s always shocking, the ways in which people react to the way your life had played out. The way you had no choice in how it played out. The drugs hadn’t been your choice nor your preferred poison. The allure of them had been born of a too strong prescription, written for you at the same time the paperwork for your retirement had been drawn up.

“And what’s so hard about your life? The fact that you’re sleeping with your secretary and you don’t want your wife to find out? Oh, the cliché of it all. You dug that hole yourself, put yourself in that situation.”

“And you put yourself in the situation of serving during a war.” But you’re even less prepared for the words as they slice into you, digging deeper than the first. You’re sure blood is visible through the silk of your office appropriate top, the blazer over your shoulders allowing for the damage to be seen across the pristine desk.

“Fuck you.”

“Don’t put this job down on your resume, you won’t be getting any kind words from me should another employer call.” The dismissal is expected, the call he’s sure to make to inform your family friend is as well. A call to you in the evening already draining what little energy you had and it hadn’t even happened yet.

“Gotcha.” Chair clattering as you stand, you don’t even return to your desk or retrieve your Tupperware from the sink in the breakroom. You feel the eyes of too curious people follow you as you cross the open space, whispers sprouting as soon as you pass. Fuck them, fuck all of them. You need a job but not bad enough to put up with whatever fresh hell was going on there.

You’re blinded by the brightness of the outside world when you push through the front door, the lady at the front desk bidding you a good day in too chipper of a mood for you current ability to handle. Your breath is punched from you as you collide with something solid. You feel hands grip your upper arms and help prevent you from careening to the ground.

“Woah, hey. Oh! You’re the woman Fish was talking about! The one from the bar.” You glimpse that tightly curled, dark hair over a handsome face as you steady yourself and step back. Brown eyes so bright in the sunlight they remind you of Frankie’s in the fluorescents of the diner and your stomach flutters.

But it’s his friend, not him. Right outside your former place of employment, the attempt at a new life that was quickly crumbling from under your feet.

“Yeah, your buddy is a real piece of work.” Tone scathing, you can’t help the way it curls your lips as it’s given breath. Ire at yourself and shame at the way you had hoped for the smallest moment that he would turn out to be something good filling your chest uncomfortably.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He’s taken aback by the bite in your tone, his easy smile turning upside down, jaw clenching tight as he watches you with narrowed eyes. Defensive, not something you were willing to deal with as you feel your fingers twitch and your stomach drop. The flare of emotion dissipating as soon as it had flared to life.

“Just…forget it. I’m sorry, I just quit my job and I’m a little…”

“Let’s grab a coffee, I’m sure we can work out something.” He’s so earnest, his dark brown eyes catching the afternoon rays of sun. Such a small, well-meaning smile making your heart soften and your quick judgement of the man back at the bar melt away.

“I don’t know you and you don’t know me, what-“

“I work for the PD and one of the guys in our friend group, he works for the military still. Does recruitment and works in the VA. I know we need-“

“I’m not interested in another tour, I’m retired. Probably wouldn’t even qualify.” You cut him off still, unable to even begin to entertain the thought of donning a uniform again. Of the slick updo you had mastered to pull all of your hair up and out of the way. Your skin prickles as the hot feeling of shrapnel embedding itself into your side blooms, all to real as you stand in the middle of the sidewalk downtown.

“No, no, god no. I wouldn’t either to be honest. But depending on your skill set I know they need mechanics and technicians. Explosives expert, right? Means you’ve got engineering skills.”

“How do you know about that?”

“Fish was very chatty after your little diner date.”

“That was three weeks ago.” Denial is on the tip of your tongue at his description, but that’s what it had been: a date. With a man who hadn’t told you of his family.

“Yeah, and he’s been a bit of a bummer since you haven’t contacted him since.”

“Look,-“

“Santiago Garcia. Pope was my callsign. Whichever you prefer.” His large hand is warm as it reaches for the one you were trying to wave him off with. Electricity sparks and you feel it travel up your arm, momentarily shocking you before you pull your hand away. A sheepish smile and mumbled apology from him at the mishap lightens the mood a little, something about how the shirt he’s wearing has been making it a common occurrence today. The need to go shopping for more dryer sheets humanizing him further.

“Look, Santiago. I appreciate what you’re trying to do but I just really want to go home and eat my weight in Chinese takeout, okay?”

“Okay, I get that. Believe me, I more than get that, but-“ He’s pulling out his wallet, a thick card is being offered to you with his name and contact information printed on it. “Just consider it, yeah? We all gotta stick together, civilians don’t understand even if they try to. We can find you work, something that’ll keep your hands busy and your mind occupied. Office work doesn’t suit you, you shouldn’t have to subject yourself to it, okay?”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Good enough for me, hermosa.” And with another charming smile, he’s back on his way down the street, his destination unknown to you. Sighing, you pocket the card and make your way around the building, waving at the security guard that walked up and down the block throughout the day. Your truck is dirty, washing it pushed back further and further as a storm closes in on the coast and inevitably travels inland toward you. The thought of heavy rain and whipping winds turning you off from the waste of water, suds, and an afternoon you could spend looking at things to do around the city.

When you go to turn the key, nothing happens. No clicking, no beeping of the dash lighting up, nothing.

“Fuck.”

Shrugging out of your blazer, you fix your hair up in a messy bun to get it out of your face and pop open the hood. But it’s useless, everything looks to be in working order. Leaving only the possibility of the alternator or battery having died and left you stranded. You’re sure you have a reader for the battery…at home in the garage. The card shoved in your back pocket burns into your skin, prompting you to pull it away and dial the numbers printed in a nice font.

Two rings and it picks up.

“Santigo, it’s Angel.” He doesn’t ask what’s wrong or if you’re okay. Only your location.

“I’m just down the street, turning back around now. The parking lot just behind the building?”

“Yes, I- thank you, Santiago.”

“No problem at all, hermosa.”

“You said you need engineers? Where exactly?” He’s looked over the mechanics of the vehicle just as you did, diagnosing the problem exactly the same. Something unable to be fixed at the moment. He glances up at you under his long lashes as he types out something on his phone, an instant response buzzing.

“Someone should be here in a few, my friends are just down a few blocks. One of them owns a gym and we hit up the dive bar across from it every Monday.”

Nodding, you try to recall the buildings he’s talking about. But you haven’t explored as much as you’ve wanted too. Throwing yourself into work and trying to play catch up on building secondary savings. The help to purchase a home welcome, but the house needed work that was only discounted, not covered.

“There’s a flight school not too far outside the city, where recruits are sent. They need some help that isn’t gonna up and leave them, assignments are up and they need someone reliable.”

“I don’t know how to fly.” Fleeting hope deflates and you really wish your emotions weren’t so easily pulled from you. The weekend you spent hiding away proved to have been more draining than you anticipated. But he soothes the furrow of your brow with two fingers and a hint of his teeth as he smiles at you, so close you can feel the heat of chest.

“They’ve got a few solid instructors. Fish has been pulling doubles doing the repairs and the lessons. They need a mechanic and an engineer, something tells me you’d be the perfect fit.”

You can only see the genuine way in which he’s willing to help reflected back at you, his eyes open and his smile charming. A smile is spreading across your own lips falters as the sound of a vehicle turning into the lot catches your attention. There are two figures visible through the windshield. A blonde man is backing into the spot your truck faces, concentration steeling his features. And from underneath the bill of a worn hat and through a pair of dark aviators, Frankie Morales is staring at you.

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@sawymredfox @burntheedges @hiddenbabynyc

@southernbe @inept-the-magnificent @littlemisspascal

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#dev writes #triple frontier #triple frontier fanfiction #frankie morales #frankie morales fanfiction #frankie morales x reader #frankie morales x you #frankie catfish morales #callsign nicknames #frankie morales fanfic #frankie morales fluff #frankie morales fic #frankie morales series #santiago pope garcia #santiago garcia #frankie friday

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imagineitdearies · 9 months

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Hello, I've been reading along with Perfect Slaughter. I just want to say I adore your writing, and it also brings me great pain. (In a good way?) I'm always checking after about 3-4 days because I'm always excited to read. Chapter 15 has left me terrified of what might be next, I'm holding on to the 'angst with happy ending' for dear life. Thanks for writing an amazing fic, and sharing Tyrus with us. c:

~Regarding my fic Perfect Slaughter (Astarion x Tav, Astarion backstory-centric)~

Hi there!! I'm so happy to hear you're enjoying PS thus far, though it for sure is a pain-filled story--as Cazador says, you can't have love without pain! Lol.

I usually post every 4-5 days, so if you're checking that often you'll usually find an update! Or you can hit the 'subscribe' button if you've got an email you regularly check. Though, I did wait longer for this last angsty chapter in part to not ruin some people's Christmas/Christmas Eves 😅 And you're right to be worried for the future, but I can promise this fic has plenty more lows and highs to enjoy, and will indeed end with Cazador defeated and Tyrus and Astarion free 💙 we just have quite the road to get there . . .

I'm so happy people like Tyrus, thanks to all you readers for adopting him 🥰🥰

#ask me anything #astarion x tav #astarion x original male character #fic: perfect slaughter #bg3 fanfiction #look i made a gif!!#a bad one but still i'm proud

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hansolmates · 4 years

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cherry contact |🍒

summary: jihoon has access to all versions of you - your credit score, shopping habits, work emails, even your terrible tinder history. pairing; fbi agent!jihoon x civilian!reader (f) genre/warnings; fluff, crack, it’s really just that “your fbi agent” meme that caused everyone 8 years ago to put tape over their webcams, questionable viewing habits for an fbi agent, language, dick talk, mentions of sex, jihoon has feelings and is confused, he is a PINER, tw—sexual harassment w/c; 3.3k a/n; i can’t believe i finished this😭😭 part of meraki’s job collaboration and i’ve been dying to do a svt collab since the dawn of time and finally today’s the day! it’s been a hot moment since i’ve written for jihoon, glad i managed to get those svt writing muscles going! a huge thank you to @merakiiverse and @woozisnoots for putting this together. readers pls definitely check back on the masterlist linked above to see more of the other talented cwc writers and their rendition of the job prompt!

if you like this fic please consider giving it a like n’share!🤓🖥🤓🖥

“Kevin, 32, works at Kodak,” you scroll further to the description, “I love being tied up and need a dominatrix, have swing at home—no.” Swipe right.

“Lisa, 24, works at Infinity Dance Studio,” you definitely are weak for athletic ladies, “My hobbies include cuticle care and online shopping! Looking for a sugar daddy or mommy that can spoil me rotten—definitely can’t afford that kind of relationship.” Swipe right.

“Hansol, 26, works in an art museum,” sounds promising, you love art, “wait, why are all his pictures of him holding fish? Is he inside a fish? Who the heck finds that attractive?” Swipe right.

“Billiam, 31, works in finance. Needs a bratty baby girl who can triangle,” you grimace, “what is with these guys and stating their kinks from the get-go? Gotta take a girl out to dinner first, and the fuck is a triangle?”

You swore off Tinder since the dark ages, also known as senior year of college. However you’re in a particular slump, thirst-trapped between needing some serious dick and a committed relationship. You’d prefer the latter, but after a stressful day at work and the fact that it’s the ass crack o’dawn, you’ll take what you can get.

“Bye Billiam,” you sing-song into your phone, moving to swipe right.

Except you accidentally drop your phone between your sheets, and when you pick it up you accidentally swipe left.

“Fuck fuck fuck me with a fuckin’ fuck nugget!” you cry out into oblivion. You’re so glad you live alone at the very least, it stops you from looking like a crazy person when you talk your potential sexipades out.

Billiam has Super-liked you!

“No. Nononono—” you bludgeon your head against your pillow, frowning when your phone opens up a chat for you and Billiam.

Billiam: hi can u check if my dick is too small

You: please, don’t send me a picture of your dick.

Billiam is typing…

You: for fuck’s sake—

“—that’s disgusting,” Jihoon curses, and immediately sends out the screenshot for sexual harassment.

“What’s disgusting?” Mingyu chimes, swiveling in his spinny chair from his side of the room.

“Don’t look,” Jihoon gags, reaching for a bottle of Coca-Cola from the mini-fridge. “You’ll throw up your fried chicken.”

“My person is a twenty-one year old nympho who also happens to be a incel,” Mingyu chastises to his screen, closing up the eighth tab of BBC porn he’s seen this week, “he doesn’t know how well he’s avoiding the FBI’s eyes,” Mingyu shakes his head, “so I’ve seen some pretty bad shit, but I’ll take your word for it.”

“No,” he echoes your name like you’ve done the most heinous thing in the world, “no, no! Why would you swipe left on Jackson? You’re way out of his league! He literally looks like he has a pea-sized brain!”

“He does look like he has half a brain cell,” your voice reverberates through his noise-cancelling headphones, unknowingly agreeing to Jihoon’s passionate throw of anger, “but I’m deprived and desperate, so!”

It’s like you can hear his sentiments exactly.

“Literally, you could have any person you want,” Jihoon chastises through his desktop, glaring heavily at your bedroom camera, “you’re wasting your time with these losers!”

Oblivious, you let yourself dangle across the bed. The camera isn’t the best quality, but Jihoon watches intently at the rise and fall of your chest as you attempt to fall into a fitful sleep.

“Some yell at screens for soccer,” Minghao says to the air from his cubicle, “some yell for Starcraft, but Jihoon yells for Tinder like it’s an Olympic sport.”

“Jihoonie,” Mingyu rolls around his chair, resting a long arm over the backrest, “do you have a crush on your civilian?”

Jihoon immediately swivels around his hair, meeting the amused eyes of Mingyu. “No,” he says sharply, whipping around to glare at his screen.

He glares harder the longer Mingyu’s simple question sinks in. He doesn’t have a crush on you, he likes you. Jihoon swallows his sigh, wondering why you would want to go as low as Tinder to look for a potential tryst. From your profile, you’re absolutely beautiful and intelligent. You have simple pleasures that match his—a hot cup of tea right after dark, snuggling under a weighted blanket while watching anime, and sleeping in on Sundays.

Unlike him, you don’t see the world through half a dozen lenses and a plethora of information right at your fingertips. No, you’re lucky.

“Hey can you grab me my water bottle?” Mingyu asks over his shoulder.

Jihoon thinks nothing of it, leaving his post for the thirty seconds it takes to get to the mini-fridge and grab Mingyu’s Hydroflask.

“You got a call,” Mingyu says when he plops the bottle on his desk, indicating to the red blinker on Jihoon’s computer.

It isn’t until he puts on his headphones does he take care to see why his blinker is going off.

He’s getting an incoming call. From you.

You’ve been waiting on the line for about two minutes. He lets two additional minutes breeze by because Jihoon is internally screaming. You’re calling again. There’s a fire blazing in his brain, his fingers hot as he twitches against the spacebar of his keyboard.

From the monitor he can see that you’ve given up on sleep, hands pawing through your drawer so you can take a final swipe at your magenta-tinted lip balm before nesting yourself in the sheets. You’re kicking around as if you don’t have work at 9AM, smacking your lips to apply the shiny salve while you wait for your call to be picked up.

“Why is my civilian calling me,” it isn’t a question, it’s a thinly veiled indication that Jihoon is ready to fight whoever compromised him like this.

Mingyu and Minghao fail to answer. That’s okay, he isn’t opposed to killing both if neither fess up.

It would be so easy for him to ignore the call, or redirect it to another part of the office. Yet he aches to talk to you, for real talk to you. As if you’re just two regular plain-old human beings with normal lives, and as if he didn’t know every nook and cranny about your daily routine and your favorite breakfast foods.

Call it pride, call it confidence, but Jihoon’s been pretty good at games and he hopes prior experience helps him get over this hurdle. Slipping on his headset, he accepts the call and answers in a controlled voice, “This is the local hotline for sexual harassment reports, are you here to report a case?”

Okay, so this is the closest thing he can get to having a full-fledged conversation with you, so he’ll take it.

“Hi,” you mumble your name into the phone, and he nearly disintegrates right then and there. It’s different when he can hear your voice directly in his ears, definitively reaching out to him as opposed to being a fly on the wall, “I received an email that a report was sent out for my previous chat as sexual harassment, but I didn’t send out a report.”

“Yes,” Jihoon replies smoothly, tapping his nails against his thighs, “it’s a new update.”

“Oh, well thank you,” you reply, and Jihoon sees from the camera that you’re staring at your phone in curiosity.

“It’s my job,” he says, and the words hold more weight than you think, “are you okay?”

“Is it also your job to ask how I’m doing?”

He smiles wryly, and he looks up at the monitor to see how you’ve considerably relaxed on your bed. Your legs dangle in the air, and you’re hugging a mango plushie with all the love in the world. “Not really, but I figured I’d ask. I don’t think I’d be able to recover from a dick that looks like an unhinged toenail.”

Your laugh flutters in his ears, and his stomach is flip-flopping with more than just his shitty ramen lunch. Your face curls and wrinkles into happiness at the lewd joke, and you rest your chin on your stuffed fruit.

“I’m okay,” you finally answer, “it’s not the first time I’ve seen subpar dick. But thank you… what’s your name?”

“Uji,” he says, a codename that he considers as precious as his actual name, “feel free to call or text this number if you’re ever feeling uncomfortable and in distress.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, good night Uji.”

“Good night.”

That wasn’t so bad, Jihoon thinks as he hangs up the phone. He dims the monitors to let you freshen up and get ready for bed, as per your schedule. After tonight, he hopes he can be sated with his curiosity of you. Maybe he needs to follow your plans and open up a dating account or something, he feels that he’s starting to get a little too engrossed in your presence.

The waning starts today.

You: help, i’m feeling uncomfortable and in distress

Uji: what is it this time?

You: i can’t decide which weighted blanket i should get. Will more weight make me feel more comforted or will i accidentally suffocate myself in my sleep?

The waning of you did not start that night, in fact it never began. Jihoon’s been on edge for weeks, simultaneously teetering between what he calls the high-school equivalent of the talking stage and an absolute catastrophe.

It started as an accident, you meant to call your friend’s number for cooking help but since the last call before your friends was his, you called Jihoon instead. To your surprise, he knew how to roll out homemade pasta without a pasta machine. You kept him on the call for the entirety of dinner preparation, and he couldn’t help but feel a twinge of pride when your pasta turned out perfect and you were happy and full for the entire night.

Weeks later, and you’ve been texting each other for shits and giggles. At first you chalk up your insistence that he’s basically Human Google and has the answers to seemingly anything and everything, but over time it seems that you enjoy your daily interactions with him. Whether it be a simple phone call asking how to unclog your drain or a screenshot comparing two different KitchenAids, he’s at your disposal.

The burner phone he’s been holding as of late is on silent, but he’s able to pick it up immediately. It’s almost intuition, coupled with the way he notices whenever you seem in a pickle and you need to contact him. However he does not have a chance to formulate a reply, as you’re now calling him.

“Couldn’t wait?” he speaks as if you’re familiar with each other, as if you’re friends. Jihoon longs for that so much, he would love to be upgraded to someone other than the IT guy you text for funsies.

“Yes,” you say, voice laced with determination, “I’m deciding on whether to just like or Super-Like this guy on Light a Flame.”

Jihoon deflates a little, but steels himself. You’d never want to go on a date with the IT guy, it seems that you enjoy the anonymity of your recent communications. Your conversations are definitely meme-worthy.

“Who is it?”

“His name’s Lee Jihoon, 25, works in the FBI.”

He chokes on his coffee, precious beans from Argentina, and the liquid is flying across his keyboard.

Pulling up your phone view, it confirms the worst. In a moment of Weakness with a capital W, Jihoon had caved and made a Light a Flame profile the other night. It’s an app reserved for more serious relationships, which means you’ve finally graduated from Tinder.

“Are you okay?” he wants to cry when he hears you on the other line, genuinely panicked. “Do you need me to send you his profile?”

“N-no,” he sputters, rubbing a rough napkin from McDonalds over his dripping chin. He thought he privated his profile last week after he realized there was nothing he could do to let loose of you. Turns out that isn’t the case, because you’re currently pursuing his profile and actually kinda-sorta considering him for a potentially serious relationship.

“C’mon, Uji,” you tease lightly, “you always seem to know what to do. This is your area of expertise after all, since you work for that kind of department.”

What should he do, scratch that, what can he do? It’s a complete violation of policy to be fraternizing with his civilian life. Sure, there has been episodes of civilians and agents meeting each other, but only minor violations that both parties forgot about shortly after. He’s so far deep at this point, he can risk being relocated or losing his civilian—losing you.

“Do you think he really works in the FBI?” you say when he doesn’t reply immediately, “he’s really cute, though. Totally looks like my style, and he likes My Hero as well! C’mon, I just need for you to check as to whether he’s a homicidal maniac or a compulsive liar.”

Liar. He’s a liar.

That self-accusation prompts him to slump in defeat, and he mumbles in the phone, “I don’t think he’s worth it. I’d say pass.”

“Hey, Coups has seniority,” Soonyoung pats Jihoon thoughtfully on the back with one hand, and grilling meat with the other. Barbeque always lifted up Jihoon’s spirits. “Why don’t you give it a chance and meet her for real? And then he can give me your super cute civilian and then he can give my shitty civilian to some newbie.”

“And if it doesn’t work out, I just lose her,” Jihoon’s eyes are watering, most likely from the excess smoke around their grill, but it does align with his current state of sadness. It was the right thing to do, he thinks over and over as he replays that phonecall from last night. “Hoshi, if you were in my situation, would you have done the same?”

“Like I said–” Soonyoung—codename Hoshi, waves his tongs around like a magic wand, “your civilian is super cute, so I would be making a beeline to her house and—”

“Okay, don’t finish that sentence,” you’re his civilian, not Soonyoung’s.

“Cheer up, c’mon,” Soonyoung’s filling his bowl with all sorts of delicious things, charred vegetables, mixed rice, and pork belly. Jihoon’s favorite is pork belly, so eventually he relents with a timid smile, taking out his chopsticks to appease his friend, “there it is, Uji. Food always makes things better—”

“Uji?”

Both off-duty agents freeze, hearing the familiar ting of your voice as it glares holes into Jihoon’s back. It’s you. Since they’re off the clock, he would have no idea you’d be here. Usually that’s fine, it’s early morning and it’s pretty unlikely that you’d run into your civilian considering you’re supposed to know every second of their schedule. It seems that tonight you’ve varied from the norm.

“Uh, hey?”

His back is still facing you, and he’s side eying Soonyoung in a panic. He’s wearing a cap and a nondescript hoodie, feeling like a shlub as your familiar voice pings back at him with excitement.

“I knew I recognized your voice!” you’re unfazed, definitely not realizing the distress the two men are currently going through. “What a small world, I didn’t think we’d ever actually run into each other!”

“Talk to her, you ass!” Soonyoung hisses, and immediately swivels his chair so he has no choice but to face you.

You’re so, so pretty. Prettier in person, prettier than any crappy 480p screen can give him. You’re definitely not dressed for barbeque, in fact you look like you’re just passing by to pick up a to-go order after a night out. You’re dressed in a silky looking velvet off-the-shoulder top, the cherry red color practically melting onto your skin. The black skirt paired with it has Jihoon salivating for more than just barbeque, and he has no idea how to look away.

The smile is wiped clean off your face however, and you recognize him almost immediately. “Jihoon?”

This should be a moment of joy for him, after all it’s far too late to go back at this point. You look a little hurt, your face twisted in confusion as you put two and two together.

Soonyoung excuses himself to go to the bathroom, although neither party seems to care. The lame, over-distended EDM music that plays over the cacophony of the barbeque place seems to melt in the atmosphere, much like how the smoke hits the fan, and it’s just you two in the room. Jihoon gestures a pale hand to Soonyoung’s seat, and you take a beat to reluctantly sit yourself down.

You clutch your skirt with both hands, thumbs ringing against the pleats and ironing them out. “So, you’re also Jihoon?” your voice is tiny, small and sad. Jihoon feels liquid guilt inject in his veins, and he wishes he could reach out and pat your shoulder, hold your hand, something. However no matter how much he knows you, he’s a stranger to you. “Why did you lie to me?”

“It’s… complicated,” you shake your head at his pathetic reply, and Jihoon hates this. He feels like he’s drowning in smoke and mirrors and the cloying scent of pork belly is now sticking to all his senses, immobilizing him.

With a cross of your arms, you scoff, “It’s always complicated.”

“Please don’t think I said those things the other night because I don’t want to date you,” Jihoon tumbles the words out like a hamster wheel, wanting to speed up to your pace as fast as he can, “I want to, I really do, but it’s—”

“Complicated.”

“Yeah.”

The two of you sit in silence, letting the noise back into your little bubble. Jihoon feels his stare on you, akin to how a teacher looks over your shoulder during an exam. He robotically eats rice, grain after grain as he lets you have your look.

The slope of his nose, the cotton smooth skin, the lean yet strong stature. You can’t believe he matches the Light a Flame profile perfectly. Other than the frumpy clothes, he matches the man on your phone, a simple picture in a black suit that reminds you strangely of the movie Kingsman. You mentally roll through what you remember from his profile, his hobbies, his likes and dislikes, his occupation—

“Wait,” you pause, your brows knitting together, “so the FBI thing on your profile… is not a joke?”

Jihoon forgets to chew his last bite, and he swallows a whole two centimeters of meat down his throat. Ouch.

“It’s—”

“Complicated.”

The adjective has a whole new meaning now. It’s crazy how in so little words, so much is exchanged between you two. You might not be realizing it, but Jihoon’s so attuned to you he feels like the pick to your guitar, strumming and humming along your chords like it’s second nature. It really isn’t fair, but anticipating your reactions helps greatly.

“There’s things you’re not telling me.”

“Right.”

“And things you can’t tell me,” you add.

“Yes.”

“Then what are some things you can tell me?”

“I’d… rather not here,” Jihoon’s eyes dart around the room, looking for all the pinholes and micro cams attached to the restaurant. By the bonsai, under the table, in the koi tank, “I need to work out some paperwork before anything.”

“Paperwork?”

Jihoon nods mutely, but he looks at you with a litany of emotions in his eyes you’re reeling back in your stool. Why do you feel like this man knows you from a simple five-minute interaction? And why do you feel like you can trust this man with your life?

“Okay,” you finally say.

“Really? Okay?” you think he’s cute, the way his eyes perk up and his back straightens.

“Really.”

Silence fills the space once more. This time however, it feels more at ease.

“The only reason why I’m saying yes,” you pretend to nonchalantly play with your fingertips, a manicure reserved for a date you’ve long abandoned for this evening in favor of a new flame, “is because I think FBI agents are kinda hot.”

A flush blooms on Jihoon’s cheeks, and you can’t help but giggle.

#jihoon x reader #woozi x reader #caratwritersclub #kwritersworldnet #svtcreations #jihoon fic #woozi fic #seventeen fic #seventeen fanfic #seventeen scenarios #jihoon scenarios #woozi scenarios

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lilydalexf · 4 years

Photo

Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.

Interview with Sarah Ellen Parsons

Sarah Ellen Parsons has 18 X-Files stories at Gossamer and 19 at AO3. If you want high quality fic with interesting characters, go read her stories. Some of my favorites of her fics are The Crouching Thing and My Constant Touchstone Who Makes Me A Whole Person (which are two very different stories!). Big thanks to Sarah Ellen for doing this interview.

Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)?

With today's binge-watching culture, I'm not at all surprised. You can watch a bunch of eps and then seek out fic that is where you are in the series.

What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience? What did you take away from it?

I took away a writer's group Yes, Virginia, that is still together. Mostly as friends, but whenever I write something, or someone else writes something, it's the first place we all run for machete beta. I have betad SO MANY novels.

We have a number of folks who are published writers since then and our time in X-Files fic brought us lifelong friendships IRL and made us all better at our craft. The majority of those folks were better writers than I am. And I make my living as a writer in my day-job.

Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)?

I belonged to a couple of the largest lists and posted there and bitched about the show on usenet with everyone else. We had our own Yahoo group for beta. We all had crappy GeoCities websites that we programmed the HTML for ourselves and hooked through various fandom link circles to get traffic to our stories. But the main method of distribution was the lists.

Fun fact, I found a free page counter thing that I used at work one time through fandom. So fandom pays off in skillz.

Even without social media, we managed to get our stories in front of readers who would enjoy them. Where there's a will, there's always someone ready to step up and find a way.

What did you take away from your experience with X-Files fic or with the fandom in general?

Again, I have lifelong friends IRL that I got solely from fanfiction. That's the best takeaway.

Fandom disappointed me because it, like everything else, is ruined by people's egos, backstabbing, and petty people who get in positions of power and then use those positions to punch down or dictate. I was young when I was writing X-Files and I still had hope that people would rise to their better natures, so I got involved in various futile efforts to try to make people behave the way I wanted them to behave, I guess. I did a lot of public bitching that didn't serve me or my friends well. I now put that effort into politics, where it does actual good.

What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show?

X-files was made for me. It combined science fiction, mystery, horror. I love all of those genres. Plus there was Scully. No matter how sexist that writer's room was, Scully was awesome. But you kept seeing bad writing. Even in the heyday seasons, like Season 3, there were really terrible eps that made you want to fix things.

