#meaning: that it pretended to care about learning and scholarship and obviously did not

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

A Miraculous TikTok Account

Part 2

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Listen, Carapace was totally aware that he should be a little more concerned about what was going on. He just didn’t care.

After all, he had heard many horrifying things about college life. He liked Ramen but not enough to eat it for every meal and he wasn’t fond of the idea of explaining to his roommates why exactly he had to disappear every time there was an akuma instead of seeking shelter with them (and his scholarship wasn’t enough for him to afford an apartment to himself)...

So, yeah, having housing and food paid for for as long as Hawkmoth was around -- which, from the looks of it, was going to be until the man died of old age -- was sounding pretty good.

Sure, he’d have to deal with all the other heroes, but they couldn’t all be that bad. Rena and Chat seemed nice enough. Ladybug was nice, too, though she was more uptight than most people he hung out with. And maybe Chloe had grown a bit as a person since they’d gone to school together…

“You will all be maintaining your secret identities,” said Master Fu, pulling Carapace from his thoughts. “It lowers the chances of you slipping up and calling each other your civilian names in the field.”

Chloe’s nose scrunched a little bit. “So we’re going to be in costume the entire time?”

“No. I’ve created masks infused with the same magic that keeps people from figuring out your identities when you’re in costume.” He saw the look on Ladybug’s face and sighed. “You have two masks each, so you can wash them.”

Ladybug relaxed.

“Great, that settles that…” Master Fu pulled his phone from his pocket and tapped the screen a few times. “Next up: what platform will you be using?”

“TikTok, obviously,” said Chloe in a tone that said ‘don’t fight me on this, you won’t win’.

Carapace fought the urge to roll his eyes. He supposed it had been too much to hope that she would be a better person.

Still, he rather liked the idea of TikTok. He was going to film school, after all, it would be fun to use all the different techniques he learned in his classes to enhance his videos. He supposed there was also YouTube or Instagram, but YouTube meant longer content and Instagram meant more regular posts. No, TikTok was probably the way to go.

When no one objected, Master Fu tapped his phone again. Carapace guessed he had some kind of checklist there.

“... right. You’ll need to create accounts now, please.”

Everyone seemed a bit surprised that he wanted it done so soon, but they all pulled out their phones.

They quickly figured out why he wanted them to do it in front of him, though.

Making an account was harder than they thought it was going to be.

They wanted it to make sense for them, but it turns out waiting multiple years to start an account leads to the most relevant names being taken. Who knew?

Ladybug, after many combinations, managed to get @TheRealLadybug. Fair enough, there probably weren’t many english-speakers pretending to be a Parisian hero.

Chloe got frustrated quickly and ended up finding the person who had stolen @QueenBee and had ‘politely suggested’ that they hand over the account name (and by that I mean she threatened them with legal action).

Chat was next. He looked at his phone, lost in thought, and then shrugged. “How much money do you think I should give for the name?”

What the fuck? How much money did he have? They all knew that Chloe was rich but, with a quick glance at Ladybug and Rena’s faces, he found that no one else had been aware that the cat had been rich, too.

“I’d say 15 thousand, at least,” said Chloe.

Chat nodded slowly. “I’ll do 20 just in case.”

What the fuck?!

But they brushed past this quickly (there was just too much for them to unpack there) and everyone looked at Carapace as Chat started talking to whoever it was about the @ChatNoir name.

Carapace thought for a few minutes. He didn’t want to copy Ladybug’s idea and he didn’t exactly have the resources to threaten or buy the name from anyone, so… He shrugged and started testing out stupid puns. After a minute he managed to secure the name @Capotpace. It was absolutely terrible. He loved it.

Finally, Rena was up. She didn’t even hesitate to show them that she had already come up with something: @RenaRogue.

“... I think you misspelled your name,” said Carapace after a few minutes.

Rena frowned and looked at it, then shook her head. “No, it’s just a reference. In America they call their villains Rogues.”

“You’re American?” Said Ladybug.

“Nope!”

How do you even respond to that? Easy: you don’t. Moving on…

Once Chat had managed to get his account set up, everyone followed each other.

Now what?

Master Fu sighed. “Now that that’s done, I’d like to discuss room placement.”

~

For those of you who don’t know: moving SUCKS.

The whole process is just the absolute worst. You have to choose what you care enough about to keep (and, apparently, “all of it” is not a viable answer), cram it all into boxes, and then get those boxes from one house to the next.

The torture isn’t over, then, though. Then you spend the next few days sleeping on a bare mattress, using some clothes you’d unpacked as makeshift blankets and pillows because you couldn’t remember which box you’d put your sheets in.

And he was doing all of this alone. Master Fu had insisted that they all refrain from bringing their friends and family because of the whole ‘secret identities’ thing.

He dropped onto the couch and glared at the millions of people that Chloe had hired to help her over the rim of his waterbottle. Maybe he should just tell the public his secret identity…

No. That was a bad idea. Unlike Chloe, his family couldn’t afford security guards needed to keep them safe in case Hawkmoth decided that it would be super cool and fun to kidnap a family member for ransom.

He felt someone take a seat next to him on the couch and looked over at Ladybug. She had opted to not be in costume, and it was almost weird to see her in normal clothes. A t-shirt and jeans? That wasn’t allowed. She was only able to wear black and red dresses, he was pretty sure that was a law or something.

He gave her a tired smile. “Salu -- sorry, bonjour.”

She blinked at him a few times. And, oh, she had blue eyes. Wild.

“Might as well say salut, we’re ‘friends’ now,” she said.

She held out a hand to him and he stared at it. After a second’s confusion he shook her hand.

She blinked again. “I… was asking for some water…”

He fought his rapidly growing embarrassment as he handed her the water bottle. “Sorry, I’m just tired.”

She smiled a little. The kind of smile you give scared civilians when you tell them it’s all going to be okay. It felt weird to have it turned on him. This whole conversation was just… weird.

“It’s fine, I am, too.”

She took a few sips of his water and then handed it back to him. He put the cap back on it and sunk into the couch.

They watched the last of Chloe’s helpers leave and he was somewhat glad to see that she seemed just as ticked off by them as he was.

He hesitated. “Want to help each other unpack?”

She blinked for a third time. Maybe that was why she covered her eyes when she fought, she didn’t want people to know when she was confused or shocked.

And then she gave him a smile, a real one this time. For a half second she looked like just a regular teen enjoying time with a friend --.

“I finished yesterday, actually, but I can help you if you want.”

Nope. Still Ladybug. Of course she was already done.