I'm a lifelong speculative fiction fan and a published feminist science fiction author. I actually was published before I fell down the fic hole. I got involved in fanfic due to getting my fantasy novel turned down from every major publisher for being "too dark". And I needed to get readers to see my stuff to prove to myself that I wasn't terrible at writing. I got a ton of feedback and it was like market research to see what people wanted to read.

My time in fanfiction made me 100% a better writer than I was.

What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?

I went to the X-Files Expo to see if I could make contact with someone from Harper Collins because the tie-in novels sucked so hard. I got rejected with my pitch as I didn't have a literary agent.

Around that time, a pal who I watched X-Files with IRL was looking for a free X-files wallpaper for her work computer when she found the website where fans in Pennsylvania had fic archived. She read some and wrote to me - "you need to see this, and you can do better." So I started reading and was.... I probably CAN do better. So I wrote The Batman Plot. And made two friends I'm still friends with with that one story.

What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom?

Nonexistent. I couldn't even watch the latest season and I saw only 2 of season one of whatever that was before I gave up. I have never watched the second movie.

X-files is my first fandom bad ex-husband. I loved it SO MUCH, but it betrayed me.

Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files?

I was deep into Harry Potter for a while, but I didn't end up publishing anything in it. All my stories were novel-length and I was writing so much for work, I never completed anything. I called Snape/Lily when Prisoner of Azkaban was published and got Jossed by Rowling in one of my big ideas. (This is bad fandom ex-husband 2. JKR will never get a dime of money from me again because of her hateful stance on transfolk. I have RL friends who are trans and NO.)

I wrote fic in Supernatural. It was the obvious next thing after X-Files. However, the misogyny and bringing in all the Angel/Devil Christofascist stuff lost me. The ep where they declared all other religions other than Christianity as invalid and killed a Hindu god made me stop watching for good. I know enough Christofascists IRL that I can't tolerate it in my fiction. (Bad fandom ex-husband 3)

Who are some of your favorite fictional characters? Why?

This list is far too long to actually make. But characters I spent time writing about include: Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Co. (I wrote three unpublished Star Trek novels before I found online fandom). King Arthur and Morgan Le Fay, Sherlock Holmes (I wrote a Sherlock Holmes play after seeing "Crucifer of Blood" and entered it in a national competition, where I got very nice comments back.), Mulder, Scully and Krycek, Rowling's Hermione and Snape (like him or not, its masterful characterization), Dean and Sam Winchester, John Winchester and Bobby Singer. I wrote one comedy story starring Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. A couple of Roswell stories under a different name. Catwoman and Batman. I have some unpublished Avengers fanfic lying around as I'm an OG Marvel fan with a massive comic collection.

Do you ever still watch The X-Files or think about Mulder and Scully?

I was on a business trip a few years ago and FX had a marathon and I watched part of it when I was in my hotel room. Early seasons are comforting, but I don't go back there now.

Do you ever still read X-Files fic? Fic in another fandom?

I don't read X-Files fic anymore. I read a tiny bit of Star Wars after the second movie because Rian Johnson had it right. Now I don't care. I love Mandalorian, but am content to watch.

Do you have any favorite X-Files fanfic stories or authors?

Too many to count. All of YV. Which reminds me, I need to go update our entry at Fanlore. I promised Punk I'd do it a while back. I need to at least get everyone linked. Right now it's only Punk and Sab.

But it was a ton of us. Marasmus, Maria Nicole, Cofax, CazQ, M. Sebasky, Livia Balaban, Kelly Keil, Wen, Ropobop, Jess Mabe, JET, fialka, and a bunch of others that I can't remember their fic names any more, just their real names because I know them all IRL. I need to go back and look up their fic names and link them up there.

In addition to my little group of pals, I loved reading Mustang Sally and Rivka T, Rachel Anton - I keep trying to find her to encourage her to write romance if she's not doing it already, but no dice, Dasha K., Anjou, there were so many great ones, but their names have slipped my mind in the past 20 years.

What is your favorite of your own fics, X-Files and/or otherwise?

I'm most known for Prone, and I'm proud of that story for all kinds of reasons, but I think my very best is The Crouching Thing.

I mostly didn't publish anything I didn't think was good and hadn't been machete betaed within an inch of its life, but I'm not sure much of the angsty romance stuff holds up as well. I think it worked when the show was still ON and we were all in that emotional headspace, but probably not now.

Do you think you'll ever write another X-Files story? Or dust off and post an oldie that for whatever reason never made it online?

Funny you ask. I am currently reworking a plot idea I had for an X-Files fic into a contemporary M/M novel, which I will publish under a different pen-name. The plot is the idea I had for X-Files, the characters are very, very different other than one is uptight and the other more easy-going. But no more Mulder and Scully.

Do you still write fic now? Or other creative work?

I have been making my living as a writer for 25 years. I write the word count equivalent of 5 Tolkein novels a year, just for my day-job. I am turning back to original fiction, which is where I was before X-Files. I'm working on the M/M thing, a high fantasy thing, a low fantasy historical thing and a bunch of M/F Regency romances as I get time and energy. I publish Fantasy and SF under my real name. Romance has pen names as you don't want that getting back to your workplace, either.

SEP is fic only and here she will stay.

Where do you get ideas for stories?

I have too many ideas to count. I try to write them down when they come, so I won't forget. At least the outline of the idea. Often a scene. I've been like this my entire life. I started writing novels seriously at 15. I wrote a 500 plus page one about Morgan Le Fay during breaks in high school because "Mists of Avalon" pissed me off so bad as I'd read the original source material and that was a Wicca recruitment polemic.

What's the story behind your pen name?

Sarah Ellen was my great-grandma, Parsons was her grandma's last name.

Do your friends and family know about your fic and, if so, what have been their reactions?

Half my friends ARE fic friends. Most of my friends know as does my brother, who thinks writing for free is dumb. This is universally agreed on by non-fic friends who know. My mother still doesn't know about the fic. Just the "real" writing. I write under a pen name to keep it away from my job and my published work.

Is there a place online (tumblr, twitter, AO3, etc.) where people can find you and/or your stories now?

My X-files stuff is up on Gossamer mostly. I'm trying to get the stories all moved to AO3 for all the genres. I'm working on this now. SEP is really not a living thing anymore, but there was a time when she was more me than me.

If you want to find my "real" non-fic writing, write to me at se_parsons at yahoo dot com and I will point you at it.

And PLEASE someone, hunt down Rachel Anton and get her writing something we all can BUY. Where are my old Krycek bitches at? Do any of you know where she is? [Lilydale note: I’ve tried contacting Rachel Anton for this Old School X project but have not had luck. I would love to find her too!]

Is there anything else you'd like to share with fans of X-Files fic?

The community I loved has mostly moved on, but I think we left a legacy of solid work crafted out of our love for the show. Find a living community you love for a show you love. There are great people out there creating and get involved. It will be worth it.

(Posted by Lilydale on December 15, 2020)

#new post #old school x #xfiles fanfic #xf fanfic #xf fanfic author interviews #sarah ellen parsons

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argylemnwrites · 4 years

Text

Live And Die This Way

Pairing: Colt Kaneko x MC (Ellie Whitnall)

Book: Ride or Die (post book 1)

Word Count: ~5900

Rating: R (language, brief 30 diamond content - N*FW, referenced violence)

Summary: How do you create the life you crave? And what is the cost?

Author’s Note: Written for @rodappreciationweek Day 4 - MC. This is a direct companion piece to my Colt entry “He Knew” and will reference many of same events covered there, but it does stand on it’s own. This piece was envisioned first, with my Colt piece kind of springing forth from the future I saw for those two while crafting this fic. In addition to the content mentioned in the rating, content warning for infidelity.

Ellie didn’t know how to feel about college. Not so much about her coursework - that always made perfect sense after years of AP and honors classes. More about her “college experience” or whatever cliche phrase described how it was to just live as a freshman in Turren Hall on the west side of Langston’s quad.

She liked her independence. She could eat what she wanted, go where she wanted, do what she wanted. If the end of her senior year had been more traditional, she probably would have been buzzing from all of her freedoms. She had her first taste of alcohol. She made out with a cute boy at a house party. She ate ice cream for dinner and ordered pizza with Rebecca, her roommate, at midnight. She was enjoying herself.

But her new friends acted like these little things were the pinnacle of independence, and it was hard for her to relate to that. Not when she’d experienced the thrill of pushing the speedometer up over 100 MPH, felt the power of an engine revving at 5000 RPM, and jumped from moving vehicle to moving vehicle at highway speeds.

She liked her new friends and classmates well enough, but she never talked to them about who she’d been in Gramercy Park. She didn’t bring up the MPC and her brief time with them. She certainly never mentioned Colt.

It’s not that she disliked college, she just was struggling to put it all together, the person she was in New Hampshire with the person she’d become in LA. On the weekends, she found herself just going on drives, trying to reclaim that thrill, that rush. She found a county highway about 20 miles from campus where she could floor it and feel the speed settling deep into her bones. She always went on these trips alone, even as she started seeing Chris more and more often. He wouldn’t get it.

Chris wanted to officially be her boyfriend. She’d sensed it for months, but he finally asked her one Saturday in April. His roommate had gone home for the weekend, so Ellie had spent the night in his room. She liked Chris well enough. He was a chemical engineering major, he was cute, and with his short, curly, blond hair, he looked nothing like either of the guys that had turned her life upside down one year earlier.

The trouble was any connection between them was superficial. On paper, they seemed so similar - both of them had been valedictorian, science and math nerds, only children raised in protective Catholic households. But he only saw “Langston Ellie,” he only liked that part of her. He didn’t have this drive for something more - more thrilling, more adventurous, more stimulating. So she kept things between them casual, and when summer break rolled around and she made her way back to LA, she didn’t feel any guilt about trying to track down Colt.

He must have gotten a new phone with a new number as part of his plan to “lay low” and evade arrest, and Kaneko Auto Shop was still a boarded up shell, scorch marks visible along the walls. But she eventually found him, less than 36 hours before she was leaving, of course. It was almost fitting, seeing him at the sideshow, the place where she’d first met him. She wasn’t sure if he saw her, but she spotted him right away, standing off in the shadows, talking with a couple of men, wearing that same leather jacket.

At some point, he must have noticed her, because he couldn’t just let her dance with Darius and Riya. Instead, he’d wrapped his arm around her waist, and it was like stepping into a time machine, as if no time had passed, as if they’d seen each other last week, not last year. Riding back to his new place and falling into bed with him was the first time she’d felt truly awake in ages.

Any illusion that sex with Colt just seemed better than sex with Chris because he’d been her first and she hadn’t had a point of comparison went straight out the window. It wasn’t that sex with Chris was bad, but with Colt… it was raw and primal and intense, and those were not ever words that could be used to describe Chris. Chris in bed seemed scared he would hurt her, so he just tried to coax her to the peak of pleasure. Colt wanted to stake claim, to possess her, to drive her higher and higher. He knew how strong she really was, and it made her heart soar.

She knew she was heading back to New Hampshire, and that tonight with Colt would be just that - one night. It’s why she didn’t ask him about the Brotherhood. Hearing about his inevitable ventures into bloody vengeance would just lead to a fight, and there was little point in ruining this little moment in time with that. This was a reprieve, not a promise, and that meant some things were better left unsaid.

So the sun came up and Colt drove Ellie back to her father’s home, but not before adding his new number to her phone. She packed up her suitcase and tanked up the Shokai Fourier and made the drive across the country, back to Langston and a world of academics and being a “good girl.” But now she had another outlet. Anytime she craved that thrill, she would text him. Sometimes it was a bratty little insult. Sometimes it was a barely clothed selfie. But he always responded. And as she started sophomore year, it felt like she might be figuring out a way to merge the two sides of her life.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Texting Colt became a new form of an adrenaline rush when she somehow stumbled into a relationship with Chris. She knew it was wrong, that Chris didn’t deserve the way she was treating him. Being kind of dull was not failing. But the problem was that “Langston Ellie” didn’t have a reason not to date him. So over Valentine’s dinner, he became her boyfriend.

It was a balance, that thrill that came from sneaking out for a drive or shooting Colt a dirty little text versus the pit of guilt that sat in her stomach. She tried to justify it to herself when the guilt got to be too much, telling herself that nothing physical had happened with Colt while she and Chris were together, but that was a flimsy excuse.

The issue was that she felt like herself, vibrant and happy, and the more she pushed the boundaries on what was acceptable in her personal life, the more she excelled elsewhere. She was setting the curve in almost all her classes. Her research was going well enough to get approved for the Summer Scholars Program, which came with a generous stipend. It’s like she had to be doing something “wrong” to feel complete, and since stealing cars wasn’t an option at the moment, this is what she settled for. She wasn’t sure what that said about her as a person.

But she kept living her double life for months and months until one day in October, things all came to a head. She got a call from a number with a 310 area code, but she didn’t recognize it, so she let it go to voicemail. When she finally got a chance to listen to it an hour later, after her meeting with Dr. Frisch, it felt like the world might just swallow her whole. Her father was too young, too healthy to have a heart attack, to need bypass surgery, to be in the ICU.

It had taken her 15 hours to email her advisor, request a leave of absence, and receive approval, email Dr. Frisch to withdraw from his research group, and to pack up her room in the off-campus apartment she and Rebecca were renting and load up the Shokai Fourier. She spent far too much of that time breaking up with Chris.

It hadn’t even occurred to her to let him know about Dad until he’d texted her after dinner time, asking if she was still on for an ice cream run to Gilly’s. What followed was him coming over, with hours of talking, of him trying to calm her, tell her everything was going to be fine. She’d gotten frustrated, asked him how he could possibly know her dad was going to be okay. It was messy and awful, their first and last fight, all culminating with her kicking him out and sending him back to his apartment when he dared to suggest she was too emotional to be making these decisions in the moment.

The drive to LA was a long one, filled with tears and regrets. It felt like her fault. She’d put him through hell senior year, only to leave him all alone to flit off to college, where she had just coasted by, chasing down the high of adrenaline in destructive ways. Instead of stopping at a motel to rest, she drove the 3000 miles basically straight through, resting for a few hours in a parking lot in Iowa, but otherwise relying on Red Bull and coffee to get her through the drive. She’d gone to drop off her stuff at her father’s place, but when she arrived, she couldn’t bring herself to unlock the door. Even though the latest update from Dr. Ginde had been that her father was improving, she couldn’t bear to go inside, to see memories of him and her mother plastered everywhere, all by herself.

So she’d driven over to Gramercy Park. The shop was open now. She knew that was the plan, but it was still nice to see it with her own two eyes. She locked her car and went inside, taking in the bustle and the activity, cars hoisted on jacks, an air compressor hissing in the background. If she had recognized any of the people working in the shop, she almost could have believed that no time had passed.

Some guy with dreads went to go find Colt for her as she stood there, feeling both out of place and at home at the same time. Finally, he emerged, grease streaks on his t-shirt and jeans, his hair just a little shorter than she remembered. He took her into his office and listened as she told him what happened. No questions, no platitudes, no infantilization. Just understanding and comfort, and when she told him she didn’t know how to go home alone, he’d just told her to follow him back to his place.

Staying with Colt was like falling back into a former life. She hung around the garage, reconnected with Ximena, and went out racing and to sideshows. She visited her dad every day in the hospital and then in the rehab facility, taking notes on all his doctor’s instructions and researching new, heart-healthy recipes for them to eat as she got him settled back in at home. And even though she and Colt never talked about it, suddenly they were together, with her toiletries tucked into his medicine cabinet, a second towel hung in the bathroom, and her favorite yogurt stocked in the fridge. It all felt comfortable, and she felt at peace with her life for the first time in a long time. She could get that adrenaline rush she craved so badly as she drag raced through the streets, getting to know Colt’s new crew, and she wasn’t hurting anyone to do so. She felt happy, so as October bled into November, she emailed her advisor, preparing to extend her leave of absence.

She never thought Colt would object to her plans to stick around, but he was cruel and livid when she told him she wasn’t heading back. At first, her anger flared, righteous and indignant. How dare he try to tell her what to do. She’d thrown her clothes that were scattered around his place back into her duffel bag and headed straight to her father’s home. He didn’t comment when she tossed her bag into her old bedroom, just pulled out the Parcheesi board and sat down at his usual spot at the kitchen table.

The next morning, she awoke to the smell of bacon sizzling, so she made her way into the kitchen.

“Dad, you can’t have bacon anymore. It’s not on your ‘safe foods’ list.”

“I figured whatever sent you here yesterday might warrant an ‘Ellie special,’” he said with a shrug. “Besides, it’s turkey bacon.”

She bit her lip as she sat down at the table, wondering if she should risk stressing him out by bringing it up, but he crossed the bridge first as he set her plate in front of her.

“I suppose you were staying with that boy with the yellow GT?”

She shook her head. “No, the boy with the motorcycle.”

Dad just let out a sigh and gave his head a little shake. “They’re all still wanted criminals, Ellie. The statute of limitations hasn’t run out. But I suppose you already know that.”

“Dad…”

“Look, I know you’re an adult, and you can make your own choices. But I hope you know what you’re doing here. If you get caught up with him in something again… I won’t be able to spin it that you were just a kid who got roped into the whole thing by a dirty cop who convinced you that you could be an informant and help him.”

“I know what I’m doing, Dad. I’m not stupid.”

“I know you aren’t. That’s what scares me the most. Oh well, you’ll be back at Langston soon enough, I suppose.”

It was Ellie’s turn to sigh as she filled him in on how her plan had been to stay, to work in LA and to help him recover, at least for one more semester. When she finished, Dad just stared at her for a few seconds, eyes narrowed, before he spoke.

“So, let me see if I have this right. This… Colt told you to go back and finish your degree?” As she nodded, he just shook his head. “Never thought I would be on the same side as a little punk.”

She shoved her chair back from the table, abandoning her breakfast. “Dad, it doesn’t matter whose side you’re on, because it doesn’t matter what you think or what he thinks. This is my choice.”

But as the days ticked by, and her dad seemed stronger and stronger, she had to wonder if she was doing the right thing. She’d gotten upset because it felt like Colt was trying to decide what was best for her, but as she thought back on their fight with a clearer head, that wasn’t really a fair assessment. He wasn’t trying to control her; he was trying to push her. At the end of the day, he liked her strong and sharp, ready for the next challenge. And while being back in LA felt good and right in so many ways, just hanging around after her father’s medical emergency wasn’t the way to go about it. She wanted to come back here, but she needed to do so the right way, as an active choice, not a passive situation that just happened.

So she went back to school and worked her ass off, taking summer classes to make up for the shitty schedule with not enough engineering credits she had to settle for after she registered late for classes. She was a semester behind now, but that was manageable. She lost her research position, but that was okay. She didn’t need to build her resume anymore. She had a job lined up already.

When she signed papers granting her 50% ownership of Kaneko Auto Shop, everyone in her life thought she was crazy. Rebecca had pestered her for months with info about engineering firms that were hiring and master’s programs. Riya had told off Darius for telling her she was being foolish, but as soon as he left to go get them takeout, she’d told her she must be out of her mind to legally tie herself to that Kaneko boy in any way. Her father just shook his head and went into his bedroom, closing the door with a thud. But Ellie didn’t care. It was the first time she’d felt fully alive in almost five years.

It was invigorating, to finally be living a life that was 100% her choosing. She wasn’t held back by her father’s restrictions, her peers’ perceptions, her own perfectionistic expectations of herself. She was just… Ellie. She wasn’t bound by anything or anyone. All her fears, concerns, and worries were nothing in the face of all the possibilities ahead of her. Ahead of them.

Colt had always seen her. It was why she’d been drawn to him in the first place. He didn’t treat her like a child that needed protecting. He respected her agency, her autonomy, her abilities. He respected her opinions and suggestions, and slowly but surely, they were able to expand and grow the shop and their territory. Not too fast, as that would attract the attention of both rivals and law enforcement, but steady enough that people had to take them both seriously. He wasn’t just coasting on his father’s reputation, and she wasn’t some sheltered little girl who had slept her way into this world. They proved themselves, and they were thriving. And finally, Ellie felt like she was living the life she was supposed to be. She felt like herself, fully realized and alive.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It’s not that she and Colt lived in some bubble of pure domestic and professional bliss. They disagreed about how aggressive to be when rival crews inched in on their turf, about whether a drop would be worth the payout, about whether or not the new mechanic was trustworthy enough to drive on their next big job. And when they disagreed, they disagreed. It was never violent, but it was loud and passionate. They pushed each other time and time again. It was just how they worked things out, and they always were able to come to an understanding in the end.

Ellie never questioned their arrangement until she was pregnant. In their four years as equal partners, both personally and professionally, she’d never had any qualms about the life they were living. It was exciting and thrilling, but their risks were always calculated, or so it had seemed. They were smart about things. It’s why their territory had nearly doubled in size over those four years with only one misdemeanor arrest for petty theft for their entire crew over that time.

But when she heard that heartbeat over the sonogram, Ellie knew that she had to change the way she thought about risk and reward, because risks that were acceptable to take when it was just her and Colt, conquering south LA one block at a time, where not okay when there was going to be a child at home depending on them. Colt, on the other hand, seemed to take the opposite approach. He was hungrier and more ambitious than ever. He wanted to move more volume, expand to new neighborhoods, to grow bigger more quickly than ever.

“This will be our legacy. All of this, rebuilt and passed on to our kid,” he told her over and over again. And any of her pleas to slow things down, to take a step back, were met with annoyance and frustration. “If we slow down, we won’t be able to keep what we have now. Others will take notice and swoop in. It’ll be a moment of weakness.”

He worked nearly around the clock, always trying to strike a better deal, to find a better score. Part of her had even worried that he would have left her at the hospital with just her father if he got word of a deal on hot merchandise while she was in labor. But when the contractions came, he was at her side the entire time. He was antsy and impatient, sure, but most of that was probably due to having to spend 26 hours straight in a confined space with Dad. Over the years, that relationship had never evolved beyond frosty tolerance.

When Margot Graciela Kaneko came into the world, 6 lbs 4 oz and screaming like a banshee, Ellie swore she saw Colt wipe a tear away. She hadn’t seen him cry since that awful night in May nine years ago, when he’d had to watch his father sacrifice himself. When she forgot all about how horrible it was that Colt had kidnapped and planned murders because he’d looked so broken and human, not at all like a ruthless kingpin wannabe who had no moral code. With all their shared daddy issues, it had felt cruel to bring up her concerns about his moral compass when his world had just shattered to pieces.

For his part, Dad cried openly when she told him his granddaughter’s name, forgiving the use of Kaneko as her surname when he realized she shared her middle name with the abuela she would never get to meet. For a moment, they felt like a normal family. Not a detective father who had to turn a blind eye as his daughter and her boyfriend ran one of the ten largest auto theft crews in LA. Just three adults who loved a little baby girl more than anything.

Colt was always a loving father. He adored Margot, and she wanted for nothing. Toys and clothes and books littered her nursery in their new two bedroom house, a home security system installed with door and window alarms, motion sensors, and security cameras. He took pride in every developmental milestone she reached and bragged about her constantly. The office at the shop was covered with her drawings, and when she started 4K, her first attempts at writing letters and numbers joined her colorings and paintings.

He just didn’t seem to have any desire to strike a work-life balance. It didn’t exactly surprise Ellie. They had both thrown themselves into that shop for years, their only goal and purpose. For both of them, work had been their life. But now, she felt like they needed to handle things a little differently. More cautious, less aggressive in their growth schemes. It was a point of disagreement between them regularly.

“I don’t understand what your problem is, Ellie. I’m building this for us. For her. Since when are you fucking timid about growing the shop?”

“It would be nice if you could eat dinner at home with us more than a couple of times a month.”

“Just bring her for dinner with the crew.”

Round and round, over and over. Her asking him to take a step back and spend more time with Margot while he dove deeper and deeper into his work, acting like bringing Margot into that world as a preschooler was a solution. At times it felt like her own personal Groundhog’s Day, her living the same day with the same damn fight time and time again.

She’d been venting to Mona one afternoon in a coffee shop as she waited for a contact to bring them info about a new shipment that should be passing through over the weekend. It was a little risky, combining her work with a meeting with Mona now that she worked as a consultant on grand larceny cases for the LAPD. Initially it had been a condition of her parole, but it ended up suiting Mona just fine. She was a free-lancer at this point, so she only took the cases that she wanted, and she was well paid for it. Not as well-paid as Colt and Ellie, but without the overhead and without the risk.

“He just is so single-minded, and he doesn’t understand why it bothers me.”

Mona laughed at that. “He’s Kaneko’s kid, Ellie. I don’t know what else you were expecting when you picked him over Logan.”

It was strange to think about it like that. She knew that Logan and Colt had both wanted her back then. And for a while, she and Logan were happy. But while Logan had tried to shield her from his world, Colt had encouraged her to immerse herself further. He saw potential in her, and it had been so liberating, being seen as a woman, not a child. And once it came out that Logan had only pursued her at Kaneko’s instruction, she’d just been done. She felt like a pawn and a fool, hurt and violated, so she’d turned to the only person she could count on to be blunt and direct, to respect enough at least for that.

“Have you heard from Logan at all?”

Mona shook her head. “I think he made it to Detroit, but that was years ago.”

“I hope he’s doing okay,” Ellie said as she took a sip of her coffee. Mona just raised an eyebrow, but didn’t push that topic any further. She was right. The traits that drew her to Colt in the first place were wrapped tightly with the ones that frustrated her now, all of which were proof that he was very much his father’s son.

“So other than Colt being an ass, how’s life?” Mona asked, drawing Ellie out of her nostalgic musings. She pulled out her phone and showed her a video of Margot cruising around on her new balance bike. For better or worse, this was the life she had chosen, and for all its frustrations, she knew she still had plenty to appreciate. She wouldn’t have wanted a different life, anyway.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Margot was heavy in her arms as she rang the doorbell, praying that he wasn’t working tonight. He really wasn’t supposed to be working nights at all anymore - his cardiologist’s recommendation as part of numerous lifestyle changes - but Ellie knew he would still pick up an overnight now and then. She’d never really felt like she was in a position to question his judgement given her own career choices.

She rang the bell three times before she saw a light flip on the hallway. She let out a sigh of relief. She hadn’t wanted to have to pick the lock. A few seconds later, the door cracked open. Her father looked disoriented, his hair sticking out in numerous directions, wearing blue plaid pajama pants and an old Honor Roll Parent t-shirt.

“Ellie? What’s going-” he started, but dropped his voice to a whisper when he noticed Margot passed out against her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

Ellie nodded. “We just need a place to stay.”

He opened his mouth, clearly wanting to say more, but after a second, he just nodded and stepped aside, letting them pass through the door. He followed a few steps behind. Ellie could feel him staring at her as she carried her daughter into her old bedroom, tucking her in on the far side of the bed.

“I need to go grab our stuff from my car. Can you stay with her? She’s going to be confused if she wakes up and isn’t in her bed.”

Dad just nodded again, sitting down on the edge of the bed and running his hand soothingly over the back of his granddaughter’s head. When Ellie returned with the duffel bag and tote bags she managed to fill, all she knew she could carry at the same time as Margot, she dropped them on the floor. Anytime she had come to stay before, she’d only brought a couple days worth of clothes, so she knew the amount of luggage she’d brought was going to attract attention. He was a detective, after all.

“How long are you staying?”

All she could do was shake her head, willing herself not to cry. She felt lost and heartbroken, but more than that, she felt stupid. Stupid for ignoring everyone’s warnings about Colt, for thinking that she could have the thrills and excitement of that life without causing serious harm, for having a child with a man who could order the murder of someone without batting an eyelash.

Dad stood up and crossed over to her, wrapping his arms around her, and she couldn’t hold back anymore. She started sobbing into his chest, feeling like a child all over again. But the pain kept pouring out of her, and her father just took it all, even after everything she’d put him through over the past 13 years. And when the tears finally slowed, she let him guide her to her old bed and tuck her in right next to her daughter.

The next week was filled with rounds of Candyland and Guess Who, drives out for ice cream and donuts, and trips to the park with Abuelo. All things that Margot loved, things that would hopefully keep her happy and from asking questions that Ellie wasn’t ready to answer. How do you tell your four year old that her Daddy, the man she thought was the best on the planet, had decided to make some phone calls to end a man’s life, so they couldn’t live with him anymore? Ellie just wanted to put off that conversation for as long as possible.

But Margot was bright and curious, and all the distraction in the world wasn’t enough to make her forget her home and her father. Ellie stumbled through it the best she could, telling her that Daddy had done something very naughty that he thought was the right choice, but that was actually something really bad.

“Is Daddy in a timeout?” she asked as Ellie tucked her in, her brown eyes wide with wonder.

“Kind of, sweetie.”

“How long do Daddy’s timeouts last?”

“A long time, Margot. A very long time.”

She nodded, like it all made sense to her now. Ellie knew she couldn’t keep her from Colt forever, but until she felt like she had her feet under her again, this was probably the best approach she could hope for. She dropped a kiss to her daughter’s forehead and flipped off the lights, gently closing the door and making her way into the kitchen.