Still…

“Help would be nice, I guess.”

~~~

Taglist

@nathleigh @mialuvscats @sassakitty @th1s-1s-my-aesthet1c

[botwstoriesandsuch]

casual anon checkup how you doin

Let’s see, well we just breached 4am, and the sense of urgency to complete some school work has finally kicked in. I got my laptop propped up on the kitchen counter, and I just finished making some houseblend coffee that I loaded with milo powder for “health” purposes. Gotta finish up this AP Stat quiz while pretending I have some semblance of what the hell is going on in the class that I don’t pay attention to. I got my fancy bluetooth headphones that I connect with the wire anyway because I don’t like using up the battery, and I’ve had this acoustic cover of Solitary Warrior Revali looped for a few minutes now--I need those soft vibes to distract me from my thoughts about how the only reason I’ve been so sluggish with my work overall is probably due to years of ingrained perfectionism and inability to adapt my standards to the currently circumstances of the world along with my slightly declining mental health so you know--music’s nice. 

Oh! And my dad got me this electric coaster (as pretentious as that sounds, I know. Leave me and my not-cold drinks alone ok) for the holidays and it matches with my favourite mug that I’m drinking from right now so, it’s the little things :3 Plus, not to derail myself from my school life intentionally, I’ve been working on this sheet music for one of my songs for a few weeks now and it’s starting to actually sounds pretty decent so yaay!! Probably won’t share it for a long time though...I’ve really been only working on it on and off again when I have “free time” [which may or may not just be my online class gym period hey you can’t prove anything to the cops]

Uhhh what else can I shove in here...”How you doin” pfft, I don’t really know how to make this ask funny or entertaining. Well I’ve nearly finished up this zine piece about the Royal Tech Lab so that’s fun (shameless plug for the Memorabillia Zine) aaand, I’m picking my kalimba again to learn Mipha’s theme. About time, cause I have to record shit for the [REDACTED] project I’m working on >:) heh. Oh fucking SHIT now that I think about it I have like three different secret projects I’m working on huh...haven’t even finish the script for that damn au...OK what it, right, “how am I doing” well, I’m doing everything and nothing currently, if that makes any sense. Your possible regrets about sending this to me aside, it feels good to just lay everything on a plate, shit out a post, and then never talk or acknowledge it ever again. It’s like birds, you know how they just take a ten pound shit in the mourning and never look back? (That way they don’t need to go during the rest of the day) That’s what this is, just a giant load of bullshit that I’m gonna set out at 5am and then never look at again. 

You know as unhealthy as it sounds I really do dedicate a lot of time to this blog and this fandom. I mean sure not all of it (arguably any of it) is productive, but hey it’s something. The fuck else am I gonna do with my time...you wake up, you slam your keyboard awake to show up to online class, you take a nap, you spend a few hours keeping up the cishetallo gifted student appearance to your parents and then spend the rest of your time finding enough serotonin on the internet to make your brain work. Hell if I’ve talked to another human being in real life all year. Even my parents just kinda talk about the news and “how was class” during dinner which lasts like 10 minutes. My dad just kinda pisses off to work as soon as breakfast is made, and my mom just kinda stays in her office until everyone’s back and she makes dinner. Wait, that’s a lie, she does talk to me on Sunday mornings when she informs me of how I’ve ruined her day before church. So you know I do prefer it that way anyhow, why the hell would I want to talk with them when I got perfectly entertaining internet companions. What’s a “what scholarship programs are you doing?” to a *checks notifications*, “why are Rito fingers like that if they molt to they just lose the ability to--” god fucking dammit...

So! What were we saying--how am I doing? Welp. Guess it’s up for interpretation cause I sure as hell don’t know the answer to that. The hell would you do with the answer anyway. Pity points, praise points? I don’t particularly care for either. God I just realized you introduced yourself as “casual anon,” HA....apologies this is the opposite of casual isn’t it. Or, well maybe it isn’t. I’m the one just having a nice little chitchat with myself as I sip through my mug o’ caffeine. I might have to add a keep reading bar to this so I don’t blog up the dash, but also that would be ironically humorous to see for such a stupidly small question huh. Idk, contrary to popular belief I don’t have a spine so I’m probably not gonna unload all this shit on my followers like that out of the blue. Hell I’d be surprised if I actually posted this. Then again...5am and vibin with bad decision making.....plus the sentiment of putting something out to be seen is always nice.

You ever watch Bojack Horseman? Fantastic show, it’s just on a whole ‘nother level when it comes to writing. And yeah, I probably should have been watching it in the first place, BUT.............yeah ok there’s real excuse I probably shouldn’t be watching it/have watched it. But there’s this one episode in Season 4 I think? It’s where Bojack gives a eulogy for his mother’s funeral and the entire episode is just that, it’s just this giant monologue of him giving his eulogy. And that episode always facinated me because it is probably the most interesting episode in the entire show and one of my favourites, and like...how did they do that?? How did they make twenty minutes of talking so engaging and entertaining? I mean, yeah, I could probably analyze the pacing and structure to find the answer, and hell if I’ve watch my share of youtube video essays on the subject. But like, just the entire concept that someone had the idea to make 20 minutes of talking an entire episode....that’s just insane (forgive the language). 

It’s one thing to want to talk about yourself for a long time and be interesting, but to pour all kinds of energy to make some made-up fictional character talk about THEMselves for a long period of time...is that sad? Or maybe it’s respectable. /to make an audience care more about something that’s not real rather than you. Well, perhaps that’s selfish thinking. 

Oh! You know what, I just got this super nice message from someone the other day about a Raybands giveaway. Obviously, I’m not in the need for sunglasses during this day and age so I kindly declined and ignore the offer, but it got me thinking: how liked to you have to be in order to sway someone to clicking a random link. Like I’m talking about your friends or something, but like, if you opened your door oneday and Mr. Rogers was there selling clementines, would you buy them? Or if Lin Manuel Miranda offered you a vaccum, would you buy it? What’s the standard of known niceness that constitutes to you complying with what they’re asking? I sure would like to know....not for manipulation purposes but just for...idk, just having that tangibility of something. 

Ah well, fuck me gently with a chainsaw how am i doing. Well I’ll tell you what I’m doing, I’m procrastinating. Procrastinating on work and wips and conversations and dilemmas. You don’t fail all the shots you don’t take afterall *wink wink* aaand for legal reasons that was a joke. Idk, you tell me how I’m doing, fuck if I know. According to this empty mug, I’m doing well, but I also will be doing a piss in the bathroom probably.

[epicspheal]

Hello! Just popping by to ask about Calla! I've reread your oc post for the hundredth time now, and she just so interesting! Like what's her relationship with everyone and such. Not to mention she reminds me of Kipo in a way.( She seems the optimistic sort, not to mention insanely smart)

Also if you haven't, pls watch Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts. It's animated, but it has a good story and music. Majority poc cast is a bonus.

Hi there ihopethisendswell!

I have definitely watched Kipo and the Age of the Wonderbeasts, although I need to finish it (after I get done with studying for the MCAT, that test is *shudders*). I can definitely see Calla reminding your of Kipo they do have some similarities (there’s also one other champion OC of mine that has similarities to another Kipo character) Definitely putting everything under the Keep Reading tag because this is long.

Her outgoing, friendly nature is also very much in part due to the fact that as child genius she didn’t really get a chance to spend time with children her age as she went to college at 8. So she’s been kind of lonely and thus always eager to make a new friend. She can be a little too blunt with her words, but she’s aware enough to know when she might have crossed a line and will apologize profusely afterwards

Obviously her closest relationship is with Hop. Calla actually lived in Wedgehurst and not Postwick but Hop spent a lot of time Wedgehurst (because that’s where the primary school). They became friends over the summer at the berry shop and pretty much became joined to the hip when Calla wasn’t away at Motostoke University doing her chemistry degree. Hop (being a budding science nerd himself) enjoyed hearing from her about what she was learning in college and he would share stuff about Pokemon that he learned from Leon’s college textbooks. The two also bonded from being lonely with Calla being isolated from people her age because of being a child genius and Hop was ostracized for being Leon’s brother (in the fact of the kids in Wedgehurst loved Leon, but they found Hop annoying and only pretended to care about Hop if he mentioned something about Leon coming home). Calla was the first kid he met to be interested in Hop as a person, and not as Leon’s little brother so their friendship means the absolute world to Hop. They balance each other out as Hop is known to be impulsive and patient whereas Calla is far more cautious and deliberate. You would think given those descriptions Hop is the Sword Hero and that Calla is Shield Hero but it’s actually the reverse. Throughout their journey Hop and Calla learned the value of the way the other acts. Hop learns to be a little less impulsive (as his impulsiveness combined with his tendency to get flustered cost him many battles). Calla learned that’s okay to make bold decisive moves without meticulously planning them out which helped her in the long run against tough opponents (such as Rose who has a steel type team that walled her poison types or Leon who has a team fast heavy hitters that even with poison set up could still absolutely maul her team given the chance to do so) Also I should note Calla is not a Victor/Gloria stand-in. Victor and Gloria very much exist in my “Pokemon canon” but they were some of the fake friends to Hop who secretly thought he was annoying. Basically Victor and Gloria in my universe are those Pokemon fans who hate Hop and find him annoying. :(

Speaking of Leon, Calla of course was a fan of him from the start. She did get a little upset with him constantly keeping her and Hop away from the berserk Dynamaxed Pokemon, thinking that he didn’t think they were capable of helping out. Which wasn’t the case it’s just and this going into some of my broader personal headcanons, Leon and his cohort (Piers, Sonia, Nessa, and Raihan) were at the mercy of a jerk Champion (my OC Jack, the last champion on that OC Post). He didn’t want to take away from their gym challenge like what to happen to his. Of course once the Darkest Day and Sordward/Shieldbert arcs are over Leon and Calla ended up working well together as fellow champions and friends. As I alluded to in my oneshot Midnight Snacks (shameless plug) Calla has a tendency to be a night owl and if she’s stressed she’ll call Leon over to one of the battle cafe’s to have pastries and chat. Leon loves listening to her science theories (and yes he actually understands her rants on chemistry and toxicology) and Calla loves having a cool older brother she never got (she’s an only child). They also end up as in-laws when Hop and Calla get married at 23. Leon is also very protective of her, giving her less responsibilities than Rose gave him and helped to warm the public to her as some of them didn’t take too kindly to her using Eternatus in her champion matches. 

But in terms of the adult she most looks up to, that’d be Sonia. Strong battler (unlike in canon, we get to see why Sonia used to be Leon’s rival in my personal Pokemon verse) and a smart scientist lady. Calla was immediately awestruck by Sonia and always enjoyed her time talking to Sonia helping her with her theory about the truth of the Darkest Day. Sonia, Hop and Calla end up being the science trio once the SwSh events come to a close. Sonia was the one to encourage Calla when she becomes 18 (and has now held the title of champion for 5 years) to go back and pursue her PhD in Toxicology giving the Galar region their first ever champion professor! If Leon is the big bro she always wanted, the Sonia is definitely the big sister she always wanted. 

As far as the league goes, Calla is pretty much on good terms with everyone not named Klara. Klara choosing the poison type as her go to because it wasn’t as  popular as other types and she thought she’d have no competition in that realm. As someone who is very much passionate about breaking the negative stereotypes of the poison typing, she found Klara’s reasoning to be absolutely insulting.

When it comes to the league, Calla in particular is close to Marnie and Bea. You can often find Calla, Marnie and Bea hanging out together shopping for clothes or eating pastries at a battle cafe. Gordie, Nessa and Calla frequently have competitions to see who can do the best backflips or the best splits. It did take Calla a bit to warm up to Bede at first given how he treated Hop and how he almost wrecked her the first two battles (if wasn’t for her Stunky she would’ve been wiped by psychic trainer Bede), but they are kind of like how the player is with Gladion in SM/USUM. Not friends but not enemies.

Calla has mixed feelings on Rose and Oleana. Rose actually gave her a scholarship to go to Motostoke University when she was 8 (her parents wouldn’t have been able to afford it otherwise) so she’s indebted to him (he saw her as he saw Bede, Oleana, Leon- talents that can help the future of Galar). And on a personal level Rose was never rude to her. Oleana also kind of took her under her wing because of them both being science gals. But seeing how badly they miscalculated everything really shook her to the core. 

As far as my other champion OCs go, Calla gets along with everyone but Jack (but then again no one gets along with Jack). Calla and Marsha have a particularly close bond as Marsha taught Calla how to cornrow her hair and play spades (Calla was not blessed with parents who knew how to cornrow...or play spades). Marsha is another big sis for her. Calla and Jabari bonded over being type specialists (Jabari is a water type specialist) and Jabari taught her how to rollerskate in exchange for Calla teaching him how to do cartwheels. Calla was of course very interested in meeting Valen (a talking robot who’s a skilled trainer? that’s a dream come true for her). They delight in battling each other and eating Alolan Pancakes. 

[it-will-not-last-the-night]

Daybreakers 2020 - Ryuji Submission

@p5daybreak

Character: Ryuji

Day: 3rd

The Mark of a problem child:

“So, the blonde hair…why’d you do it?” 

Ren asks him one afternoon. They were up in the attic of Le Blanc, the one which somehow passed for a room, waiting on Ann and Yusuke. With nothing but time to kill Ryuji had plopped himself down on the floor, propped up against Ren’s bed, and dug into a new manga he picked up that morning. Ren, on the other hand, decided to waste time by asking something he’d been meaning to ask for a while, but never really found the moment too.

“Huh?” Articulate as always Ryuji gave a grunt, lowering the magazine, and peering over it to his friend, his best friend, perched on the edge of a chair, peering at him through glasses Ryuji is certain he doesn’t need.

“The dye, was it because of Kamoshida?” 

It’s an obvious guess and it isn’t like it’s incorrect. Not completely. Still the question is one Ryuji can’t exactly answer clearly off the mark. Which, when he thinks about it, is kinda weird. How many times have people asked him to explain the story behind having dyed his hair blonde? How many times was the first thing people noticed, and wondered, about him his hair? You’d really think he’d have some good answer prepared for it by now.

“Well…”

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The last time someone asked him about his hair had been just a few weeks ago, when chance had found him and Ann waiting for Ren (and Morgana of course) up on the roof of Shujin. They’d been doing their normal thing; she was looking at her phone, whether really reading something or pretending he didn’t know, and Ryuji was bouncing his leg on the ground to try to stop the thought of his imminent expulsion from creeping in. 

That’s when she’d brought it up. 

“Ryuji…um…I don’t wanna be rude but…your hair…when you dyed it blonde was it…because of…him?”

In all honesty she’d actually first asked him to stop bouncing his leg so much, it was distracting her. Then he’d scowled and made some sardonic comment about how he was sorry that his potential expulsion was inconveniencing her, to which she’d rightfully snapped at him that it wasn’t like she wasn’t going through a tough time either, and by then he felt so guilty that the two had drifted into a mutual funk over him. 

He’d clenched his fists over his knees to stop a kneejerk reaction (very literal, he knew, but Ryuji was a tactile sort of guy) and gave a lough exhalation before answering, the sort of thing he’d do to calm his nerves before a big run. 

“…yeah, that was…yeah to get back at him, that asshole, to show him I didn’t care, that I could…stick it to ‘em, he was gonna have to watch me parade around right under his nose and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it,” he had answered, very convincingly. That was because it was at least partly true. Just not wholly true. 

But when he thought about the whole truth, that at the time, when he’d actually done the dyeing, he’d been thinking of Kamoshida, yeah…but he’d also been thinking of Kobayakawa, of Kawakami, Chouno and every other teacher and…the students too. Nakaoka, Takeishi and, yeah, Ann too. Anger. That’s what he’d felt when he was dyeing his hair, anger had been almost the only thing he’d felt for the past year. When he thought about that it just made him feel guilty, he didn’t want to bring it up.

Besides, trashing Kamoshida helped break the foul mood and make Ann smile so that was more than enough for Ryuji.

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There were other times before that too. He remembered Kawakami giving him that ‘why do you put me through this’ look as she asked him for the umpteenth time why he’d done it. Of course, it wasn’t as if she was actually interested in an answer, Ryuji had come to learn none of his teachers really cared for any answers he could give them. 

“You’re only making things harder for yourself; you realize that, right?”

And, obviously, in one sense he did completely understand that. The more he dug his heels in, the harder things got. It’d be the sensible thing to lay low, try to avoid any attention, and just bury his nose in his books and try to get through Shujin as quickly as possible.

Being sensible had never been particularly high on Ryuji’s priorities though, and every muttered comment, every resigned shake of the head, was just further fuel for the anger which kept brewing inside of him. 

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Although there’d never been a time Shiho had asked him about his hair, not in so many words at least, Ryuji could remember a time he’d caught her staring at it. Although it made his stomach twist itself into knots to think of it now, at the time he’d just scowled and moved on, he was as angry at her as he was at everyone in Shujin. Kamoshida might have broken his leg but every single student and teacher was to just as guilty to him back then. If he hadn’t been so quick to just dismiss everyone else, he might have noted the haunted look in her eyes that was soon to become her default expression for the following year.

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When his mother had come home (late, because she had to spend her whole day and almost her whole night working for a son who didn’t even have the decency to make things easier for her) to find him struggling over a basin to get the dye to take they’d stood for a moment in mutual silence.

The truth was that there had never been a carefully calculated, planned, or intended motion or reasoning behind why he’d one day just decided to start dyeing his hair blonde. It hadn’t been something he thought out, it’d been something he’d felt.

For a second, looking at his mom, he’d had that sudden moment where he realized he’d let his temper make him act without thinking and he hated himself a bit for reminding himself of his own father. Being a burden to his mom had always been the only thing he’d really been scared of, the one thing in his entire life he didn’t want to be. He didn’t want to take after that man, to make things harder for her just like he had.

That had been, after all, the whole point behind the running. Here was something he was good at, something society rewarded him for. He was popular, he had future prospects, he’d grow up to be a star athlete, he’d get that track scholarship, and then his mom would never have to waste even more of her time than she already did on him.

But somewhere between his bone snapping and the third or fourth day in recovery that idea had come crashing down and, in its place, the only thing Ryuji could think to do was…dye his hair blonde?

“Mom…it’s…” Ryuji wasn’t even sure how he would have finished that sentence but, as it turned out, he didn’t need too. 

“It’s a good colour but you’re going to make a mess of it dear, let me help,” she didn’t necessarily on some unspoken level just intuitively understand why he was doing it, after all he wasn’t sure himself yet why either. But she didn’t need to. A mother didn’t need to be psychic to help. Just having here there, to reaffirm that he wasn’t making a mistake, was already more than enough.

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“It’s like…you know…” Ryuji throws a line into a sea of terminology and hopes he’ll fish up something good as Ren cocked an expectant eyebrow. The words he’s looking for come to Ryuji in one of those rare moments where he feels like he’s summoning Kidd to back him up, that strange sensation where, for an instant, everything interlocks and fits together even if a voice is pounding so loud in his head it feels like it’s going to burst.

“It’s…a rebellion,” he says, with a small shrug, hoping the answer came across less terribly than it suddenly sounded to him when he said it out loud. Judging by the slight smile Ren was suddenly sporting, nodding as if it all made sense somehow, it did.

[realtalk-princeton]

@Sulpicia do you have any advice on how to achieve such a high gpa in the humanities, when essay grades can sometimes seem subjective and different professors have different preferences? for ex, do you recommend using office hours in a certain way?

Response from Sulpicia:

I think that one thing to keep in mind is that I’m in a humanities major where empirical exams often determine 70-80% of your grade in a class; while they’re not usually curved, the language exams I took had a pretty similar format between classes, and so with every class you’re more prepared to engage with the material in that way. I personally think the best thing you can do to do well in a humanities class is to do the work; coming into class having prepared and done the readings will mean you have things to say, which translates into a better class discussion; this then will inevitably inspire thinking about what to write about for papers, and will also give you a better idea of how your instructor responds to your thinking. I’m not pretending that I showed up to class prepared 100% of the time, but I think sometimes people take humanities classes here and don’t take them seriously and then struggle at the end because they weren’t really trying to understand things on a week-to-week level.

In terms of writing papers, I generally tried to be in contact with instructors as much as possible throughout the process. Going to office hours with an idea (or, better yet, an outline) is really helpful, since you can get feedback before you spend a ton of time writing something that is founded on a mistaken assumption (which was something I did a LOT in my thesis process) or following a line of argument that might not be as strong as you initially think/hope. I often tried to come up with paper topics early on and even when (as was inevitably the case) I didn’t write anything, I knew I a) had the green light from a professor and b) was passively thinking about the topic for a long time. I also tried to write about things that made me excited, since the best papers are the ones you actually care about.

I actually have not found that professors have hugely different expectations for writing, because at the undergraduate level, good academic writing is good academic writing. I’m not the best essay writer in the world, but here are some tips I have for essay writing that I’ve learned over the past few years:

- Structure is so important, and is something a lot of essays miss. You should have a clear thesis statement of 1-2 sentences for a term paper, and this should be clearly positioned at the end of your introduction. For a shorter paper (5-10 pages) this should be at the end of the first page or top of the second page, while for longer papers, a JP, or a thesis chapter, they can be a little bit further in. Overlong introductions are my weakness as a writer, but a good intro basically just needs to provide the context you need to set up your thesis statement. I would stay away from the “three-pronged” thesis you learned in high school, but your thesis should correspond with the structure of your paper by presenting your claims in the order you will address them.

- Structure is important in your main body too! Write an outline before you begin your essay that briefly sketches out the progression of your argument and what evidence you will use to prove each part of it. Use transition words to link together ideas, and make sure to regularly tie back all of your claims to the main idea of your paper. Don’t write anything that does not support your thesis or provide a counterargument that you can then mitigate or disprove. Always let your reader know where they are in your argument, and don’t be afraid to refer back to earlier parts of the paper.

- Every sentence should matter. When you’re presenting a piece of evidence or analysis, think about its relationship to the one previous. Is that relationship meaningful? If not, the sentence shouldn’t be there (or should be placed elsewhere in your paper). The ideal is that every piece of your paper will follow naturally from what immediately precedes it, guiding the reader on a nice walk through your argument.

- In the humanities, close engagement with primary sources is key. Yes, you need to use secondary scholarship. However, engagement with the “scholarly conversation” should be second to your unique contribution, which is your close reading of the text/images at hand. This was something I struggled with in my thesis, since I felt so pressured to read all the scholarship and lost my close focus on primary sources. The absolute first thing you should do when you write a humanities paper is sit down with the sources you’re analyzing and think about them. What questions do they raise for you? Why are they confusing or contradictory? How does this source connect what you discussed in lecture, precept, or seminar? What can one source say about another? If you can, annotate the source on a piece of paper or take notes alongside it.

From there, you’ll start to find your unique insights which will form the backbone of the paper. Then, if this is a research paper and not just a close reading, look at secondary sources. If you have your own opinions about a primary text, however naive, you’ll feel more confident looking at *the discourse*. Sometimes, this will answer questions you had about the text, and so you don’t need to do that work in your paper. Other times, it will give you more interpretive tools to understand a text (e.g. you might find that X feature of the writing is typical of a certain genre, and you can think about the implications of that on your text). Sometimes, it’ll show you that the scholarly consensus is, in your opinions, totally wrong; for example, one chapter of my thesis was inspired by the fact that I visual source I thought was straightforward and was going to use in another chapter had in fact been pretty clearly misread by scholars, so my new project became proving why my identification was correct. However, any engagement with scholarship should only work to support your argument; unless you’re doing a lit review or writing about scholarly history (in which case the scholarship is your primary source), you don’t just want to slap different people’s opinions next to each other.

- Use lots of evidence and use lots of analysis. Graders are not mind readers, even if they are familiar with the material you’re studying. Good essays will present a lot of evidence; one thing I find helpful is breaking up longer quotes into shorter sections and treating them separately. Every piece of evidence should also be given analysis about why a) it is proving whatever point you’re making in the paragraph and b) how this connects to your larger argument. Part (b) might be implicit, but many essays could be stronger by making clear, distinctive points. Obviously not every piece of evidence merits a lot of analysis, and you can feel free to draw together several quotes to make one larger point.

- Speaking of, make specific claims. This refers both to the evidence that you use and how you use it. It’s totally okay to make general statements about a work, or an author, or an artistic movement; you couldn’t write an essay without doing that. However, those broad claims need to (at least in part) be grounded in some form of evidence; this can come from a secondary source or from an illustrative quote from a primary source. Inexperienced essay writers will be too vague and general--while there are dangers in getting to hyper-specific, I think it’s important that if you make a claim in your paper, you point to the specific thing that made you think that way (this is also a good way to avoid misconceptions/bad assumptions in your argument). When you’re using evidence, you should also try to say something as specific as possible about it, rather than just continuing to string up evidence and restating your thesis. Your thesis statement is just a summary of your ideas; your reasoning should be more nuanced and complex than that one concept. The more specific you are the more original you are, which helps you make points.

- Revise, revise, revise! When I did HUM, I would write up to five drafts of each paper. As a senior, I’ve gotten a lot lazier about this, but part of the reason I could do that was because I had learned a lot from revising previous papers and knew what mistakes to avoid. I think that papers grow the most between a first draft and a second draft. My favorite way to revise (and this is what I did with my thesis, JPs, and many papers I’ve written at Princeton) is to take a draft, print it out (with professor comments, if applicable), and then go through and retype the whole thing into a blank document. Optionally you can mark it up yourself as well, which is probably for the best. I like this because it means you have to read every word of your paper and also don’t feel bound by its existing structure; you can move paragraphs or shuffle things around more easily. I also always find myself adding more things or rephrasing analysis, which improves the paper. You’ll never come up with every idea in a first draft, so it’s good to revisit the paper as much as you can.

- Ask other people to read your work. We all have bad writing habits, from overuse of certain words to repetitive syntax to skipping steps in our logic. These things are not always obvious to us, but are very obvious to other readers. If you can, ask a friend (or writing center tutor, or instructor) to read your paper and help you identify these “bad habits” so you’re more conscious of them in future drafts. They can also often help you see where you skipped a step in your structure or the logic of your argument, or where your treatment of evidence doesn’t fully make sense. This is not always an option, of course, but especially early on, having people who will frankly tell you what’s not working will be helpful to your development as a writer.

- Learn from your mistakes. Criticism, even of the kindest, gentlest, most constructive kind, is hard to hear. To be honest, I would sometimes put off writing my thesis for hours because I was so embarrassed that my advisor had seen a stupid mistake I’d made in my writing (which is entirely irrational, yes, I get it). However, it is very important not only to bask in the positive comments on your paper, but to look at any more constructive ones to see what you can do better next time. Every paper teaches you how to write the next one better. Keep old papers and use them as teaching tools; you might even find it helpful to pin a list of things you know you need to remember when writing next to your desk or on your computer desktop. Professors offer comments because they want you to do better and understand more, not because they want to tear you down (unless they’re really mean).

Anyway this was kind of long-winded, but hopefully at least a little helpful as Dean’s Date approaches (the one lesson I never learn is how to stop procrastinating). I don’t know if there’s a secret to having a good GPA. I don’t consider myself to be brilliant or industrious at all, really; I think I’ve been lucky, taken classes that suited my academic strengths, come into them prepared, and really spent time understanding what exams and papers are trying to assess and then crafting my responses accordingly.

[in-tua-deep]

So I imagine that the kids eventually find out that their moms gave them up, and as they grow older they each grow angrier and angrier at these people they’ve never met. What if at the end of S1 when they all travel back in time they don’t arrive to a place/time that they’re all at the academy again,what if they somehow arrive in a time/place where they meet their mothers and have to pretend to be complete strangers to these women that they find unforgivable?

HMM honestly I can’t see most of them really being angry? On a big level their mothers just,,, don’t matter to them. They probably didn’t even know mothers were a thing until Grace came into their lives, and by the time they got around to learning about the birds and the bees and knew enough to know that Grace couldn’t exactly have brought them all to term, they already knew they’d been bought

and maybe they were angry at first, but they know their circumstances. Their mothers were seven (or six depending on if you think Luther and Five are twins in the show) women who were exceptionally unprepared for what happened to them. 

Honestly that must have been so incredibly traumatic for all of them, they never consented to that pregnancy. They had to give birth, a process that is incredibly painful, when they had no prior knowledge or preparation mental or physical. They didn’t have a choice whether these children came into their lives, and honestly I don’t blame them for giving up the kids - and frankly having them be adopted by a billionaire? Who clearly has enough resources to take care of this child when perhaps you yourself so not?

The question isn’t why Reginald Hargreeves got so many kids, it’s why he got so few. 

I would however be interested in maybe thinking about an au where one or more of the parents looked at the unveiling of the Umbrella Academy and looked at the seven children knowing that one of those kids was theirs and they just stopped a robbery (the one on the end is covered in blood, and some of the robbers are dead and the kids are little soldiers) and them trying to take some kind of action. Any kind of action. Because she thought her child would be safe and provided for, not… this. 

And maybe it’s not out of place in canon. Maybe it’s an attempt that doesn’t work, because Reginald has access to plenty of lawyers. And the mothers terminated their parental rights. No matter how much they try, they can’t touch those kids.

I don’t know I understand that maybe some of the kids are angry. But I think some just… don’t care. These women aren’t in their lives. They aren’t important. They didn’t ask to have these kids, they didn’t have a choice. I can see at least some of the kids being downright empathetic about that - I mean, wasn’t their whole childhood about not having a choice but to obey Reginald Hargreeves? It might not have even occurred to them until they were older that their mothers even had a choice in giving them up, because Reginald is the ultimate authority in their lives.

There are a lot of reasons to give up a baby, and I refuse to think badly of these women for doing so. Not when they had to go through that. Not with how traumatic it must have been. They did not consent to these pregnancies. They did not ask for a child. They were not prepared for a child. They didn’t spend months bonding with a child growing inside them, didn’t go out to buy little onesies and cribs and toys, they didn’t pore over books of baby names, or have a baby shower, or get congratulations from coworkers and friends and family - they didn’t ask for this. That girl from the start of the show was young. She was shy with a boy that she liked and flirting and having fun, and she wasn’t expecting to give birth on the floor in front of all those people in her life, including the boy she liked. 

So maybe they do go back in time, and there’s one of their mothers. And maybe they are angry at this stranger who didn’t want them. But they look at this young woman who gave birth to one of their numbers, and they see how young she is. See how she smiles and laughs without a care. Maybe she’s still in school. Maybe she isn’t. Maybe she’s working, working hard, she’s passionate about her career. Maybe she already has a family, maybe she has a husband or wife and maybe they already have kids or maybe they don’t. Maybe she’s helping take care of her parents who need assistance. Maybe she’s on her own in a shithole apartment and yeah it’s shitty but it’s hers and she’s out on her own and she’s independent and she worked so hard to get to this points.

My point is, they see their mothers, and they’re incredibly human. These women? They have lives. They have friends. They have family. And maybe they were angry, but they look at these women in their normal regular lives and think - how would I handle it? If I had a baby thrust upon me, right here, right now, with 0 foreknowledge and preparation, would I be able to take care of them? Would I keep them? If a billionaire swooped in and was able to make it all just - go away, wouldn’t I take him up on that?

Honestly I don’t think all of those children were bought. He probably got some of the kids for free, from mothers who weren’t willing to put a price on a baby’s head but were equally relieved to have someone to make it all go away. For this man who is obviously of means who has the funds to take care of a baby. Children are expensive, after all. That day would have been one of the most traumatic of their lives, wouldn’t you want to pretend it didn’t happen?

For this purpose i’m going to say Luther and Five aren’t twins and that there are seven individuals

So yeah, they meet their mothers. They pretend to be strangers and chat to these women. They find out that Luther’s mother is the first in her family to go to college, on a scholarship. She’s got big dreams and even bigger plans for her life. They learn that Diego’s mother is the eldest of four children and she’s very responsible, helping her parents out. She picks up her youngest sister from school and walks her home every day, she helps her siblings with their homework and cooks and cleans when her own parents are too tired to do so. They can barely make ends meet, but they’re close knit and they care about one another. A new mouth to feed on top of all of that would have been a terrible burden to bear (and Reginald’s money could put her siblings through college, she can make sure her parents don’t have to work as hard, that they can have some security, and all it costs is a baby she doesn’t even know). They learn that Allison’s mother is a leader among her peers, confident and social and outgoing. She’s climbing the ranks at work, confident and working hard to prove herself to all the people around her who say she can’t do it. She’s got her whole life ahead of her, and there’s no room in it for a baby. Not yet. Not now, when she has so much to do, so much to work towards. Maybe in the future, but not now when she has so much to lose and no one to help her.

They meet Klaus’s mother, who has clawed out a place for herself in the world with her own two hands. She has no one, she has her apartment and the two jobs she’s working and she’s going to make it no matter what just to prove everyone else wrong. They meet Five’s mother, who ran away from home when she was a kid and she’s putting herself through school going to night classes and working during the day. She runs on just as much spite as Klaus’s mother, but she has people. She’s stubborn and furious at the world, but she loves as furiously as she does anything else. She didn’t run alone, her little brother is with her. He’s in high school and she would sacrifice everything to make sure he has a future. She fought for custody of him, and she won, and she won’t do anything to jeopardize what little stability she has fought to give him.

They meet Ben’s mother, who has someone important in her life. They’re in love, but they have to keep it quiet. She loves her girlfriend, loves every stolen kiss and every moment they hold hands beneath tables. They plan to run away together, they’re saving up and they’re going to get a house together far away from everything that holds them down. They have plans. They barely have enough money scraped together for themselves, let alone a baby. A baby she knows her family won’t love, won’t want to take care of. They barely love her. They meet Vanya’s mother, who is afraid. She knows her family. They won’t love this child, born out of wedlock. She can’t make it on her own. She’s too young. She can’t support herself, let alone a child. She loves her family, she loves them, but they don’t understand her. They’ll take care of this child out of a sense of obligation perhaps, but they won’t love her. (They wouldn’t let her take care of her daughter anyway, would sweep it under the rug, maybe pretend that her daughter was her little sister. She wouldn’t get to raise her daughter, no matter what she chooses. And at least maybe this man, this rich man, wants her - and that’s important)

They meet their mothers, and learn about them, and they know Reginald. It isn’t these women’s fault, they didn’t choose this. They didn’t ask for this. And even if they did spend nine months carrying these children in their bodies, even if they were aware and prepared and knew what they were getting into, that still doesn’t mean that they were required to keep the kids. 

So maybe they are angry, when they arrive. But that anger doesn’t survive contact, because these women are just… people. They’re smart and funny and sarcastic and irritating and passionate and spiteful and they’re so very very human. They have jobs, and families, and friends, and lives. 

The Umbrella Academy arrived on a day like any other, the only remarkable thing was that their mothers weren’t pregnant when the day began. They arrived to a world that wasn’t prepared for them. To mothers who weren’t prepared for them. To mothers who had their own problems, their own reasons. 

And now the Umbrella Academy gets to learn them. 

Gets to see Luther’s mother who’s still in school, who can’t take care of a baby and complete her studies. Maybe she could have, if she was prepared. But she was taken by surprise. Gets to see Diego’s mother swing her and her sister’s hands between them as they walk back from school, hand-me-down clothes and worn out shoes. They’re living paycheck to paycheck, and babies are expensive. Gets to see Allison’s mother, a career woman, who doesn’t have time for a baby and doesn’t want a baby. She has a life, and a plan, and she knows what she wants. 

Gets to see Klaus’s mother, who has clawed out a place for herself and herself alone. She’s supporting herself, she can’t support a baby on top of that. (and it’s not the baby’s fault, but her body was supposed to be hers, and she can’t help but hate what was forced upon her - she didn’t want to have a baby, didn’t want to go through that). Gets to know Five’s mother, who loves her little brother so fiercely and is so terribly proud of him. She worries over him and hangs his report cards on the fridge and neither of them speak about the home they left behind. She puts him first. Her brother comes before a squalling infant she didn’t ask for. They’re finally getting their footing, getting in a good spot. She can’t jeopardize that. She won’t. 

Gets to see Ben’s mother, who is so in love and so ready to leave. A baby would be a chain, tying her down, making her have to stay because she can’t do it alone and she’s in love and their relationship isn’t ready for a baby. Gets to see Vanya’s mother, who is responsible and a member of the community. She swims. She flirts with a cute boy she wants to like her. She figures this baby has the best chance at life away from her, in a home that isn’t hers. She’s a nice girl, she wants to do what’s best, and she believes giving the baby up was the right thing to do.

Maybe they built their mothers up in their minds. These terrible women who would give their child to Reginald Hargreeves. But they didn’t know. They thought the babies would be cared for, why wouldn’t they? 

The moral of this experience, the result of this time travel, is that they learn about the reasons someone can have for giving up a child. They learn that these abstract women in their thoughts are real people, with real lives, who make real mistakes.