The Mancala board was set up this time. While the days were filled with fun activities for Margot, the nights had been a series of board games, just her and Dad. Just like the old days. He hadn’t asked her many questions. Ellie suspected he was so glad she had left Colt, that he didn’t want to push his luck and say the wrong thing that might send her running back to him. But tonight she was going to have to broach the subject.

“Dad, can you watch Margot tomorrow night?” she asked as she dropped her stones down, one by one, working her way around the board.

“Why? Where are you going?”

“Probably to the shop or our house. I’m going to have to talk to him at some point.”

“He’s… been riding by on that... bike of his,” Dad ground out, glancing up across the table, his eyes flitting nervously. Like she hadn’t known that was the case. She knew exactly what his bike sounded like. Besides, she knew it would be his next step. She had dozens of voicemails and unread texts from him.

“I know.”

“Do you… what I mean is… what do you want me… are you… Ellie-”

“We’re done, Dad. I don’t want to see him.” She interrupted his ramblings, and glanced up from the Mancala board at him. His shoulders visibly relaxed at her words. “But we have a kid together. I can’t just pretend he doesn’t exist.”

He let out a little hum as he contemplated his next move. “Ellie, what happened?”

She shook her head. No way he wouldn’t feel obligated to turn Colt in if he heard that he’d ordered Shaw’s shanking. “I really can’t tell you.”

“If he did something that-”

“-I still own 50% of the shop, Dad. Plus, he’s Margot’s father. This is going to be hard enough on her without him behind bars.”

She could practically feel her father’s stare, attempting to bore a hole in the top of her head as she kept her eyes on the board. She knew he wanted to know more, wanted to say more. Finally, he said, “I know you don’t want to hear this, but if you’re looking at a custody battle, him behind bars would be very helpful.”

She turned her head up and frowned. “I’m not going to throw him to the wolves. It won’t make things better, trust me.”

“Honey, you say that now, but when custody battles get going-”

“He’s not gonna fight me for custody,” Ellie interrupted. “Not as long as I let him see her every now and then.”

“How can you know that?”

“I’m gonna let him buy me out of the shop well below market value. That’s always been his priority, anyway.” She’d been mulling it over in her mind, and it seemed like her best move. They both got what they wanted. As long as she promised not to do what his mother had done, to take his kid and move as far away as possible, he would probably agree. He got his father’s legacy and a relationship with his daughter. She got the chance to shield her daughter from the harshest realities of the world where she was born. It was win-win.

She knew she was screwed professionally at this point. She’d spent the nine years since college in a job that would do little for her resume. It was a small price to pay for her daughter’s safety and well-being, though.

“Hopefully I’ll be able to get enough to get a little apartment for us, at least until I figure out what I can do for work-” she started explaining, but Dad reached across the table and grabbed her hand, cutting her off.

“You’ll both stay here as long as you need.”

“Dad, you’ve already dealt with so much of this drama. I’m not going to ask you to house us indefinitely.”

He shook his head, still holding tight to her hand. “I know you could do it on your own if you had to, Ellie. You are bright and resourceful and so determined when you need to be. But I’m your dad, and this something I can do to help you out and keep you safe.”

Tears welled in her eyes at his words. His desire to protect her from a harsh world was still there all those years later. And while it had been the bane of her existence as a teenager who thought she could handle everything that life would throw her way, his attitude felt different now that she had Margot sleeping in her childhood bed, a direct result of her own attempt to protect her child.

“Thank you, Dad,” she choked out, forcing a smile as a couple of tears spilled over onto her cheeks.

“Of course, Honey. You’re both my girls, always.”

He was right, more right than he could know. Because if Colt was cut from the same cloth as his father, well, so was she, at least where it counted. She would protect her daughter and as a family, they would get through the bad times. She hadn’t always made the right choices, but she had her daughter and she had her father. And for the time being, that would have to be enough.

Permatag: @choicesficwriterscreations @walkerswhiskeygirl @riley--walker @bebepac @ravenpuff02 @oofchoices @octobereighth @drakewalker04 @kimmiedoo5 @mfackenthal @thequeenofcronuts

ROD: @mskaneko @burnsoslow

#rodaw #colt kaneko #colt x mc #rod fanfic #choices fanfiction #n*fw #cw: infidelity

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timep3tals · 5 years

Text

Since I’m such a slut for Iron Dad & Spidey-Son field trip fics, I decided to procrastinate my homework by creating a detailed list for clearance levels for the badges given out by SI because I’m sick of the same Alpha, Beta, etc. or just the numbers.

It’s too basic. In this household, we are Extra.

Shoutout to @riseuplikeglitterandgold for watching me go down a rabbit hole and not attempt to stop me whatsoever.

Please read this and use this, I spent too much time on this for it to go to waste.

Clearance Levels

Visitor:

Construction (1) - Not often utilized, as SI is fully completed, but when needed, will have a badge that grants them access to the construction zone only. Construction is entirely outsourced.

Tours (2) - Discarded after use; at all exits, there’s a box for discarding the badge. It is automatically deactivated once it passes through the bin, and is shredded before being recycled into new tour badges.

Educational (2.1) - One of the lowest levels of access to the building; often linked to the tour guides badge, and are unable to access any room the tour guide has not swiped into.

Science (2.2) - These tours are guided throughout the majority of the labs, often for parties interested in becoming an employee at SI. Can be more specific to a certain field, and will usually be conducted by interns-turned-tour guides as they move up through the ranks in SI.

Press (3) - Only has access to conference rooms, and are often allotted one badge per press company, which they pick up at the front desk at given times depending on the press conference schedule, as decided by the PR division.

Buyers (4) - Are considered an upper-level visitor badge, but mostly just for show to make the buyers feel important/be more likely to purchase from SI. Have relatively limited access, and are only shown products/labs that pertain to what they’re looking at purchasing.

Partners (5) - Are not very often used, as partners often meet off-site, or are communicating largely through email with either the Board of Directors, or Pepper. Have the most access out of all visitors badges, but is still usually directed by/connected to a tour guide’s badge.

Ex(s): Visitor 2.1, Visitor 5, Visitor 1

Maintenance: Access is often changed as needed. No subsections under maintenance; FRIDAY is in direct control of badges and will allocate where they are needed as work orders are processed. No attached number.

Ex(s): Maintenance

Janitor: Much the same as maintenance. There are specific crews of “spill/break/chemical teams”, but those requests are again processed by FRIDAY. No attached number, though an implied 1.

Lab Clean-Up (2) - Labs are largely kept clean and handled by scientists, but every Sunday there is a deep clean of all floors/surfaces. These janitors have higher access, as most of the janitors are kept locked out of labs for their own safety. Have to have special training.

Ex(s): Janitor, Janitor 2

Interns:

Business (1-9) - Any intern under any division in the corporate offices (financial, PR, HR, etc.) Level depends on sector/experience and where the intern is initially placed.

Lab (10-19) - Often the “janitors” of each lab throughout the week. Are allowed to work on small projects with a chosen mentor (usually Head Scientist). This is the largest, most diverse group, and their access depends on which lab they’re placed in (determined by prior experience, collegic level, etc.) Apply through Operations Management, not HR; no high school students are accepted as the work they’re surrounded by can often be dangerous. No interns are placed in High-Level Labs.

Ex(s): Intern - PR 5, Intern - Financial 8, Intern - Marketing 2, Intern - Lab 15, Intern - Lab 10

Tour Guides:

Press (1) - Technically classified under PR; is solely there to guide press to the designated location and manage traffic during conferences.

Educational (2) - Typically beginning level tour guides; still expected to know as much about the company as a tour guide for partners would.

Science (3) - Has to have intimate knowledge of the workings on each lab; usually coordinates with Head Scientists to stay updated on each lab. Often has the least amount of tours, and typically will have another job/duty elsewhere.

Business (4) - Mostly for corporation heads to come and tour the business portion of SI. Small business/first time business owners are encouraged to take these tours so they could see an example of an effective work environment/procedures.

Partnerships (5) - Has intimate knowledge of the going-abouts in all labs. They are also aware of some financial statistics in regards to new/upcoming projects, as well as ongoing projects. Out of all tour guides, these guides have the greatest access to the building. These guides also lead the buyer tours as well.

Ex(s): Guide 5, Guide 2

Financial: (1-7)

Chief Financial Officer (CFO) (7) - Head officer that has primary responsibility for managing the company's finances, including financial planning, management of financial risks, record-keeping, and financial reporting. The CFO is also responsible for analysis of data, but has the option, and often will, to delegate it to others in the financial sector.

There’s probably a lot of other jobs in this, but it’s unimportant and I do not possess that sort of energy.

Ex(s): Financial 7 (only applicable to the CFO), Financial 2

Public Relations: (1-7) There’s probably a lot of jobs, but it’s unimportant and I do not possess that sort of energy. Ex: Social Media Manager, PR Specialist, Spokesperson, etc. (I’m of the opinion they created a section specifically to help handle whatever it was that Tony said this time. Official title: Owner Management. Unofficial title: Tony’s Bullshit Cover-Up Specialists.)

Ex(s): PR 4

Marketing: (1-7) There’s probably a lot of jobs, but it’s unimportant and I do not possess that sort of energy. Ex: Designers, Web Content Writer, Supply Chain Analysts, etc.

Ex(s): Marketing 5

Human Resources: (1-7) There’s probably a lot of jobs, but it’s unimportant and I do not possess that sort of energy. Ex: Compensation and benefits managers, Training and development specialists, Employment, recruitment and placement specialists, Human resources information system (HRIS) analysts, etc.

Ex(s): HR 6

Board of Directors: Despite being one of the highest positions in SI, they have extremely limited access. This clearance level is mostly restrained to the upper level offices and meeting rooms, but can have special access granted to visit labs, if absolutely necessary. No attached number.

Ex(s): Board Member

Operations Management:

Hiring Managers (1) - These managers directly oversee hiring of all lab personnel, including interns.

Inspectors (2) - Inspectors handle all safety precautions/procedures in all labs in SI. Are often updating rules and regulations in order to best protect all personnel and equipment.

Lab Overseers (3) - Are who Head Scientists report to. Overseers are then to report their findings to the Head of Research and Development in a succinct manner. Are one of the last lines of defense when it comes to arising issues.

Project Managers (4) - Their job corresponds directly with the Principal Investigator and the financial & marketing division to help get finished products out into the market. Often help oversee manufacturing of said products at the different plants across the planet.

Ex(s): Operations 3, Operations 1

Research and Development:

Low-Level Labs (1-15) - Low level of risk. Most often handle coding/computer sciences/refining formulas sent down from some of the upper level labs.

Research Assistants (1-3) - Hand selected by the Principal Investigator from the top universities across the nation to help with research. Found generally at conferences hosted by SI at universities.

Graduate Student (3-5) - Single student from a graduate program, also hand selected. Typically have worked on projects in SI before.

Post-Doctoral (6-9) - Single student from a post-doctoral program. Prior SI experience is required for this position, and must present a thesis project based off outside research in order to maintain position.

Principal Investigator (10-12) - Previously Post-Doctoral, generally, but the position can be earned through impressing the Head of R&D at conferences/presenting thesis work or previous research on a specific topic.

Head Scientist (13-15) - Manager of funding for project, and overseer of the work being produced by the team. Doesn’t typically involve themselves in actual research, but is more the manager to maintain structure/order in lab and ensure work is flowing smoothly.

Ex(s): LLab 14, LLab 3

Mid-Level Labs (16-30) - Mid level risk. Performs higher risk sciences, more along the lines of a chemistry lab. Tests different types of products for higher efficiency.

Research Assistants (16-19)

Graduate Student (19-22)

Post-Doctoral (22-25)

Principal Investigator (25-38)

Head Scientist (28-30)

Ex(s): MLab 25, MLab 19

High-Level Labs (30-45) - High level of risk. Handles all new and volatile materials, and is the most involved in the newest products, etc. on the market. Requires highest grades/performances/experience/etc.

Research Assistants (30-33)

Graduate Student (34-36)

Post-Doctoral (37-39)

Principal Investigator (40-42)

Head Scientist (43-45)

Ex(s): HLab 43, HLab 30

Head of R&D: (All Access) Tony Stark. Oversees all divisions and labs. Spearheads the creation of new tech and development in the company, and is expected to continue to expand SI’s reach into new areas of science and technology.

Ex(s): You Know Who I Am

Avenger: (Residential: Semi-Access) No associated number. One of the most lucrative badges, only granted to Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson, Natasha Romanoff, Bruce Banner, Clint Barton, Thor Odinson, and a few select others. Most have been deactivated following the events of the Civil War. Typically allowed access to all floors (though entry to labs was not granted unless necessary), the residential living spaces, and the training room.

Ex(s): Avenger, Residential: Semi-Access

Remaining Badges (All Access) - Granted only to James Rhodes and Peter Parker (Peter, although classified as Avenger, will be announced as Personal Intern, as per his request).

Ex(s): Avenger, Residential: All Access, Personal Intern: All Access

CEO: (All Access) A lovely Miss Pepper Potts. Her job is kind of a given, I don’t think an explanation is necessary. Also I’m tired.

Ex(s): Virginia Potts

365 notes · View notes

xfanfics · 4 years

Photo

Destiel Fic Rec List Part 1

Last Updated in October 2014. Posted in May 2020 for posterity. Listed in no particular order - the total rec list will have ~250 fics. Header graphic used with permission.

This part of the list contains: 48 fics.

Other Destiel Rec Lists: [1]. [2]. [3]. [4]. [5]. [6]. [7].

For Science! by pm_lo E | 21k | ABO, Omega!cas, Alpha!Dean,

Selected transcripts and supporting materials from Dr. Castiel Williams and Dean Winchester’s seminal study on physiological and psychological sexual response by gender designation.

Even though this is a dialogue/email text only story, I still very much enjoyed it and found it ridiculously hot. Maybe I'm just easy. (No I'm not. This fic is good, read it.)

Forget-Me-Not Blues by noangelsinthegarrison E | 68k | Firefighter!Dean, Professor!Cas, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining

Sam and Jess are getting married and Dean couldn’t be any happier for them. Honestly, they’re kind of disgustingly perfect for each other and Dean’s pretty damn excited about staying with them the week before the wedding. He’s Sam’s best man, of course, and he doesn’t even mind that Jess has her own best man to share in all the organizational duties. The more the merrier, right? Except Dean must have done something to epically piss off the universe because Jess’s best man just happens to be Castiel friggin’ Novak. He’s got even hotter since High School, but apparently no friendlier and if Cas wants to spend the week pretending like they’ve never met before? Fine. Two can play at that game.

THIS WAS SO GOOD I'M TEARING UP. tropes abound and I love it!

Cops and Robbers by kinkstiel E | 53k [WIP] | Detective!Dean, Criminal!Cas, Top!Cas, Bottom!dean

They locked eyes for a minute and then Cas leaned back as far as the cuffs would let him go, spreading his legs obscenely wide. “I want you to suck my cock, Dean.” Dean balked, mouth going dry in a second, eyes slipping to the now visible bulge in Castiel’s suit pants. “Um,” he said stupidly, face flushing red, eyes unable to pull away. Cas hummed. “Depending on how well you suck me, I might just tell you everything you want to know.” He licked his lips, smirking slightly when he caught Dean’s gaze. “And with sinful little lips like yours,” he made a low whistling sound, “I don’t doubt you’ll get every last name out of me.

So very good. Love the dark and dirtiness of it. It does get lighter and sappier towards the end tho.

Cursed or Not ❤ by Ltleflrt E | 115k | witch!Cas, shapeshifter!Dean, switching

While experimenting with magic when he was a kid, Sam accidentally cursed Dean. Now, Dean is forced to wear a spelled amulet constantly, or he'll turn into a random animal. For a little over a decade, he's learned to live with the curse, and has even found it useful in some cases, but he sure would be happier without it. When he meets a witch named Castiel, he's offered a deal. Instead of assuming all witches are bad, Dean can spend a season getting to know him. If at the end of the season, Dean still thinks he's evil Castiel will send him away with his memory wiped of the whole experience. But if he learns that Castiel is not the monster Dean assumes he is, he'll lift Dean's curse. It's an offer Dean can't bring himself to pass up.

Literally perfect. Enthralling world, magical relationship.

Surprise Package by wannaliveindeansdimples E | 3k | Hot, , Dom Cas, Sub Dean, Light BDSM

When Cas' roommate Meg has to go out of town suddenly, she leaves him an unexpected gift.

So so hot. Non extreme Dom!cas and sub!dean.

Never Have I ever by sweetdean M | 78k | Fluff, High School AU, top!cas, bottom!dean

When Jo drags Dean along to a game of "never have I ever" with her friends, he finds himself getting caught up in a lot more than just a game. “Never have I ever hung out with such an asshole,” Dean countered, positively shocked at his own sass. Cas smirked again. “Oh, are we hanging out now?fricken adorable

Road Signs by gemmiel E | 9k| Canon!verse, true form

Dean is curious about how angels have sex. Castiel shows him.

Damn. True form, soul sex, and regular sex. Yes please.

It's Brilliant, Really by snarkymonkey E | 15k | Fluff, AU, Professor!cas, Stuntman!dean

Castiel Novak is a History adjunct at Stanford University. He's also the most patient younger brother. When his older brother, Gabriel, decides to start *wooing* one of his younger waiters, Castiel reluctantly agrees to double-date with the intended paramour's older brother. What he didn't expect, however, was how much his own life would flip over such a careless decision.

Adorable. Hot, and adorable.

Gabriel's Unfortunate Mistake by JackHawksmoor E | 8k | Hot, AU

an answer to a prompt: Gabriel decides to hire a prostitute for his virgin brother Castiel as a joke, but instead accidentally hires Dean, a professional Dom. The moment Dean first lays a hand on him, Castiel knows he is lost. Dean/Castiel AU.

Um mm.... Damn. That was hot. Newbie sub!cas and pro dom!dean

Well-Beloved Unto Me by Moorishflower E | 3k | Alt!Canon, tentacles

The Winchesters don't get rewarded for all the shit they go through, so Dean is understandably wary when a few recharged and promoted angels offer him and Sam the vacation of a lifetime. Title comes from the Song of Solomon.

True form. And sex. MY FAVE. ��

How to Date an Angel in 12 Easy Steps by Fourthduckling E | 23k | Fluff, Alt!canon

It's not that hard to date an angel. All Dean has to do is fight off hordes of vampires, research gay porn, get sucked into a crappy Narnia, endure Sam's comments, creep out on Dr. Sexy, get harassed -- oh, and that's right-- figure out he's into Cas. Easy, right?

SQUUEEEE. Perfect and cute and cuddly.

Two Wrongs Don't Make A Right But Three Rights Make A Left by the0voice0from0above E | 45k | High School AU, Dancer!Cas, Welder!Dean,

The beautiful Garrison Ballet School becomes home to a reckless bunch of misfits after the Colt Welding Academy is severely damaged in a fire and has to close for repairs. Needless to say, Castiel and his friends clash with their unwanted guests but there's one boy in particular who infuriates him.

Dancer!au. Love it love it love it!

Rest My Angel by cobalt_wings E | 86k | Fluff, Season 9 AU

Angels are falling from the sky, and Dean is losing it. Sam is dying in his arms, and one of those burning, twisting figures blazing through the night air might be his very own angel, Castiel. What can he do to help those he loves?

Sex and domestic and lots of fucking. My fave.

One Species Too Many by wallmakerrelict E | 21k | Fluff, Alt!canon

While Dean is laid up for a month after breaking his leg on a hunt, Cas decides that it's a perfect time to adopt a litter of kittens. But even though he's gotten better since Purgatory, Cas still isn't quite the same as he was before fixing Sam's head, and being trapped in a cabin with him for weeks on end is making that all the more obvious to Dean. When Sam takes off on a hunt, Dean has to figure out on his own how to navigate his new relationship with Cas while also helping to raise a bunch of fuzzballs that aren't even cute. Not even a little bit. (Well, maybe a little bit.)

Team free will with kittens!! So fluffy and domestic but also a touch of angst.

It's A Bet by vitamindesi E | 34k | College AU, top!cas, bottom!dean

Destiel College!AU in which freshman Dean is dared by his best friends to hit on senior Castiel at a party. He wants to say no but then someone starts a bet and Benny bets a sum that is ridiculously high for a student and Dean can’t disappoint Benny, right? I deviated only, but hopefully it suffices.

So fabulous and smutty I want to cry. Literally perfection.

Your Call Cannot Be Completed As Dialed by eBob, K_K_TiBal T | 66k [WIP] | Fluff, College AU

AU in which Castiel accidentally sends a text message to the wrong number and befriends the person at the other end of the line. However, accidents don’t just happen accidentally, and sometimes two completely different people are exactly what the other needs.

LITERALLY THE BEST. So many feelings. I WANT IT TO BE COMPLETE SO MUCH. Abandoned WIP.

Equinox by luchia E | 12k | Alt!canon, time travel

In which Castiel is the weird time-traveling freak who just might be the love of Dean Winchester's life.

Confusing but perfect time travel fic.

If I run by betty days E | 4k | Hot, AU, sexting, long distance relationship

"Dean Winchester is a red-blooded American male. He lifts all the things. He aims for functional strength. He counts his macros and makes fun of curlbros. He is not a member of the Tarahumara tribe and he will not read Born to Run, no matter how many times Sam tells him to, because Starting Strength is the only book Dean will ever fucking need." Wherein a friendly competition with the mysterious ThursdaysAngel turns into a sexy selfie-trading spree that motivates Dean Winchester to train for his first marathon.

Soo. Hot. Makes me want to actually exercise?

The Little Things by Alreadypainfullygone T | 2k | Angst, Cancer, Major Character Death

Au based on 'the big C' in which Dean gets very sick, and deals with it the denial way. Meeting a homeless man on the way. Dean/Castiel Angst. Warning for trigger - Cancer. sorry if you think I dealt with it badly.

This is only 2.8k words, and yet it managed to make me cry.

Do What Feels Good by Catchclaw, cymbalism E | 12k | Hot, Alt!canon, PWP

Castiel learns to love alone time in the shower. And then he learns to share.

Fuuuuuck that was hot. Castubation and shower sex is just so hnnnggg.

All That Is And Used To Be by MisaChan E | 26k | Alt!Canon, wing!Kink

Dean never even knew anyone was living in the old estate outside of town until its mysterious occupant contracts his shop for a very specific job: a custom piano bench with grooves cut into the back. He finds Castiel and his terms to be eccentric with a capital E but the money is too good to turn down and anyway, Dean can't help indulging his curiosity about the guy and his secretive, isolated life. There are secrets that will not stay hidden and stories that refuse to be forgotten. Especially when they happen to involve Dean Winchester and the angel Castiel.

Ugh, I love this story. Concept, execution, and characterization are all perfect.

Do I Have Something Like That? by MysticMoonhigh E | 2k | Hot, horn!kink, wing!kink

based on the tumblr post I made: Does anybody know any demon!Dean fics where Cas makes Dean climax by basically giving his demon horns a hand job because I want this so badly out of lifE | I'm. I've read this about three times and I think I'm finally coming to terms with my alien biology kink. Hot. Wink!kink and horn!kink. Yes.

The Doctor Will See You Now by PetrichorPerfume E | 7k| Hot, PWP sub!dean, gentle dom!cas, wing!kink

Dean has a medical kink. Castiel is more than happy to oblige. Starring Castiel as the slightly unorthodox Dr. Novak who enjoys prescribing enforced chastity and daily tease and denial sessions, and Dean as his needy, submissive patient who will do anything for a chance to come.

Wowowwowowow. Um. This was super hot. Nnnghhhh.

Into Your Hideaway by thepinupchemist E | 176k |Angst, a/b/o, omega!dean, alpha!cas, mpreg

Driving down a deserted road in the Rocky Mountains, Castiel finds something unexpected: An omega. Not only an omega, but a naked, injured, pregnant omega. Dean doesn't talk much at first, but that doesn't change the brightness of his soul. It also doesn't stop Castiel from falling in love with him.

I just... Wow. This was an amazing story. Beware that it is possibly very triggering, because of rape, assault, violence, and general bigotry. But perhaps because of all of that, you get a story that is almost painful in its reality, and it is all the more loveable for that.

The World Crashing All Around by thepinupchemist E | 36k| Alt!canon, best friends wing!Kink, kid!fic

During a storm in September of 1987, Dean and Sam hear something hit their roof. When they brave the backyard to investigate, they find a fledgling angel. A story about best friendship, spoiled plans, and love, in four parts.

OH MY GOD. This was perfect all the way through. From soul bonds, to slow burn, to growing up together as best friends, it's all my favorite. And it even has wing kink, which is literally the best.

Share Your Burden by aTimeOfMagic E | 3k Hot, PWP, Sub!dean, dom!cas

Set at the end of 'Are You There God? It's Me Dean Winchester.' 4.02. Castiel shows Dean that he deserves respect, and Dean comes to see that Cas is not, in fact, just a 'hammer'. He also learns that his 'people skills' are definitely not entirely 'rusty'.

Damn. Um, really hot. Also, unexpectedly sweet.

Flawless by Vaerin E | 69k | a/b/o, accidental bonding, sub!dean, dom!cas

A contract is out on the Winchesters, a large sum of money the reward for throwing them off their game. A witch in the town they happen to be passing through decides to collect. She sets her sights on Dean, trying to seduce him into leaving his job to stay with her. When she can't even convince him to warm her bed, she decides to turn her job into his punishment. Knowing he fears commitment and can't stand the thought of being with a man, she works a spell between him and Castiel... the one friend he can call a safe haven. When they end up mated the next morning, not only does the Winchester family business suffer... but so does Dean's friendship with Castiel.

Cute long soul bond fic. Contains sabriel.

Chasing Normal by Donovanspen M | 16k | Fluff, First time, Cuddling & Snuggling

Dean reevaluates his definition of an 'apple pie life' and what that means for him, personally.

This is the definition of domestic fluff and smut. There's a wee bit of angst because hey, it's set in the canon verse. But so worth it.

Hold On by somuchforbaggles E | 92k | Fluff, Angst, mental illness

Castiel is sure that nothing in his life will ever change. Everything that happens to him is predictable, from the stability of his job to the unrelenting sporadic anxiety attacks, he can rely on his life to stay the same forever - until he saves Dean Winchester from the path of an oncoming train. From then on, everything changes for both of them, and the only way they can deal with it is together.

Woww. This was an amazing ride. Angsty and fluffy, then angsty again, then back to fluffy. So good.

I said to myself again by avyssoseleison E | 2k | Fluff, Praise!kink, Self-esteem issues

Dean finally lets himself be appreciated and cared for by his angel.

Praise kink is my ultimate weakness

The One Thing You Can't Lose by MajorEnglishEsquire T | 4k | Fluff, Cuddling & Snuggling

You know what I like a lot? The thought that Dean can just tug Cas anywhere at any time and Cas, who can lift tons without effort, who can demolish things with the light of his grace, who has battled and gone to war, has defended and broken, will just let Dean do it.

fluffy love

Spit Slick by VeraBAdler M | 1k | Fluff, , First Time

[no description]

A super cute fluffy little oneshot :3 (tags say 'happy sex' and 'sexy cuddling' if you need more to go on)

Late Bloomer by somuchforbaggles T | 7k | Alt!Canon, Wing!kink, Wingfic, Soulmates

On every child’s seventh birthday, a celebration is held to mark the beginning of their journey as a fledgling - a sprouting ceremony. It doesn’t matter if the child hasn't shown the symptoms of emerging wings yet, for it is scientific fact that every child grows wings in their seventh year, sometimes even earlier. Castiel is not every child.

A coming of age wing fic. With mates. Basically, I'm in love.

Sleight of Hand by aileenrose M | 64k | Angst, Human AU, psychic cas, journalist dean

Dean Winchester has interviewed them all--mob bosses, serial killers, crooked politicians. Next he plans to unveil the con-man who markets himself as Castiel, a reclusive and secretive "healer" who claims to heal the sick in return for thousands of dollars. Dean's expecting a challenge, but he never expected Castiel to be so clueless or sweet...or that he might be telling the truth.

I HAVE SO MANY FEELINGS ABOUT THIS AU. The one where Dean is a skeptical journalist/professional idiot and Cas is a socially inept healer and mind reader. There's lots of angst, but the payoff is so worth it.

Leaning In by Anonymous T | 15k | Hospital AU

Castiel never changed out his scrubs, Dean had a way of getting himself injured and Sam seemed to think it was a good pairing

Even though I have no idea who actually wrote this story, it's worth a read. I'm always up for a good medical AU.

Someone I Forgot to Be by MatildaMavis E | 36k Fluff, Angst, Human AU

Castiel is content - sort of - with his quiet life in Boston...at least, until his new neighbor moves in. It's Dean Winchester, the cliched long lost love of his life. Can these two idiots find their way back to each other after eight years, after fame and loss and heartbreak? After Dean has found love again with Cas' neighbor, Lisa? Fate can be a sadistic bitch, they've both learned that, but maybe they've matured enough to be able to handle it this time. The sparks, the attraction, the tension...or maybe not.

I thought this would be extremely painful, and it sort of was. But it was so worth it.