They’re not monsters. They’re not evil. They’re frightened people who don’t know what’s happening to them, what’s happened to their bodies. None of them asked for this. None of them knew what was happening. It was painful, and frightening, and it wasn’t their fault.

And the kids have to realize that.

[lifviakaza]

In my childhood era, money meant a bunch of candies, orrr some Borobudur snacks. Happiness was as simple as Teh Telur brought home by Dad.

I don't remember when the perspective changed. I was still good at saving in junior high so every Eid I could have some pair of new boyish clothes (cz my mum chose them).

I learned islam better in senior high. That was when I wore socks everywhere and people started saying, 'You know, Mong, u don't need to be this extreme. Chill!'

I could bear my upset feeling by myself, but when it's too full, it exploded n God knows how I expressed my angers.

But I would say I've been quite an idealist since I was a kid. Having some problematic, complicated stories of life, I was used to sacrificing many things. But still, some principles were firm and fixed n I could lie to people but myself that easily.

I remember my choice of not paying for final exam's answer keys and did it with my own ability. I was brave enough to even prepare my escape plan in case indeed I didn't pass the exam cz it would be a shame to the family. But I made it tho I got the lowest score from almost 200 students. I could still vividly tell a teacher's mad and ashamed expression saying, 'why is ur name at the bottom?' Cz apparently school's n teacher's pride n good name are wayyy more important. Or some relatives trying hard every day advicing, 'when all ur friends do something, follow them. Why would u choose a different way? Don't be too honest. Think about your future.'

No one appreciated honesty, principles, or whatever. Disappointed? You tell me. I witnessed people giving and asking money so that they and I could get into a famous academy, university whatsoever. Instead, I chose to study in the cheapest college out of my hometown, experienced MLM, became a book delivery woman, learned the hard way.

In university, countless rich or students with enough earnings got scholarship for being poor. So they could buy a brand new gadget or go to a fancy restaurant. Missing a number of actual students in need. A veteran became a bin man, unrecognized, unseen, abandoned.

Hm, so that's how this world really works. You can always be selfish, and greedy, and that's forever okay, cz u need to survive this life, and ur comfy life is the most important thing. It's okay to vanish people that get in ur way. It's fine to scam the needy or not so educated people cz that's their fault to be dumb.

Is that really does? Cz a loooot of people don't even get to choose, let alone given options.

Years passed, I learned a lot. That most of people just use their mouths to speak whatever they want, judge, hurt, then they just forget that they actually have made an impression. The story after, they don't even care. They don't know that they just killed someone's confidence, kind heart, and even the human himself.

Years passed, I learned a lot more. That most of us would do literally anything to get what we want. That we are the most selfish n pathetic creatures begging for a good, oh, oh, then better life, oh not enough, the best plea-se.

That only feeew of us understand how to share n care n be thankful.

I guess that's why I open my door only for selected people. Cz maybe I was and am still my worst version. And being with some crowds are not gonna help me being my best form. Cz people like me are vulnerable. Easily attack and being attacked emotionally.

I've been there, given options between a better life yet sacrificing other people, my own beliefs n values or an okay life, just okay n still be able keeping everything I've been believing. Obviously, it's hard to choose the second one, but I love myself too much to let her drown and being less herself.

So, whenever the chance (s) to be less human appear before you, here it is to remind u that your choice matters. Your actions, decisions, mean a lot to the entire matters in the universe. Sometimes, u just don't realize it, or pretend not to. But deep down, u feel what u feel, and u know which is right, right ?

You've been doing great. I'm proud of YOU❤

[trashcanmarvelfan]

Aftermath (A Peter Parker Introspective Fic)

Summary: Peter dealing with the effects of Endgame, pre-FFH.

Warnings: ENDGAME SPOILERS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Word Count: 1821.

Author’s Note: Just processing my post-Endgame feels and working out some headcanons. Takes place post-Endgame, pre-Far from Home.

Requests are always open!

Cross-posted at AO3.

Peter Parker sighed as he slammed his locker shut. It had been a month since the snap that had wiped out half of the universe (including himself) had been undone, a month since Thanos had been defeated for good, a month since… Well. He swallowed thickly. At least it was Friday. He could go home and pretend like a world without Tony Stark didn’t exist for the next 2 days.

His phone buzzed with an incoming text:

Pepper really needs to see you. It’s important.

Peter rubbed his eyes. Happy. He had been texting Peter for the past few weeks:

- Hey, kid, how you holding up?

- Haven’t heard any Spider-Man updates, you patrolling Queens?

- Need you to come by the office when you get a chance.

- Pepper has something to discuss with you at Stark Industries.

- Really need you to swing by S.I. when you can.

He clicked his phone off without responding and walked toward the exit. Mr. Delmar’s bodega was still around, maybe he could stop there–

He burst out the door and stopped in his tracks.

Happy stood waiting in front of the usual nondescript black town car. “Hey, kid. You haven’t been answering my messages.”

“Well, you know…” Peter adjusted his backpack. “Been busy.”

Happy gave him a ‘I know BS when I hear it’ look. “I need you to come with me.” He opened the back door of the car and waited.

Peter sighed. Might as well get this over with. He climbed in.

To his immense relief, Happy didn’t try to make conversation on the way to Stark Industries. He merely parked and escorted Peter up to the lobby leading to Pepper’s office. “Wait here,” he instructed.

Peter thought about bolting, but the nearest train station was at least 3 miles away and he didn’t have his web shooters on him; and besides, even if he had had his web shooters he was sure that the last web fluid he had made had long since disintegrated.

A few minutes later, Happy returned. “Go on in.”

Peter walked down the hall to Pepper’s office and knocked on the open door.

“Hi, Miss Potts – Or actually I guess it’s been Mrs. Stark for a while now, huh?” he said, shuffling his feet nervously. “You, uh, you wanted to see me about something?”

Pepper walked out from behind her desk and pulled Peter into a tight hug. “Hi, Peter,” she said softly, her eyes glistening with unshed tears.  “Come on in.” She gestured over to the couch.

Peter took a deep breath and sat.

“How are you holding up?” Pepper asked, taking a seat next to him.

Peter shrugged, keeping his eyes trained towards the floor. He had a feeling that Pepper already knew - that he had woken up screaming almost every night since that final battle. That every time he closed his eyes he saw the light fading from Tony’s ARC reactor. That he never got to tell Tony just how much he meant to Peter - that Peter saw him as more than just billionaire Tony Stark, as more than Iron Man, as more than just someone to admire and look up to. Tony was much more than a mentor to Peter - he was the closest thing Peter had to a father since Uncle Ben had died. And now he was gone.

Pepper looked at him sympathetically. “Listen, Peter… I’ve arranged for psychiatric and grief counseling for all of Stark Industries’ employees who were affected by the snap.” She placed a gentle hand on his arm. “Including our interns. I already talked it over with your aunt and principal, and you’ll be given an excused absence on Monday to talk to Dr. Lansing.”

Peter blinked back tears. “Ok,” he said softly. “Do they– do they know? About me being Spider-Man?”

Pepper shook her head. “She knows that you were working personally with Tony before the snap and that you two were very close. Anything else you tell her is up to you.”

She took a deep breath. “Peter, the main reason I had Happy bring you here today is because Tony included you in his will.”

Pepper got up and walked over to a table, picking up a silver case and placing it on the coffee table in front of Peter before sitting next to him again.

Peter hesitated. He knew what that had to be.

“Go ahead, open it.”

Peter glanced at Pepper before placing his thumb against the sensor. The case beeped once before opening to reveal a new red and black Spider-Suit.

“Tony had made this before the Snap and was hoping to give it to you once you graduated from high school,” Pepper explained. “After the Snap he kept updating it in case we were able to bring everyone back.”

Peter just stared at the suit. “He… He kept working on this? Even after… after I…” He trailed off.

Pepper nodded. “And there’s something else. Education was extremely important to Tony, so in his will he founded the ‘Stark Industries Educational Scholarship for Technological Advancement of the Sciences’, or the ‘SIESTAS’ grant for short.  It offers full tuition including room & board, plus a stipend for books and food to a student studying technology or science to the college of their choice, with an option to renew the scholarship for a masters’ program & Ph.D. as well.” Pepper paused. “He named you the recipient.”

“Wow, that’s– that’s amazing.” Peter was at a loss for words. “Thank you.”

Pepper smiled softly at him. “Tony talked about you a lot, you know.”

Peter looked up at her in surprise. “He did?”

Pepper nodded. “I wish you could’ve heard him sometimes. He was so proud of you and everything you’d accomplished.”

Peter’s eyes filled up with tears again. He sniffled. “And I always thought Mr. Stark barely tolerated me,” he joked weakly.

Pepper shook her head. “You were so much more than just a mentee or an ‘Avenger-in-training’ to Tony, Peter. Even though he never got to tell you, he loved you like a son. You made Tony realize that he wanted to be a father, and for that I’m forever grateful because although Tony may be gone, the best part of him lives on. So thank you.”

She picked up a framed photo of herself, Tony, and the little girl that Peter had learned was Tony and Pepper’s daughter, Morgan. Pepper caressed the photo softly before setting it back down. “Before Tony and I found out that we were having a girl, he said that if we had a boy, he wanted his middle name to be Peter.” She paused. “So instead, Morgan’s middle name is Petra.”

Peter’s Greek wasn’t too advanced, but he did at least know that ‘Petra’ was the feminine version of ‘Peter.’ He swallowed the lump in his throat. “Pet– Petra?”  

“Tony wanted you to know just how much you meant to him – to us.”  Pepper took Peter’s hand in hers and gave it a gentle squeeze. “You’re part of this family, Peter– you and May both.”

She stood. “I’m so sorry I have to cut this short - I have a meeting with the shareholders to go over some projects for next quarter. We’re going to do an official announcement of the SIESTAS grant at a later date with a presentation and everything, but I did want you to know about it as soon as Tony’s will was read.”

As if on cue, Happy knocked on the doorframe to Pepper’s office. “You ready to go, kid?”

Peter nodded numbly.

Pepper hugged him once again.

“Thank you, Mrs. Stark,” Peter replied.

“We’re family, Peter. You can call me Pepper.” She released him. “Don’t be a stranger, alright? I mean it. Morgan’s been wanting to meet her surrogate big brother properly.”

Peter smiled sadly. “Thank you, Pepper.”  He picked up the case with his new suit and followed Happy out of the office.

Once Peter arrived home, he opened the case and took the suit out to examine it.  Stark tech had always been way more advanced than most technology, but this… Tony definitely had made some upgrades to Peter’s suit in the past 5 years.

Peter hadn’t worn his Spider-Suit since the day the Snap had been undone and they had defeated Thanos. Even though they had won, he still felt like he had failed because he couldn’t save Tony.

He sighed and hung the suit up.

He was working on his homework when May arrived home. “Hey, Peter!” she called out.

“I’m in here, May!” Peter called in reply.

May knocked on his door then opened it a crack. “Hey, how was your day?” she asked.

“Fine,” Peter replied. He bit his lip. “I, uh… I went by Stark Industries after school today. Mrs. Stark - I mean Pepper - she wanted to see me.”

“Oh?” May asked nonchalantly.

“She mentioned that she arranged counseling for Stark employees, and I… I have an appointment on Monday.”

May visibly relaxed. “That’s wonderful, Peter. I’m proud of you for accepting help.”

Peter nodded. “But that wasn’t all she wanted to talk about. Mr. Stark… Tony… left me some things in his will.”

“He did?”

“He gave me a 4-year scholarship to any college I choose, with the option to renew the scholarship for a Master’s degree and Ph.D if I choose to pursue them.”

May’s eyes widened. “Wow, that’s so generous.”

Peter gestured toward his new suit. “He also left me a new Spider-Suit.”

May put a gentle hand on his shoulder. “He obviously cared a lot about you.” She paused. “Have you tried your new suit on yet?”

Peter shook his head. “Not yet. I…” His voice broke. “I just miss him so much, May.”

“I know, sweetie,” May replied, sitting next to Peter on his bed and wrapping her arms around him. “I know.”

She held on to Peter for a few more moments. “Just remember that those we love are never truly gone, ok? Tony would want you to continue on.”

Peter sniffled.

May kissed the top of Peter’s head and stood. “Now, I’m going to go make us some dinner and you join me when you’re ready, ok?”

Peter nodded, wiping his eyes on his sleeve.

May exited Peter’s room and shut the door behind her.

Peter sat quietly for a few more minutes, just staring at his suit. Finally, he thought, May’s right. Tony *would* want me to continue on. The world needs Spiderman.

He stood and picked up his new suit. Here goes.

He stripped down to his boxers, pulled the suit on, put on his mask, and pressed the spider on the front of his suit to fit it to his frame.

He took a deep breath as he waited for his AI, Karen, to boot up and greet him.

Instead of Karen, however, the updated AI voice was one he had never expected to hear again.

“Hey, Underoos.”

[the-amazing-spider-bi]

the college au nobody asked for I leta lestrange/newt scamander I 4k I ao3

The roommate AU in which otters hold paws while they sleep, Leta didn’t think she would ever fall in love with someone who can’t even handle his coffee without milk, Credence collects crushes on all of his male teachers like they’re Pokemons, and Dumbledore finds endless amusement in his students’ antics.

Read on ao3 or under the cut!

“Hi,” Leta says. “I heard your group was still missing a member for the Sociology of Fashion project, so I was wondering if I could join you?”

The gaggle of girls in front of her startles, but when Leta smiles, they smile back. She tries to be as friendly as she can - which is difficult since she is more used to projecting a bitch resting face than acting innocent - until they end up exchanging numbers and agreeing to meet at the library on Monday to write their outline.

They go their separate ways when the other girls, who are obviously a group of friends, go see a movie, and Leta pretexts a previous engagement so they don’t have to invite her out of pity. They still wave goodbye, and Leta smiles one last time before she turns around. She tightens her grey and green scarf around her neck and walks away in a flurry of fallen leaves. She is going to get coffee, by herself, and then barricade herself in the coffee shop until she finishes her Power and Privilege essay - for a seminar, it sure involved an enormous amount of work.

Leta isn’t the type of girl people like. According to her classmates, she is posh and weird and standoffish, all of which are true. She doesn’t talk or smile or try enough to please people. She knows she could, really - she just doesn’t care to. It is alright with her, though. She would rather be alone most of the time than go back to the endless string of dinners and playdates her parents used to make her attend back when she was a girl.

So she is surprised when her phone lights up with a notification, thinking these girls are really fast to text.

Newt Dorkmander: did you know otters hold paws when they sleep?

Newt Dorkmander: actually it is to avoid drifting off of course but still

Newt Dorkmander: the thought is lovely

She tries not to smile at her phone as she types, you do know just because it’s a text doesn’t mean this won’t be deduced from your daily animal facts quota, don’t you? - she has to take off her gloves to type, and then when she comes into the shop the sting from the cold metal handle surprises her.

Newt Dorkmander: i do my best to lighten a cold november day and this is how you thank me

Newt Dorkmander: i cannot believe it

“Well someone is uncharacteristically perky today.”

She pockets her phone and does her best impression of her grandmother’s dignified stare. In front of her, Credence the coffeehouse guy is grinning in his green apron, already preparing her cup. Credence the coffeehouse guy is exactly Leta’s type of man, by which she means he is quiet, doesn’t bother her any more than he has to, and brings her coffee.

“I’m not perky,” Leta states. “Take it back.”

“Nah, it’s too late, your reputation is ruined forever,” Nagini, who is almost always to be found wherever Credence is, says from that seat in front of the counter she claimed as hers at the beginning of the year.

Leta rolls her eyes at them. “You freshmen are growing more annoying every year.”

“You’re barely one year older than us,” Nagini points out.

“College years are like dog years,” Leta informs them. “As such, I am fifteen years wiser than you.”

Credence the coffeehouse guy smiles and says, “Americano?”

“Americano,” Leta confirms, and if she refrains from making a terrible The Fault in our Starsjoke, then she will carry this secret to the grave. But still. A genuine John Green reference. She spends way too much time with Newt.

Of course, this isn’t like it’s a recent development - they have known each other since they were thirteen and Newt quite literally stumbled in her life with freckled cheeks and messy hair, then through their teens when he tiptoed around awkwardly with a lanky, ridiculously tall figure and she rushed through everything with the dedicated anger of a rebellious posh girl.

Then Newt had been expelled, and everything in her life went bonkers, but this is the part she tries not to think about.

Credence hands her her coffee and doesn’t make any more comments about who she was texting or how happy she looked, because he doesn’t make it a habit to comment on people - or talk to them - and he really is one of her favorite persons on campus.  

She spends the rest of the afternoon hunched over getting five thousands more words done, and when she leaves, Credence the coffeehouse guy has been replaced by Rita the coffeehouse girl, who she likes a lot less. She takes care to avoid eye contact and pulls out her phone, scrolling through social media feed without really reading anything until a headline catches her eye. She reopens her conversation with Newt, whose last message was an apocalyptic string of texts about being out of tea.

Leta Lestrange: you know netflix just uploaded the new planet earth season

“I know,” he says.

She looks up, startled. “What are you doing here?”

Newt is standing up in his usual blue overcoat and a faded yellow Hufflepuff scarf she gave him for Christmas when they were sixteen. (They had a price limit that time, so she had to knit him the scarf and ended up buying one anyway after a few unsuccessful hours. It’s not like he noticed anyway.) He is so outrageously tall she has to tilt her head to see his face, just so that he can avoid her gaze.

He shrugs and smiles at the ground. “I was on my way from the library, and it’s nicer to go home together.”

She frowns. “And how did you know I was there? Mister Scamander, are you stalking me? Should I check for hidden cameras? Do you keep pictures of me under your pillows?”

“Don’t be silly,” Newt says placidly. “I sleep in the next room. I can just come over to watch you sleep the normal way.”

She laughs. “Always good to know you have a lot of opinions on the best way to stalk me.”

“Well, one can never be too prepared, can they? I could always end up as a handsome brooding vampire if my zoologist plan doesn’t work out. I think I have the smoulder.”

“You certainly dress like you’re from 1910,” she says.

“You’re just jealous you can’t pull off the trench coat detective aesthetic as well as I do.”

She opens her mouth to tell him he has never pulled off anything, ever, in his life, but feels a shiver crawling up the back of her spine and changes her mind. “Just a second,” she says as she whips around to glare at Rita the coffeehouse girl who watching them raptly from behind the class. She scrambles to pretend she is not.

“Being noisy is an understandable flaw, but there is nothing worse than being noisy and bad at it,” she says conversationally.

“If you’ve sufficiently scarred her, can we go now?” Newt asks. “I’m freezing.”

“Bossy,” she complains under her breath.

They walk home together.

Around them, the atmosphere is wet and chilly, and not quite snowy either, which is the worst type of weather, according to her. It feels like the cold slips into her clothes in between the threads to stick to her skin in a damp layer that feels like sweat, only much worse. She doesn’t think twice about leaning close to Newt to protect herself from it, and he doesn’t think twice about wrapping his scarf around her shoulders, still talking about the cool things he learned in Introduction to Zoology module. For the entirety of the trip home she drifts in and out of focus, sometimes picking a specific topic he brought up and asking for more details or an explanation, sometimes daydreaming when he explains some technical part of Neurology he doesn’t quite understand yet himself. By the time they get to their flat, he has moved on to complaining about his Introduction to Physiology, Pharmacology and Neuroscience course, by which he is clearly bored to tears and that he still wants to attend anyway. She doesn’t press him about it but she is pretty sure his scholarship involves perfect attendance.

They walk up three sets of stairs - the place is right outside campus in this tiny brick building, rent as cheap as any flat with three rooms can be, which means no elevators, to Leta’s great despair. Without having to ask she gets in front of him to open the door herself, because Newt always loses his keys inside the holes in his ancient coat pockets, so it is just faster this way.

Immediately as she opens the door a dash of brown fur bounces into the hallway, climbs the sleeve of Newt’s coat, settles his shoulder where its nibbles at his ears.

“Hello you,” she hears Newt coo at Pickett. She rolls her eyes good-naturedly as she goes to take off her coat inside. There is a hot shower she has been dreaming of ever since she woke up this morning waiting for her, and then undercooked pasta in front of an animal documentary.

Whoever said college students weren’t living the dream?

When she wakes up the next morning, Newt is hunched over on their couch, copper hair messed up beyond repair, eyes half closed. She takes in the sight of his plaid pajamas and the squirrel burrowed in his hair, because he keeps spoiling Pickett then being surprised when he doesn’t want to join his siblings in the great wild outdoors, the moron. He looks utterly miserable.

He started up the coffee maker, though, so she can work with this.

“We’re buying tea this afternoon,” she says, before adding, more gently: “Hey, do you want me to do that hot chocolatey coffee you like to survive your morning classes?”

“Yes, please,” Newt says in a tiny voice.

She presses her hand against his shoulder as she goes behind the counter to make him a mocha and make herself an entire Thermos of black coffee. He gets dressed while she pours them their drinks, by which she means puts on the first wool sweater he found and jeans. She does the same while he sips his cup and checks on all his rescued animals of the moment - Niffler the magpie with the broken wing who keeps escaping his hen coop to steal their shiny cutlery or her silver earrings, Pickett who resolutely doesn’t want to leave, and an enormous Maine coon Newt insists on calling Zouwu despite how ridiculous it sounds. When she leaves in a hurry of perfume and long trench coat with her Thermos in hand, Newt looks considerably perkier.

A few hours later, she is considering the pros and cons of the infamous Veggie Salad versus Caesarean Salad case. Since Newt’s class finishes in one hour when her afternoon ones begin, and, well, she doesn’t really have any other friend nor a lunch break long enough to go home, she is planning to get some food from the cafeteria before she goes to her classroom and eats in front of her book. It sounds sad, but it’s actually a very good book, Jane Austen’s Emma, which she had somehow never read before, her high school curriculum consisting only of Pride and Prejudice again and again and again. She is usually more of a gothic, Byronic hero kind of gal, with a bit of sci-fi thrown in when Newt recommends one of his nerdy books to her, but well, it’s Jane Austen.

She looks forward to that lunch alone watching Emma and Mr. Knightly fall in love. The universe doesn’t care about that.

“Fancy seeing you here,” Nagini says behind her.

She turns around slowly. The younger girl isn’t quite smiling, as she rarely ever does, but she looks as friendly as she can be with eyes surrounded by eyeliner and black lipstick, black clothes, black boots, black eye, black everything.

“Freshmen have lunch breaks now? Back in my time-” Leta starts teasing.

“You ate on the floor some gruel right out of the bowl before your Latin class started?” Nagini guesses.

Leta chuckles. “Close enough.”

“Wanna sit with us, or will it ruin your street cred?” Nagini asks, eyes shining with curiosity, or maybe just hunger.

Leta shrugs and pays for her salad at the counter. “If you promise never to use the words street cred ever again, sure.”

At Nagini’s left, Credence smiles shyly. She has never seen him out of his coffee shop uniform, and he is definitely not what she imagined, with a tiny silver cross hanging from a chain on his neck, a rainbow lapel pin on his jean jacket and an undercut.  They move from the cafeteria’s blinding artificial lights to the tables outside - they are already in winter and it is cold out, but Leta is used to avoiding loud, busy rooms, what with Newt’s condition, so it doesn’t bother her all that much. As for the two kids, tables are almost empty by this time of the year, so it doesn’t take a genius to get what their appeal can represent.

Nagini kicks up her feet on the table and leans sideways on Credence’s side while Leta has a wooden bench all to herself.

“So, about your ruined reputation,” Nagini starts. “What was up with you yesterday?”

“Did you see Professor Grindelwald falling down in the street?” Credence asks and takes a tiny bite of his apple.

“I wish,” Leta says, because if there is one thing that unites Nagini and her it is their mutual hatred for Grindelwald. He still teaches one of her classes today and she had him twice last year, once in her Introduction to Political Science class and another time in an Advanced Rhetorics option she picked up and gave up on soon afterward. The university is divided into two camps, really. There are those who think Grindelwald is like a white-haired, mole-rat-looking reincarnation of Jesus Christ or Martin Luther King or whoever teens idolize these days. Then there are people with common sense who see him for what he is, like Leta.

“The other day he took Credence’s phone in class and when he gave it back he changed his lock screen to a picture of him,” Nagini recalls. “Not even a funny picture, just this close up on his face, staring at the camera, Big Brother style. Credence still hasn’t changed it either.”

“What do you want?” Credence says with a self-aware smile. “I have terrible taste in men and daddy issues.”

“Gross,” Nagini whines.

“That’s not the problem,” Leta says. “The problem is out of all the silver fox material in this college - we have Dumbledore and Graves teaching - you went ahead and got a crush on him.”

“Bold of you to assume I don’t also have a crush on Dumbledore and Graves,” Credence says.

They laugh about it. Before an awkward pause can settle, Leta says, picking at her plate with suspicion, “Anyway, no, my roommate just sent me something funny.”

“What was it?”

Leta knows about retelling past jokes and that only waste, you just really had to be there, you know? and fake laughs this way come, so she says, allusively, “Just a fun fact about otters. He’s really into animals. He’s a bit of a dork about it, eats vegan, picks up every stray cat that crosses his path, the whole deal. Zoology students and all that.”

“Oh, that’s cool,” Nagini says. “This school has one of the best programmes in the country, don’t they?”

“Yes, that’s why we chose to come here,” Leta shrugs off, scrunching her nose at her salad, poking it around. It even smells weird. “This is way more disgusting than I remember it to be, isn’t it?”

There’s a silence. When she looks up, the two freaky twins are both raising their eyebrows the exact same way. It’s uncanny.

“That’s nice,” Credence drawls out.

“That my salad tastes like rotten grass?” Leta asks, raising an eyebrow as she grins at him.

“No, though it always tastes like cold garbage, so you only have yourself to blame,” Credence says. “You chose your college depending on your friend?”

Leta is uncomfortable. “He was - is my best friend. We met in boarding school when we were kids, with all the rich posh kids running around. It was hell, so, that makes friendship very intense.” They still look at her weirdly, and she is good with words, but even she doesn’t know how to convey the harshness of boarding schools when you are a bit different, a bit weird , so she adds: “Anyway, he was expelled in the middle of high school, and it was even worse without him here, so we decided we would stick together through college at least.”

She doesn’t talk about being the only black girl in her year, or Newt being diagnosed at thirteen, or how cruel children can be. Sometimes when she thought about it too long she felt so angry, almost as angry as she used to be in these years where she would talk back to the other kids when they mocked her and end up in detentions more weekends than not. She is quieter now, almost free of all of that teenage angst, better, but sometimes she feels like she is only pretending to be tamed, to be something she is not, like Pickett the domesticated squirrel.

“That’s actually very cool,” Credence says. “I can’t imagine living with my old middle school friends. Well, I didn’t have friends in middle school, probably because they were scared by my raw coolness, but even if I did, I guess I just changed a lot since then.”

“I don’t know. I never really thought about that,” Leta surprises herself by saying.

In the end, they move on from the subject to discuss Credence’s thing for every forty-something male teacher he meets, the revelations about a Moscow Trump tower, and salad that tastes like cardboard. When she gets to class, though, she keeps thinking over and over about growing up. She has always prided herself on being more perceptive than others - not even considering that Newt might be a different person as an adult than as a freckled thirteen-year-old is blindsiding her in a way she doesn’t care for.

She tries to forget about it and focuses on getting her degree.

But the thought planted by Credence sticks in the back of her mind, feeling so very foreign to her. It is relentless and invading and points its ugly, alien head at the most inappropriate moments throughout the week, and she can’t help but wonder.

She is the one who picks her roommate up at the end of his classes on Fridays, waiting with a coffee in hand for her and a chai for him. It is part of their routine. She watches the first wave of bouncing, impatient Bio students leave the building, then a second one, even bigger and noisier somehow, until Newt emerges from the lot and walks towards her. For the first time since they were fifteen, she appraises him. He looks like, well, Newt. So ridiculously tall he has to hunch over a little to pass doorsteps, shy smile, hands in his pockets. Then her gaze stays on him just a second too long, and he has the same wiry, messy-haired, freckled figure than when he was a kid, but maybe it looks less lanky now, somewhat. He doesn’t stare at the ground quite as much when he is out, his eyes darting from one point to the other in wonder, and suddenly she wishes she could know about the patterns he sees when he stares at the world like that.  

She still smiles in the same way she always does when she offers him his cup and his fingers brush against her gloved hand.

“Thank you so much,” he says, smiling. “Not to be dramatic, but I think if I have to listen to one more Neurology class, I might gouge out my own brain.”

“Lovely,” she comments. “You talk to Professor Dumbledore with that mouth?”

“Indeed, Mister Scamander,” an older man butts in with an amused expression and sparkling eyes behind half-moon glasses. “If you feel that strongly about my classes, I am always pleased to hear my students’ feedback during office hours.”

He trips over his own feet and stammers his excuses as Albus Dumbledore laughs at him in polite silences, and Leta tries not to be too amused by his misfortunes. If warmth oozes in her stomach, it must be either laughter or the hot coffee she is gulping down. It burns her tongue and her throat and keeps her hands busy not fixing Newt’s half-bent collar.

Newt is still talking with his hands to Dumbledore about his Zoology project when they leave campus. She has never had him in class, and never will, but even if she had never met him before, she would like him for the encouraging way he smiles as Newt talks to him about slugs’ brains or whatever he is explaining right now. Despite teaching one of Newt’s least liked courses - too many human examples, not enough slugs - he is still by far his favourite professor. It is enough for her.

Dumbledore goes home on a scooter, of all things, a Vespa, and Newt doesn’t get how funny it is when she tries to explain.

“I’m sure it’s very practical,” he tells her as they climb up the stairs.

“This is clearly not my point,” Leta says. “You’re just willfully blind because you have a crush on him.”

“What? I-I do not. He’s my teacher .”

Leta raises her eyebrows. Oh, really now. “And?”

“This is- wrong, and ridiculous, is what it is, and I will not talk to you about it any further.”

She stays silent as she opens the door. He gets even more flustered. His entire face is blushing all over, his skin like a sunset from his neck to the tip of his ears, and he fidgets with his sleeves, and it is sort of adorable, really.

“I don’t have a crush on Dumbledore!” he says, too loudly.

Then they go in and Niffler has gotten loose somehow and all of their spoons are in his cage, so he has reasons to get busy, but as soon as they’re sitting on their old couch again with a cup of hot cocoa, she raises her eyebrows again and he almost throws his cup at her. She breaks out laughing.

When she opens her eyes again, he is looking pointedly at his computer screen. This is when it happens. She can only witness in horror Newt’s profile rearrange itself in her head, move away from chubby cheeks and bitten lips, and this is when, as if she has never seen him before, she realizes he is handsome.

In some abstract way, she knew this before. She had noticed defined cheekbones, jawline, eyes with ever-changing colors, pushed him towards a girl or a boy or anyone and told him to just try his luck. It was only theoretical, though. It is like - she knows gravity exists, knows Earth rotates around the sun drawn by its sheer weight, but she also doesn’t know it, doesn’t understand it or feel the push of the sun’s attraction. This is like being in the reach of a supernova.

“Why are you still looking at me,” Newt complains, frowning at his screen.

Shit.

“No reason,” she says, not averting her eyes.

“Alright, so maybe I have a tiny crush on him. Just a smidge. It’s just- I- he’s so nice,” Newt says, turning around to look at her with wide, earnest eyes that look green today. “And a role model. Sort of.”

This is not the crush she is worried about.

[derek-oluransi]

summer.

so I was supposed to write this out as a full fic for @pimmsweek​ but the summer was so busy that i never got to. so instead, im writing it as a bullet fic. Canon divergent. Written for the prompt that was “Seasons Promised.”

Summer is almost like a lover. It’s inviting and warm, with promises of adventure. But it can also be near suffocating, with a smothering intensity that leaves little of a person left for Fall.

This is the story of Kent Parson and summer.

He was born on July 4th, in the middle of the hottest season, but Kent hates the summer more than anything

You’d think you know why. You’d be wrong.

July 4th 1990 was the day he was born.

His childhood went like this;

Fireworks and cookouts that were often combined with birthday parties. Kent’s mother used to tell him that the fireworks for him.

When he hit fourth grade, he learned the fireworks were for America, and no one but his little city block even knew who Kent V. Parson was.

It was a blow, but Kent could bounce back from it easily.

(He still tells Allison, his baby sister, that they’re for him secretly, but he knows one day she’ll stop believing it too)

Summer stopped being “Kent Parson’s birthday season” and turned into “more time for practice, since it’s the off season”

What do creamcicles and hockey rinks have in common? They’re both cold.

Kent learns to love it as much as a boy can, when he discovers he’s fast on his skates and quick with a stick

He doesn’t need to do tricks. He just has to know how to get the puck to the net and not get knocked off his feet while he does it.

(In a way, that’s a trick, isn’t it?)

He gets so good that his parents think he should play for a team, and play he does, like his life depends on it

His parents aren’t together some days, but his mom always makes it to his games.

The spring before his thirteenth, he learns his mom prefers to be called dad.

The summer of his fourteenth year that Kent finds out his parents are getting a divorce. He stops seeing his sister for a long time.

He asks why his father doesn’t want him. His dad tells him to keep playing.

He can skate through pain, after all.

(He definitely skates through the pain that comes with his dad sending him away to Canada to play on a team in Juniors. It’s all he can do.)

The summer before his first season on a Junior team, Kent met Jack Zimmermann.

Jack made summer bearable.

Jack was still baby soft in places, still smiled with his eyes, had perfect parents that let Kent stay with them when his billet parents had to go to Europe

Kent’s glad his dad doesn’t mind. He’s not glad when his calls don’t get returned, but he trusts his dad. There’s too few people in his life for him not to.

Jack Zimmermann makes Kent smile. He never seems to know what to say but when he speaks, he’s always kind

Kent wishes more of the boys on their team were this kind

He thinks Joey might be cuter if he smiled more

He thinks Corey would be hotter if he shit talked less

He thinks Jack is the perfect mix of both traits, without being horrible and demeaning, and that means more to Kent than anything else

Summers with Jack shape the rest of the season for Kent. They’re the most important.

They’ve only had three summers together, Kent is aware.

That doesn’t mean he hasn’t gotten better for having them.

The summer stop being a point of sadness for him. He starts... looking forward to them.

He doesn’t see his dad except in video calls during the season, so he looks forward to going to New York with Jack to visit him

They’re close and... they like to experiment.

They really like to experiment. Mainly with places, what they can get away with, and what makes each other feel good.

Kent learns a lot about Jack during the summer.

They’re young. They make mistakes. They live and learn.

Kent thinks, later in his life, that he didn’t learn enough.

That every defeat had Jack shaking, every practice where he couldn’t get the puck into the net wasn’t a celebration of their goalie’s skill, but a funeral for the death of his own.

Kent thinks, later in his life, that there was so little he could have done.

Thirty-four days.

It’s... the shortest summer Kent’s ever had. He had to grow up so quick.

After his birthday there was no slowing down. There was never a break, there was never a moment.

Jack would smile, but it stopped reaching his eyes. It worried Kent, but there wasn’t much he could say.

In hindsight, maybe Kent should have gone to college.

After all, what did the Draft have to offer him?

A team to play on? If he didn’t do the NHL after he could do NCAA, get a degree in something he liked and work that after playing four years of college hockey.

A salary? His dad could afford to ship him off to college. And Kent could get a part time job while he was in college. Not to mention the hockey scholarship he could probably come in on.

So what? Kent didn’t know. He thought it would make his father proud but after so many years, he’d stopped seeking the man’s approval. His dad was all he had and all he needed anyway.

Yes, the Draft didn’t have much to offer him but Kent... hadn’t dropped out.

Neither did Jack.

In hindsight, it all boiled down to Kent just... not knowing.

Kent didn’t know that it never really mattered who went first, that it was nothing more than a title, until later in his life.

Kent didn’t know that Jack’s anxiety was eating him like it was, alive, like Jack was a meal to be feasted on slowly.

Kent didn’t know he’d come to hate the sight of the Emergency Rooms in hospitals, cold, sterile, always inducing a feeling of dread in his stomach.

Kent didn’t know it would take him seventeen weeks, four days, two hours and eight minutes to stop feeling claustrophobic in his own bathroom.

He just. Didn’t know.

If he’d stayed in school, maybe he would have, he muses some days.

Now the summer was something to be dreaded. Spent in New York, on his dad’s couch, wishing he had never stepped out of that bedroom in Montreal, even for a moment.

He could fake the media smiles at the end of each season. He could fake his enthusiasm for being away from the ice. He could fake pride and glee and all the other emotions required of him when fans asked if he was excited for his birthday.

He could never fake the sadness. Even when he felt like he was.

It was something that settled deeper in his bones than the dead of winter did.

Kent was always his coldest during the summer, when he was away from the rink, away from hockey, away from anything that could have possibly distracted him from the freezing at his core.

The summer was supposed to be hot. Why was Kent constantly cold?

The Aces help. They help in only the ways they know how, only the ways that they can.

Swoops and Scrappy are instrumental.

Jeff never looks happy unless he’s got a chirp on his lips but Kent comes to appreciate him, too.

Scrappy texts him every day, like the guy doesn’t know how to put his phone down.

There’s always cute videos in his twitter DMs, of kids, of cats, of dogs, of animals, of old people, and all the in between.

Kent thinks if there’s a cute video someone wants to find, Scrappy can get it for them in a snap

It helps.

Swoops facetimes him every night. He’s done it so often that his dad asks if he’s had his nightly call yet when Swoops has yet to hit his phone up.

He’s done it so often that Kent’s dad knows his name, his face, and the name of his dog. Humphrey is always excited to see Kent, too.

And he always manages to do it when Kent feels like he’s slipping, like his grip on reality is beginning to loosen.

It helps.

Jeff pretends he doesn’t care, but his wife sends Kent a package every two weeks with his favourite desert desserts.

The hand written card asking if he’s doing okay that he finds in the box also isn’t written in Valerie’s swirling script.

Kent knows because Valerie writes the address on the boxes. Kent knows because her handwriting is cleaner.

Jeff pretends he doesn’t give a shit, but Kent’s had enough time to be able to read him like a book.

In the end, Kent knows that Jeff is always worried about him, always asking after him, always making sure he’s okay, even when he’s so obviously not.

It helps.

He learned to live, instead of just be alive.

He learned to get by, with all the aches and pains that come from a mending heart.

He learned to despise the summer less, even when he can’t bring himself to be happy on his birthday some years.

He makes contact with Jack again.

Or rather, Jack makes contact with Kent.

Tentative, slowly, with short text messages and calls of congratulations.

He wins a game. His phone rings. He picks up.

It’s Jack.

And isn’t it a testament to their friendship that it’s like nothing ever happened?

That it’s like there wasn’t a gap of nearly six years between them, because Jack went to college?

That Jack can tell him after a loss that it was a good game, and he did his best, and “You’ll get ‘em next time, Kenny.”

Kent thinks Jack shouldn’t get to make it that easy.

He’d had a life after Jack.

After the overdose sent him spiraling out into the ocean on a life raft too small for one body.

And he’d had a life before Jack.

Before Jack decided he wanted to speak to him again, after radio silence for so long.

He’d had so much to work through apart from Jack and Jack comes back and makes it easy to forget that his therapist says he’s allowed to be angry when someone ghosts him, no matter the reason, even if he doesn’t approach and doesn’t ask why.

He’d had to work through communication, when all he wanted to do was curl into a ball and never see the light of day again.

Jack makes it easy to forget he’s his own person, where he ends and Jack begins some days.

It’s not okay. It build and builds and it’s not okay.

Eventually, it culminates. As all things must, it comes to a head.

It’s fitting that it doesn’t happen until Jack’s on the other side of a door, and Kent has the option to let him in or keep him locked out.