Didn't Get That Particular Memo by Snarkymonkey E | 5k

Dean has worked with his best friend for years and maybe it's a bit more than that for him but not for Castiel, right? Right. And really, he'd feel so much better if Castiel would just get a companion already. Because it's not like Castiel actually wants him, right? Right.

Damn, that was fucking hot.

Cas, You Had A Baby? by allthebeautifulthings9828 M | 132k | Fluff, Alt!Canon, Kid Fic, Slow Build

At some point in every angel's life, raising a fledgling is required. Castiel's turn comes rather unexpectedly when his superiors hand off a newly created infant angel to him and leave him to raise it with all of Heaven's principles of blind obedience. He's not sure what to do, so he tucks the fledgling in his coat and goes straight to Dean and Sam Winchester. Together, Dean and Castiel hatch a plan to raise the fledgling away from Heaven's control. And soon, the angel Hael arrives with news that, after Castiel disappeared, she and four other angels ran from Heaven's oppression with their fledglings. Castiel finds himself the unwitting ringleader of angels choosing to raise their fledglings with the principles of free will. Is angelic parenthood too much for his deepening relationship with Dean? Who can they really trust? (Disclaimer: This story depicts fledglings consuming honey for the nourishment of their undeveloped graces. Human babies cannot consume honey, so please do not feed it to your infants. This is fiction.)

Oh. My. God. I admit that I was skeptical at the beginning about this story, but let me tell you, it sucked me in. Sometimes, you run across a story that has wonderful OCs that you get attached to. This is one of those. And of course, the baby is adorable.

Healing by Jacqueline Albright-Beckett M | 2k | Fluff, Canon!verse, PWP

Castiel can heal more than just physical wounds.

Sensual and romantic.

Better Late Than Never by whelvenwings G | 23k | Fluff, Alt!canon, friends to lovers,

When Dean first sees Castiel, he's clinging on for dear life - and things never really get any easier. In fact, they get a lot harder; Dean's worst enemy isn't always the monkey bars. Bound together year on year by the ritual pact of being a Guardian Angel, Dean and Cas grow close, showing loyalty and bravery in the face of danger. But will they ever find the courage to admit their true feelings for each other - and will it be too late by the time they do?

i LOVE best friends to lovers fics! and this delivers on that perfectly.

Like A Candle In The Window On A Cold Dark Winter's Night by TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel T | 6k | Fluff, Canon!verse, asexual Cas

In which Castiel saves Dean, Dean saves Castiel, there is beer and TV watching, and if it weren't for the monsters and assassination attempts, life would be almost perfect.

A cute little fic I've read multiple times :)

How many slams in an old screen door? by dandelioness T | 15k | Fluff, Theatre AU, Asexual Cas

In which Castiel is a theatre major terrible at first impressions; Dean is a set designer who likes Cas anyway; and the most chaotic production of Les Miserables in history somehow manages to go off without a hitch. Or, just as you should never give a moose a muffin (because he'll want some jam to go with it), you should never give a blank check to a university theatre department.

This is perfect. I can't speak for the accuracy of the information and feelings given about asexuals/asexuality, but I enjoyed this fic nonetheless.

Breath of Heaven by solacesnake18 E | 9k

When Dean is wounded and dying in Purgatory, Castiel returns from his self-imposed exile to help him.

Wow. True!form cas and metaphysical sex that somehow manages to be poetic, emotional, and erotic all at once. I approve.

The Mirror by CloudyJenn M | 24k | Canon!Verse,

When Dean touches a strange mirror, he's whisked away to one alternate reality after another and it doesn't take him long to realize the universe is trying to tell him something.

One of my favorite fics, and a fandom classic. So beautiful. It's a trip, but you'll love it. The ending makes me really emotional.

Rock 'n' Roll Queer Bar by chasingrabbits E | 121k | Fluff, Human AU

Ellen and Jo Harvelle run Harvelle's Roadhouse, a bar that unintentionally becomes a beacon for wayward queer souls. Her employees: Dean, the smartass runaway with a big heart and bigger mouth; Castiel, the college drop-out turned hippie; his (surprisingly heterosexual) trouble-making brother Gabriel; and Charlie, who has been told several times that the back room is not to be used for after-hours Dungeons & Dragons games. But there's a lot of love in this place, and a new family for anyone who may otherwise be without.

Sweet little (well, not so little really) universe. Link is to the series.

A Million Ways to Go by chasingrabbits E | 91k | High School AU,

Castiel Novak is a preacher's son living in a world of black and white. Pragmatic and dutiful, he doesn't understand why anybody would want to make waves. Then the Winchesters move in down the street. Soon many of the skeletons in the Novak family's closet are exposed, and as the family faces them, Castiel begins to understand that there are many ways to see the world and so many more ways to live than what he's been told.

Wow, this was a ride. Set in an alternate!canon where Cas is a repressed preacher's kid and dean still grows up a hunter. Also, lots of Sam and Gabriel brother!feels. Not sabriel.

Like That Foreigner Song... by DevilMadeMeDoIt E | 5k | Hot, Alt!Canon, Deancest, Time trave

Dean and Cas have been together for a while now, but Dean always regrets that he has been with so many people in the past. He wishes he could go back in time and tell his 15 year old self that there is someone worth waiting for. Cas gives him the chance and the outcome is one that neither of them expected.

Oh god, this was a perfect little story. So much love.

TutorMate by faeryn M | 21k | College AU

Sam leaves Dean's laptop logged in to some app called "TutorMate" and Dean meets his brother's tutor. Cas helps him with his own work and they strike up a friendship. Before long Dean finds himself growing attached to the cute, clever Cas and flirtatiously suggests they go on a date if he applies himself to his college work. Cas agrees, but Dean discovers his online friend is not quite what he expected. (Or, in which Dean thinks he's met a cute girl and finds out he's actually met a cute boy.)

Wowowwowowow adorable. Perfect little college AU.

More recs coming soon.

#destiel #deancas #spn #spn fic rec #destiel fic rec #*#list

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clevercatchphrase · 5 years

Text

2019 year in review

So… The 2010’s are almost over. Huh. What a decade it’s been. Hard to comprehend how much has changed in 10 years. I can barely believe that I was in high school at the beginning of this decade, and now I’m a college graduate with 2 degrees who’s been working at the same job for the last 3 years. But trying to summarize the past 10 years in a single post is a good way to give myself an existential crisis, so let’s not do that! Instead, let’s just focus on 2019 because there has been more than enough shit that’s happened to me in this year to talk about.

PART 1 OF 2: 2019 AND 2020 GOALS AND RESOLUTIONS

Huh, looking back through my archives, I apparently didn’t make a tumblr post about my goals this year. I definitely had some, though. Lemme list ‘em off real quick, and then we’ll go through them point by point.

1) Pay off all my student loans 2) Finish some song comics 3) Make art for my Redbubble account 4) Finish the first rough draft/script of a game I wanted to make 5) Practice ASL 6) Sew some stuffed animals 7) Finish some fan fictions 8) Work on Ghost Switch 9) AMVs 10) Do some original writing 11) Make illustrations for my fan fictions

Okay, first off, the student loans. I was actually SO CLOSE to successfully completing this one bUT THEN MY CAR HAD TO BE A WHINEY PISS BABY AND HAVE ITS ALTERNATOR DIE ON ME WHILE I WAS ON THE HIGHWAY AND THEN A BLOW OUT THREE WEEKS LATER.

GOD, if I had to summarize this year in two words, for me it would be “Car troubles”. I swear I spent more on auto repair in the first third of this year than I ever have just freakin’ OWNING a car. All four of my tires had to be replaced, my alternator failed and my car literally just SHUT OFF while I was driving, and I was barely able to coast into a gas station. Both my front breaks and rear breaks were worn down the metal and I only learned this when my car was barely able to stop after I had to slam the petal down full force! I went in for an oil change, and they found some problems and then I didn’t get my car back for three days! I don’t even like owning a car! I hate driving! I hate my country’s refusal to provide universal, free public transportation! I NEVER ASKED FOR THIS!

Oh-kay… number 2. Finish some song comics. I didn’t finish any. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t work on them. I have made tiny progress, but that’s certainly better than no progress. One of these song comics I hope to be realizes is going to be a collab with one of my friends. It’ll be a long-time coming as it’s pretty low priority for the both of us, but if anyone else out there was disappointed with KH3’s ending, we’re gonna have ya’ covered… With SONG!

3. Make some redbubble art. I actually did this one! Not in the way I expected, but I added (technically) 3 new designs to my redbubble in the middle of the year. If you like butterflies and dragons, I got some product for you~!

Number 4, finish a script for a game I want to make. I… thought about this. I thought about this a lot, but I never put pen to paper, so… oops. It almost happened! I debated making this my main writing project for NaNoWriMo this year, but ended up having more inspiration for another story. Maybe next year? (god, I hope not. I don’t want to wait a full year just to write something)

Number 5, practice ASL. I just straight up didn’t do this and I only have myself to blame. Still keepin’ up that Danish Duolingo streak, though. 4 years going strong and not a day missed yet.

Number 6, sew some stuffed animals. Again, another one I just straight up didn’t do, but I have an excuse of trying to save money while my car crashed and burned in every other sense except literal this year. Hopefully 2020 will be different. I’ll definitely be able to pay off this last loan within the first half of 2020, and then I can start saving for whatever I want to buy.

Finish some fan fictions was number 7, and I did this! Well, I only finished, 1, but it was a story I’ve been working on for over 3 years, and it came out to over 200 THOUSAND words long, which is the longest thing I’ve ever written, and I’m quite proud of myself. Now that the big story is out of the way, and I’ve gotten into a good rhythm of working on Ghost Switch, maybe I can squeeze in some short writing sessions more frequently. (either that, or just wait for my car to break down again and then go on a writing spree in a pepboys. The lord and the fan fic discord know that’s solely why I finished my other fic this year)

Speaking of Ghost Switch, working on it was a goal this year too, and I did that! I kept it up all year and took a vacation in November and it was wonderful. While the major plot points have been in place since before I started drawing, I still need to script each arc beyond Snowdin, but hey, by the time we get there, it’ll be 2022 so I got time. (Note, don’t do this, kids. Script your stories and comics thoroughly before publishing. The road I’m on is paved with misery and pain and it will only end in tears unless I change lanes soon)

Number 9, amvs. Do people make AMVs anymore? Idk… the last one I made was... Jesus, 5 years ago? (it was a gravity falls/fall out boy crossover, if you were curious) I’ve been wanting to do 2 more for just as long, but in order for me to do that, I’d have to spend time re-watching the shows to find the footage, and then actually edit them together, and I just don’t…. feel like it. Maybe someday, but not any day soon.

10; do some original writing. I did this! For nanowrimo! I wrote the first draft of some original fiction I’ve been planning for a year or two now and it completely sucks! But it’s on paper now and I’m happy. Will I revise and edit it? Sure, but not for a while. I want to let it sit and forget about it and look at it with new eyes months from now so I can be sure I can make it better when time comes to rewrite.

11, make illustrations for my fan fics. Now that You Monster is done, I want to go back and add pictures to it. I didn’t do any this year, but I did keep a list of scenes I wanted to draw, so I have plenty of ideas to do as warm up sketches next year~ I kinda want to stream them~

So, that was 11 goals, and I successfully fulfilled 4 of them! That’s! Not a very good ratio… QmQ So, goals for 2020. Some I’m gonna keep from this year, some I’m gonna drop and some I’m gonna add. In short I would like to,

1) Finish paying off that last student loan 2) Put more stuff on my redbubble 3) Illustrate my own fan fics 4) Sew at least one stuffed animal 5) Make an enamel pin 6) Read one new book a month 7) Write one page a day/Complete at least one new fan fic 8) Learn Python or C# for the game I want to make 9) Finish fully scripting Ghost Switch 10) Boost my patreon

Most of these I think are pretty self-explanitory, but I’ll go into detail just a bit because I’m on a roll and typing my thoughts helps me feel less alone in the middle of the night when you’re super tired and you know you should probably go to sleep, but the toddler in you is throwing a tantrum and doesn’t wanna go to sleep just yet, but you can’t fight the progression of time either way.

Number 1- I should be able to reach this goal by the end of March. End of June at the absolute latest. Once that goal is met, my secret new year’s resolution will be unlocked as well!

Number 2- I want to put more art of my OCs on redbubble. These OCs are tied to the game I want to make. There’s already some art of them up there, but I want at least one piece for each character.

Number 3- Mostly for You Monster. Embrace the cardinal rule of fan fic and apply it to fan art. If you want to read about see art about certain ideas, scenarios, or what-ifs, you gotta make it yourself.

Number 4- I have 3 potential ideas to sew. One is definitely leagues easier than the other two and will probably be chosen if/when I have the time and materials.

Number 5- This year I got really, REALLY into the idea of making enamel pins. Unfortunately it’s a pretty big investment (like, $350 to make 100 pins you might not even sell). If this happens, it’ll probably be towards the end of the year, and if I get enough interest. I’m currently torn between making an original enamel pin and one based off Undertale. We’ll just have to see where this goes.

Number 6- Back in 2018 when I paid off one of my many student loans, I rewarded myself by spending over 200 dollars in used books. All these books had a theme; they were focused on dragons because I have a problem. I have not yet read a single one of these books I have bought, and I would like to fix that. I have, like, 20 unread dragon books, and even if I only read 12 out of 20, I would consider that an amazing accomplishment and money well spent.

Number 7- I currently have about 8 different WIPs I could work on. (well, I don’t know if I can even call them wips. More like, a general idea and a title written down.) I want to build good writing habits, and if I can write just 200 words a day, hell, even 200 words a week and just one of my 8 stories done, I would consider this goal met.

Number 8- I’m torn between making my game in unity or ren’py. I know jack shit about both. Ren’py is more user friendly, but unity will allow me more customization. (Lol, can you guess what kind of game I want to make yet?)

Number 9- I really just want the full story to be done and written incase anything goes horribly terribly wrong in my life and I find myself unable to continue making ghost switch in comic form. Then at least I can finish the story by other means, you know?

Number 10- It always surprises me every month when I get that patreon email saying I got paid. Sure, I don’t even make double digits on it, but it still awes me enough to know that people out there like my work enough to throw me a tip. I can’t thank my patrons enough for supporting me and I hope to one day be in such a good place I can update my comic/song comics/writing frequently enough without need for goals or milestones. But until that magical day arrives, money is always a great incentive for anything, I suppose. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

ALRIGHT. PART 2 OF 2: SHIT THAT HAPPENED TO ME IN 2019

Cheesus crust what a year. This year started off great! Back in late January Kingdom Hearts 3 FINALLY released, and let me tell you a little story. Back in the summer of 2006 I was a 13 year old middle schooler with no way of making money other than by doing house hold chores at a rate of 25 cents a task. A few weeks ago, I had a sleep over at a friend’s house and they let me play this weird game called “Kingdom Hearts” and god, I was instantly hooked on it. That summer, I did over 800 chores, enough to earn myself 200$ and buy myself a playstation 2 (just in time for the ps3 to come out, gg me) The only games I had for the ps2 were KH1, 2, Re:CoM and Okami, and I beat them all… except Okami. Miffed that the PS3 wouldn’t allow for backwards compatibility, little 13-year-old me made a promise. I looked myself in the mirror and said “I will not buy the next playstation console until KH3 comes out, AND BOY that was probably a good choice for me to make with my level of gaming. I’m even less of a casual gamer than the average casual gamer, but I have been waiting 13 years for this piece of closure, and I even told my friends and family that “the day Kingdom Hearts 3 comes out is the day I will buy a playstation 4”. My dad apparently thought this was the funniest shit, because he literally took the day off from work that Friday to drive me on base to get the game and console (he thought it would be less crowded than a regular walmart, I suppose). I paid $400 on a ps4 pro while he bought me the game. Again, I have an impecible sense of timing seeing as the PS5 is now right on the horrizion, but just like before, I’m not buying a new console until the next KH game is released. See you in 2045, sony~. While I was at the gamestop on base, I also picked up Okami HD and The Last Guardian. For all of February and even early March, I took my time playing through KH3. And…! It was the best disappointment I’ve ever played. After a month away from gaming, I started The Last Guardian and finished it in a couple weeks. I love trico and would die for him, but trying to get 100% completion on that game is udder insanity. Okami, HD, however… again after a month break after finishing TLG, I started replaying Okami. I think I had only managed to get about halfway through the game before I just… stopped playing it on my ps2 version. I am currently SO CLOSE to getting a 100% on the ps4 version. In fact, I’ve beaten the game. I only (techinically) need 2 more trophies to be done; 1st, escape the water dragon without being eaten, 2nd, I need to beat that dumb stupid race with Kai, in order to get the last bead on my rosary, as well as the top dog trophy. I hate her so much. I hate this race so much. It’s awful and bad.

Flash forward to December! Earlier this month I was at Barnes and Noble, buying myself a planner for 2020. I exit the store and notice that there’s a gamestop across the street. For shits and giggles I go inside to look at their game selection, and I find KH 1.5 and 2.5. Now, my PS2 died a few years back (it just won’t read my discs anymore, I don’t know why) and I haven’t been able to replay any of my other kingdom hearts games since. If you had seen me the day I finished kingdom hearts 3, after the ending credits rolled, you would have heard me say “Man…. I wish I could play kingdom hearts 2 again”. AND NOW I CAN, ALONG WITH BBS which I had never even played yet, but knew the story of. I’ve restarted playing kh1, and I was so happy to hear that familiar music when I booted the game up for the first time. While at the game stop, I also picked up Rime and Tearaway, two games that had looked interesting to me. At the time of writing, I’ve finished Rime and am 25% done with tearaway. Rime was…. An interesting experience. I learned about it through Jacksepticeye’s channel a couple years back and thought the art style was enticing. For a super casual gamer like me, I found the puzzles just the right level of challenging and exploring was a blast! The music gave me VERY strong Princes Mononoke vibes, but the overall story left something to be desired. Overall I had fun, and enjoyed completing this game to 100%. Now for tearaway. Can I just say this game is super fucking adorable? I know the original was on the ps vita and the gameplay there was arguably more diverse and imaginative, but this game is just so fucking cute I don’t care?? ALSO, this game’s sound track is ABSOLUTELY incredible and I’ve only heard the first fourth of it! Listen to The Orchards, Pig Riding, and Gibbet Hill Pilgrimage for a taste of their wonderful beats and fantastic use of string and woodwinds! God, I’m so excited to get some more games in 2020. I’m proud to say I currently own more ps4 games than I ever did with my ps2 (and now the majority AREN’T Kingdom Hearts titles!), and I’m still hoping to play Journey, The Witness, and Abzu before everything becomes ps5.

What else happened to me this year. Oh, I went to a doctor for, like, the first time in seven years. I also had my blood drawn for the first time ever, and the nurse said the most disturbing thing to me while she did it. Now, whenever I get shots, I refuse to look. I did that here. So she thought it would be appropriate to say to me “Can you feel your blood leaving your body?” Lady… You can clearly see I am uncomfortable with what is happening here. Why, of all the things you could say, did you choose to say that. Unfortunately, while my doctor is nice, she keeps wanting to run tests on me, that I just cannot afford with my current salary, and my monthly insurance is about to go up to 200$ a month, so I’ve cancelled my next appointment with them, and don’t plan to go back until it’s absolutely necessary. Capitalism is fun, guys. Preventative healthcare is for wusses.

I started going to a chiropractor on a monthly basis. Story time- I don’t know when it started, but sometime late last November I began to notice that I had a headache that just... wasn’t... going away? And each day it was starting to get a little worse. It made it hard for me to find a comfortable position to sleep, it made it hard for me to be in bright areas or move fast. So I said to myself “Okay, if this headache persist through the month of december, then something is proooobably wrong and I should go see someone about it. And hoo-boy were thing wrong with me. By the time this January rolled around, I couldn’t even stay on my feet for more than a few hours without it physically hurting to just BREATHE. So I started going to this chain called The Joint (A+ name, I know). THey aksed me “How are you doing?” I said “I’m in pain” and they said “We can help fix that!”. I’ve only been to a chiropractor once before in my life a few years back after my freshmen year of college because I began to notice my hips weren’t able to support me? LIke, I would lie on my back, and I couldn’t push my hips up when my feet were flat on the floor. I also couldn’t climb anything steep, because my legs just couldn’t push me up if my knee had to bend more than 90 degrees when I lifted my leg up. (Turned out both my hips were apparently out of place). This time only one of my hips were out of place (which they fixed. they said one of my legs was an inch “longer” than the other because I had been leaning all my weight on one leg when I stand). But two of my ribs were apparently “Stuck” which was why it was hurting for me to just breathe, and one of my shoulders was missaligned too, causing one of my trap muscles to constantly be streched, which was pulling on my skull, and causing the headache. Anyway, after they popped all my bones back into place, I still felt terrible, but by god, that night was the first time in weeks I was able to sleep without a migrane. A chiropractor can’t magically heal your arthritis, or fibro, but I definately think they have merit to keeping your posture good and helping your body with things like circulation. 10 outa 10, would recomend. It’s all the fun of getting your neck snapped without the dying!

Earlier this month I got together with two of my friends and we baked Christmas cookies. It was a lot of fun, as well as a great learning experience. A member of my family has a gluten allergy, so we used rice flour for most of the cookies. We learned this is a bad idea! The cookies will just fall apart! A few member’s in one of the friend’s family have nut allergies. Other friend and I knew this and were careful to avoid cookie recipes with nuts, bUT THEN COMPLETELY FORGOT THAT ALMOND MILK AND ALMOND EXTRACT COUNT AS NUT. IN FACT, ALMOND EXTRACT IS PURE CONCENTRATED NUT JUICE AND WE FELT SO BAD FOR ALMOST ACCIDENTALLY POISONING THE FAMILY.

Earlier this year me and these same friends took a field trip to Hobby Lobby and just dicked around the store for a couple of hours. It was super fun, 11 outa 10, would recommend, a great date idea for your artsy S.O.

Back in May I went to a wedding for the first time in my life. (well, not true, but the first one I could remember) we left at 5am, drove 5 hours to get there, hung out at a zoo and spent the night in a la quinta before the wedding day. I slept on the bathroom floor because my mom was snoring too loud in the main room and keeping me awake, and the rest of the day was just spent me trying to keep myself together because I was pissed off and tired.

Other than all of that, nothing really major happened to me this year. I guess one more thing I’ve tried to do this year is started the process of breaking certain internet addictions so I can use my free time for more personal projects. Seriously, I found myself watching way too much youtube and following blogs that didn’t even make me happy. I had a personal intervention with myself where I sat down and asked myself, “why do you watch these videos and youtubers? Why do you follow these blogs? Do you really enjoy their content? Do you really care? If you stopped watching/following them, would you even notice?” After critically thinking it over, I’ve found myself unfollowing several channels and blogs and suddenly I feel so much happier. I thought I would miss it, but I realized I didn’t really care if I saw their content or not. I wasn’t missing much. And now I feel like I have more time to draw, read and write. If you think you spend too much time consuming and not enough time creating, I suggest you try and de-clutter your internet habits as well. It’s done wonders to un-fuck my headspace.

And… well, that about sums up my year. How are your holidays going? Anything fun, exciting, dramatic happen to you this year? I hope your new year is warm and safe! Good night, everybody!

#new year's resolutions #year in review #long post #(seriiously this think is like 3k words)

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jjkfire · 5 years

Text

update 4/27/21:

I'm working at a startup so it's extremely busy. but I love my job! i am trying to find the time to fit writing in my schedule tho. gonna figure it out someday lol. my stories are not abandoned, don't worry. all the endings and plot points have been planned. i'm just struggling to find the time to write atm. still very grateful for all the kind words and support you guys have given me over the years. hope all of you are out there living your best lives, exploring, learning, and finding joy in all the little things 😊 join my tag list (read the instructions pls) to get notified when I update my fics!

previous big update:

hello! i know i’ve been sort of mia but… it’s been an absolutely chaotic time for me.

the (long) story goes a little something like this:

earlier this year during spring break, i had friends who convinced me to give america a shot and apply for jobs after grad. i really didn’t want to because the visa process is a pain and it costs a lot. also, not a lot of companies want to hire internationals so it’s very demoralizing to receive a million rejections… but my friends are very persuasive people lol.

so it was super hectic during the last few months I had in the country as i tried to get through the visa process, study, work, beef up my resume, apply for jobs and graduate at the same time. (i understand that a ton of people have to do this too… but it’s hard y’all). anyway, one Medium article, one cold email, and a number of grueling interviews later, i found out i got a job!

now i just had to convince my parents… this was actually in all honesty, the most stressful part. i love them to death but my father really made it feel like i was choosing between my family and a job and ngl i cried myself to sleep on the regular. in the end, he finally gave me the okay to take the job but i know he’s still very upset. that’s honest to god the worst part. (my mum’s been super supportive tho so i guess that’s the silver lining in all of this!)

prior to getting the job though, I was really in limbo. I had returned to my home country because I and by extension, my parents, were not confident that i was going to be able to land a job in the US. I was very confused because I was neither here nor there. I was interviewing with the american company from my home country, trying my best to make sure they’d still be interested in me as a candidate no matter how many hurdles there were. then, to ensure that I had a safety net, I was also doing interviews locally and sending out resumes whenever I could. I was exhausted. and I know everyone goes through the job hunt so it’s equally as exhausting for everyone but yeah it was not a fun time.

anyway so now that I took that job in america i gotta move halfway across the world again, but this time without financial support and i don’t know… maybe this is the first time i’ll be truly independent and ya im seconds away from shittin myself. really gotta put on my big girl pants and try to not be broke yeet yeet.

but uhh that’s the low down on why i haven’t been able to write much at all…….. and yeah! working on it tho… haha always working on it.

to end all of this, I just want to say that I’m super lucky to have all of you. I basically got the job because of that article I wrote. I know I sound like a broken record talking about my article over and over but I dunno I guess all of this is just a little wild to me ahah.

I owe a lot of my confidence in my writing to all of you. I personally think my writing improved bc of this blog and the support you guys give me is… unreal (“: I know it may seem insignificant to some of you to reblog/like and comment on a fic but it really spurs me creatively and makes me feel sort of confident about my writing. all of that is probably why I didn’t think twice about hitting that post button on my article. although it’s a very different type of writing… I don’t know it’s just knowing that my writing is worth something… knowing that my writing is worth taking 5 minutes out of your day to read, is pretty cool and you guys kind of gave me that! (i am in no way saying that my writing is the best thing on earth. far from it. but i think you guys understand what i’m trying to say!)

so in some way, you guys helped me get a job! nice work team hahahah. also, also i just want to say, never give up. I decided I wanted to try my luck at the American job market maybe around the end of March and graduation was in early May. so I had about more or less a month to do something. I knew I needed a way to set myself apart from everyone else because my gpa wasn’t stellar and I hadn’t had any internships in America. not to mention the fact that I was an international student hence it was even harder to get hired. so basically, why would a company pick me over the next person? I thought perhaps knowing how to code was the way to give myself an edge so I learned some basic python and sql but then I realized there wasn’t really an impressive project I could attempt within that short time frame and I also knew far too little to do anything anyway. this meant that I was back at square one.

so, I switched gears instead. I sat down and really thought about what I could do. I concluded that at the very least, I could write. I knew I could write so I needed something that I could use along with my writing and I was like… it’s gotta be data! knowing that, I picked up the basics on how to use Tableau and I also picked up VBA macros in excel (if you don’t know what this is… I think you should Google it. it will literally blow your mind. excel can do a lot more than you can imagine). Then, I picked what I wanted to write my article on, got the data I needed from google trends, used vba macros to make the calculations faster, used tableau to make charts based on the data and photoshop to spice up the charts and etc. I did my research in the meantime as well and had a rough plan on what I was going to write about. after this, it was all systems go and it went a little like this:

wrote the article. attached my charts. linked the links. hit that post button. applied to all the jobs & companies that I thought would see value in what I did and can do. got rejected many times. felt discouraged. did more searching on companies that were willing to hire internationals. decided to send a cold email to a company. ACTUALLY HEARD BACK. went through multiple interviews. ACTUALLY GOT THE JOB.

so guys, never give up. recognize your strengths and build around that. if you think you don’t have any strengths, look harder. if you still feel you don’t have any, make the effort to learn something. it’s never too late for anything. I did all of that in one month and 10 days (the learning stuff and writing the article thing I mean). always be open to learning. I say this so much irl that my friends are sick of it but in this day and age with the internet, you can literally learn anything. so please, learn. learn for fun, learn for whatever reason. learn anything. you’ll never know when it’ll come in handy. like my basic Photoshop that I learned just so I could make a header for my blog… literally used that skill for the graphics in my article lol.

anyway, you can achieve a lot more than you think you can. you just gotta throw caution to the wind and do your own thing. be determined, be proactive. if things aren’t going the way you think it should be, do something to change that. you are all amazing and capable of great things! I hope you all know that. my mum always said if you never try, you’ll never know. don’t be afraid, don’t stop to think about what other people will think of you. keep doing you. people doubt you enough so don’t add to that. keep your head held high and keep moving forward.

once again I want to thank you guys for being sort of a support system for me! every comment, nice ask and sweet message has brought me this far. i really mean it (’: always be nice and supportive my sweet dumplings. your words truly have impact!