Kent isn’t feeling like himself when it happens. He knows he’s disassociating when he’s staring at the door knob long enough for Jack to try it, wondering if he’s there.

Kent remembers asking Jack why he’d come. He doesn’t recall saying the words, and he certainly doesn’t remember moving his lips, but he asks.

Jack is quiet on the other side of the door for a long time.

He waits a bit before he asks Kent if he can come inside.

Kent remembers the next moment when he’s face to face with Jack, but he doesn’t remember how he got to the kitchen table, or how Jack sat close enough to him for their knees to touch.

He remembers to breathe.

Jack tells him that the radio silence is his fault, and he has no excuse.

Kent responds that he never tried to reach out after, distanced himself too. They’re both at fault.

Kent remembers July 23rd, when Jack stayed over and they talked about what this meant for them. They were in the peak of summer, but Jack was cool and calm, a soothing balm for the burns Kent was unknowingly nursing.

Jack wants to try again. Kent’s afraid of what could happen but he doesn’t want to let go.

Jack won’t push.

Kent appreciates that he isn’t gonna get shoved headlong into what could be more heartbreak.

He likes that Jack doesn’t promise he won’t break his heart again. It’s open and honest.

He loves that Jack wants to try though, to keep the organ beating and whole.

Kent thinks they spend days in that apartment together.

When they leave, Jack kisses him good bye.

By the time June 20th rolls around, Kent can’t wait for the official start of summer.

He and Jack have plans to go to the Bahamas for his birthday.

They bought their plane tickets and booked a hotel room in early March, after the Aces won the Stanley Cup.

It’s a reward, Jack tells him, for playing harder than any player on the team, a proud captain.

Kent thinks Jack just wants to make up time.

Both aren’t wrong.

Jack makes the summers easy again.

That’s not entirely true.

Kent learned to make the summers easier on his own first. He learned with his dad, with Scrappy, with Swoops, with Jeff.

He learned with his therapist, with time.

Jack just adds to his enjoyment of it.

He was born on July 4th, in the middle of the hottest season of the year, but summer is the season Kent Parson adores most of all.

It’s like a lover. It’s inviting and warm. When it’s good to you, it leaves you whole.

[christopherwatsonbooks]

Covenant Spring, Chapter Three

Years went by. I worked a handful of jobs. Most aren’t worth talking about.

I moved out of the house as soon as I could afford it. I found a little apartment I could manage on my own. It had putty-colored walls and thin brown carpeting. The air conditioning carried the damp smell of everyone who had ever lived there, like a dirty refrigerator.

The day I moved out of the house, Dad presented me with a laminated wallet-sized card on which he’d carefully printed all the names and phone numbers he could think of, in case I was ever in an accident or needed help. He made me put the card into my wallet right then, even though I had most of the numbers in my phone contacts already. He kept talking as we loaded my stuff into the apartment, checking the smoke detectors and reminding me to lock the doors and windows when I was away, and to call him if I needed anything, even if he was at work. We made a date to go shopping for used furniture at the Goodwill store.

I walked him out to the car. He hugged me before he got in. I smelled his after shave, felt his soft middle-aged muscles beneath his store shirt. I was taller than he was now. It was the first time I had been close enough to him to really notice.

I sat on a box in my new apartment and cried. I wasn’t sure why.

. . .

I bought a used car, a crappy little oil-burning Toyota. I spent most of my spare cash on books, and read most of them. I hardly ever invited anyone over because I'm a dick.

I'm not trying to be funny. I know how I am around people. I'm not easy to get along with. I don't try to be a dick but there's just not that much that anyone has to say that interests me, most people anyway. Most of it is obvious or ignorant, or tedious social prattle, or just plain bullshit.

I find it all exceptionally difficult to tolerate. I suppose I could try, or try harder, but it’s not worth the effort to me. Inevitably, I’ll find myself having to say something meaningless just to be social or having to pretend that someone didn’t just say something stupendously asinine, just to be polite.

People think I'm arrogant because I don’t say much. It's easier to let them think that than it is to pretend to be friendly. When I attempt the required contortions, I wind up castrating my point, stumbling over my own attempted courtesy to the degree that I end up sounding like a moron.

The trouble with being nice for its own sake, with being courteous in the face of imbecility, is that the very people who require you to make the effort will mistake you for a pussy. Speak plain, and you’re a dick.

So I’m a dick. I don’t see that it’s my responsibility to coddle your delicate sensibilities or make you comfortable in your ignorance. I can’t help it if you jump when I slap my coins on the counter. Grow the fuck up.

There. I’m done.

It would’ve been nice to have had some company, though.

. . .

Dad I can talk to. We made it a point to have dinner together once a month. It's nice to buy dinner for your dad. He always offered to pay and sometimes I let him, when I saw he needed to. I would get the tip then.

“How is she?” I would ask. I didn’t have to say who.

“The same,” he would say. And we would move on, careful not to open that door too wide, easing it closed.

I felt I had to ask, to at least recognize that she was a part of things, if for no other reason than that she still took up space in our world, and so must be acknowledged.

. . .

Most of the time, though, I fantasized about women. I thought about them constantly. I imagined the feel of their smooth shoulders beneath my hands, the softness of them pressed against me, their warm scent. I ached for it.

I loved to watch women in bookstores, beautiful smart women opening book covers to feed their souls. Their slim fingers pulling their hair back, tucking it behind their ear, that perfect smooth curve of neck revealed.

You women, you moved through the world like goddesses to me. Do you know the power you had, cool and perfect so that it split my heart to see you. I never dared approach, because I would not have been able to bear had you turned away. But you being there gave me what hope I had. Like a dream of a kiss, better left sweet in sleep than spoiled by waking.

. . .

I'd had two girlfriends my whole life. The first was Leslie, in high school. She was plain, with clean, straight blonde hair and button-down blouses with khaki skirts and a little small mouth already trained in that smile some girls have, studied sweetness and insurmountable distance all projected with a twitch of dimple. We studied in the library, and sometimes we went to movies together. Leslie always called her parents right after we got there and just before we left to go home.

Hanging with Leslie was like eating vanilla ice cream. It wasn't as good as chocolate or strawberry but it was better than no ice cream at all.

She sent me a happy graduation card, signed “Love, Leslie.” She might as well have written any word in the language, for all the meaning it had. Love was just a word, something girls like her dispensed like heart-shaped candies, to be nice.

Leslie went to Rutgers on a scholarship, to study psychology. I saw her at the mall a few years later, on the other side of the promenade. She looked precisely the same, as if she’d been in storage since we last saw one another. I thought about going over to say hi, but I didn’t. I’d still be precisely what I’d been to her when we’d shared time together. A stranger.

Dear Leslie. I hope you’re doing well. Love, Danny.

. . .

The other woman was Cheryl. She was twelve years older than me and sold advertising for a local newspaper. I met her at the pet store where I worked for a while.

Working at the pet store taught me why so many women rescue strays and work in animal shelters. I saw them at the store all the time. They were either fat and wearing sweat clothes or heroin thin, with old faces, like books abandoned open to the elements.

Nadine was a bus driver, she came in every week and bought forty pounds of kibble and a big box of biscuits. She had seven dogs. When she told me, I said how it must be a handful to have so many. Nadine said better dog shit on the rug than a drunk asshole with no job on the couch.

Pow. I don't laugh at dog and cat people now like I used to. Just the obviously crazy ones.

Cheryl had an orange tomcat tabby named Rusty, neutered. I learned to remember the difference between neutered and spayed because neuter and nuts begin with the same letter. You use whatever works.

Cheryl wasn't a fat cat person. She dressed in business suits and had auburn hair. She wore lots of makeup that looked like she'd spent an hour on it, like the porn star anchors on cable TV news.

Cheryl made it easy to flirt. Cheryl taught me that I could say certain things to certain women in a certain way without fear that I’d be taken seriously. I said things to Cheryl that would have had Leslie calling her dad in a panic.

One afternoon, Cheryl asked if I'd ever thought about having sex with her. She said it was okay if I had.

I was twenty-two when I lost my virginity. Maybe you think that’s late. I don’t think it matters. Once you do it, you’re doing it. The rest is just practice.

All Cheryl and I did was have sex. It was all she wanted, and I couldn’t find reason to object. She showed me what to do and let me know when I got it right. She didn’t have a headboard on her bed, so sometimes the top of her head would thump against the wall, bump-bump-bump. Whenever I was on top I put a pillow between her head and the wall. I was a considerate lover. It's funny as hell now, to think about it.

Sometimes Rusty would jump up on the bed while we were at it. “Rusty, go!” Cheryl would say, her head thumping against the wall. And Rusty would obediently jump off of the bed. He’d curl around Cheryl’s bare ankles when she showed me to the door. “Isn’t he a good kitty?” Cheryl would say, and then tell me good-bye, and close the door in my face.

Cheryl would never come to my apartment. She let me buy her dinner, once. We'd been doing whatever we were doing for six weeks. At the restaurant she was nervous. She didn't say much and hardly ate. She tried to pay when we were done and became angry when I insisted on paying instead.

We didn't have sex that night. She said she was tired and I left her at the curb in front of her apartment and watched her click-clack up the paved walk and disappear inside without a glance behind her.

I called Cheryl the next day and left a message, but she never called back. She never came back to the pet store. At least not while I was there.

I drove by her apartment a while later. Her car was there, the light was on. I didn’t stop. I didn’t know what I would say.

Maybe if I'd been more like Rusty.

. . .

Here is the most remarkable thing I remember from those years. The one single most memorable thing.

I was standing beneath a shop awning one afternoon in the summer, on the little main street in our town. It had begun pouring rain, out of nowhere.

I'm deciding whether to wait or make a run for my car, when I see her. She's approaching from my right, walking like there's no rain. She doesn't have an umbrella and she doesn't care.

She's soaked to the skin, her blouse is sticking to her, her wet hair is pulled back from her forehead.

She stops by a car parked at the curb and applies lipstick in the side-view mirror, in the rain. The tops of her breasts glisten, the dark space between them opens as she bends over.

I see her as I write this. I can smell the wet asphalt, and the rain. There she is, in her astonishing glory.

I have constructed entire conversations we might have had, entire lives.

She looks up, and there I am before her. I say what I say, just the perfect thing to make her fresh-painted lips smile, to make her wonder if I might be worth some of her time.

From that moment, that space in the heartbeat slowing of the world around you as you await the next, the rest proceeds.

That's all you need, if you can get it. That alone can make up for everything else. You won't need a map to make yourself real.

I hadn't met CeeCee then.

. . .

The pet store closed, driven out of business by a big-box discount chain that opened a half-mile away. I had thirty days to find a new job.

[mina-van1104]

IMPORTANT: Read all or don’t read at all because you won’t know why I posted this & don’t be quick to judge if you haven’t read the whole thing. All of pics of me.

Ran my weekly 3 miles (5K) with my 2 dogs instead of run 5 miles today because felt too exhausted today, biked outdoors, & skateboarded a bit. Nevada born & raised,family lived in Nevada 42 (forty-two) years.16 years as TOP long distance runner.

Again reminiscing the best times of life, all my awards/achievements in life, all the good memories with current longterm best friends in real life(&not all have social media), & people I was friends with, wonderful teammate friends, just teammates, just classmates, classmate friends, etc.

Thankful for family, close friends, best friends, casual friends, old friends, good people, acquaintances, nice former coworkers, nice coworkers, good sumaritans, authentically good people to ALL people, good people whom I’m not close to, etc.

I never pretend who I’m not. I mean what I say in real life & on social media. I’m not fake. I really mean what I say. I really do care about all the good people I grew up with because our city has changed like in any state & feeling very appreciative because people in public who don’t know me or my family well, are so rude & hateful nowadays- not how Sparks, Nevada used to be, unfortunately.

I’m still very appreciative of people who are still genuinely good people & people who are not quick to judge like SOME/MOST people who moved to Nevada from out of state who are such big problems-again NOT all out of staters, just SOME, & if you are an out of stater who have never caused me any problems in my life I’m obviously not talking about you. 💜

Any ways I’m here reminiscing the good days. Like I said, I got athletic scholarships & did Cross-Country & Track 6 years straight & was always on Varsity. I still compete in 5Ks & half marathons. Very proud of all my accomplishments/awards in life. Always will! 👊🏼

With my 2 college degrees, Bachelors Degree I graduated with & 2 extra medical licenses, Auditioned Advanced Choirs, good singing/gymnastics/dancing, etc, & me always being an overachiever before most people my age before 22 years old in many different areas of life, compassion & being respectful to ALL people is the most important!

Spread kindness everywhere & watch out for one another as there are hate crimes on the rise committed by ignorant/uneducated people who have learned MISLEADING information about certain groups in a different race/ethnicity/nationality/religion. Remember there are good people in every race& there are bad people in every race-don’t judge them all in the same groups. We are not all the same.

Again, I’m an American! Proud American born Chinese with small portions of French/German/Native American/Ashkenazi Jewish(not my religion)/etc. Proud family of Veterans & a big mixed family of Asians & Caucasians/white people genuinely good people in my life, & no low lives in my life.

Proud NATIVE NEVADAN. I’m a proud little sister of my older sister Catherine Van Schwartz (Catt Van)-former KOLO 8 News Reporter/Portland News Reporter KATU 2 News Reporter total of 7 years/ her a Gonzaga University Graduate 2012-Summa Cum Laude, President of Intermezzo 2008 (Show choir), Top 16 Vocal Ensemble, Captain of Tennis team, treasurer student Council, Gonzaga Big Bing Theory (Gonzaga singing group) so many other things how awesome my older sister & successful family is. Also we received Scholarships RIGHTFULLY EARNED/chosen & NOT for participating- not all participators received nor earned scholarships-you had to EARN it!👊🏼 I’m proud I (we were)/was raised right. ✨Scorpios (Me-November 4th), Tauruses, Aries, are the top most successful people-all run in my family! 🙌👊🏼✝️🙏

⁣# Selfie # NativeNevadan # Nurse # Coach # Healthcare # Running 🏃🏻‍♀️ # PositiveVibes # StopAsianHate # LoveDrivesOutFear # NevadaBornAndRaised # NevadaNative #athletic 🐾🏃🏻‍♀️💪🏼# RenoNevadaBornSparksRaised # HomeMeansNevada # Nevada # UNRnevadaAlumnaMay2016🎓 🐾 # PostUniversityGraduate 🎓 # Overachiever # WolfPackAlumna 🐾 # BachelorsHealthSciences # PublicHealth 🐺 # 2CollegeDegrees # 2ExtraMedicalLicenses # AlreadyAllAchieved # TrueAccomplishments # integrity # RenoBornSparksNative 🐾🐶 🤙🏼 ✨🌻⁣

⁣⁣

⁣

[imaginedisneydescendants]

Something There That Wasn't There Before

*Requested*  A Gil imagine where the Reader is Ben’s twin sister and they start to like each other. Takes place when Gil, Harry, and Uma come to Auradon.

Paring: Reader x Gil

Word count: 1,669

A/N: Gil is such a sweetheart, he needs more screen time! I just realised that this is my first imagine for Gil.

Request | Masterlist

When Uma, Harry and Gil were offered a scholarship to Auradon Prep, they were quite shocked; after what they threatened to do to the King and to Auradon, the matter was simply forgiven and forgotten. Typical. The Auradon bunch were such goody-goodies; trust them to be all civil.

Gil felt like he didn’t belong on the Isle; somewhere deep down in his heart, he knew that he belonged in Auradon. However, if Uma and Harry decided that they didn’t want to go then neither would he, simple as that — he didn’t want to be in Auradon while knowing that he left the only people who cared for him behind — their word would be final. It took the Captain and her first mate some time to consider the King’s offer as they didn't want to leave what they had worked so hard to achieve on the Isle, but to his surprise, they agreed to move to Auradon.

Auradon was different, to say the least, much different to the Isle of the Lost. The three of them discovered that Auradon was anything but boring like Harry had called it, and never in their wildest dreams would they actually grow to like it here. However, it wasn’t all rainbows and smiles. For them, it was a struggle to adapt to the Auradon way of life, where it was forbidden to do anything of the things they did for fun on the Isle such as stealing, fighting and cheating.

Learning how to be good wasn’t easy, and they didn’t expect to change overnight. The three pirates would never lose who they really were, not completely. However, for Gil, being good sort of came easily to him because he fit into the social norm at Auradon Prep. The other Auradonian’s were easily fooled by his thick-headedness and happy-go-lucky attitude that made him seem like a non-villain kid.

Gil didn’t think his life could get any better once he left the Isle until he met her.

(Y/N) was the daughter of Belle and Adam, and was the younger twin sister of King Benjamin by only ninety seconds; he never let you forget either. Twins to be in line to the throne was quite rare and unheard of, thus the two of you were labelled the heir and the spare; Ben being the heir and you being the spare.

(Y/N) knew that she wouldn't get a chance to rule Auradon. Even if she was the first born twin, Ben still would've been first in line to the throne. Seems unfair, doesn't it? But it was always like that; it was a tradition. However, (Y/N) didn't mind, she'd rather have freedom over responsibility and early grey hairs due to stress any day.

Being the youngest, you got away with a lot as your parents weren't so hard on you like they were with Ben. When your older brother and your parents were attending to royal duties, you spent your days in the castle library, tucked away in your makeshift reading nook. You never got tired of reading about faraway lands and experiencing adventures you’d hope to experience someday. You loved to read, a deep love that closely rivalled your older brothers.

When Ben had inherited the throne, he had started bringing in more villain kids like Mal, Evie, Jay and Carlos, Auradonian's began to accept them in a way they never thought as possible. But despite good and evil getting along, you just couldn't bring yourself to accept all but one of them.

When Fairy Godmother had practically begged you to help out a struggling student, you couldn’t help but accept. You always wanted to help other people out, no matter what they needed help on. But when you found out that you were going to be tutoring the son of Gaston, you tried everything to get out of it, but alas, Fairy Godmother wouldn't budge.

Obviously, you were scared of him. His father tried to kill your dad and tried to force your mother into marrying him. So you couldn't help but think that Gil was somewhat the same as his father.

Oh, how wrong you were!

You didn't think that he would show up for your first study session in the library, but lo and behold, he was right on time. From the moment he first saw you, Gil knew exactly who you were. He could've recognised that face anywhere as it was identical to the King's.

"Hi!" Gil greeted cheerfully as he approached the table in which the girl was sitting at.

"Um, hi," The girl greeted nervously, her gaze shifted from the table to his eyes repeatedly.

"You're (Y/N), am I right?" Gil asked.

She didn't say anything but her nod indicated that he found the person he was looking for. With a smile, he dumped his school supplies and sat in the seat beside you. As you started the study session, you didn't expect Gil to so — what was the word — friendly. It shocked you; he wasn't anything like Gaston, in fact, Gil was the complete opposite of his father.

You wondered how this boy survived on the Isle when he wasn't anything like the other villain kids you had seen cross Auradon’s borders. You assumed that for what he lacked in intelligence, he made up for strength and brute force. Despite that, Gil didn’t seem as much of a threat as you first thought he was. Gil didn't want revenge on you nor your family, he was a genuine guy.

"There’s something sweet and almost kind

But he was mean and he was coarse and unrefined

And now he’s dear and so unsure

I wonder why I didn’t see it there before"

As the weekly study sessions turned into daily get together's, (Y/N) started to see Gil in a whole new light. She didn't think of him as a villain like she had months ago; she saw him as the sweet and loveable guy that everyone wanted to be friends with. You quite enjoyed his company and his goofy shenanigans. You even started to hang out with Uma and Harry every so often, and they considered you as a best friend.

As time went by, you began to notice your behaviour change whenever you were around Gil. You couldn’t put your finger on the reason why, but you always felt a little jealous whenever Gil talked to other girls, making them swoon. You often became flushed whenever he grabbed your hand or even looked at you, and found yourself laughing at every joke he told, as you desperately tried to get his attention at every moment. You even caught yourself sneaking little glances at Gil every so often; loving how he'd either wave at you, pull silly faces, or smiled at you. But you loved sneaking glances at him when he didn’t notice that you were, it gave you an opportunity to study his handsome features.