#very long essay...#it's a very long ramble i know ): but it feels so good to vent here #ramblin

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threshasketch · 6 years

Photo

Hey, thank you for checking out my art commission post!

Commissions and Patreon and Ko-Fi are my only source of income right now, and every dollar helps me pay the rent, keep the lights and internet on, and (very important!) keep coffee pot full. ♥

First, a very important announcement:

Commission prices and guidelines have been revised as of 2/6/2020. All previous versions of my art commission guidelines are outdated, and will not be honored*.

*I want to make the changes here as fairly as possible, so anybody who contacted me about a commission before 2/6/2020 will still get the old prices for that commission, even if I haven’t responded to you yet. All commissions I am contacted about on or after this date will adhere to the new guidelines and pricing.

Why The Changes?

It’s become an annual thing for me to review and update my art commission guidelines, because after a year I can see that some items never get ordered and some prices are too low for the amount of time I’m spending working on them.

The prices haven’t changed much this year, and anything that has gone up, it’s because I’ve been doing commissions that involved those things and took me much longer than I thought they would. Price changes are not done to gouge anybody, but to try and be fair to myself for how hard I’m working.

As ever, I’m so grateful to everyone who has ever helped support me and my work – sincerely, thank you! ♥

Without further ado, onward, to the art!

Commission Guidelines

YES:

OCs

Child characters

Ship art (poly ships welcome!)

Specific poses by request

Pics with multiple characters

Characters from shows/comics/anime/manga/etc

Characters in outfits you send me a ref of (armor, a toga, fashionista ensemble, pink panties, you name it – talk to me)

Tasteful nudity (think pin-up style, coyly placed vases, that kind of thing)

Giant/tiny art

Different body types (I LOVE drawing different body types)

Backgrounds (not too complicated please)

Wings, horns, other non-human traits (♥)

NO:

Underage characters in romantic/sexual situations

Furries (nothing against these, I’m just not great at drawing them)

Mecha (see above)

Explicit sex/kink stuff (sorry…I’m sure there are others who will draw this for you out there)

Graphic violence

Non-con

Anti-something art/hate

RPF, aka Real Person Fiction (same thought as explicit stuff)

Closely copying or editing somebody else’s artwork for you

Drawing Styles

Coloring Styles

Pricing Info:

First pick a drawing style:

Chibi line art: $20

Non-chibi line art: $30 (complicated poses/details may be more)

Then add a coloring/shading style:

Flat grays: $10

Flat colors: $15

Gray shading: $20

Color shading: $25

Digital painting: $40 (may be more depending on how realistic/complicated)

Add any extras:

Additional character: $10 per chibi character, $15 per non-chibi character, $25 per digital painting character

Simple background: $10

Detailed background: $20

Add ‘em up and you have your price! If you want a dot chibi couple pic with flat colors, for example, you’re looking at about $45. A non-chibi couple line art? Also $45.

Specialty Projects

Tattoo design: Standard commission prices for characters, style, etc, additional $50 for extra time and care making super high res, smooth line artwork in a one-of-a-kind custom design for you. I have designed several tattoos already. ♥ Tell me the planned tattoo location and I’ll shape the art to fit and display nicely.

(Tattoo belongs to @vibraniumarm , photo and ink work by Diaz Tattoo.)

Fanfic illustrations/covers: Minimum $50 per piece (Will vary based on number of characters/details, art and coloring style desired, etc. I’m an experienced big bang artist. Please check out my Supernatural Bang Master Post for 2018 for examples of fic covers I have done with links to the full art master posts below each cover.)

More examples from my own fics:

Commission Conditions

Commissions provided in digital form only. I post commissioned art on my art blog and on Twitter with the name of who commissioned it – if you don’t want to be tagged by name or need to hold off the posting (say, for surprise birthday present art), please let me know. High-res file copies of commissioned art are provided on request, no extra charge. Payment is required before I begin to work.

I retain the copyright to my work. Under no conditions are you to sell it, print it to sell, repost it without credit to me as the artist, or claim it as your own work.

Revisions will be done within reason if you aren’t absolutely happy with the work (but that’s what I’m aiming for on the first try. ♥) If in doubt, please message me and we’ll work it out!

Payment Info

All prices are in US dollars, and I accept payments through PayPal. All I need is your PayPal email address, and I’ll send you an invoice of what commission item(s) we discussed, the price, the date and other important information in minutes. Once the invoice arrives, you can use PayPal to pay it in a few clicks.

I switched to invoices because it helps me track my earnings/tax info, as well as being a proof of a commission agreement between us. It protects everybody involved. ♥

How to Contact Me:

If you’re interested in an art commission, you can contact me any of these ways:

Send me an email at [email protected] with the subject line “Threshasketch Art Commission”

Toss me a Tumblr ask / messenger message

Send me a direct message on my Twitter

I’m usually around and will get back to you as quick as I can. Actual art-making turnaround time is pretty speedy, but really depends on whether the commission is complicated or simple.

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commander-rahrah · 5 years

Text

RESIDENCY (AN OPEN HEART FIC): PART NINE

Pairing: MC (Jordynne Holland) X Ethan Ramsey X Bryce Lahela; MC X Bryce; MC X Ethan

Masterlist: Click Here

Chapter Rating: T (Swearing)

Word Count: 5300+

Description: Jordynne helps Ethan confront Dolores’ family, and she finally finds out the truth about Patient X.

Disclaimer: Characters, storyline, and parts of the dialogue are taken from Pixelberry’s Choices. They fully own the characters, dialogue, backgrounds, etc. MC Jordynne’s background is my own creation, based loosely off of MC in-game’s personality and provided with more details.

Author’s Note: I have been trying to write in more original pieces, but there were a few scenes from in-game that I just loved too much that I wanted to include as part of Jordynne’s story. Also, I skipped Chapter 9 because MC and Ramsey fighting about her thinking he was playing a joke on her with the patient was super out of character to me and I hated it soo I’m pretending like it never happened. As always likes, comments and reblogs are very appreciated! If you would like to be added to the tag list please reply on here or DM me! <3

Update: I was on mobile view and went to fix the tags and it deleted all of the text in the post but not the post?!?! So I readded the text just now. Mobile Tumblr will be the death of me.

Taglist: @drakewalkerfantasy @owleyes374@professorortegasstudent@mindlessdreaminxo @mayar-mahdy @paisleylovergirl @nicquix @emilymay100 @octobereighth @jenp02cutie-blog @llamasgrl @timmagicktoad @lilyofchoices

Previous Updates: Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five Part Six Part Seven Part Eight

PART NINE

“As usual, Rookie, you’re only half-right. And in medicine, that counts for nothing.” Ethan took a sip of his coffee, using the cup to hide his face. Lonely? Is that what she thought of him? Could she see through him that easily?

The vibrating of his pager on his hip saved him, “Come on, then. My pager is buzzing. We should be getting back.” Ethan finished the rest of his drink in a swallow, tossing the cup into the garbage can.

He watched as Jordynne tried to carefully balance her cup in one hand while trying to put her coat back on with the other. Letting out a chuckle, he watched her struggle for a moment before grabbing onto the loose sleeve she was having trouble with.

Holding it out for her, she gave him a breathless, “Thank you,” before staring down at the ground for a moment after he helped her, her cheeks flushed.

Nodding his head to the door, the pair left the small cafe, their strides falling in pace with each other. The walked in silence for a moment, shoulder to shoulder.

“Are you dating that surgical intern?” Ethan blurted out, not really registering the words coming out of his mouth.

A look of surprise crossed Jordynne’s face, and she turned to look at him. “What?”

He clamped his mouth shut, waiting for her to answer.

“Just trying to figure out the politics of this place?” She raised her eyebrow — repeating herself from when she dug into his relationship with Harper.

He chewed his lip subtly, “Sure.”

Shoving her hands in her pockets, she strode a bit ahead of him — but not before he saw her cheeks flush red again, “I’m not dating anyone, Ethan.”

”I’ve just heard some nurses gossiping. That’s all.” He tried to keep his voice casual.

Her blonde hair flicked wildly as she flashed him a look, “I never took you for a gossip, Dr. Ramsey.”

He stammered, “I’m — I’m not.”

She stopped in front him, making him stop in his tracks, “Then why do you care?” Her arms were crossed over her chest.

Why did he care? Ethan strained to keep his face blank, “I’m making conversation, Rookie,” He said with a shrug, before stepping around her and walking a bit faster. This is the exact opposite of distancing yourself. Stop it. He thought to himself.

He heard her let out a loud sigh, before stretching her legs to keep up with him. “Dolores’ sisters are visiting the NICU again today. Their finalizing everything with the social worker.”

Ethan’s footsteps slowed — allowing Jordynne to catch up. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye — she was watching him, waiting for his reaction.

“Are you ever gonna come meet with them? They’ve been asking for you for weeks now, Ethan.” Her eyebrows were high on her forehead.

“I know.”

She let out a quick breath through her nose, “Dolores named her child after you. His aunts deserve to meet his namesake.”

“I know, Jordynne.” He said abruptly. Shoving his hands into his jacket pocket, he hid his balled up fists. “They’ll look just like her.”

She nodded, her green eyes shining, “Yeah, they do.”

They were standing outside of the hospital now, several feet from the entrance doors. “You just need to do this, Ethan, please. For me.” Her green eyes were big, trying to catch his.

He stood there silent, his mind racing and stomach twisting at the sight of her face. He watched her take the final swig from her paper cup before she placed it in the trash can next to them. “Thanks for the coffee, Dr. Ramsey.” She gave him a sad smile, before heading through the sliding doors back into the hospital.

Ethan stood there on the pavement for a moment — staring at the spot that she had been standing in. There were too many thoughts running through his head — facing Dolores’ family, figuring out what was wrong with Naveen, the competition. How angry he felt when he saw Jordynne and that damn scalpel jockey together. Her lips on that coffee cup — god, he wished he could be that cup. He cut his thoughts off, shaking his head. With another loud sigh, he ran his fingers through his thick hair before heading back into the hospital.

_______________________________________________________________________

The hallway was brightly lit and quiet — the trio spoke in hushed tones, just standing outside of the NICU window. Ethan’s hands were tied behind his back — his fingers intertwined together, keeping them steady. He was focusing on keeping his face normal — be professional.

“We’re so glad Dolores had you. Knowing she had a friend with her — it helps.”

His Adam’s apple moved deeply as he gulped down the building sense of guilt. “I’m sorry. I wish I could have done more.”

“Dolores would just be happy baby Ethan is okay. We’ve made peace with that.” The two sisters were the spitting image of her — just some wrinkles and a few grey hairs setting them apart. They had handled everything so gracefully — he had no idea how they were doing it.

“Dr. Holland has asked to be updated on baby Ethan — for us to send pictures and emails. Would you like that too?” The older of the sisters offered, her eyes soft.

Ethan glanced behind him through the window, spotting the familiar blonde standing in the NICU chatting with an Attending. He hadn’t realized it but she had spent a lot of time in there — even though the case was done, the file handed over to the social worker. She was still working closely with Dolores’ family. Jordynne cared so much — and she was starting to show him it wasn’t the worst thing. “I would. Thank you.”

The sisters gave him a small smile, nodding their heads in agreement. They glanced through the window once more, before fidgeting with the purses on their shoulders. “Well, we should head over to the social worker’s office. Thank you, for speaking with us Dr. Ramsey.” They both took turns placing gentle hands on his elbow.

“I’m sorry it took me so long.” He croaked out, his voice low.

The pair looked at each other knowingly for a moment, before turning back to him. “We know, honey.” Joining hands, the two sisters walked down the long hallway together. Ethan watched them until they disappeared around the corner.

Stepping back into the NICU, Ethan hesitated at the door. The other Attending had left — it was just Jordynne in there now. He felt his heart squeeze as he watched her. She was cradling the baby in her arm, his head pressed up onto her chest as she gently bounced him up and down. She hadn’t noticed him yet — her eyes still low as she stared at the top of the baby’s head, a small smile spread on her pink lips.

Jordynne finally looked up, realizing Ethan was there. “Hey,” She whispered, her smile remaining on her face.

“Hi,” He kept his voice low, walking towards her. He stopped a couple feet away, still trying to keep his distance from her.

Her green eyes studied his face as she continued to cradle the infant, her eyebrows furrowed a little in concern, “You okay?”

He nodded at her, keeping his eyes trained on the baby. His lips curved into a smile when he saw how peaceful he looked nuzzled up to Jordynne. “You’re good with him.”

“This little guy and I are best friends now.” One of her tan fingers grabbed onto his tiny hand, lifting it slightly. “I still can’t believe you don’t want one of these,” She pursed her pink lips, staring down at the tiny fingers.

“I never said I didn’t want children.” He said quickly, before suddenly stumbling on his words, “Just that — that I didn’t think they would be in my future.”

He watched her chew her lip softly, thinking before speaking again, “Things could change.” She said earnestly, offering the baby’s hand for him to take.

Ethan offered the infant his pointer finger, which it eagerly took, wrapping its fist around it. “Two full-time doctors and a baby, do you really think that’s a good mix?”

“Two doctors, hey? So the enigma Dr. Ethan Ramsey only dates doctors. Good to know.”

Ethan scoffed, looking up to roll his eyes at Jordynne when he suddenly realized how close he was to her. His hand was less than an inch from her chest as he held onto the baby’s hand. His face so close he could smell her perfume again and notice the freckles dusting her nose and cheeks. A heat started to spread through his neck and up onto his face. “That’s not what I meant.”

Jordynne’s sly smile only grew wider as she noticed his face redden. “I’m just teasing.” The smile faltered as she looked into his tired, green eyes, “Are you sure you’re okay, Ethan?”

Gently taking his finger back, he took in the image of Jordynne cradling the small infant to her chest once more, his stomach tightening with want and guilt. “I’m fine.” The vibration of his pager saved him again, and he sighed in relief. “Don’t forget your other patients, Rookie.” He said coldly, before turning on his heel and heading out of the NICU quickly.

______________________________________________________________________

The warm glow of the bedside lamp was shining in the room, casting a low glow on everything. Ethan sat in a chair, watching his friend laying in the bed. Naveen’s breath was short and shallow, his eyes fluttering as he fought sleep. Feeling a lump forming in his throat, Ethan put his elbows on his knees, bowing his head into his hands as he blinked away tears.

Sensing someone watching him, he looked up and his eyes met two familiar green ones. He saw the flick of blonde hair as the person started to run away. Anger flared in him at first, then waves of guilt of keeping it from her. He jumped to his feet, rushing past Naveen’s bed and out the door. “Rookie! Stop!”

Jordynne froze in place, her shoulders pushing up into her neck. Spinning on her heel, she gulped as she faced him, “Dr. Ramsey… I’m sorry… I didn’t mean…,” She stood on her tip-toes, glancing over his shoulder, at Naveen’s window. “But… didn’t Dr. Banerji resign? What is he doing here?”

Ethan felt his face fall, realizing what this meant, “Jordynne, you cannot tell anyone what you’ve seen here. Do you understand?” Naveen would never forgive him if the hospital found out because of this.

She nodded profusely, her eyes wide. “I understand.”

“Thank you…,” He let out a sigh of relief. Ethan scratched his stubble roughly — it was getting long, he really needed to go home tonight.

“Dr. Ramsey… what’s going on?” Her eyes were filled with worry, watching his movements intently.

Sucking in a ragged breath, he finally answered her. “He’s dying. Dr. Banerji is dying.” There — he had admitted it out loud. It was out in the universe now.

Her eyes darted back to the window, “What… what does he have?” A worry line formed in the middle of her brow.

Shaking his head, Ethan stared down at the ground as he admitted his defeat, “I’ve been trying to figure that out for the last month.”

Pursing her pink lips, she tried to catch his eyes, “Dr. Ramsey… I’m so sorry. I know how close you two are. This must be incredibly difficult.”

Ethan’s tired green eyes finally met her blue ones. He nodded to her in a silent thanks.

“There must be a reason you’re hiding him here…”

“I…” His pager beeped, interrupting him. A grimace flickered across his face — the one time he didn’t need a save from his pager. Quickly reading the message, he mumbled an apology, “I’m sorry, I have to go. Please, say nothing of this.”

“Dr. Ramsey!” She raised her hand to him like she was going to grab onto him but thought better of it. “You can’t just tell me one of the greatest doctors this country’s ever seen is dying and then… walk away!”

Ethan felt torn, unsure of what to do. He needed to tell her — it felt so good knowing that someone else knew too. He needed to explain this to her but he couldn’t do it here. There was too much to risk. Rubbing his chin again, he let out a sigh. “Come by my house after work tonight. I’ll explain everything, I promise.”

Jordynne nodded, her eyes studying his, “I’ll be there.”

He let out a sigh of relief at her acceptance. “I mean it, Jordynne. Not a word of this to anyone.” Instinctually, he grabbed onto her forearm — his face serious. “Not even Harper Emery. Promise me.”

She swallowed, her eyebrows furrowing. “I promise. You can count on me, Ethan.”

He let go of her arm gently, their touch lingering on his fingertips. “Thank you.” His pager angrily beeped at him again, and he gave her a nod goodbye. Turning on his heel, he passed by Naveen’s window on his way out. His steps faltering as he caught sight of his friend — he looked so small in that bed. The man was everything, so big, so untouchable before — but now. Ethan swallowed the emotion building in his throat, attempting to refocus as he left his friend all alone once more.

_______________________________________________________________________

Wringing his tan hands together excitedly, Bryce had to force himself to slow his pace. He had killed it in his last surgery. Dr. Nguyen had said he was seriously impressed with him and he couldn’t help but continue on his high.

Turning down the hall on floor five, his brown eyes searched for the familiar blonde hair and white coat. He found her, standing in front of the vending machine — her eyes glazed over as she absent-mindedly chewed on her fingernail. He was memorized watching her pink lips — especially after he had experienced what they could do the other night.

“Jordy,” He sidled up next to her, bumping her with his hip gently.

“Huh? Oh, hi.” Jordynne said, her voice quiet. Her eyes didn’t leave the vending machine.

“So, I was thinking,” He grabbed onto her hips playfully, turning her to face him, “We could go somewhere other than Donahue’s tonight?”

A sad smile flickered across her face, “I have plans tonight actually.”

“Oh! What did Sienna plan for the roomies tonight?” He questioned, flashing her a smile.

“Nothing with them,” She glanced over his shoulder, biting her lip. “Look, I gotta run.” She grabbed onto his bicep easily, giving it a quick squeeze. “Tomorrow, Lahela. Okay?”

She had taken off before he could answer, stopping at the nurses’ station quickly before heading into a patient’s room.

Bryce’s dark brow furrowed in confusion, watching as she disappeared from him. Who would she meeting if it wasn’t her roommates or him?

_______________________________________________________________________Holding down the buzzer on the intercom, Ethan’s eyes darted to his reflection in the mirror hanging in his entry way. He looked exhausted — purple bags under his eyes, his stubble dark and rough, the grey sweater he wore wrinkled. Nervously fussing around with his hair, he waited for her knock at the door.

The sound of her knuckles on the other side of his door caused his stomach to tighten nervously. Turning the knob, he took in the sight of Jordynne. She stood in his doorway — blonde hair still in her usual ponytail, but she had changed into a cream cardigan and jeans. Her fingers were curled around her messenger bag nervously, her green eyes taking him in.

Rubbing his eyes wearily, Ethan motions for her to come inside. Jenner was dancing around their ankles excitedly — already trying to sniff her. “Rookie. Come on in.”

He watched her bend down to greet his dog, smiling down at the pet. Her eyes darted around staring his apartment, and her pink mouth opened a little. “Wow. Nice digs.”

Shrugging, Ethan closed the front door quietly before glancing around his apartment. “I’m barely ever here. Wine?” He padded into the kitchen, grabbing onto the already opened bottle sitting on the quartz counter. He had already had a lot of it — on account of his guilt from Naveen and nervousness at Jordynne coming into his apartment. His hand hesitated over the empty glass he had set out for her — waiting for her answer.

“Yes, please.” She said. She was eyeing his books now, still bent over petting the dog, who was now following her every move.

He poured her a glass, matching his already very full one.

“That’s probably enough…,” He heard her say softly.

“Huh?” Realizing, he stopped pouring the wine. “Oh, sorry.” He grabbed onto the glasses, and held it out for her, finally seeing the worry in her eyes.

Their fingers brushed as she grabbed the glass, her eyes not leaving his. He raised his glass in front of him, letting out a sigh, “To the unknown.”

She humored him, clinking her glass to his, “To the unknown.” Her voice was quiet.

Ethan took a long sip as he sat down on his leather couch, feeling defeated. He eyed his furniture — wondering where she would go. The spot next to him, the armchair. He licked his lips as she sat next to him, their legs brushing as she adjusted. Jenner immediately sat in between their legs, his tongue panting as he begged for her attention again.

She ignored the dog for the moment, turning to face Ethan, “Dr. Ramsey… what’s going on? What’s Dr. Banerji’s diagnosis?”

He stared down into his wine glass, his eyebrows furrowed and lines formed in his forehead, “I don’t know.”

Her mouth hung open, “But you’re the best diagnostician in the country!”

A short, mocking laugh escaped him. “The second best.”

Giving up, he watched as Jordynne put down her glass long enough to scoop up Jenner and place him on her lap. She scratched him absent-mindedly, balancing her wine in the other hand, “When did his symptoms start?”

He breathed in through his nose, recalling the memory, “About two months ago. Started out small enough. Cough, fever, confusion. I noticed he was having trouble with his memory. When I confronted him, he said he was just getting old. But there was something in his eyes when he said it. I knew he knew something was wrong.”

Her eyes hadn’t left his face, “What did you do?”

“Whenever I told him to take time off and rest, he laughed and told me to focus on the real patients.” He chewed on the inside of his lip. “It progressed to severe headaches and high fever. He couldn’t keep fluids down.”

“Meningitis? Pneumonia?” Jordynne offered.

Ethan shook his head, grimacing, “I hoped it was just that. But then it got worse. Breathing trouble, organ dysfunction.”

“He’s in sepsis.”

Ethan nodded, keeping his eyes away from her — staring out into his apartment. It was filled with things he never even had the chance to use. He stared at the record player in the corner — if it hadn’t been for his cleaner, dust would be settling on it. It had been months since he had used it.

“I told him I was going to tell Dr. Emery. He chased me down and begged me to keep it to myself. I’ve never seen him beg before. The idea of anyone knowing he was sick… almost seemed to break him.”

Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion, “But… why would he feel that way?”

He took another sip of his wine, “I’ve spent so many nights wondering that myself. Sometimes I think he just can’t stand the idea of being pitied. Other times I wonder if he assumes that anything he can’t diagnose is really hopeless.”

“Ethan…” His name on her lips caused him to grip the wine glass a little tighter.

He continued speaking, “Either way, he won’t tell me.”

“So… he wasn’t seeking treatment? He wasn’t even treating himself?” Her eyes were so big as she listened to him. She was taking in every word, she cared so much. Why? Why did she care so much?

“No, I struck a deal with him. I told him I’d keep his secret if he let me work his case. He said it was a waste of time, but he relented. I began running tests on him under a false name.”

“Patient X.” She answered for him, “Nobody got suspicious?”

A chuckle escaped Ethan. “You mean, besides you?” He took another long sip of his wine, before giving her a small, humorless smile. “People tend not to ask questions when I want something.”

Jordynne licked her pink lips, “But you didn’t tell Chief Emery…,”

He shook his head, “Perhaps the old her would’ve taken my side. But today, she’s the administration. Her duty is to the board of directors now. But it must be done. When there isn’t a path, you make your own.”

She placed her thumb in her finger, chewing on it as she thought, “Alright, but what did the tests show?”

Rage flickered in him, “Nothing. I’ve run every test I can think of and nothing is conclusive. And now his kidneys are failing.”

Her hand lingered on her lip, squeezing the soft, pink skin, “Is that why he resigned?”

“Yes. It was impossible to keep pretending everything was fine. He thought it was the end… he almost booked a flight to lay on a beach and die in the sun.” Ethan looked up at the ceiling, swallowing down the emotion forming in his throat. “It took everything I had to convince him to let me admit him in secret and get him on dialysis.”

Getting up, he strode over to the kitchen counter again, filling up his wine glass. He offered the bottle to Jordynne, who held out her wine glass for a top up in silent agreement. He emptied the bottle into her glass, before settling in front of one of the windows. He leaned up against it, looking out into the dark skyline, “I just don’t understand it. I’ve spent my entire career saving lives and solving problems. It’s always been… easy. And it never… it never really meant anything. It was like a game I’d mastered. A — a competition against death I was winning handily. And now…,” His voice broke, water forming in his eyes, “I lost Dolores, and I’m going to lose Naveen. The two people on Earth I gave a damn about are the two people I couldn’t save.”

“Don’t talk in past tense, Ethan.” Her finger played with the rim of her wine glass, her face turning sad, “Dr. Banerji means a lot to you, huh?”

He stayed quiet for a moment, keeping his eyes on the night-time view outside as he took another large gulp. “He’s my mentor.”

“I think it’s more than that.” She said seriously, twisting so she could look at him better. Her chin resting on the backrest of the sofa.

His green eyes met her blue ones, he couldn’t lie to her. “I’m not close with my parents. I became a doctor without their help or approval. Honestly, I never thought I’d need or want anyone’s approval. When I arrived at Edenbrook, I knew I wanted to learn from the best. And Dr. Banerji was… is…,” He corrected himself, “The best. I expected him to be hard on me. But I didn’t expect him to be so… so kind. He recognized my talent and took me under his wing. But he became more than a teacher. He became…,”

“Family?” She offered, her eyes understanding.

Ethan nodded, his fingers playing with the stem of his wine glass and he blinked fast. “Naveen never married. He doesn’t have any children. I’m all he’s got.” He placed his glass onto the coffee table, crossing over in front of the sofa, staring into Jordynne’s eyes. “I can’t let him die, Jordynne. And I can’t break his trust. If anyone finds out the truth, he’ll fly out to that beach, and I’ll lose any chance I have to save him.” He slumped back down into the sofa, his knee bumping hers. “I don’t know what to do. I’m only one doctor.”

Hunching forward Ethan pushed his head into his hands, covering his face. He started taking big breaths, trying to calm himself down — to stop the water welling in his eyes. His breath faltered for a moment as he felt her warm hand reach out and grabbed onto his knee and massaging his leg. He didn’t move away from the gesture.

“I’m here.” She said quietly, ducking her head so she could look up into his eyes.

He gulped, his eyes flicking to her hand that was still on his leg. “I know.”

“You’ll solve this.” Her voice was serious, her mouth in a hard line.

He chewed the inside of his cheek, “You sound so certain.”

Jordynne nodded at him, “I am. If there’s anyone in this world who can, it’s you.”

Picking his glass back up, Ethan swirled around the last of the red liquid. “I just hope it’s not too late.”

“We’ll figure this out.”

“We?” He questioned, looking over to her. Jenner was still cuddled up onto her lap, his eyes closed happily as she strached his head. Her cheeks were flushed from the wine, and it had stained her lips a little. She looked so comfortable — sitting on this sofa with him.

“Ethan, you’re not alone in this anymore. Let me help you.” She reached out and grabbed him again, her fingers gently grabbing onto his wrist as he went for another sip of wine.

He brought the glass away from his lips, nodding at her. “Okay.”

She pushed some of the hair that had fallen out of her ponytail back behind her ear, biting her lip. “Did you eat? ‘Cause I’m starving and all this wine is going straight to my head.”

“Right,” He got off of the couch quickly, startling Jenner. Taking their now empty glasses, Ethan placed them on the counter and opened up the fridge. He heard the pads of her feet behind him and the familiar jingle of his dog’s collar following her. He looked at the empty fridge, sighing, “I, uh, haven’t been home in a few days. I could order something in…”

Jordynne scoffed at him, “Dr. Ramsey, you need to be more resourceful.” She ducked under his arm holding the fridge open, looking into it. Her back was so close to him, her hair tickled his nose. “All my years as a starving medical student has trained me for this.”

Stepping back, Ethan left her intoxicating scent behind and he gave her room to work. He watched with a smile as she started grabbing jars and a block of cheese out of the fridge — juggling the supplies in her arms. Her hands automatically went to his cabinets and drawers, seemingly finding exactly what she wanted every time she opened one up — almost like she had been here before. A warmth spread through his chest as he watched how comfortable she was in his home, even after spending less than one hour there.

She placed a charcuterie plate in front of them — it was pretty bare, but it had some cheese, pickles, olives, and crackers. Her face twisted into a playful smile, “Better than nothing?”

“Better than anything I would have found in there.” He grabbed onto the plate and placed it onto his bar, sliding out the two stools in front of it for them. He steadied the stool for Jordynne as she sat down, and she looked over her shoulder to smile at him, in a silent thanks. Sitting down at his own stool, he realized how close they were to each other again — their elbows brushing each other. Why were they always so close? It was like she was a magnet.

The pair picked at the charcuterie plate in silence for a moment — the only sound was the occasional whimper of Jenner begging underneath them. Ethan’s eyebrows started furrowing as he got lost in his thoughts again, thinking about Naveen laying in that hospital bed all alone tonight. But when he looked up to Jordynne, it softened a little, the line in his forehead going away. “Why did you become a doctor, Jordynne?”

Her eyebrows lifted a little at the question as she finished chewing her cracker, ��Hmm, my mom.”

“She wanted her daughter to be a doctor? Not a lawyer, or accountant?” His mouth went dry, but not from the crackers or wine. He had gone against his parents wishes when he became a doctor, maybe she just followed in line with what was expected with her.

“No, nothing like that. She was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was eleven. Her doctor was amazing — she was intelligent and passionate. I just couldn’t think of anything else I would want to be after that.” There was a small smile on her face as she told the story. It made Ethan’s stomach flutter. “And I’ve always loved science. Medicine just… it felt right. It’s what I meant to do.”

He watched her, studying her again. She was so determined but gentle. Kind but fierce. Both a lion and a lamb. He wasn’t sure how long they sat there for — picking at their food, asking each other questions about their lives — both in and out of the hospital. She skirted around questions about Naveen, giving him some space which Ethan wholly appreciated. He didn’t bring up Lahela again — even though he was dying too. He also wanted to know why she was here with him, why she cared. But he was too afraid of the answer.

Around midnight, he watched as she gathered her things and started placing dishes in the sink for him. “I should probably get going, I didn’t realize how late it was.”

Getting up from his stool, Ethan shoved his hands in his pockets, suddenly feeling awkward. Maybe it was because he didn’t want her to leave. “Thank you for letting me explain.”

“Of course,” She nodded at him. Her fingers were knotted in her messenger bag nervously as she stood near the door.

“I would take you home, but with the wine…,” He motioned back to the empty bottles sitting on his counter. “Can I get you a cab at least?”

“Oh, it’s fine. The subway will be good.”

He looked out at the dark night sky, and his stomach twisted. He could walk with her — would that be crossing a line? “Can you text me then? When you get home? So I know you’re safe.”

Her pink mouth opened in surprise a little, but agreed, “Oh, yeah sure.” She gave Jenner one last scratch behind the ears, and got up and left. “Goodnight, Dr. Ramsey.”

“Night, Rookie.” He noticed the flicker in her eyes as he called her that — a flash of hurt. But then she was gone down the hallway. Waiting for her to disappear from his line of sight, he closed the door softly and padded back to the couch — slumping into it.

Jenner lingered at the door, staring up at it as if he was waiting for her to come back any moment. “Jenner, come here.” He patted the spot next to him, but the dog didn’t budge. “Boy, she’s not coming back.” The dog’s ears drooped a little and he waddled over to the sofa. He sat on the spot Jordynne had used earlier, sniffing it before curling up in a ball on the seat — his eyes sad.

Ethan let out a sigh, noticing his dog’s reaction, “Ugh, not you too.” He reached out and scratched behind his ears. Suddenly, without her presence, his apartment felt emptier than ever.

Part Ten

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fatechica · 6 years

Note

Low-key high-key dying for an update of together you and i, absolutely no pressure but do you have a day in mind for posting that i can look forward to? ❤️❤️❤️

Hey, anon! Haha, no worries about potential pressure. I am literally on the last scene for this upcoming chapter (and it’s gonna be a doozy. I’m at 17.5k words right now and I’m Not. Finished. Yet.)

Anyway, I should be finished with this tonight and then I’m hoping to post it tomorrow (depending on my beta’s busy schedule *pokes @linachupi to get ready for an incoming email*). So, Monday AT THE LATEST.

And, ugh, I feel so bad that it’s taken SO LONG to get this chapter out. Going on vacation and being sick are not at all conducive for fic writing, y’all. This has been a PSA.

#Anonymous

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staircasttext · 3 years

Text

Ep 10 Transcript: Fireheart Learns to Code

Episode 10

[intro music]

PAZ: Hi, everybody. Welcome back again to Stairway to StarClan, a Warriors Cat reread pawdcast. I'm Paz.

JULIAN: I'm Julian.

LIZ: And I'm Liz.

PAZ: And we're back again this week reading Fire and Ice, chapter eight through 10, if I am remembering correctly.

JULIAN: Yep.

PAZ: But before we get into the chapters, we have some updates on the Barnes and Noble saga that I want to share, because they're all incredible. So a lot of these are just like additional comments to the Tumblr post that we read last week. I guess we can just go in the order through like how you sent them, Julian, because that's how I pulled them up.

JULIAN: Sure. I can read the first one.

PAZ: Sure, go ahead.

JULIAN: All right. Tumblr user melthedestroyer says, "I used to work at Barnes and Noble. And I need you all to know, when you pulled up a book in the internal system, it gives you a couple of top reviews from bn.com on the page. Imagine now my coworker Sal, a 60 year old Italian man with a flip phone, pulling up one of these one day. It was an interesting shift for Sal and I." Imagine having to introduce your coworker to the concept of roleplay, Warrior Cats roleplay.

PAZ: Yeah, not any roleplay. I love that.

JULIAN: I mean, I'm sure if he worked at Barnes and Noble he was familiar with the Warrior Cats phenomenon.

PAZ: Yeah, better be. Yeah, I'll read the next one. This is by Tumblr user diatribe. "I was part of a different circle of this for three-ish years in the early 2010s. Most of us had super controlling parents and weren't allowed internet access. The BN book reviews were broken af, completely unmoderated. Multiple books often shared the same reviews. And you didn't even have to own the book to write a review."

LIZ: Lawless.

PAZ: "It started with people just shouting out in these popular books, wondering if anyone else could see them. And then when people could reply, it spiraled. Also, we used BN's e-reader, so it just looked like we were reading." So Julian, you were like 100% correct.

LIZ: That's amazing.

JULIAN: Yeah, I was talking about this with Han after the podcast. And they also mentioned that Barnes and Noble's website probably also wouldn't be blocked on a school computer. So people might have been doing it from school computer labs. But a lot of the comments mentioned like doing it specifically on the Nook. So it looked like you were reading which is, oh, I'm really glad that these kids had somewhere to roleplay Warrior Cats that their parents could not control.

PAZ: Right? And just like, instant message, because we saw some of those as well. The creativity of children when they want to RP cats with their friends is endless. And I have nothing but respect.

JULIAN: Yeah, another update was someone saying that there was also a big Warrior Cats roleplay community on Khan Academy, which again, tracks.

LIZ: That is just incredible to me. That's like saying yeah, I used to RP on like Wolfram Alpha, or whatever that math site is.

JULIAN: Does Wolfram Alpha have a comment section because if so there might be Warrior Cats RP there.

LIZ: Wolfram Alpha forums. Let me check. Yes.

PAZ: Oh my gosh.

JULIAN: Oh yes.

PAZ: Search Warriors.

JULIAN: Community.wolfram.com/groups.

LIZ: Wait, search Warriors, please.

JULIAN: Oh, I'm doing it. I'm doing it.

LIZ: Cats, anything.

JULIAN: Oh, no, I'm not seeing anything, unfortunately.

PAZ: Oh no. Maybe it's too moderated.

JULIAN: It might be too moderated. It seems like it's pretty moderated.

PAZ: Tragic.

JULIAN: It's also like a whole company.

LIZ: Well, the framework is there. You could get past that. Listen, we saw some territorial disputes in the Barnes and Noble comments section.

JULIAN: We really did.

LIZ: So if anyone needs to branch out, I bet-- you know, there has to be someone who can hack a little bit.

PAZ: Yeah, Wolfram Alpha? Yeah.

LIZ: To get around this.

PAZ: Who wants to read the other final update that kind of dove into the questions we had about like, moderation and stuff?

LIZ: Is this the very long one that's like a screenshot?

JULIAN: Yeah, it's the one I had to screenshot because it was a reply, so I couldn't link to it.

LIZ: Okay, I can do the first one because it is pretty long. Okay, "here's a breakdown for you guys. You'll find people RPing in classic books because they're multi rez, which means multiple books link to the same review section. You can only post one review per book and posting in it erases your original review. So multi rez books are obvs desirable if you wanted to RP more than one character. Or if you wanted to leave a post up for someone who wasn't online at the moment."

JULIAN: "If you posted a bad word, you'd get locked out and wouldn't be able to post in that particular book anymore, which also made multi rez books desirable. You can get around this by putting open angle bracket underscore close angle bracket after the first two letters of a swear word, and then posting it would make it look like you hadn't censored it at all. Warrior Cats books were the most popular, but I remember Percy Jackson RPers hung around in like the Athenian constitution books."

PAZ: Yeah, so I remember we'd noted that like you could see the review counts of people and it would just say like one. And I think the explanation for that phenomena is here.

LIZ: Incredible.

PAZ: Because apparently it'd just delete if you reviewed more than once.

JULIAN: Yeah, so that makes sense, though, because it's like, if people are basically waiting for someone else to be online and then kind of RPing back and forth, but each of their new posts erases the old post, we only see the last one.

PAZ: Yeah, it's really tragic that there's no archive, though, because of that.

JULIAN: It's all gone. And the odds of it being on like Wayback Machine are very low if it replaced that quickly, unfortunately.

PAZ: It's truly the epitome of like, touches ground, something happened here.

LIZ: God, I hope someone has at least like saved or archived or screenshotted somewhere like just a moment of this. Like a slice in time to put in a museum in 3021.

PAZ: Yeah, I hope somebody was like copy-pasting into a Word doc somewhere.

JULIAN: Right? Ugh.

LIZ: I mean, how else are you gonna remember what's happening if you're RPing?

PAZ: Right?

JULIAN: I mean, you depend on the encyclopedic memory of an eight year old for like trivia.

LIZ: That's true.

JULIAN: They don't have to remember how taxes work so they can remember every detail of what Umbrellastar from BloodClan told them.

PAZ: I wish that was me.

LIZ: God, if only.

JULIAN: Same.

PAZ: But yeah, I guess that's the updates we found. The fact that it was somewhat moderated is extremely funny, but like not moderated enough that they're like we're gonna not allow this RP to happen.

LIZ: You just can't say fuck.

JULIAN: Like we can't stop you from RPing on this forum but you can't get horny about it.

LIZ: For some reason, we can't stop you.

PAZ: I so badly want to find someone to talk to who was in charge of the Barnes and Nobles website in some capacity and be like, what happened here?

JULIAN: I want the email chain where someone was like, Hey, my boss. You got to know about this. What do we do about this?

LIZ: CEO voice, you know, it's interaction. It's engagement.

PAZ: Yeah. They're probably like--

LIZ: We need to get those Hamlet numbers up. The kids do not care about Hamlet. This is as close as we're gonna get. If Shadowfur wants to RP with an assassin cat or get into a territorial dispute with the Percy Jackson RPers, we let them.

PAZ: Yeah, we need those clicks. That's all that matters.

JULIAN: Honestly, I wonder if they were so laissez faire about it because Barnes and Noble really, really wanted people to like use their Nooks. There was like a big push for them to like-- they were pushing Nooks versus Amazon's Kindle really hard. And so if they were like, well, at least people are using the review section with their Nook devices.

PAZ: Yeah, I mean, I guess if you're a kid who wanted really badly to RP with their friends and you could convince your very strict parents to buy you a Nook, it works out in Barnes and Noble's favor, so.

JULIAN: I mean, honestly, I wonder if it was just like, you know, I borrowed my mom's Nook because she never used it. And I didn't know about-- I was also too old for RP at that point and was just bulk downloading fanfiction to the Nook. But like if I had been slightly more sheltered and a little bit younger at the time, I definitely would have been-- I would have done this.

PAZ: Did you guys do that thing where you would print out fanfic?

LIZ: Yes. Mm-hmm.

PAZ: And then either read it in bed or take it to school?

LIZ: Yes.

JULIAN: I did not print out fanfic because I was mortified that my family would find out about it. So instead, I copied and pasted it from a particular Doctor Who fanfic archive into Word documents. I had like one Word document that was like one genre and then another Word document that was like a different ship, and they all had like little secretive acronyms so that...

PAZ: Oh my god.

LIZ: This is so intricate.

PAZ: Wow.

JULIAN: It was so much. Because this is before Ao3.

PAZ: I don't think I was smart enough as a child to do that. I would just like to try and throw out all the fanfic I'd printed out before people saw it. Because I would read it in bed because I didn't have a phone I could read it on.

JULIAN: Oh yeah.

PAZ: If I wanted to get cozy in bed and read my, I don't know, Kingdom Hearts fanfic, I had to print it out.

JULIAN: When I finally did get a phone my senior year of high school, I spent pretty much that entire summer reading fic. And so my mom was like, oh, what are you doing? And I was like, Oh, I'm-- someone had posted about this on Tumblr and I stole it. I was like, Oh, I'm reading unpublished stories by authors online.

PAZ: God.

LIZ: Not untrue. You're just supporting new writers.

JULIAN: It's accurate.

PAZ: It's what people on Twitter want to think, so.

JULIAN: It's literature. It's literature, Mom.

LIZ: God.

PAZ: Yep, classic. You know, getting fan content, it was bad. It was hard back in the day.

LIZ: It was hard.

JULIAN: We didn't have tags. You had to just pick a pairing and hope that the fic was good.

PAZ: Right? Oh my god. Yeah, it was all summary based, like good fucking luck.

LIZ: It did have genres. Like fanfiction.net did have genres. It was like romance.

PAZ: I vaguely remember that.

LIZ: Comedy, poetry, suspense.

PAZ: God. What was the fanfic that I would... what was the fandoms that I was in reading fanfic on fanfic.net? I know it was Kingdom Hearts. I think Ranma 1/2, probably Naruto fanfiction.

JULIAN: Yeah, it was just Sherlock and Doctor Who. I'm so sorry to tell y'all this.

PAZ: That seems kind of... Sherlock seems kind of late for fanfic.net though. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong.

JULIAN: It was... I like started out fanfic.net. It was like right when Ao3 was becoming a thing. But the wait for Ao3 was like six months at that point.

PAZ: Oh right.

LIZ: I used to read Sherlock fic on Livejournal.

PAZ: Also definitely read Invader Zim fic on fanfic.net.

JULIAN: My Invader Zim phase was before I realized that like fanfic was a thing that existed outside of me writing fanfic in my journal. So unfortunately, I did not stumble across that.

PAZ: Maybe, maybe, fortunately.

JULIAN: Maybe good. I also probably would have been reading a lot of iCarly fanfic.

PAZ: It wasn't like ship fic though. I don't think I understood the concept of that at the time. It was just like-- I read a lot of like OC self insert fic when I was much younger. I don't know.

LIZ: You just loved the character building.

PAZ: I did, I loved the worlds.

LIZ: Yeah, well, what an intricate like beautiful universe you've created.

PAZ: I think I remember a fic like that was like a crossover with Alien.

JULIAN: Oh my god.

LIZ: Like Alien-alien?

PAZ: Yeah, the movie Alien with like the xenomorph.

JULIAN: I love that. That's wonderful.

PAZ: It was powerful.

JULIAN: Oh all right, sorry, Chickpea is screaming. Let me see if I can feed her and then she'll stop.

PAZ: Okay.

LIZ: I'm just thinking about that fucking like Sherlock Livejournal community that we looked at with the graveyard with all the broken Photobucket links.

PAZ: I'm kind of... I don't know why I never got into Sherlock fandom like seriously, but I'm happy I didn't.

LIZ: Bullet dodged. It was something. We should look for Warriors Livejournal stuff. I bet there's some good graphics if...

PAZ: Yeah.

LIZ: If it ever made it there.

PAZ: No, I'm sure there were Warriors Livejournals. But Livejournal was after my Warriors period so I wouldn't know from personal experience. Definitely read a lot of Doctor Who fanfic on Livejournal though.

LIZ: I actually didn't. I was big into it.

JULIAN: Alright, hello.

LIZ: I just stuck around for icons and stuff. Hi.

PAZ: Hi, welcome back. We were saying there's probably like Warriors communities on Livejournal, like old ones somewhere.

JULIAN: Oh my god, I bet there are.

PAZ: Yeah, we should look into that in the future.

JULIAN: Yeah, we should do a hunt there.

PAZ: There's so much content out there. Even on Barnes and Nobles.com.

LIZ: I don't think people are RPing in like Goodreads reviews for Warrior books. But wouldn't that be something? You can reply on those things.

PAZ: Are you sure people aren't doing that?

LIZ: I don't know. Maybe.

PAZ: Now that you've said that, that seems like an obvious situation to do it.

LIZ: Put it on the docket. We've got so much research. God.

PAZ: We're going to become scholars of Warrior Cats RP communities.

JULIAN: Great news. Uh.

PAZ: Yeah.

LIZ: Yeah?

JULIAN: There are... Goodreads: Group. Show Tag RP.

LIZ: [gasp]

PAZ: Oh my god.

LIZ: Fuck yeah.

JULIAN: We have 1825 roleplay groups on Goodreads.

LIZ: What?

PAZ: Oh my god. Is this just Warriors, or like everything?

JULIAN: Oh, this is everything.

LIZ: Oh, okay. I was like damn, Warriors. Can you give us a little tasting board of this?

JULIAN: No, don't make me login. So let's see. Just a little something. We have Percy Jackson and HOO– I guess that's something about Olympians– roleplay group. Have you waited for your satyr all your life but it never came? Well, welcome to CHP, where all demigods are accepted. You can create your own character and talk to other half bloods. We are here to have fun, sing songs on the fireplace, play Capture the Flag, volleyball, and of course go on lots of quests.

LIZ: This sounds fun.

JULIAN: Yeah. I haven't seen any-- oh, here we go. Warrior Cats: A New Fall. Yep, we've got three separate Warrior Cats RPs on the first. So we'll have to dig into this a little bit.

LIZ: Thank god.

PAZ: This is so exciting.

JULIAN: A lot of this is like... a lot of boarding school RP. Like people have made up-- this roleplay is tagged as semi-advanced. What does that mean?

PAZ: I guess your reading level has to be... I don't know.

LIZ: Middle school and above.

PAZ: Eight plus.

JULIAN: Oh, I'm so glad people are just out here on the Goodreads forums RPing.

LIZ: Good. Fuck it up.

PAZ: This is a better use of Goodreads.

JULIAN: Yeah, it is. I hope Amazon has to read all of these.

LIZ: Yeah, get wreckt.

JULIAN: It'd be good for them.

LIZ: Humble them a little. We should look into those. I bet there's some new innovations going on if it's still active.

JULIAN: Oh yeah, no, these are sorted by the latest activity. So the three ones I found, last activity six hours 25 minutes ago.

LIZ: Oh my god.

JULIAN: Yeah, so we can really dig in here.

LIZ: We need to check out that semi advanced style. I wanna know what that means.

JULIAN: I can't tell, but they have their own gifs. Like there's some really nice graphics.

PAZ: Wow, you can post gifs on Goodreads?

JULIAN: Yeah.

LIZ: Wow.

JULIAN: It's like a fully fledged forum here.

PAZ: Wow.

LIZ: Yeah I think you can post like reviews and then that you have like, here's my Marvel GIF about reacting to... I don't know. Twitches.

JULIAN: I think there's like... because there's like a Groups function.

PAZ: Oh my gosh. Yeah, this is just a forum.

JULIAN: That I think is intended to be like for book clubs. But is, in this case for--

PAZ: This is a book club. What are you talking about?

LIZ: Oh, yeah, these things. I joined one for exactly one reason. It was to ask what book this was because I didn't remember the name, title, or character, or author, or anything. And they were mean about it.

JULIAN: Aw.

LIZ: They were like, everyone has asked what this book is. Did you not read the FAQ?

PAZ: Oh, no.

LIZ: And I did. So anyway, Goodreads is bad, but I'm glad people are using it to RP.

PAZ: Good on this random boarding school roleplay for saying no racist, homophobic, discriminatory, etc. comments.

JULIAN: Yeah.

LIZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: The Warrior Cats: A New Fall RP's number one rule is "no bullying. We make exceptions for in the roleplay."

LIZ: Wow.

PAZ: Gosh, perfect. Well, this is an exciting possibility world before us that we will have to revisit in the future. But I guess now that we're done with that update, we should go into our chapters.

LIZ: Beautiful.

PAZ: So this week, we read three chapters, chapters eight through 10. And I'll just dive right into the summaries. So chapter eight continues from the scene of the RiverClan warrior Whiteclaw's death. Leopardfur, the RiverClan deputy, warns ThunderClan that this has now gone beyond a border dispute and leaves. The WindClan cats leave as well, thanking ThunderClan again. And Sandpaw is freaked out from her near death, and Graystripe is shaken and disturbed from accidentally causing another cat's death.

Once they are back at camp, an angry Tigerclaw takes Fireheart and Graystripe back to Bluestar and informs them both of WindClan's rescue and the RiverClan death Tigerclaw believes seeing ThunderClan with WindClan cats will push RiverClan and ShadowClan together. Bluestar, while disappointed, is not as angry. She decides Graystripe and Fireheart should take apprentices to train to prepare for future hostilities.

Later that night there is a naming ceremony for the apprentices. Fireheart takes Cinderpaw, an energetic cat, as his apprentice, and Graystripe takes Brackenpaw, who is more serious, as his apprentice. The chapter ends with Fireheart thinking about how he wants to be a good warrior and mentor and that it feels like Tigerclaw is waiting for him to fail.

In chapter nine, Fireheart takes Cinderpaw out into the forest for her first day as an apprentice. Graystripe declines to join them and is still depressed. Fireheart and Cinderpaw travel various places, with Cinderpaw bounding ahead and not listening to Fireheart closely. Fireheart teaches her some things about scents, hunting, and owls. Cinderpaw then runs ahead towards Snakerocks before Fireheart can warn her, but comes back once he makes the danger clear. They then visit the Thunderpath and eventually go near the Twolegplace, where they spot a pregnant kittypet. Fireheart gets an inexplicable feeling that this cat isn't a threat and gives away their position so she runs away. Back at camp, he dreams about when he was a kitten and realizes the kittypet he saw was his sister.

In chapter 10, Firepaw gets an intense longing to see his sister after seeing the familial familiarity amongst the clan cats. He asks Graystripe to take Cinderpaw for the day and heads back to the Twolegplace. He waits until the sister comes into the garden to reveal himself. She is frightened at first, but once he remembers her name, which is Princess, and remembers who he is, she calms down. When she asks why he came to see her, Fireheart simply says, because you are my sister. He asks about their other family, who all still live in the neighborhood. They talk for a while and Fireheart tells her about the clans. Princess eventually has to go inside and Fireheart returns to the ThunderClan camp after hunting.

Back at camp, Tigerclaw confronts him about leaving Cinderpaw with Graystripe. Fireheart apologizes and says he will focus on her training. Graystripe still seems disturbed about the RiverClan encounter. The chapter ends with Fireheart watching Cinderpaw and her brother, and thinking about how he has felt lonely within the clan, as none of his family is there. And that's the end of our reading this week.

JULIAN: My first note for chapter eight is Graystripe killed a man.

PAZ: Yeah. RIP Whiteclaw, our beloved friend. Yeah, Graystripe, you did kind of kill a guy. This was like, the first time I'm like, damn, I just agree with Tigerclaw because it really is like Fireheart's fault completely. There was no reason to go into RiverClan territory. And he is also partly responsible for a death.

JULIAN: Also Fireheart being like, Oh, it was a special mission, just like Highstones. So it's okay for us to-- like, no, it's not. You knew it wasn't.

PAZ: Yeah, you had to convince everyone to do it. Because everyone was like, I don't think that's a great idea. I feel bad for those poor WindClan cats who just... they just had a horrible two months, and now this bullshit.

JULIAN: Well, and like Tigerclaw is, for once, worst person you know just made a great point.

PAZ: Exactly.

JULIAN: He's like, yeah, this is gonna solidify RiverClan and ShadowClan's alliance. And he's right, it will.

PAZ: Yeah. This is the worst thing that has come out of Fireheart's lack of brains by far. And he seems like he doesn't have any lingering guilt about it.

LIZ: No.

JULIAN: Yeah, Graystripe is like, tore up about this. And Fireheart is just like, Why doesn't he want to eat with me?

LIZ: Isn't there that part in like, that part where he's like, aw Graystripe doesn't want to hang out. Oh, well.

PAZ: Yeah, I mean, I think I think Graystripe's having the appropriate emotional reaction. But I don't know why he's the only one having that reaction.

JULIAN: Yeah, I am still unclear on like, when it's okay to kill another cat. Um.

PAZ: Yeah, it's very, extremely unclear. Because I really feel like people die all the time. But then it's like, we're sad when people die. Also, sometimes maybe it's dishonorable? Question mark?

LIZ: They say like that it's just a border dispute, which is why like, the murder was, I guess, like, too much, but it seems like all of their disputes are border disputes.

JULIAN: Like what else do they dispute about?

LIZ: Yeah, what?

PAZ: I don't know. Maybe there are periods of active warfare. I don't know.

JULIAN: Yeah, like maybe it's okay to kill another cat like, if they're in your camp or something.

PAZ: Yeah. Or like they stole your children.

JULIAN: Yeah, I remember-- in Warrior Cats roleplay, we would like schedule battles. And I'm trying to remember whether that is based on the books or just useful for RP scheduling purposes.

PAZ: Yeah, I don't really remember from later books. So I can't really say. But I do like how this whole situation sets up like Sandpaw's changing thoughts on Fireheart. Like, her appearances in the rest of these chapters is her being like, very, like, shaken that she almost died and also like, seeming to be thinking thoughts about Fireheart, so.

JULIAN: Yeah, it's very like... you can tell that she's sort of thinking about like, Oh, you know, damn, kittypet did save me.

PAZ: Have I been wrong? Who knows. I do still feel-- damn. Dustpaw and Sandpaw have it bad, though. They're still apprentices and fucking Fireheart and Graystripe are getting their apprentices. Can you imagine sharing the apprentice den with these little tiny babies?

JULIAN: With these babies that are like, technically still too young.

PAZ: I hope they become warriors soon. They don't deserve this.

LIZ: I don't know. You'd think that since Fireheart and Dust-- nope, Graystripe are getting apprentices so early, that Bluestar would also make the other apprentices warriors by now too, just like, gotta keep moving.

PAZ: Right? She's like, we need more warriors. I'm just gonna make these babies apprentices and not promote these older cats for some reason.

LIZ: Who have seen battle.

JULIAN: Right? They're also like, at this point, they're like super seniors.

PAZ: Yeah, I assume they're at least a couple months older than like, Graystripe and Fireheart.

JULIAN: Just like, oh, yeah, I'm gonna keep taking classes.

PAZ: This is so sad.

JULIAN: I was really happy to see that there was some sort of like criteria to become a mentor, because Bluestar says that Runningwind would make a bad one. So at least they are thinking about it a little bit.

PAZ: I think her judgment is off because she decided Tigerclaw would make a good mentor, but I guess, at least there are considerations. Yeah, the other thing from the beginning of this chapter is I know we said we'd keep a Fireheart/Onewhisker alert out. Yes, here it is. "Fireheart meowed a quiet farewell to Onewhisker as he passed. Onewhisker glanced briefly at him and walked on."

JULIAN: Damn.

PAZ: It's there. It's real.

JULIAN: Oh my god.

LIZ: This is all those posts about tender yearning, you know.

PAZ: Exactly.

LIZ: It's about glances... and they don't have hands, so paws.

PAZ: The nose touches. The tail touches at their annual ball dance.

JULIAN: The jellicle ball.

PAZ: But yes.

JULIAN: God-- oh sorry. One more Bluestar thing. Um, she does tell Fireheart to pass on everything that she taught him. And I just have a note that's like, you didn't teach him shit.

PAZ: Right? There was something-- like there was like a part in like, a later scene with Fireheart and Cinderpaw that implied she did more than one thing with him. Because it said something about like, Bluestar teaching him about owls. But I'm like, when in the world did this happen? This did not happen. They had one fight.

LIZ: Is it just like... is it like a retcon to imply that like more time passed than we saw?

PAZ: Yeah, maybe?

LIZ: Or I guess so. It just would have been nice to see like, if not just one, maybe two or three, and then you can just say it kept happening. I don't know.

PAZ: Right?

JULIAN: Yeah.

PAZ: It really felt like it was only one. But yeah, but speaking of time passing and timelines, I was trying to figure out the timeline for like, how long they were actually warriors before getting apprentices. I think it was like three days, because--

LIZ: Oh my God.

PAZ: Because, right? So they became like, apprentices after-- they became warriors after their vigil. And I think it was the day after that that Bluestar's like okay, you gotta go find-- I don't know. When was the Gathering?

JULIAN: Let's see. Pull up my ebook.

PAZ: I forgot there was a Gathering in between. Maybe it's like five days.

LIZ: Well, how long did the WindClan retrieval take?

JULIAN: I feel like three days, I think?

PAZ: That was like two days.

JULIAN: Two or three?

PAZ: They slept two nights. They slept a night before finding WindClan and then they slept a night on the way back with WindClan. So yeah, I guess it was like three days.

JULIAN: Yeah, they sleep a night on the way back, and then they come back, go through RiverClan, go back to ThunderClan. And then that night they get apprentices. I think the Erins are really relying on the fact that children have no idea what timelines are.