Gil knew that he was falling for you — scratch that — he did fall for you; hopelessly and deeply. (Y/N) was everything he hoped for and more. She understood him in ways Harry and Uma didn’t; his unique sense of humour and how his mind worked (Y/N) accepted him for him and he couldn’t be happier. As Gil was sitting in class, fidgeting with a pencil that he was supposed to be taking down notes with, he felt a strange feeling — as if someone was watching him. Turning his head over his shoulders, he caught (Y/N)’s eyes quickly shift from him back down to her notebook before she pretended to be taking down notes. But, considering Gil’s oblivious nature, he shrugged and tried to focus on what the teacher was trying to say up at the front.

"She glanced this way, I thought I saw

And when we touched she didn’t shudder at my paw

No it can’t be, I’ll just ignore

But then she’s never looked at me before"

You cursed yourself, Did he catch me staring? I hope he didn’t, real smooth (Y/N).

You had to restrain yourself from banging your head on the desk. This was getting ridiculous, you couldn’t believe that you were starting to fall for the lovable goofball. You knew it would never work as you were a princess and he wasn’t a prince, nowhere near it, but to you, he was a prince at heart. Besides you were positively certain that he only saw you as a friend and nothing more.

"New and a bit alarming

Who’d have ever thought that this could be?

True that he’s no Prince Charming

But there’s something in him that I simply didn’t see"

As you made your way down the halls of Auradon Prep, you saw Gil running at full speed towards you, his light brown eyes never left your figure. As soon as he reached you, Gil engulfed you in a bear hug but was careful not to squeeze you too tightly.

"W-What's this for?" You questioned him in surprise as you returned his hug.

After a couple of seconds, he released you and answered giddily, "I got a B+ on my test!"

Your face lit up in awe, "Wow, that's so awesome Gil. I'm so proud of you!”

Gil’s face lit up, "Couldn't have done it without you, (Y/N). You’re the best tutor ever!"

Gil suddenly bent down, leaned forward and planted a soft and gentle kiss on your lips. The kiss lasted a few seconds, but those few seconds, you felt like the world had stopped; you felt like you were in heaven, but it ended all too soon when Gil pulled away.

Before you could say anything, Gil couldn’t contain his happiness and said, “I gotta go tell Uma and Harry, I’ll see you later (Y/N)!"

As you watched an excited Gil runoff, your face became hot and flushed. Your stunned expression turned into one of euphoria as a wide smile graced your lips before you thought to yourself, there may be something there that wasn't there before.

[meditatemoremedicateless]

Dear Kate, (Give me Me back)

Fandom: Life is Strange

Pairings: Chasemarsh, Ambermarsh

Major Tags: possession, angst, drug use

Words: 5,144

Summary: Kate wakes up to find that she has been gone for four days. She hasn’t slept in God knows how long. And she has a test today. Victoria finds her falling apart at the seams, and recognizes she needs help. It kind of backfires.

Written to “No Care” by Daughter.

Read the full story on Ao3.

"Kate! Shut the fuck up!"

What?

Kate awoke suddenly as if from a nightmare. Her heart raced, and it took a second for the world to come into focus. She found herself lying in her bed, with her phone on her chest and her headphones in. Her right hand rested on her navel, but it was sticky and warm. She rubbed her legs together for a second and found that she was either very wet or she'd just started her period. It was too dark in the room to tell which, no light filtering in through the window.

"Thank you," Victoria said, obviously pissed.

Why is Victoria shouting at me? What time is it?

Kate managed to answer both of those questions by lifting up her phone, finding herself at the end of some menage a trois on Pornhub. She grimaced and tapped out, finding the time: 5:34am. Why in the world was she up this early? And why wasn't her heart rate coming down?

It took her a few minutes to close out of her browser, put away her ear phones, clean up, and get her pajamas back on, after which she sat on the bed and wished herself gone for a moment. Why did she have to be awake right now? Why did Katie have to be awake at 5:30am? And why, if she felt so exhausted, did she also feel so energetic?

When she checked her phone again, dread suddenly crawled its way down her back. November 15? She had lost four days! What was even the last thing she could remember? She knew she got up Monday but . . . what had happened in class? Who had she spoken to? When did she disappear?

Kate got up from bed and sat down in front of her laptop, turning it on and waiting for it to boot up. As she drummed her fingers impatiently on the desk, she noticed a small white bottle she didn't recognize. She turned it around and read the label: Excedrin. Really? She'd never bought this. Was Katie having migraines?

Curious, she unscrewed the top and looked inside. She recognized the contents . . . but they weren't Excedrin. She dumped a few of them out on the table, spreading them out before picking one up, holding it up to the light of her computer screen.

She was right. It wasn't Excedrin. It was Adderall XR, just like what her little sister took. Why did Katie have Adderall? Kate didn't have ADHD. Unless . . .

Kate raised two fingers to her neck, and found that her heart was still racing.

Once her laptop was booted up, she went to check her notes for Katie's letter, but she found none. That's about when the panic set in. She had lost four days and had nothing to go on to tell her what had happened except a mislabeled bottle of pills.

She opened up her Facebook, her e-mails, her search history. She clicked into her messages on her phone and sat it next to the keyboard. Not knowing what had happened to her body frightened her, it frightened her even more than how she had begun to lose control of it. Kate had been frustrated with Katie before, but she'd never felt . . . violated like she did right now.

There were so many messages. It was amazing how much you could talk to people in four days. Max, Dana, Stella, Alyssa, Victoria, Warren, Hayden, Juliet. Sending messages to any of them didn't look suspicious or strange, really. It wasn't until she started to comb through them that Kate started to see where things went wrong.

Tues. 5:14

Kate: hey, stella, i heard you could get me a hook-up, is that true?

Stella: What?

Kate: you know, for studying. physics is killing me LOL

Stella: What are you talking about Kate?

Kate: you don't have to play pretend Kate: Dana told me that VC buys from you Kate: you sell addys and benzos, right? I want some Kate: no tricks, no bullshit. I'm just having a hard time. help me out?

Stella: Kate, I wish you wouldn't contact me on FB about something like this

Kate: OK OK I'll text you

Kate checked her messages. She had to scroll up quite a bit to find Tuesday, but the cut between the last message that was her and the first one that was Katie was pretty easy to spot.

Kate: Thanks stella! ^^

Tues. 5:38 PM

Kate: so?

Stella: Kate, is something wrong? This isn't like you at all. And I don't think I'm comfortable selling you anything.

Kate: relax, would you? it's totally fine. you know how hard it can be when you're on scholarship, and youre going to need scholarships to go to college Kate: i know you do. and i'd really prefer if I could go to you, my friend, instead of nathan. he gives me the creeps .

Tues. 7:21 PM

Stella: OK Stella: And you don't have to pay me. I'll just stop by your room. Stella: Maybe we should study together sometime? I really don't want you to rely on these.

Kate: yeah, totally, 100%, sounds good. Kate: you're a good friend :)

The search histories didn't raise nearly the same concerns, but they still didn't make Kate feel any better.

search

chloe price chloe arcadia bay chloe

When Kate followed the most recent link, she saw a familiar face as the top result. When she clicked on it, it took her to the profile of someone named Chloe Elizabeth Price. And Kate realized immediately where she recognized this girl - she had been showing up in her dreams constantly since she won the Everyday Heroes contest. She had been the girl at the far back of the shot, hugging a blonde waitress. Since then she'd been seeing her around school every once and a while, just sitting out in the courtyard talking to Justin or some of the other boys. From the looks of things, she didn't hang out with other girls much.

Apparently, Katie just looked - they weren't friends, and she hadn't sent a request. Maybe she was just having the same dreams.

The Google search history was a little more concerning.

pornhub pornhub khan academy forces khan academy derivative functions khan academy calculus frank bowers arcadia bay damon merrick murder? damon merrick arcadia bay damon merrick tillamook county da youtube volume of a cone prescott foundation sean prescott sera gearhardt arcadia bay blackwell academy class of 1977 blackwell academy class of 1976 blackwell academy class of 1975 blackwell academy class of 1974 blackwell academy class of 1973 blackwell academy class of 1972 blackwell academy class of 1971 blackwell academy class of 1970 khan academy tillamook county missing persons arcadia bay missing persons rachel amber missing person rachel amber modeling rachel amber long beach rachel amber arcadia bay pornhub netflix exorcism spirits do you have to be dead to possess someone possession amazon why is the new romantics not on netflix netflix dream meaning

A murder? Rachel Amber? Sean Prescott? Exorcism? What was Katie looking up, and why? She could also stand to see Pornhub crop up less often.

Once Kate felt caught up on her conversations of the past few days, it was past 8:00am and whatever she was high on wasn't doing it anymore. She wondered how long she - how long Katie - had been awake. She couldn't imagine laying back down in bed, but she was also blinking every few seconds because the light irritated her eyes and she was losing focus. That was when she finally retired from the computer and her phone and decided to wrap a blanket around her head and not move for a few hours.

First, though, she had to check her planner and make sure nothing too big was happening today. Unfortunately, there were two messages written in all caps and circled with a red highlighter.

PHYSICS TEST MILE RUN

No. "God . . . dammit," Kate said. The panic set in again, but there was no juice behind it - she just felt tears suddenly well up and spill hot over her face. She was already doing so bad in physics. And although it looked like Katie had been pulling all nighters studying and researching God knows what, Kate didn't remember any of it. PE was period 2, and Physics period 4. She had also been expected to finish a hundred pages of The Brothers Karamazov for AP English, but she'd only read half of it, and there would at least be a review and discussion today.

Kate was not one to fall apart if she could help it. But whatever energy, whatever willpower she normally leveraged, she felt like it had all been drained away sometime in the past four days, and she was so exhausted. She didn't want to move. School was just an everyday thing - how could it be so daunting to just catch up one week? How was she going to run a fucking mile like this? Why couldn't she just sleep instead of suddenly waking up with everything in the tank already spent?

Step one. She needed someone who had actually been awake for this past week who might be willing to help her. Brooke? They had AP Physics together. She was abrasive, sure, but she had never said no to helping Kate in class.

Kate: Brooke, could you help me study for the Physics test during lunch? I feel like I haven't learned anything this last week and I'm freaking out. I'll owe you one.

Step two. She needed to stay awake, get through her first two classes, study through lunch and period 3 for physics, and take the test. But how was she supposed to . . .

And slowly, as the realization came to her, her eyes settled on the small white bottle beside her laptop.

The focus helps. It helps Kate get out of bed, eat oatmeal, read the SparkNotes, get through first and second period, study with Brooke without giving anything more away than the fact that she'd pulled an all-nighter. She'd seemed frustrated that Kate hadn't, or couldn't pick up what they had been taught, what she'd taken perfect notes on. But the ideas just didn't seem to be making sense.

Music lab was easier, but after a moment of chatting, Max grew quiet and just started to focus on working. Kate wondered what was bothering her. She wondered if it was herself.

The physics test . . . Kate was nowhere near ready. She did the work she could on the front page, skipping ahead when she couldn't seem to make any headway on the problem. But the first problem on the back page left her stumped. She had no idea where to start. She could read the words but it was like they wouldn't stick in her brain, and she couldn't make sense of them, nevermind remember the equations necessary to turn them into useful information. Over the following hour she finished maybe a third of the problems, just writing down what variables she could identify correctly and throwing down some math that looked right in hoping to earn a few points. She was the second to last person to leave, with only Stella staying in until the very last minute. She looked up at Kate with concern throughout the test, and again when she left.

Kate hated the attention. She wanted to be invisible. She wanted a fifth day of not being here. What was even the point at play-acting through a life she'd never get to entirely commit to? Even her friends she was only sharing. Nothing was ever going to be just hers again.

These are the sort of thoughts that kept repeating and bouncing around in her head until she found herself on her knees inside one of the dorm showers. She hated this. How had she let herself become so unraveled in such a short amount of time? Was she really, honestly so dependent on her daily routine to keep herself functional? People make it through a night or two without sleep. There are people who live every day with stimulants in their body to get through work, to get through the school day, as apparently one of her best friends helped people do. Was she just a weak person? Is that why Katie was slowly taking over her mind?

Kate bowed her head, letting the shower run rivulets down her back. She touched her forehead to the shower floor, which must be filthy, but she couldn't think of any other act of humility.

"Please . . . God, please. I can't do this anymore. I don't want to become her. If your gift is agency, please, why are you taking mine?"

Kate had been telling herself all this time that Katie was real, that she was some dead girl who lost her body but not her mind, and Kate was just some unfortunate vessel. But she wondered now if that was some fantasy of how the world can work, that even the loss of her body was serving to do some good. But what if Katie was no dead girl, not some poor soul, not someone who needed Kate's help? What if she was a devil, and Kate had been supposed to say, 'Get thee behind me', cast her out instead of being arrogant. What had Katie really done but take the life she'd chosen for herself away from her? But tempt her?

Kate thought of herself as a smart Christian, a discerning Christian, someone who did not accuse God of being behind the randomness of the world or people's evil and goodness. She had read the Old Testament and thought many times about turning her back on Him for the things that book said he did. She had never believed he'd turn his back on her. Not for secret misanthropy, not for her errant mind, for . . . how people like Max could make her feel. She could still live a good, happy life, so long as she treated herself, others, and the world with the respect they were due.

"Please. I don't want this test. I just want my life back."

At first, Kate thought there'd be no answer. She thought, she let herself believe that in her moment of need, she wouldn't be found worthy of help. She didn't even have a reason, just the feeling that she had been abandoned.

But she hadn't been. She should know better by now.

"Kate?" It was Victoria. "Is that you?"

"Vic-Victoria?"

"Yeah, it's me."

There was a brief pause before Victoria asked, "Are you okay?"

Kate laughed, picking her face up from the shower floor, closing her eyes so the water just ran down her face. Her hair clung to her back in an irritating clump. "No, I don't think I am."

It was quiet for a while. Kate picked herself up, leaning against the cold tile along the side of the shower.

Victoria spoke up again, "Do you need help?"

Kate replayed the question in her head several times before she suddenly burst out laughing. It wasn't funny, not really, but it was like she couldn't control it, but no matter how she tried to make it stop, they wracked her body until it hurt. Finally, she just grit her teeth and forced it to stop, breathing harder than she really should from the effort.

"I guess it must be pretty bad if you're offering to help me, huh?"

"I don't know - is it?"

Kate chuckled at that, but it didn't overwhelm her this time. "Yeah. I guess it's pretty bad."

Another pause, then, "Okay. I'm going to take a shower right now - can I come see you after?"

"Yeah . . . yeah. I guess that'd be okay."

Kate was surprisingly cold, wrapped in a blanket and sitting on her bed, just waiting for Victoria to get back from the shower. Now that she was out of the shower, she just felt embarrassed for how she'd fallen apart, how she was letting this all get to her. Four days gone wasn't much worse than four days being sick or four days in the hospital. Anyone could come back from four days. And the drugs, the lack of sleep? It was a Friday. She could spend the whole weekend asleep, in a coma, not moving a muscle until . . . Until Katie came back, and she took the Adderall again, and she didn't sleep again, and she left Kate without a clue of what happened to her again.

Victoria knocked, Kate said 'come in', and then she pulled up Kate's chair again to sit across from her. Kate gently rocked herself to feel okay.

Kate had never really gotten to see Victoria just out of a shower. She always showered in the early morning, and Victoria showered in the evenings when Kate didn't leave her room. Her wet hair was kind of spiky - a little goofy, even. She just wore a tank top and shorts, which Kate could not fathom was comfortable in November. Kate never understood those people, like Victoria, who kept their legs trimmed smooth when any reasonable person would wear nothing lighter than jeans, but if Victoria got cold, she didn't show it. Victoria looked . . . a little less sculpted than normal. Less made-up, less elegant. She looked cute. Something that would never stay intact when she started talking.

For the first minute or so, Victoria didn't say anything, she just held her head up while leaning her elbow on the chair arm, inspecting the room and Kate in quick glances. Whatever she was looking for, Kate couldn't tell, but whatever she was doing was practiced.

Finally Victoria spoke up. She asked, "How long has it been since you slept?"

Kate shook her head. "I don't know."

Victoria made the smallest of nods. Then, "Have you been eating?"

"I don't know."

Victoria bit the inside of her cheek. She didn't seem to like this conversation any more than Kate did.

"What have you been taking?"

That was something Kate had the answer to. "Adderall."

Victoria didn't seem surprised. "Stella?" she asked.

Kate nodded affirmative.

Victoria clicked her tongue. She looked disappointed. In Stella? Or Kate?

"Why?" she asked.

It seemed like a weird question. But it was one Kate had been asking herself, too. "I . . . I think it was because I had a C . . . in physics. Report cards are soon."

Victoria didn't look impressed with Kate's answer, but she didn't criticize it, either. What could she say that Kate didn't already believe? That it wasn't worth it? That having a "C" wasn't the end of the world? She knew that. She had thought Katie knew that, too. It's not like she'd seemed interested in studying more than she had to.

"This doesn't seem like you," Victoria said flatly.

Kate smiled weakly, nodding and looking down to avoid Victoria's gaze. "Well, you're not wrong."

Another quiet.

Victoria was looking somewhere else in the room when she asked, "Did you know I grew up Christian?"

Kate shook her head. "No, I didn't."

Victoria nodded. "Well, I did. I can't say I really gave a shit as a kid, we were the kind of family who went for Easter and watched the Nativity play. But when I was, I don't know, eleven?, I got really into it. Trying to make myself better, live the Ten Commandments, commit no adultery in my heart, that sort of stuff. I think it kind of pissed my parents off, really - I told them we shouldn't worship money, that God didn't like drinking, stupid shit. I somewhere along the line got the idea in my head that I could act good enough to get me and my family into heaven."

Kate had no idea why she was being told this. She also hated being some weird token kid who kept her faith who people felt they should confess they stopped believing to, which is where she felt this was heading. The Adderall and lack of sleep shortened her patience to the point she just decided to not say anything instead of pretending she cared what was the last straw for Victoria.

Victoria glanced at Kate, then resumed looking at the corner of the room. "I didn't entirely believe it, mind you. It just felt like the safe option. Hell scared me, so I just figured, hey, let's not. I'll just play along."

"It all seemed like it was going well. I think I was thirteen. I honestly don't remember who told me, but there was this woman who told me that, when the day of reckoning came, I'd be judged for what was in my heart. I think she meant it in a good way, like she was complimenting me for helping her or something. But that just scared me, because no matter what I did, my heart was never really in it. I could be the perfect-est Christian boy and still, they'd ask more?"

I don't care I don't care I don't care.

"So, I gave up. I had a drink. I transitioned. I wore designer clothes for no reason but because I could. I tried to make my outsides match my insides. At least that way, I was honest. No asshole angel could show up one day and let everyone know I'd been lying all along."

"I thought that was enough. You know, give God the bird, revel in the moral superiority of being honest, finally. But . . . a while later. I had this friend who attempted suicide a few times."

Despite her agitation, there was still a tiny reservoir of sympathy in Kate, and it was at least enough for her to finally look at Victoria.

"She was Christian, too. She hated it, too, but her parents wouldn't have it any other way. Studied scripture for years in seminary - she was Mormon. And she refused to play the part, too. She told me a few times at least, that she believed in God because she could tell he hated her. I really vibed with that. It made me feel powerful. It felt good to be something important enough to be hated."