PAZ: Okay, so, checking back to the beginning, it appears there was the day after they became warriors. And then the following day was the Gathering. So that's like two days. And I think it was the day after the Gathering that Bluestar is like, Okay, you got to go on this journey. So that's like another day. And then there's the day of the journey. They sleep. Day of finding WindClan, coming back. They sleep. Then they're back. So that's six days, I think.

JULIAN: What are we at? A week?

PAZ: I totally was not counting. Yeah, like a week, about.

JULIAN: Oh, you know.

LIZ: Oh my god.

JULIAN: They are cats. A week is a long time if you're a cat and have no real sense of short term memory.

PAZ: I guess.

LIZ: What's a week for a cat?

PAZ: But I mean, cats don't live like-- cats can live until they're like, 20. They don't... I mean, not outdoor cats, I guess. But it's not like they only live to be like five years old. I feel like it should be at least a month.

LIZ: What's a week to a cat? Like, a month?

PAZ: I don't know.

LIZ: Two weeks? Three weeks.

JULIAN: I'm googling cat sense of time. But I don't know. That might be a rabbit hole we can't fall down.

PAZ: I feel like cats don't... Cats wouldn't have a concept of days, though. Because they just sleep whenever.

JULIAN: Yeah.

LIZ: I mean, not these cats.

JULIAN: I mean, pet cats have a really good sense of time because like, they do get onto a...

PAZ: Yeah, they know when they get food.

JULIAN: Right. They get on to a rhythm. And if their rhythm gets disrupted, they get very upset.

LIZ: Yeah, they have to have their breakfast at 5am.

PAZ: And they have to run around the house at 3am. Very strict schedule. Well, anyway, yeah. Timeline is weird, but they get their apprentices. I couldn't remember any cat named Bracken-something. I feel like maybe there was like a Brackentail. But I'm like, I don't know. I don't know if this guy's gonna make it.

LIZ: Maybe he's destined to just be like--

PAZ: Pouring one out.

LIZ: -- inoffensive side character.

PAZ: Yeah, that might be the case.

LIZ: That's the life you want. You don't want to be like a fucking Firepaw. Look at that shit he's going through.

PAZ: I didn't look it up because I'm like, I'll just see.

JULIAN: I did look it up and spoiled myself, but I will not spoil y'all.

PAZ: I know what happens to the other two apprentices so far in this book, which is why I'm like who the fuck are you, Brackenpaw? I don't know him.

JULIAN: I mean, in his defense. Well, not in his defense. He hasn't really established much of a personality yet.

PAZ: I know.

JULIAN: You know, sometimes you're the quiet sibling, and your sister is real boisterous.

PAZ: Yeah, is their other sibling Swiftpaw? Or like, am I getting confused?

JULIAN: I thought it was just Brackenpaw and Cinderpaw. I didn't think there were...

PAZ: Was Swiftpaw a different litter? Maybe. Because that was the one who got promoted to apprentice at the beginning of this book.

JULIAN: Oh.

PAZ: Or wait, at the end of last book? I don't know. Recently.

JULIAN: Um, yeah, no, Swiftpaw is a different...

PAZ: Okay. That makes sense. Cause he's older.

JULIAN: Yeah. Different litter. The stuff with Cinderpaw is very cute.

PAZ: It's so cute.

LIZ: It is.

PAZ: But I'm also like, Oh, God, don't go to Snake Hell please. Listen to the adult.

LIZ: She got so close to Snake Hell like immediately.

PAZ: Cinderpaw needs to be on like a child leash.

LIZ: Uh-huh.

JULIAN: I am a little bit like, watching Fireheart mentor her is very much like when you have a teen babysitter take like a bunch of children to a pool. Or like to the zoo. It was just like, Oh, this was a mistake. You all need an adult.

LIZ: Bluestar, why did you do this?

PAZ: Right? Once again, worst person you know makes a good point. I think Tigerclaw was right when he was like, they're too young to have apprentices.

JULIAN: Fireheart like fully does not know what he's doing. He's just like, uh, I'm gonna take you around. We're gonna go to the Thunderpath. That sounds like fun.

PAZ: Yeah, no one gave him the like, teacher's manual.

LIZ: No, he's not certified. He's a teen boy.

JULIAN: Fireheart, your union contract.

PAZ: This is really just like in high school when you have a, like, junior college student come in and be like the assistant teacher for their like college credit courses. And it's, like, so obvious to you as a senior. It's like, Oh, wait, we're actually pretty close in age. What are you doing here?

LIZ: Don't worry. Cinderpaw [inaudible]

JULIAN: I fully respect Graystripe wanting to be alone and not be near Fireheart right now because Fireheart does not seem to understand that he did anything wrong. I also think that he should have stuck with Fireheart because two adults and two children is much more manageable than one adult and one child. Especially when one of the children is like... like if you have a rambunctious child and like a very calm child, that's much better than one rambunctious child.

LIZ: Graystripe even says so, right?

PAZ: Mm-hmm. But Graystripe is having a crisis so I'll excuse him.

JULIAN: God. And then Fireheart is like, well, I'm just gonna ditch my apprentice with you for a day. Is that chill?

LIZ: Yeah, like the second day.

PAZ: Ah, God. I gotta say though, all the internal thoughts about family Fireheart has in these set of chapters is very good.

JULIAN: Yeah.

PAZ: There's just so much more internal life than in the first book. It's like, it's very noticeable.

LIZ: Yeah. He's really going through like-- he has not become dad, but he thinks he is. Like, he's looking at Cinderpaw like, Oh, God. Oh, God, what do I do? Oh, god, no, no, she's going to Snake Hell. Wait, come back. Oh, my God, children. So he's also like, just a young guy. But it's very funny.

PAZ: Yeah. And his like, anger and worry about being a former kittypet continues to be like, a thread running through this. Which is... I don't know, it's just good to see that they're keeping that like personality trait consistent in this book.

JULIAN: Yeah. And like the tension between like, found family versus birth family is like, nice to see explored here.

PAZ: Yeah. And like how he feels like he's-- even though he really likes his found family, how he still feels alienated because, I mean, like, they still see him differently.

JULIAN: Yeah. And like, even through that, you know, there's a bit where he's like, yeah, you know, I do wonder if I would have closeness with my birth family. But also I know that like, you know, the closeness that Princess has with her siblings who she sees occasionally is not the same as like, the closeness that the cats in the clan have.

PAZ: Yeah, he like, thinks some thoughts about like, you know, would my life have been different? Like, what am I missing?

LIZ: And he still does feel like, like that level of remove, and he's like, lonely. Like, damn, I wish I had someone who knew exactly like where I was coming from and had the same experiences.

JULIAN: Yeah, that moment where they both-- like he and Princess talk about like, the bedding that their mom had when they were kits is really sweet and like, poignant.

PAZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: Because he doesn't have anyone in the clan who remembers how he grew up.

PAZ: And like, what they think of his childhood is just like, really mean to kittpets because they're all xenophobic. So he can't even really talk about it I think is one of the points. Like he can't tell anyone like he saw his sister or anything. And it stresses him out and it's just, yeah.

JULIAN: Also the bit where he doesn't remember her name is awful.

LIZ: Oh, yeah, that was bad.

PAZ: Aw, I know.

JULIAN: Like, initially, he can't remember it and he's like, Oh, I'm Rusty. And then like, finally does remember it but like, it takes him a bit and that's just like, ah. Aw, buddy.

LIZ: Aw.

PAZ: I hope he finds, you know, something where he feels like he can be his whole self. I also got to say, Rusty, do you think your balls really would have been stolen? Because apparently nobody spays or neuters their cats here. Because your sister's just pregnant. She obviously didn't go get the-- what the fuck.

JULIAN: The snip?

PAZ: The cut. Think he might have had balls still.

JULIAN: Like she's pregnant, which clearly means that like A, she didn't get neutered and also, like, whatever cat is the father didn't get neutered either.

PAZ: What is up with this neighborhood?

LIZ: Did you catch the part where-- I mean, like, she says that all the siblings are still kind of nearby too. So do like-- I just want to know if a cat gets pregnant in this neighborhood, do they just distribute the kittens to neighbors, or do they just keep all of them? Cause I know that happens but that can't be regular.

PAZ: When our cat Maria kept having kittens before we could get her to the vet, we would just post free kittens sign. People would come and check out the kittens. I don't know. But it wasn't just like our immediate neighbors.

LIZ: No.

PAZ: No, not at all.

JULIAN: The HOA where it's like, to live in this neighborhood, you must accept every fucking six months or whatever.

PAZ: Oh god. Yeah okay, so let's go through our list of kittypets so far. Princess, wasn't fixed. Their mom, Nutmeg, obviously wasn't fixed. Jake, still had his balls because he fathered children at some point. I guess Henry is the only one we got confirmed to...

JULIAN: Smudge. Smudge got neutered.

PAZ: Oh, yes. Smudge got neutered. Okay. I don't know.

LIZ: So two out of like, what? Six, seven? Probably more.

PAZ: Yeah. I don't know. I don't know what's going on here.

LIZ: They're really just lax about it over in England, huh.

JULIAN: I mean, is it England or is it just this book?

LIZ: Is it just this one neighborhood in England? Like oh yeah, that's cat city.

JULIAN: That's cat hell.

PAZ: Maybe it's some sort of weird hippie community.

JULIAN: You know what, maybe that's why all the Twolegs they run into are so awful to the cats because it's like you know...

PAZ: Oh, it's just overrun.

JULIAN: The neighbors are really nice, but like anyone who comes and visits this park is like, oh fuck. It's the fucking cats again. It's all the horrible cats.

LIZ: It's like that one island they always talk about on clickbait articles that's like, oh yeah, this is the city of cats. And they're just everywhere.

PAZ: Oh, the one in Japan? Or near Japan.

LIZ: God, yeah.

JULIAN: I want to read a Warriors book set with the feral cat colonies that live in the Colosseum. That's all I want.

LIZ: Yeah.

PAZ: Oh fuck yeah. They'd all be Italian. Cat mafia.

LIZ: The Meowdessy.

JULIAN: You already have a clan structure.

LIZ: The Kittyad.

PAZ: On the day of my daughter's naming ceremony. But to go back to that point about Fireheart's character exploration in this segment, like the second to last sentence in these sort of chapters was just really nice. It was just a good sentence. It was, "He had found the closeness he had missed, but it had given shape to a sense of loneliness that until now had lain vague and nameless in his heart."

JULIAN: Aw buddy.

LIZ: Aw.

PAZ: That was a good little sentence and evocative of a feeling. And just wanna give him a little hug.

LIZ: He's just a little guy.

JULIAN: He's just a little guy.

PAZ: He's a little guy, but also now a responsible teacher.

JULIAN: He's a little guy and he's also a father.

PAZ: And an accessory to murder.

JULIAN: I mean, manslaughter. Graystripe didn't mean to kill him. It wasn't premeditated.

PAZ: Yeah, sorry, Graystripe.

LIZ: Has Firepaw killed anyone yet? Fireheart, sorry.

PAZ: No.

LIZ: I don't think so.

PAZ: He wanted to kill that one ShadowClan cat but then I think Whitestorm was like, no, we do not kill, apparently.

LIZ: The emphasis on it, and I mean, the emphasis on Whiteclaw dying and like the almost murder from the last ep, I wonder if it's gonna come to a head at like the finale of this book.

PAZ: Yeah, maybe. I just... I know in later books cats die so much, but murder seems to be like... so far the only like onscreen murder slash manslaughter we've seen is Oakheart. Is that the guy? I don't know. That RiverClan cat who got killed by Redtail. And then all of Tigerclaw's murder victims, but that was obviously evil. And then there's accidental death. But I know these cats are killing each other in later books. So I don't know. Maybe it's just like a change that happens.

JULIAN: I feel like there is some-- there is like a shift. But I don't remember when it happens.

PAZ: Yeah, I'll be curious to see if it happens like within the first series, or if that only really starts happening like, second series onwards.

JULIAN: There's definitely murders in the first series.

PAZ: Okay.

JULIAN: Unless I'm misremembering what happens in the first series.

PAZ: No, I mean, there's like murders. I know there's murders of like the other evil group. But I'm talking like interclan murders.

JULIAN: Oh, gotcha.

LIZ: What other evil group? Hold on. Wait.

PAZ: Don't worry about it.

LIZ: Okay, sure.

PAZ: We'll get there.

LIZ: Hmm.

PAZ: Yeah, I don't know. We'll see.

JULIAN: Yeah, there have so far been no war crimes, I would say. At least in these chapters. I think this book has also been pretty low war crime.

PAZ: Yeah, I feel like the war crimes might be coming up, though.

JULIAN: Yeah, I probably shouldn't call it. We're only on chapter 10.

PAZ: Yeah, I think we're gearing up for war crimes.

JULIAN: I guess hunting on WindClan's territory after driving them out could probably be construed as a war crime.

PAZ: Yeah. Breaking treaty, breaking word also. So there were war crimes. Couldn't go 10 chapters without some war crimes.

LIZ: Well, it is Warrior Cats. Not like non Warrior Cats. I think I've made this joke but better before. These are some fighting cats.

JULIAN: Cat fight.

PAZ: They sure are. I don't know. I don't have anything else really for these chapters. I don't-- does anyone else?

JULIAN: Yeah, I don't either.

LIZ: As a note, I think it's very funny that in like these chapters Tigerclaw he's being put on like, the sensible side of the argument or whatever. Yeah. It's just like, he's just acting normal guy now, but he's still evil.

PAZ: Yeah. He was so normal guy these chapters, noticeably.

LIZ: It's very funny.

JULIAN: Yeah, I feel like it's like trying to set us up for like, a twist when he goes mask off again. But.

LIZ: But what if he does-- what if he does just become normal? He's like, Oh, yeah, Vice President. This is good enough. I'm retiring my evil ways. I'm still mean, but from now on, I'm just going to be critiquing your teaching style.

JULIAN: Which frankly, needs it.

PAZ: Fireheart, have you considered murdering your apprentice as a motivator?

JULIAN: Oh.

LIZ: Oh, no? Well, have you considered taking notes?

JULIAN: Fireheart, have you thought about taking some continuing education classes? Some workshops?

LIZ: Night classes.

JULIAN: Personal development? Professional development?

PAZ: Needs to get his education certificate.

JULIAN: Yeah. Fireheart, where's your MA?

LIZ: You know, Fireheart, they have some courses on LinkedIn that you can take. About seven hours each. You get a little certificate at the end. That's how I got mine.

JULIAN: Fireheart learns to code. Fireheart goes to boot camp. Comes out with a Udemy badge.

LIZ: Are we good for these chapters?

PAZ: Yeah, I think we're good.

JULIAN: Yeah.

PAZ: It was only three chapters. And it was a lot of like, internal stuff.

JULIAN: Right, they're a lot less eventful than the last ones.

LIZ: Everyone's very sad.

PAZ: Yeah. Yeah.

[meow]

So, in honor of meeting Princess these chapters, I decided maybe we should look at all of the canonical kittypet names and rate them and see what the kittypet names got going on, because I think we were pretty positive on Nutmeg last week.

LIZ: Oh, yeah.

PAZ: So we're gotta see if there's more where that came from. So I'm pulling up the list of canon kittypets on the Warriors wiki. Okay, I'm just gonna go down them and we can give our thoughts. How about that?

JULIAN: Sounds good.

LIZ: All right.

PAZ: So the first that we have is Algernon? Is that how you say that? Al-grr-non?

JULIAN: Al-jer-non, yep.

PAZ: And Bess. How are we feeling about that?

JULIAN: I like them, but only as a duo. Like you got to have Algernon and Bess. They really play off each other.

PAZ: Yeah, I agree.

LIZ: They sound like a separate pirate duo in Black Sails.

PAZ: Yeah, I agree. They have to be a pair. Okay, next we have Hal.

JULIAN: Eh.

PAZ: Pretty boring.

LIZ: Yeah.

PAZ: Pixie.

JULIAN: Very good.

PAZ: Eh. Yeah, I think it depends on the cat. I have to visualize this cat.

JULIAN: That's true. This is a fluffy white she cat, which is like a less good-- I hear Pixie and I'm biased by our friend Erin's very good cat who is a little tabby freak.

LIZ: Pixie should be a freak.

JULIAN: And this doesn't... this cat does not sound like a freak.

PAZ: No. Freaks only. Okay, the next cat is Red.

JULIAN: Eh.

PAZ: Uh, it's okay, I guess.

LIZ: We've got a good ginger cat already. And Fireheart really got the protagonist name thing down.

PAZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: Yeah.

PAZ: Okay. Next cat is Marmalade.

JULIAN: Excellent.

LIZ: 10 out of 10.

PAZ: This is fantastic. He is described as a large ginger tom.

JULIAN: Yes.

PAZ: I am a huge fan of this name. Then we got Jay.

JULIAN: Eh.

PAZ: It's okay.

LIZ: It's all right.

PAZ: I do like-- a very old black and white she cat. I'm just picturing Chloe.

JULIAN: Oh.

LIZ: Yeah.

PAZ: Then we have Jake. I feel like we already discussed his name, but I'll just reiterate. I love when a cat is just named a guy.

JULIAN: Just a human man.

PAZ: Then we have Twig.

JULIAN: Very good.

PAZ: That's pretty good. I like the energy that brings. Then we have another duo. It's Cherry and Boris.

LIZ: Very good together.

PAZ: I love Boris so much.

JULIAN: That's another human man name.

PAZ: Right? It just sounds like some Russian, old Russian man. I don't know.

JULIAN: Who is out here naming their cat Boris? I love it.

PAZ: I don't know but they chose right.

LIZ: I mean--

PAZ: Um-- yeah, go ahead.

LIZ: No. Our good friend does have a cat named Putin. Short for, if I'm remembering correctly, Rasputin, so.

JULIAN: Yes.

PAZ: Exactly. Then we have Echo. That's okay, I guess.

LIZ: Nice Friends at the Table reference.

JULIAN: Next cat name is Fourteen Fifteen.

PAZ: No, if only. Hutch. I don't know.

JULIAN: It really depends on the cat.

PAZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: I feel like.

PAZ: It's original, I guess.

LIZ: Yeah.

PAZ: I'll give it points for that.

JULIAN: "Hutch is a dark brown tabby tom with amber eyes and hard paw pads." Why do we know that his paw pads are hard?

PAZ: Oh no.

LIZ: You mush them.

PAZ: How am I gonna squeeze his beans?

JULIAN: Give him some coconut oil.

PAZ: Okay, our next cat is Oscar. Once again, love just a normal human man name.

LIZ: I know I shouldn't be looking at the descriptions of these cause they're probably really spoilery.

PAZ: Yeah, don't do that. Stop.

LIZ: But this one's really funny. I won't remember it by then.

PAZ: Okay, you can read it.

LIZ: But if anyone's worried about spoilers, cover your ears. This says, "an unknowing descendent of SkyClan who chooses not to live in SkyClan because he believes clan ideas are stupid."

PAZ: I agree with Oscar.

JULIAN: That's a real Oscar-- Oscar would.

PAZ: Classic Oscar. Okay, the next cat is Bella. It's boring, I guess. I don't know. Another duo, Rose and Lily.

JULIAN: It's fine. It doesn't have the same energy as our previous duos.

LIZ: No.

PAZ: No, I don't... they're not bringing the same heat. I guess at least they have a theme, which is flowers.

LIZ: I want these to be like really out there cats, if it has to work, like real fancy or really evil.

JULIAN: Yeah, I just want like a cat with a flower name that's like really fucking-- like, where's my cat named Hydrangea?

LIZ: Yeah.

PAZ: Fuck yeah. Okay, next cat is Hattie. Feel like that's cute.

LIZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: Yeah.

PAZ: Sounds like it should be like a little, little old cat. Next cat is Velvet.

LIZ: Very decadent.

PAZ: Yeah, just makes me think of the Velveteen Rabbit.

LIZ: Aw.

PAZ: Which I guess is a vibe. I don't know. Okay, then we have Benny.

LIZ: That's cute.

PAZ: It's pretty good. It's not as good as the other man names but it's cute. Then we have Brandy.

JULIAN: Brandy feels like such a 90s name to name your cat.

LIZ: Yeah. Like you're definitely thinking of like Brandi, capital B Brandi, right?

JULIAN: Oh, yes.

LIZ: I guess these did come out around that time.

JULIAN: Like that cat needs to bring that energy.

LIZ: This is a cat with a rhinestone collar.

PAZ: I think the name is better conjunction when you see that his sibling is Minty.

LIZ: Aw.

JULIAN: Oh, that's good.

PAZ: I think that's a good pair of names. So another one where I think a duo really brings out that energy.

JULIAN: The next one is also a duo. Or like, half a duo.

PAZ: Yeah. So it's Frankie. And then Jesse.

LIZ: Very cute.

PAZ: Those are just like, those are solid names. (laughing) The next cat is O'Hara.

JULIAN: Oh boy.

LIZ: Uh.

JULIAN: Bad, but it's not her fault.

PAZ: Yeah.

LIZ: No.

PAZ: Oh, God. Okay, next name is Parsnip.

JULIAN: Excellent.

PAZ: I love that.

LIZ: 10 out of 10.

PAZ: This is a perfect cat name.

LIZ: Wow.

PAZ: I'm gonna keep it in mind for future cats, I think. It's powerful.

LIZ: I think Parsnip should have like a little vegetable clan and it should just be like, here's my deputy Carrots. Here's my other deputy, Rutabaga. And my [laughs] I don't know, my apprentices, like, Cabbage and... I'm running out of vegetables.

JULIAN: Peapod.

LIZ: Potato. Peapod, yeah.

PAZ: Polly. Eh.

JULIAN: I like Polly, but I think I'm mostly biased toward it because it's my grandma's name. So I'm just envisioning like a very like old, cheerful cat.

PAZ: That would be good. Then we have Riga, I guess? It's unique.

JULIAN: Yeah.

LIZ: It's probably a person name or something?

PAZ: Yeah, I don't know.

JULIAN: I think it's a person name.

PAZ: Points for not being a common name. Scarlett.

LIZ: No. Hold on a second. Are Scarlett and O'Hara a duo?

PAZ: Oh, no.

JULIAN: Oh, I'm very afraid that they might be.

LIZ: I don't like that. No.

PAZ: They both live in the same place apparently.

JULIAN: Nooo.

LIZ: Bad.

JULIAN: Hate it.

LIZ: Not their fault. But bad.

PAZ: No, but I'm looking at Scarlett's wiki page. It doesn't mention O'Hara anywhere, so. Maybe not.

JULIAN: That might be an Erin Hunter badness.

LIZ: Oh, no. Okay, wait. It says they're hostile. [laughs]

JULIAN: Well, then the name is perfect.

PAZ: Yeah, I don't think they're together. They live in the same neighborhood. I think that's about it. Thank God. Okay, then we have Victor.

JULIAN: Excellent.

PAZ: That's powerful.

LIZ: Mm-hmm.

JULIAN: Oh.

PAZ: Then we have Webster.

JULIAN: Yes.

PAZ: I like-- I love that.

LIZ: Yes.

PAZ: That's a little, like, nerd cat.

LIZ: With glasses.

PAZ: Exactly. Then we have Ziggy. That's also cute.

JULIAN: I think the four here are just really good kind of in conjunction, where it's like Victor, Webster, and Ziggy.

PAZ: Yeah, that's a great combo. That's a little like, YA friend group.

LIZ: They all sound like, like in that book, they would be the little nerd group that's going to go on like some sort of robotics competition thing. And it's about friendship.

PAZ: Exactly.

LIZ: And accepting who you are.

PAZ: The next name is Betsy.

JULIAN: Cute.

PAZ: It's a good name for an old cat. Gonna skip some of these names. Max. Eh.

LIZ: Can we go back to one? Just one because it's--

PAZ: No, we gotta skip them.

LIZ: Aw, but the one before that is so...

JULIAN: It's really good.

PAZ: Okay, I don't think that counts as a real kittypet name.

JULIAN: This was clearly not chosen by a human but Harveymoon.

LIZ: Can we give it a shout out?

PAZ: Harvest Moon sequel, Harveymoon.

JULIAN: Is that what they're calling it now that they can't use the Harvest Moon trademark anymore?

PAZ: Yeah.

LIZ: Harveymoon, friend of Susanclaw.

JULIAN: Now I'm gonna be imagining them as an elderly couple.

PAZ: That's perfect.

LIZ: Oh my god.

PAZ: Okay, um, Ajax.

JULIAN: Excellent, real powerful name.

LIZ: Mm-hmm.

PAZ: That just reminds me of dogs because I read a book about a half-dog half-dingo named Ajax, but that's my own bias.

JULIAN: Can I just read his description real quick?

PAZ: Yes.

JULIAN: "Ajax is a kittypet and friend of Rose and Fuzzball."

LIZ: Aw.

PAZ: Yeah, I was waiting to get to Fuzzball on this list to rate that, but Fuzzball is a 10 out of 10 also.

LIZ: All three of those together are just... what a wonderful friend group. Powerful.

PAZ: Then we have Pickle.

LIZ: Beautiful.

PAZ: Perfect.

JULIAN: He has a squashed in face.

PAZ: Aw, Pickle. Imagine Pickle and... what was it? I've already forgotten it. Yes, Pickle and Parsnip together. Imagine that.

JULIAN: Oh yes.

LIZ: Oh, yeah.

PAZ: Yeah. Powerful.

LIZ: Wait, wait, wait. Do you think Pickle used to be Cucumber when he was younger and then as he aged he became Pickle?

PAZ: God.

JULIAN: Aw.

PAZ: Then we have Yew.

LIZ: Oh, me?

[laughter]

PAZ: Yep. Then we have Bumble.

LIZ: Beautiful.

JULIAN: That's very good.

PAZ: I like to picture this as the cats, you know, with like the balance like condition.

JULIAN: Oh yeah.

PAZ: Where they wobble.

LIZ: Aw.

PAZ: Yeah, it'd be a cute name.

JULIAN: I do think it's a cute name. I do think about the dating app unfortunately.

PAZ: Oh no.

JULIAN: But it's fine.

PAZ: I forgot that existed. Um, there is a cat just called Tom.

LIZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: Good.

PAZ: Here's Tom's description. "He is hostile to every cat he meets and is a mean bully."

JULIAN: Good for him.

LIZ: So this is an old man.

PAZ: Who wrote this? Then we have a cat, Flower. Eh.

JULIAN: Eh.

PAZ: I don't know about--

JULIAN: She is said to be frightened by strange cats.

PAZ: Who isn't?

JULIAN: So I'm picturing a very skittish creature.

PAZ: Yeah. Um, we got our boy Rusty. I think that was a pretty good name, but could be better.

LIZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: Yeah.

PAZ: Yeah. Then we have Smudge. I think Smudge is a cute name.

JULIAN: Smudge is very good.

PAZ: We have Princess.

JULIAN: Eh.

LIZ: Classic.

PAZ: That name didn't do much for me.

LIZ: In context, it's very good.

PAZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: Right, when you know that Princess is the daughter of Jake and Nutmeg.

LIZ: Yeah.

PAZ: Yeah. Um, then we have Henry.

LIZ: The best.

PAZ: We love Henry. Henry is 11 out of 10. Fantastic.

LIZ: I'm looking at Henry's page wondering if there have been any hot Henry updates.

PAZ: No, I think we already established this.

LIZ: There's a pretty good image of him. He doesn't look as big as I imagined him, though.

PAZ: Yeah, it's like the stock Warriors wiki for kittypets.

LIZ: Aw.

JULIAN: I want him to be like a real chongus.

LIZ: Yeah.

PAZ: Okay, moving on. We got Purdy. I think that's a great name.

LIZ: Mm-hmm.

JULIAN: Mm-hmm.

PAZ: Cody.

LIZ: That's just a boy. That's just a guy. A lad.

JULIAN: Cody feels like a dog name to me.

PAZ: Yeah.

LIZ: Yeah.

PAZ: Yeah, if you told me there was an animal named Cody, I think I would assume a dog. Then we have Sasha.

JULIAN: Cute.

PAZ: It's okay.

LIZ: Also feels like a dog name, but like a sort of big furry one.

PAZ: Yeah, kind of.

JULIAN: Mm, I can see that.

PAZ: Then we have another duo. Jacques and Susan.

JULIAN: Perfect.

LIZ: Yes.

JULIAN: Yes.

LIZ: Oh my god.

PAZ: Jacques is such a good cat name.

JULIAN: Yeah.

LIZ: And with Susan, though, that's like...

JULIAN: Yeah. I'm picturing like, you know how kids cartoons have like, sometimes just a very stereotypical French character.

LIZ: Yeah.

PAZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: I'm picturing like a little cartoon where it's like, I'm Jacques. (high-pitched creaky voice) And I'm Susan.

PAZ: Yeah, Jacques has a little beret on.

JULIAN: Yeah, he's all stripey.

LIZ: I've seen this and it's the cooking show that Jacques Pepin had with Julia Child. This is just what it is.

JULIAN: Perfect.

PAZ: We have, um, Jingo. I have to say, don't name your cat that.

LIZ: Mm-mm.

JULIAN: Yeah, I think the cat right after is also bad.

PAZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: It's like Jingo and Huss-er. Or Hussar. I don't actually know how to pronounce that word.

PAZ: Yeah.

LIZ: Bad.

PAZ: Yeah, it's like a cavalry person. Really leaning on that theme. Then we have Snowdrop.

JULIAN: Perfect.

LIZ: Cute.

PAZ: I think for a little kitten, that would be a very cute name. We have Jigsaw.

[laughter]

Yeah?

LIZ: I love puzzles. That's the only reason I'm laughing.

JULIAN: I think it's a very good cat name.

PAZ: Yeah. Is Seville how you pronounce this next one?

JULIAN: I think so.

LIZ: Yeah, like with the oranges?

JULIAN: Yeah.

LIZ: Seville oranges.

JULIAN: Unless you're being super like, "suh-veal" or "suh-vee" or something. But like I don't think anyone...

PAZ: No.

JULIAN: That's like people who say "cwossan."

LIZ: Oh god, can I get another read on that? That was very good.

JULIAN: You want me to...? "Cwossan."

LIZ: Name a cat that.

JULIAN: But you have to say it exactly like that.

PAZ: Uh-huh. Next up we have Bob.

JULIAN: Good.

PAZ: 10 out of 10. Fantastic. Then we have Zelda.

LIZ: Great cat name.

JULIAN: Can I just read this list of like the next like three or four, kind of all in conjunction?

PAZ: Yeah, go ahead.

JULIAN: So we have Bob, Zelda, Max, and Loki.

PAZ: Wow.

JULIAN: Just a real--

PAZ: One for the Marvel fans there.

JULIAN: That's another YA book friend group.

LIZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: You have Zelda, your sort of token girl. And then Loki, who clearly chose their own name.

PAZ: Loki's just LARPing. I think we already rated the next two, which is Velvet and Fuzzball.

JULIAN: Fuzzball is still so good.

PAZ: Fuzzball's still fantastic. Okay, everyone brace yourself for the next two. It's Eggs and Bacon.

LIZ: Perfect.

JULIAN: Yes.

LIZ: Best ones.

PAZ: And Eggs and Bacon are the sons of Pancakes.

LIZ: Oh my god, they're siblings. Of course they are.

PAZ: This is 100% the best names on this list.

LIZ: Pancakes, you've done it.

JULIAN: Pack it up. What else can we do?

LIZ: We can't go on.

PAZ: It's so good.

LIZ: Fuck.

PAZ: Oh my god. Okay, um, we got Millie... eh.

JULIAN: Eh.

PAZ: Also, Liz, don't look at these descriptions. I'm covering your eyes.

LIZ: Okay, can I-- I'm covering the half that has the descriptions and I'm just looking at the names.

PAZ: Uh-huh.

LIZ: These... these mostly look like people names going forward.

PAZ: Yeah, yeah. We got Millie, Duke, Ruby, and Socks. I think Socks is cute.

LIZ: Socks is cute.

PAZ: Socks is a classic.

LIZ: Yeah.

PAZ: Quince... Okay.

LIZ: So a fruit?

JULIAN: I think it's a fruit.

LIZ: Yeah.

PAZ: You little fruit.

LIZ: Tigerclaw.

PAZ: We have Shnuky.

JULIAN: Oh, that's good.

PAZ: That's a powerful name.

LIZ: Oh, when did that book come out, with the Shnuky in it?

JULIAN: Shnuky's in the mangas.

PAZ: Yeah. Then we have Patch. That's cute.

JULIAN: Cute.

PAZ: Then we have Harry. Once again, that one's just a guy.

JULIAN: Can I just post real quick an image of Shnuky?

PAZ: Yeah, please.

LIZ: Yes.

JULIAN: From the wiki? That may be from the official art. Um, this is not a cat.

LIZ: Wait. Wait a second.

PAZ: Oh my god. That's definitely from the manga.

JULIAN: Yeah.

LIZ: That's a man. Or that's some sort of human.

PAZ: This is a human man who's been cursed to be a hairless cat.

JULIAN: He looks like those paintings.

LIZ: This cat has the eyes of Prince Eric from The Little Mermaid.

JULIAN: The legs are also all wonky. They're like--

PAZ: They look like arms.

JULIAN: I'm like... so I assume this is, because I don't want to make fun of it if this is like a child's fan art.

PAZ: No, I think this is the manga for sure.

JULIAN: Oh god.

LIZ: I think it is. It's got that screen tone.

PAZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: Yeah, I think oh, it does have screen... Yeah, no, this was drawn by an artist. These are human eyes.

PAZ: Yeah, it's kind of scary.

JULIAN: I hate to look at this.

LIZ: They're human eyes and they're begging you to set him free from this cursed form.

JULIAN: God, and the back legs. One knee bends forward like a human's knee. And then the other knee is bending back.

PAZ: God.

LIZ: This is an animorph mid-transformation.

PAZ: Oh god. Okay, we're almost at the end here. Let's get haulin'. Myler.

JULIAN: I... sure?

PAZ: I don't know. I guess.

JULIAN: I don't know how I feel about that.

PAZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: It feels like a... like a Kayleigh. Like a Michaela name.

PAZ: Yeah, I don't know. It's a name, I guess. Um, Crystal? She's just like, a blonde.

LIZ: That's the name of my old boss.

PAZ: I don't know.

JULIAN: Yeah, it's like, the problem with Crystal is that it is a human name. But it doesn't have the same kind of human name energy that like... Susan--

LIZ: Yeah.

PAZ: This is no...

JULIAN: --has because it's also an object.

PAZ: This is no Boris.

JULIAN: Yeah, no, not a Boris at all.

PAZ: We have Violet. It's fine.

JULIAN: Yeah.

PAZ: Riley. Also fine, I guess.

JULIAN: Yeah, Riley's cute I think.

PAZ: Yeah, depending on the cat, I think. Then we have Lulu.

JULIAN: Lulu's very good.

LIZ: Good.

PAZ: That's what my dad calls my cat Loo, whose full name is Waterloo technically.

JULIAN: Aw.

PAZ: Heck yeah.

JULIAN: I didn't know Loo was short for Waterloo. That's really cute.

PAZ: Then we have Madric. I feel like that's something, but I don't know what that is. Okay, googling it just showed me soccer players so I don't know. I guess it's a--

LIZ: This is a jock.

PAZ: Oh my god, this cat's homophobic.

LIZ: What?

PAZ: "He is an antagonistic kittypet who acts hostile towards Ravenpaw and Barley--"

JULIAN: Fuck off, Madric.

PAZ: "--and accuses them of trespassing."

LIZ: Fuck you. Get out of here.

PAZ: Madric's just some fucking straight boy in those like knee length shorts in winter on the football team.

JULIAN: Ravenpaw and Barley don't respect your land borders.

PAZ: No. And then we have Pasha. I don't know why this is the second cat named after historical military officers, but okay.

JULIAN: Isn't Pasha also like a diminutive for like Sasha?

PAZ: Is it?

JULIAN: I thought it was.

PAZ: I believe that, yeah. It probably is. Oh my god. Okay, I just have to read this description. "A dark tabby. He is one of the kittypets tormenting SkyClan."

LIZ: Oh no.

PAZ: Oh god. Okay, that's all the kittypet names.

JULIAN: We did it.

LIZ: I think there's some more.

PAZ: No, I think that's all of them.

LIZ: No, if you click on the-- did we miss Gremlin?

JULIAN: What?

PAZ: Where is this?

JULIAN: Oh, there's-- if we go into List of kittypets, there are more kittypets.

LIZ: Oh my god.

PAZ: Liz, I don't want you to-- stop clicking around. Please.

JULIAN: Here, I opened it up. There's no spoilers on this list. And we don't have to read them all because there are--

PAZ: No, Liz, close the list. I'm holding a gun up.

JULIAN: 155.

LIZ: I'm closing it.

JULIAN: Um, but I just want to call out a couple of really good ones.

PAZ: Yeah, please.

JULIAN: Bigteeth. Bugeater. Buster.

LIZ: They're good.

JULIAN: Cheddar.

PAZ: Oh god.

LIZ: Oh my god.

JULIAN: Oh, we do have a good-- Daffodil.

LIZ: Aw.

PAZ: That's cute. Diesel.

JULIAN: Yeah. Um, Gremlin, as mentioned.

LIZ: Perfect.

JULIAN: We have not only Hal, Harry, Harvey, Hattie, and Henry, all of which are good.

LIZ: Oh my god.

JULIAN: Macgyver. Oh, Miss Mama Cat. Hello?

PAZ: Oh my god. That is incredible.

JULIAN: I must know more. Oh, Miss Mama Cat is a different name for a cat who has a separate name.

PAZ: Oh, yeah. Don't click.

LIZ: Spoilers, huh?

PAZ: Look away from this list.

LIZ: I'm not clicking. I'm not clicking.

PAZ: Holding up the gun.

LIZ: I've exited. Don't worry.

PAZ: Okay.

JULIAN: Um, let's see. Raindrop, very good. Scraps.

PAZ: Aw.

JULIAN: Shanty, Snooky.

PAZ: Tiny.

JULIAN: I can't be fond of Tiny because I know who Tiny is.

PAZ: Oh yeah, fuck, I forgot. Yeah, you're right.

LIZ: Oh, that's very ominous.

PAZ: Yeah. That bitch Tiny.

JULIAN: But apparently there are two Tinys. So maybe I can be fond of one of them.

PAZ: No, it says graphic novel.

JULIAN: Oh, they've listed it twice.

PAZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: They just haven't sanitized this list well. Um, but yeah, there's some good ones on here. I think we-- oh, Little Mew. I missed Little Mew.

PAZ: Aw.

LIZ: More cats should have little titles.

PAZ: I agree.

JULIAN: Yeah.

LIZ: Like imagine if--

JULIAN: Oh.

LIZ: I don't know, Nutmeg was like Miss Nutmeg.

PAZ: Aw, that's very good.

JULIAN: Little Mew is the kit of Husker and Moss and kin to Splash. Their siblings are Pad, Raindrop, and Birdy. And they all live in a barn besides a Twoleg nest.

LIZ: Wow.

PAZ: Aw, that's so cute.

LIZ: They're in their own book. This is some like Beatrix Potter shit.

JULIAN: Oh my god, Little Mew has anime bangs.

PAZ: Oh my god, please. Please please please. Oh my. They're horrible.

LIZ: Oh my god.

PAZ: Little Mew has 90s boy like middle part anime bangs.

LIZ: Little Mew looks exactly like a little boy in Pathologic Classic.

JULIAN: Here's the screentone version of Little Mew so you can see the bangs better.

PAZ: The bangs are colored differently.

LIZ: Little Mew's frosted tips.

JULIAN: Little Mew's center part.

PAZ: Oh God.

JULIAN: Little Mew's Edward Elric haircut.

LIZ: No!

PAZ: It also kinda looks like Yugioh hair.

LIZ: No.

JULIAN: I love the Warriors manga. I love that it exists and that it gave all the cats anime bangs.

LIZ: But not the ones we wanted.

JULIAN: Oh.

PAZ: Okay, well, that's all the kittypet names. I think there's some pretty good ones here.

JULIAN: Yeah.

PAZ: So good job, Erins.

LIZ: 98% good job.

PAZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: Can I share one more art from the manga?

LIZ: Yes.

PAZ: Oh yeah, please.

JULIAN: This is Birdy.

LIZ: Holy shit. What the fuck.

PAZ: Does she have eyeshadow on?

LIZ: What the... who...

JULIAN: I just, I love that for the manga they appear not to have gotten like furry artists or people who were particularly good at drawing cats.

PAZ: No.

JULIAN: They got some like regular manga artists and were like, hey, you're good at shoujo manga, right? Um, can you draw cats? Don't worry. It's just like people.

LIZ: This cat looks like one of those old cats in the Cats musical.

PAZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: This is Grizabella the glamour cat. But this is before she really went downhill. You know? She's got her eyeshadow. She's looking fierce.

PAZ: Uh-huh.

LIZ: This is her in her prime.

PAZ: Yeah. Got her side face fluff styled to perfection.

LIZ: I don't like this expression that the artist has drawn.

PAZ: No.

JULIAN: She looks really vacuous. It's kind of scary.

LIZ: Don't look at me with those big old eyes.

PAZ: Oh gosh. Okay, well, I think that might do it for us. It's been a while. It's been a journey.

LIZ: I think we can agree that there are three really good categories of kittypet names. So there's one, just stuff in the kitchen. Two, just human names. And three, which is just kind of like a cutesy descriptor.

PAZ: Yeah. I agree.

LIZ: Fuzzball, you know, can't top that.

JULIAN: Socks.

LIZ: I think for the new generation of Warrior Cats as a series, if they have more kittypets, there should be cats named Toaster and Tax Return. That seems to be what millennials are doing now, right?

PAZ: No, it's for the children. It has to be like TikTok and, um...

LIZ: This is my cat Fortnite.

PAZ: My cat Fortnite. Exactly.

JULIAN: Name your cat after memes that are like three years old. This is my cat Doge.

PAZ: Oh god.

LIZ: Name your cat Bean Dad now to be already out of date.

PAZ: My cat Milkshake Duck.

LIZ: No.

JULIAN: This is my cat Warrior Cat. I'm sure somewhere there is a cat rescue that is naming their cats after memes.

PAZ: Oh, absolutely.

JULIAN: Ensuring that everyone who adopts the cats will immediately rename them.

PAZ: Mind games. Okay, I'm gonna call it here. Great list, some great names. But we'll be back next week reading chapters 11 through 14. And as always, you can follow the show on Twitter @staircast and send in any questions or anecdotes to [email protected]. I can't remember if there's anything else to plug. Oh, I don't know if I ever mentioned it on the podcast but the episode summaries like written out, I'm linking them in the episode description. If anyone wants to look at that, they're there. Other than that, I think that's it. So until next time, may StarClan light your path. Bye.

JULIAN: Bye.

LIZ: Bye.

[outro music]

Let's podcast. Sorry.

JULIAN: We have to get that MeUndies money.

PAZ: Ugh. MeUndies wishes, but they'll never get us. They won't corner this market.

#transcript #ep 10 #fire and ice ep #fireheart learns to code

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lady-divine-writes · 7 years

Text

Klaine one-shot - “The Heart of the Matter” (Rated PG13)

After graduating high school and marrying the love of his life, Blaine discovers that he needs a heart transplant. But there's a reason he doesn't want his heart removed.

If he doesn't, he will die. But if he does, will that mean losing the man he loves more than life itself? (2965 words)

I had started writing the premise for this a while ago, but stopped when @sunshineoptimismandangels wrote her amazing fic "Soulmate Script", which I think eclipses this one by far. It's much more fleshed out, more adorable than angsty, and who doesn't like adorable Klaine? This is a bit more personal on my end, but I wasn't going to finish it. After reading sunshine's recently for about they 80th time, I was inspired to polish it off for her birthday. So here it is. Let me know what you think. And make sure you read hers because it's amazing <3

Warning for talk of hospitalization and heart surgery.

Read on AO3.

Beeping monitors.

Cords and IVs.

The sharp smell of alcohol and industrial disinfectant.

The draft from an overhead vent where a steady stream of cold, conditioned air bleeds in nonstop.

Rough sheets beneath his fingertips that he can’t help straightening, can’t stop adjusting.

The urgency hidden beneath the tension-steeped calm, that even as they wait in this one, quiet room, in other areas of the hospital, nurses and doctors are scrambling. Prepping.

Fighting against the clock.

It reminds Kurt too much of the days when he stood by his father’s bedside, waiting for news about his condition.

How bad was his heart attack?

Would the damage be permanent?

Would he ever wake up?

That was a long time ago. Kurt’s father ended up being fine. Better than fine. After his heart attack, he became more health conscious. He ate better (mainly because Kurt harped on him, but as far as Kurt was concerned, it counted), exercised, and saw his doctor regularly. Kurt considered his father (and himself) lucky that they came out of that experience more or less unscathed.

So it seemed like a sick, existential joke on the part of the universe that lightning would strike his way twice.

The memories of that near-tragedy with his father crowd Kurt’s chest, make his heart ache, but his isn’t the heart he’s worried about.

Nor is it his dad’s.

“How do you feel?” Kurt asks, trying to hide the tremble in his voice by forcing a smile onto his face – a smile that, he’s afraid, is fooling no one at this point.

Blaine looks up from his bed, drugged-droopy eyelids struggling to stay open, and shakes his head.

“What?” Kurt asks, frowning at Blaine’s setup – the position of the IVs in his arm, the cuff around his bicep, his nasal cannula. They had rushed to the hospital within a minute of getting the call that a heart had become available. There was a flurry of activity when Blaine walked through the doors – undressing, re-dressing, cleaning, sticking, pricking, and poking – a lot of hurry up, hurry up, hurry up just so that they could sit in here and wait. It made Kurt want to scream. He can’t even imagine how Blaine feels. “Does something hurt? Do you feel uncomfortable? Do you want me to call the nurse?”

Blaine continues to shake his head – a gentle roll left and right on his pillow, very little strength but plenty of conviction. “I can’t, Kurt. I can’t do this.”

Kurt chuckles, too sad and anxious to be humorous. “Well, it’s a little too late to do anything about it now.”

“Kur---rt” – Blaine’s voice, a slush of vowels and consonants mushed together in an attempt to form words, gets caught in the lump of despair building at the base of his throat – “I don’t want to do this.”

“Why not?”

“Because, it might change everything.”

“Of course, it’s going to change everything.” Kurt keeps his tone light, dismissing this argument that they’ve had over and over, and has gone far beyond ridiculous. “With this new heart, you’ll live longer.”

“B-but … but what will happen to us? What if …?”

“What if nothing, alright!” Kurt snaps unintentionally. Numb from the preliminary round of anesthetics working their way through his body, Blaine barely flinches, but Kurt sees it in the flutter of his eyelids, and sighs. They’ve exhausted this conversation, and Kurt can’t take it anymore. He can’t lose Blaine. No matter what the risk, Blaine has to live. That’s not even a question. “You’re not making sense right now,” he says, putting a hand gently over his husband’s, hovering so as not to dislodge anything important. “I know you’re scared. I’m scared, too. But I would rather lose you as a husband than go on the rest of my life without you existing on this planet. And if it comes to that, then I will stalk you till the day you die, Blaine Anderson-Hummel.”

Blaine smiles, but he doesn’t have the strength to do that and keep his eyes open, so his eyelids throw in the towel and drift shut. “Then you’re a better man than I am.”

“Was there ever any doubt?” Kurt brushes a tear off his cheekbone, thankful that Blaine can’t see. So much for being strong for his husband.

“Hmm,” Blaine murmurs, finally succumbing to a drug induced sleep. “I guess not.”

***

Waiting to find out if Blaine would be okay, if he would make it through, and what that would mean for them if he did, is harder for Kurt than it was waiting for his father to wake up from a coma. As Kurt retreats to the private CTICU waiting room where he’ll stay until Blaine gets out of surgery, the façade that is his courage dissolves.

As awful as it sounds, Kurt has more to lose if Blaine doesn’t make it than he had if his father didn’t. His father means the world to him, but at the time of his heart attack, he and Kurt had had fifteen years together. Kurt has only known Blaine for half that time, and they only knew for certain that they were soulmates within the last three years.

They’d always had feelings for one another. Since the day they met, they felt it – that spark that everyone talks about. And it was mutual. They knew that somehow, even though neither one of them had their marks yet (they met when they were sixteen – marks don’t materialize on the body till eighteen), they had a closeness. A special connection.

If they weren’t soulmates, what could that connection possibly mean?

When Kurt got his mark first, on his chest above his heart, which very clearly read Blaine Anderson, Kurt knew that it had to be his Blaine. And he was relieved. Fate hadn’t been kind to him for most of his life. He had lost his mother, almost lost his father, had his own life threatened by a school bully. It would be cruel if he lost Blaine. But since Blaine didn’t have a mark (which should have been over his heart, too, since soulmate marks traditionally matched in placement), Blaine wasn’t as certain. There was always the possibility that there was another Blaine Anderson somewhere in the world, and that Kurt was meant for him. Kurt was adamant that that wasn’t the case, but Blaine was stubborn.

But Blaine turned out to be wrong.

And Kurt had underestimated the kindness of fate.

Not long after Kurt and Blaine graduated from high school and moved to New York, Blaine started suffering symptoms of a heart defect he’d inherited from his father – a defect that doctors had assured him his entire young life would more than likely turn out to be just a nuisance, fixable by a minor, relatively low-risk procedure when he got older, if need be. But Blaine’s heart had started to malfunction, two chambers shutting down almost simultaneously, and that’s when they found his soulmate mark – the name Kurt Hummel written directly across the front.

Kurt has loved Blaine forever. Being soulmates, he loved Blaine before they even met. He’d dreamt his entire life of him without ever knowing it, and not just his striking features, which he’d only glimpsed in part - his golden eyes, and his dark, curly hair - but his love of music, his passion, his grace, his elegance, his sincerity.

His drive and ambition.

His beautiful soul, and how much their souls belonged together. Because that’s what soulmates means – finding your other half. That one person on the planet whose existence makes you whole.

Preparing for the possibility of Blaine’s new heart had brought them together over the past few months in a way nothing else in their relationship had before. Exercising together, preparing meals together, going to classes at the hospital together, planning a new future together, took them to a higher level of intimacy and devotion, outlined in their wedding vows that they had chosen to recite traditionally because they applied in the simplest but most poignant terms – for better, for worse; for richer, for poorer; in sickness and health; until death do us part.

Except in their vows, they had said till death do we wait, till we’re reunited.

Kurt doesn’t believe in God. He doesn’t really believe in an afterlife. But he believes in Blaine, and he believes in those vows. He’s held on to them from the day he said them, made them into his own religion.

Their love is his faith.

If Blaine doesn’t make it, or if removing his heart means what Blaine fears it means – that his soulmate mark will go with it, severing the connection between him and Kurt irreparably - then they might as well just remove Kurt’s heart as well.

Because he won’t need it any longer.

***

Kurt doesn’t know how he fell asleep. Aside from the fact that he swore to himself he wouldn’t, he wasn’t even remotely tired after they wheeled Blaine to the OR. But to ensure there was no chance that he would nod off, he found the narrowest, most uncomfortable chair in the private waiting room, right beneath the brightest, most obnoxious white light, and set up camp. He immersed himself in mindless busy work, checking his text messages and his emails, then his Facebook feed, then his Twitter, and finally his Tumblr, keeping close friends and random followers alike updated regularly on Blaine’s progress.

He finished writing responses to the comments he received on his posts - mostly thank yous along with various emojis depending on the commenter. He closed out his apps, rubbed his brow, and shut his eyes for a second to block out the harsh light overhead.

A second later, a hand on his shoulder shook him awake.

He jerks up from his hunched over position, elbows resting on his knees, his head hanging from his neck like an overripe fruit on a too thin branch, and his phone on the floor, presumably where it landed when it fell from his hands.

“Hmm? Wha---Blaine?” Kurt mutters, assuming it must be Blaine waking him, wrapped up and ready to go home. He was just talking to Blaine five minutes ago. Who else would it be? He kicks his phone as he sits up, waking it from its slumber. The time on the screen reads 7:26.

But it was just past noon a minute ago.

“Mr. Hummel?” a voice says. It’s not Blaine, but it’s familiar.

Kurt blinks at the man standing over him, wearing teal blue operating scrubs and a weary expression.

“Mr. Hummel,” the man continues, even though Kurt has yet to acknowledge him. “We’ve just brought your husband out of surgery. He’s been taken to observation. You’ll be able to see him once he starts coming out of anesthesia.”

Kurt nods, taking the words in even though half his brain seems to believe that they should be heading home. Blaine gets a new heart, and then they go home. It’s as simple as that, right? Because if Kurt has to spend another minute in a hospital worrying about someone he loves, he might go insane.

But if Blaine’s body rejects this heart, there may not be a second time.

“So, he made it through all right?” Kurt needs clarity, wondering why, if everything’s okay, his doctor looks like there’s a problem. Shouldn’t he be smiling, relief pooling in his eyes with a thin stream of tears, like the doctors on Grey’s Anatomy when surgery is a success? Why does Blaine’s doctor seem so … dour?

“Yes, he did. We’re going to keep him under careful observation, but from the outset, things look promising.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?” Kurt asks, because the unreadable look in the doctor’s eyes makes Kurt think otherwise.

“Mr. Hummel, before I take you to see your husband, I need to have a word with you.”

***

“How do you feel?”

“I feel like an elephant sat on my chest and cracked my ribcage.”

Kurt chuckles. It’s been a day. One whole day of sitting by Blaine’s side and watching him sleep, watching him breathe. A day of holding his hand to make sure that his body is still warm. A day of waiting to hear his voice again, and, when they finally removed his breathing tube, reveling in every harsh, raw attempt at a whisper. A day of not sleeping comfortably so he could make sure Blaine kept breathing while he did. A day of not eating because he didn’t want to leave Blaine’s side. A day of hoping and praying and bartering with the universe. A day of trying to lend Blaine strength because Kurt knew he’d need it to get better.

A day that’s felt like a lifetime.

But Kurt will take it, and every day after. He loves Blaine. He loves Blaine’s sense of humor. He loves his over-the-top displays of affection. He loves his outlandish apologies. He loves his smiles, even the tired, slightly pained one he’s wearing right now.

And he loves that he has a beautiful reminder of Blaine pulsing on the skin of his chest with every beat of Blaine’s brand new heart in the form of his soulmate mark - Blaine Anderson.

“Well, aside from that,” Kurt says. “What I mean is … do you still love me?”

Blaine’s smile goes from pained to flawless in a blink. “Yes,” he says, squeezing Kurt’s hand as best he can. “Yes, I love you.”

“And what do you think that means?” Kurt asks with a knowing smile, as if whatever lesson Blaine is supposed to learn from all of this, Kurt knew all along.

In reality, he only learned recently, but he’s not about to tell his husband that.

“It means that me being desperately and hopelessly in love with you had nothing to do with any silly mark on my heart. Or anywhere else on my body. It has to do with you and me. Who we are together. I loved you long before that mark ever showed up, and nothing is going to change that.”

“Good.” Kurt sniffs to banish the tears threatening his eyes. “It’s nice to see that you’ve finally come to your senses.”

“And it only took about six hours in surgery for me to get there.”

“Better late than never.” Kurt leans over to kiss his husband on the forehead, wishing he could kiss him on the lips instead. But Kurt’s on the verge of tears as it is, and he hasn’t even gotten to the best part of the lesson. “Oh, and here. The doctor gave me this for you to keep.” Kurt turns to his chair and picks up an envelope sitting there, about the size of a small poster, that Blaine had somehow managed to overlook. Though, to be fair, with his gorgeous husband standing by his bedside, there wasn’t anywhere else that he wanted to look than in Kurt’s eyes.

“What is it?” Blaine takes the film Kurt hands him, trying to hold it steady. Kurt keeps hold of the upper edge, lending him a hand. “Ah.” Blaine nods once when he sees the image clearly. He’s seen it so many times, he should have known what it was when he saw the damned envelope. He looks at this x-ray of his heart, like the countless he’d taken before it, with his soulmate mark, his husband’s name, written across it in Kurt’s impeccable handwriting.

“We’ll have to frame it,” Blaine says with a sigh. “This way we can always remember what was, hmm?”

“Well, you’re partially right. We should frame it, right next to this one.” From the envelope, Kurt pulls out a second x-ray of Blaine’s heart. This one bears the mark as well, except the last few letters of Kurt’s name are obscured, the organ in this x-ray darker on one side. Damaged. Blaine compares it with the first, the heart in that one completely healthy, Kurt’s name clear as day. Kurt doesn’t explain it right away. He watches Blaine’s eyes bounce back and forth between the two images, his fuzzy brain struggling to make sense of both x-rays in relation to one another.

“Wait a minute,” he says, his head throbbing behind his eyes as he forces himself to think. “I don’t … I don’t understand.”

“It’s your heart, darling,” Kurt says with a self-satisfied little smile that would come off as superior if it weren’t keeping him from crying. “What is there to understand?”

“But the mark …”

“That’s your soulmate mark,” Kurt points out, starting with the damaged heart first, “on your old heart, and here, on your new heart.”

Blaine shakes his head. He’s trapped in a daze, wondering if he’s actually awake or if he’s still under anesthesia, dreaming that this is real. Because if it is real, it’s the most amazing, fantastical thing he’s ever heard in his life, second to finding out that the donor registry had found him a new heart.

And third to the day Kurt said, “I do.”

“The surgeon told me it appeared after they had the heart implanted,” Kurt explains when the blank look on Blaine’s face becomes blanker. “The second they began to suture and the heart became yours, it appeared.”

“But … how?”

“Because it was never about the heart, Blaine.” Kurt moves the x-rays to the chair and leans in, forehead to forehead, carding careful fingers through his husband’s hair as Blaine’s face begins to crumble, quiet sobs shaking his sore chest. “You said so yourself. You never loved me because my name was written on your heart. Your soulmate mark is a part of you because you love me. It was never going anywhere … and neither was I.”

#klaine fanfiction #sunshineoptimismandangels #klaine fic #Frankie writes #Happy birthday :)

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