"But, yeah, anyway. This one day she texts me a goodbye. I panic, try to talk her down, find out her plan. A dumbass plan, too - drowning in a bath tub, putting a mattress over it and taking tranquilizers until she couldn't fight back. But, stupid plan or no, I freaked out. Tried to get ahold of her parents, but I couldn't. Didn't know her address. I was stuck in Seattle, and she was here, so there wasn't anything I could do. So, I prayed. Thought it was the only thing left I could do. I just asked Him to spare her. I don't know why I thought he'd listen, really, I didn't offer anything in exchange. I just begged. I didn't want to lose her. If He couldn't have mercy, maybe pity."

She stopped there. Kate expected her to continue, but as the seconds dragged on, Kate became unsure.

"What . . . what happened to your friend?"

"Hm?" Victoria seemed to awaken from a reverie. "Oh. She was unconscious for fourteen hours. The drainage in her tub was pretty good and the water never got over her head. Not enough drugs in her system to kill her. She just woke up, pushed off the mattress and sent me an apology for scaring me."

Kate didn't understand. The story made her sad, but she didn't get anything out of it. "Why are you telling me this?"

Victoria quirked her eyebrows, then folded her hands in her lap. Her feet were up on Kate's desk now, and she swished back and forth a little as she thought.

"Hm. I guess . . . it's because I heard you praying. But not like, real praying. You were begging. You thought you'd lost every bit of power you had, right?"

At first, Kate sat still. Even thinking that just made her more embarrassed and ashamed for the way she'd felt in the shower. But slowly, she nodded.

"Been there," Victoria said. "But I really do think God can't help but take pity on us, small and evil as we are. I don't think there's any bargaining with Him, or pleasing Him really, but I think he feels guilty for the shit we're put through sometimes."

And the irritation is back. "So what?" Kate asks. It's more snide than she anticipated.

Victoria doesn't seem to mind. "So, you get a second chance. You hit your low point and now, here you are. What now? What do you need from your life now that God can give you?"

Kate chuckled quietly again. What did she want? What had she been asking for, really?

"What do I need? I need . . . control. I need to stop losing time. I need some way for my commitments to be upheld. I need to feel like my body is mine. I need to feel like there's something good about me that I chose, like I'm not just acting in a play written by someone else. I need to feel like Me, and to know what that is."

Victoria quirked her eyebrows again. "Tall order," she replied. She mulled it over for a while and said, "What feels like you? If you're in control, and you get to write what happens next, what do you do?"

The first thing that came to mind, the first thing she could finally think of that wasn't what she wanted to stop happening, but what she saw in her mind's eye as happening next, it was wrong. And she knew it. It was precisely the sort of thing she was mad at Katie for doing, the sort of thing that made her feel like she had no control, because she had said 'No' and something inside of her had done it anyway. It was temptation. It was Kate had to rise above to be herself again.

She stood up, standing tall above Victoria for probably the first time. Her hands trembled and she wasn't sure how strong her legs were. She didn't say anything.

Victoria stared up at her curiously. "What is it?" she asked, concerned.

Kate leaned down and reached out at the same time. Her fingers hooked inside Victoria's shirt and pulled it into a bunch in her fist. Fear flashed in Victoria's eyes, as if she were about to be hit. And Kate considered that, too.

Instead, Kate kissed her because she could, and absolutely no one could or would tell her to do it. Because Katie had, and she hadn't 'meant it', whatever the fuck that means. No one in heaven or Earth wanted Kate to kiss Victoria Chase, but she did not care.

Victoria was breathing hard by the time they stopped kissing. Kate's breath was shallow, but she had no idea which thing wrong with her right now was causing that.

"This would be easier if you were on the bed."

Victoria complied once Kate released her from her grasp, sitting on the edge of the bed. Kate couldn't read her expression. Was she horrified? Disgusted? Just shocked? Kate put a hand on her chest and pushed her down as she straddled her, putting probably too much weight on Victoria's chest as she leaned over to kiss her again.

Then, some part of her, some part of her humanity woke up and shocked her into awareness. What would she be if she took control by taking Victoria's away? Would she just be the devil growing in her heart, alive and in control at last?

"Is this okay?" Kate asked.

Victoria was still breathing hard. She licked her lips and blinked a few times as she tried to gather her thoughts. "I thought . . . that I hated you. For never wanting anything selfish. For being good."

Kate didn't feel good. She didn't feel evil, either. She felt like there was nothing outside of this room, outside of her and Victoria right now, that they were invisible to fate and consequence. She felt like absolutely nothing else mattered, least of all the dead girl who lived in her head.

"What do you think now, now that I'm no good anymore?"

There was a part of Kate that knew she was spiraling, that she was losing her grip because she hadn't slept in days, that she didn't even like Victoria or want her. But Kate just told herself that she didn't care. She was writing the script now, and she decided she didn't care about any of that.

"Like I'd be taking advantage if this goes any further."

Kate wrapped her fingers around Victoria's wrists, leaning forward even more to pin them to the bed. She wasn't strong enough to hold Victoria down, and she knew it, but the illusion of control was enough. "Let me make this easy for you, then." Their kiss was rough and passionate and absolutely nothing like what Kate wanted for her first kisses, but those had been taken from her already, hadn't they?

But, like Kate had known, Victoria was stronger than her, and after maybe a minute of them making out and when it became clear that Kate didn't plan to stop it there, Victoria pulled her hands free from Kate's restraint and shoved her off from on top of her. Victoria sat up while Kate returned upright, sitting with her legs crossed on the bed. Victoria was panting and her skin was flushed red. Kate would never have been able to see if Victoria's makeup was on like usual, but it was only too easy to see her effect like this.

"Kate, I think I should go. You're not yourself."

Victoria was right, and she was also wrong.

Victoria stood up and made for the door, but Kate interrupted her, dropping down onto her stomach and sitting her head on her hands, staring up at Victoria as she left.

"What did you feel," Kate asked, "When you heard me masturbating this morning? I have to assume I was loud if I woke you up."

And Victoria paused, her hand on the door handle. She froze there for a second, then took a deep breath. She turned to look back at Kate, but didn't immediately say anything in response.

"Would you like to do that to me yourself?"

Victoria was considering it. She looked Kate over with eyes wide and uncertain and absolutely nothing like she'd ever looked at Kate before.

"It would be wrong," she said.

Kate smiled. "I don't care."

And, after a few more seconds of self-control, of warning and warring with herself, Victoria crumbled. And a few seconds after that, she's on top of Kate, and they get the write the story their way after that.

Dear Katie, Kate said to herself, self-satisfied and, underneath it all, still so angry. Fuck you.

[too-many-loose-ends]

All of the questions and 155- what should we carve in our pumpkin this year for Halloween?

1: Full nameConnor Edwards, I've probs done it before, but I'm leaving out my middle name from now on2: Age203: 3 FearsSpiders, failure, being alone4: 3 things I loveSarah, fitness, and pop punk5: 4 turns onSarah, being rough, cute lingerie, doing things at inappropriate times and places6: 4 turns offI can't think of any, pass7: My best friendSarah8: Sexual orientationStr89: My best first dateWhen Sarah and I went to the art museum and Kings Island, it was really cold and I was kinda sick but it was soooo worth it10: How tall am I6 feet 3 inches or 1,91 meters11: What do I missSarah12: What time were I bornI think around 5 AM13: Favourite colorPurple14: Do I have a crushYes obviously15: Favourite quote"Existence is pain"- Mr. Meeseeks16: Favourite placeAnywhere with Sarah17: Favourite foodPizza18: Do I use sarcasmAll the time19: What am I listening to right nowMy fan spinning20: First thing I notice in new personTheir voice21: Shoe size10.5-11, depends on the brand22: Eye colorBlue-green23: Hair colorBlond24: Favourite style of clothingPop punk or athletic wear25: Ever done a prank call?Yes27: Meaning behind my URLIt's sort of from a Real Friends song called loose ends and when I made it I didn't really like myself so I thought I had too many loose ends to fix28: Favourite movieEither the new Power Rangers movie or Clockwork Orange29: Favourite song19 Seventy Sumthin' by Neck Deep30: Favourite bandNeck Deep or Knocked Loose31: How I feel right nowI miss Sarah32: Someone I loveSarah33: My current relationship statusTaken34: My relationship with my parentsIt's alright35: Favourite holidayHalloween bc I love much Sarah gets excited for it, it's adorable36: Tattoos and piercing i haveNone37: Tattoos and piercing i wantI have a whole list lol38: The reason I joined TumblrAll my friends were doing it, now I'm like the only one left lol39: Do I and my last ex hate each other?I don't hate her, I just think she's a bad person 40: Do I ever get “good morning” or “good night ” texts?Yes41: Have I ever kissed the last person you texted?Yes42: When did I last hold hands?Earlier today43: How long does it take me to get ready in the morning?Depends on if I shower or not, an hour without, an hour and a half with44: Have You shaved your legs in the past three days?Nope45: Where am I right now?In bed46: If I were drunk & can’t stand, who’s taking care of me?Sarah47: Do I like my music loud or at a reasonable level?Loud af48: Do I live with my Mom and Dad?Yeah but I wish I didn't49: Am I excited for anything?Seeing Sarah50: Do I have someone of the opposite sex I can tell everything to?Yes51: How often do I wear a fake smile?Whenever customers tell shit jokes52: When was the last time I hugged someone?Earlier today53: What if the last person I kissed was kissing someone else right in front of me?I would be v upset54: Is there anyone I trust even though I should not?Nope55: What is something I disliked about today?Sarah having to leave56: If I could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?Neil deGrasse Tyson or Stephen Hawking57: What do I think about most?Sarah58: What’s my strangest talent?I don't even have any normal talents lol59: Do I have any strange phobias?Nope60: Do I prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it?Behind61: What was the last lie I told?I don't know lol I don't keep track of them62: Do I perfer talking on the phone or video chatting online?Video chatting63: Do I believe in ghosts? How about aliens?No, yes64: Do I believe in magic?No65: Do I believe in luck?No66: What’s the weather like right now?I think it might be cloudy but I don't feel like checking67: What was the last book I’ve read?From start to finish? Idk lol68: Do I like the smell of gasoline?Yes69: Do I have any nicknames?I don't really have any70: What was the worst injury I’ve ever had?Torn labrum/dislocated shoulder, I had to have 5 anchors put in my shoulder to fix it71: Do I spend money or save it?Spend lol72: Can I touch my nose with a tounge?Yes73: Is there anything pink in 10 feets from me?Yes74: Favourite animal?Fennec foxes75: What was I doing last night at 12 AM?Getting ready for bed76: What do I think is Satan’s last name is?Satan doesn't exist so he has none77: What’s a song that always makes me happy when I hear it?Gold Steps by Neck Deep78: How can you win my heart?If you're not Sarah there's no chance of it happening79: What would I want to be written on my tombstone?I'm not sure80: What is my favorite word?Sarah81: My top 5 blogs on tumblrI literally only pay attention to Sarah's so I don't have 4 others lol 😅82: If the whole world were listening to me right now, what would I say?Can we please do something about the Nazi problem we have83: Do I have any relatives in jail?Not that I'm aware of 84: I accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow me with the super-power of my choice! What is that power?Regeneration85: What would be a question I’d be afraid to tell the truth on?Idk???86: What is my current desktop picture?The default one87: Had sex?Yes88: Bought condoms?Yes89: Gotten pregnant?No90: Failed a class?Not technically but I have to retake some for my major91: Kissed a boy?No92: Kissed a girl?Yes93: Have I ever kissed somebody in the rain?Yes94: Had job?Yes95: Left the house without my wallet?Yes96: Bullied someone on the internet?I don't think so?97: Had sex in public?No but we've done stuff in public98: Played on a sports team?Yes99: Smoked weed?No100: Did drugs?No101: Smoked cigarettes?No102: Drank alcohol?No103: Am I a vegetarian/vegan?No104: Been overweight?No105: Been underweight?Technically speaking yes but I've always been a healthy weight106: Been to a wedding?Yes107: Been on the computer for 5 hours straight?I don't think so108: Watched TV for 5 hours straight?Probably109: Been outside my home country?Yes110: Gotten my heart broken?Yes111: Been to a professional sports game?Yes112: Broken a bone?Yes113: Cut myself?No114: Been to prom?Yes115: Been in airplane?Yes116: Fly by helicopter?No117: What concerts have I been to?Warped tour '13-'17, back to the future hearts tour, apollo x tour, overdose tour, okay usa tour, and I saw Beartooth with Silverstein in early 2015 118: Had a crush on someone of the same sex?Nope119: Learned another language?Yes120: Wore make up?Nope121: Lost my virginity before I was 18?Nope122: Had oral sex?Yes123: Dyed my hair?Nope124: Voted in a presidential election?Yes125: Rode in an ambulance?Yes126: Had a surgery?Yes127: Met someone famous?Yes128: Stalked someone on a social network?Who hasn't?129: Peed outside?Yes130: Been fishing?No131: Helped with charity?Yes132: Been rejected by a crush?Yes133: Broken a mirror?No134: What do I want for birthday?Money135: How many kids do I want and what will be their names?None136: Was I named after anyone?Nope137: Do I like my handwriting?Sure but it's sloppy af138: What was my favourite toy as a child?I really like Lego sets 139: Favourite Tv Show?Rick and Morty140: Where do I want to live when older?I'm not sure141: Play any musical instrument?Not anymore142: One of my scars, how did I get it?I have a scar on my right knee from hitting a hurdle 143: Favourite pizza toping?My fav is plain cheese144: Am I afraid of the dark?No145: Am I afraid of heights?Sort of146: Have I ever got caught sneaking out or doing anything bad?Yes 147: Have I ever tried my hardest and then gotten disappointed in the end?Yes148: What I’m really bad atA lot lol149: What my greatest achievments areGetting onto a D1 track team, re-earning my scholarship after losing it, dating Sarah150: The meanest thing somebody has ever said to meI'm not sure151: What I’d do if I won in a lotteryPretend like I didn't152: What do I like about myselfFor someone so scrawny I'm pretty strong153: My closest Tumblr friendSarah154: Something I fantasise aboutLife with Sarah once were both done with undergrad155: Any question you’d like?To answer your question, I'm not sure, that's up to you since you like it so much, I just like getting to do it with you 😘

[thefoxholecourtrp]

THIS IS YOUR GAME

Name: Adam Radford Age: Twenty Class Year: Sophomore Position: Defensive Dealer, #26 Hometown: Montville, New Jersey

THIS IS YOUR MOMENT

Adam had always had a bronze—never quite silver—spoon in his mouth and an entourage on his arm. He was brought into a small fortune and something that resembled charm, between his father’s construction company, underground night clubs, and alumni Exy status due to his reign on the University of Texas team, Adam had a life laid out for him before he even took his first breath. The second it was announced that they were having a son, the Radfords scrambled through their contacts to make sure everything was in order. I got another one for you, his father told his old coach at Texas. And, luckily for them, Adam was more than happy to comply. With his father’s looks and name Adam barely knew that he was a person of his own. He was a copy of his father, a man so strong and powerful that Adam followed him without ever having to be asked, and the arrogance and disregard for others that appeared so well-respected on his father he had no issue picking up for himself.

As soon as grade school started Adam was thrust into the world of Exy, his father’s well sought out connections in their area immediately placing him on the best team for his age group. His father even went so far as to weasel his way into assistant coaching positions, always making sure Adam was playing to the best of his ability and that the resources offered to him were nothing short of first-rate. If it weren’t for Exy, the relationship between Adam and his father would likely have been nearing non-existent, for his father rarely spent time off the court at home. The excuses of business meetings and long distance trips were almost discreet, if not for the fact that Adam Sr. didn’t seem to care about who knew of his indiscretions—and it wasn’t long before even the young Adam knew what was going on. The way his mother reacted, the way she brushed it off as if it were as common as going to the store to get milk, led Adam to believe that cheating were just a part of married life. And so he carried on living in that world, as if it were still the perfect world of the 60s where men ruled all with the wave of their hand. With that elephant shoved in the closet, they carried out their lives, Adam moving throughout his years shining brightly on and off the court with his dad cleaning up any of his messes along the way, ensuring his future held nothing but bright prospects.

Blair Academy had been watching Adam since he first stepped on the court, Adam Sr. promising them they wouldn’t want to miss a thing—and it seemed he was right. Blair Academy was best known for it’s sports teams, with Exy no exception, and so while the rest of his teammates continued on to to be high school Broncos, Adam would be trading in his black and gold jersey for a blue and white one. Despite it being a boarding school, five days a week his mother drove him there to drop him off and again to pick him up, a sacrifice they deemed well worth the while. Adam couldn’t get the extra training with his father that he needed if he didn’t come home and despite his father yet again managing to secure one of four assistant coaching positions, team practices weren’t enough.

In his junior year, it seemed his mother had finally decided she had had enough of dealing with his father. The divorce was a mess, property and businesses being split—but, more than that, Adam was concerned about his living situation. While he was stuck in Montville with his mom, his dad moved further upstate to Rockaway to be closer to the school. Adam was furious, he hated his mother for ending it over something that wasn’t new to anyone, something that seemed so normal to him—like she had just gotten bored, and that adultery was just a good enough excuse to call it quits, and to blame his father for it. Beyond that, being closer to school was practical. She was keeping him to be petty and Adam didn’t quite like being a part of her revenge plot. 

So, when she wouldn’t let him live with his dad, he decided to take matters into his own hands. While he was used to hearing the word no it always came with a timer, never meaning anything more than not now. He started raising hell, in hopes that it would make the timer count down faster: stealing from her liquor cabinet, breaking dishes, smashing holes in the wall, and name-calling reached an all time high. Within a matter of months, teachers were grudgingly overlooking his behavior, Adam’s dad along with his other coaches talking them into giving him far too many chances, excusing it as another teenager rebelling against a divorce. Adam Sr. was anything but thrilled at his reputation being tarnished for the sake of his son’s temper tantrums but Adam knew there was a cause. And he discovered that they had other benefits: he was number 1 on the court and within his new found group, and suddenly his friends and teammates were turning to him when a decision had to be made despite the scorn he received from his elders. He was always a spoiled child and the fits and tantrums had always existed, but he learned then just how powerful they were. Rebellion and anger were lights to moths, everyone wanted to be near them, to watch them flicker in the dark—and so Adam ran with it.

Eventually, his mother caved. She couldn’t take it anymore and so she called his father, begging him to take their son off her hands. Apparently, Adam Sr. put up a fight, not willing to deal with any more of Adam’s moods and rebellion than he already did, and so for the sake of her son she pretended she never called her ex-husband in the first place. It almost worked, too, but eventually Adam found out the hard way, hearing it from his father’s own mouth. But by that point, Adam had already accepted his full ride Exy scholarship to the University of Texas—continuing the legacy of a man who no longer wanted him, who thought he was more trouble than he was worth. 

SEIZE IT WITH EVERYTHING YOU’VE GOT

Adam was enraged, and he decided that he was quitting Exy as a protest against his father—but that only lasted a day before his father’s equally enraged phone call met him on the other line. The conversation didn’t go particularly well, but in the end Adam was persuaded that he couldn’t abandon his life’s work. That didn’t stop him from being an asshole, though, and his bad behavior only grew in intensity. But it seemed that the light he thought he found could easily catch fire. He took to skipping classes, spitting on classroom floors, picking fights with his teammates, getting yellow carded every game—and when referees started kicking him off the court, Texas decided that they had had enough of him as well. Without his dad there, no one could argue his case to protect him. While they told him he would still be allowed to attend school there, given that he could get his academic act together, Exy and his scholarship were no longer an option and, without Exy, he was sure not to have his father’s support for tuition.

Adam’s father wasn’t going to just give up that easily, though, and quickly a phone call informed Adam that he had another option: Palmetto State. It felt like a joke that Adam had become such a problem that the Foxes was now his only option, but also that he was enough of a charity case that they would even take him to begin with. It was a punishment, and everyone who ever knew Adam knew it, the wake up call that was supposed to get him back onto the path he was born on, boot camp and rehab all in one. Grudgingly, he went to meet with Wymack and, obviously, something in they meeting went well because he next day an announcement: former University of Texas Longhorn Adam Radford would be joining the Palmetto State Foxes.

ADAM RADFORD is portrayed by MAX IRONS and is TAKEN