#that is so real. also i hate that for daniel and whoever hes sleeping / having a baby with needs to be a stop to that | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

iamartemisday · 5 years

Text

Pepperony Week Day One- 5+1 Things

A/N: So I posted this last night, but I was informed that one of my tags wasn’t spelled correctly. Somehow, in my attempts to fix it, I managed to erase the entire post. That’s what I get for trying to fix it on mobile. >>

So here we go one more time. Hope you enjoy!

5 times Tony didn't realize he was in love with Pepper, and 1 time he did.

When Tony made a random low-level administrative assistant his new PA, it was mostly for the novelty.

Here was a woman confident enough to break into his office and tell him to his face that he was wrong. Observant enough to catch a mistake not even he, the guy who built a working robot before his balls dropped, had spotted.

Plus, she was a former model. In magazines and everything. Whoever said models were dumb could go eat their ignorant words with some ketchup on top.

Virginia Potts, newly baptized as Pepper, spent her first day on the job familiarizing herself with her new responsibilities, organizing the photos on her desk, and signing a truly immense amount of paperwork. Seriously, Tony had to talk to Obidiah about switching to digital. What kind of futurist was he killing all those defenseless trees?

Given his track record with PAs, he expected Ms. Potts to last a month, maybe two. Not a crack against her, but he was a handful and he knew it. When she inevitably quit, he'd have a generous severance package and a glowing reference ready for her. Now it was just a matter of how long before his partying, all-night science binges, and frequent overnight guests of the female variety wore her down.

Three months later, she was in his office while he slept off a hangover, notes in hand as she briefed him on the upcoming board meeting.

"Mr. Daniels in HR needs to talk to you about calculating this year's Christmas bonuses. Mrs. Prowitt in accounting just had a baby and you need to send out your personal congratulations-"

"Potts…"

"You still have paperwork to sign for the merger with Rushcorp-"

"Potts, please…"

"And R&D has taken issue with the blueprints you gave them for the new missile prototype. They're saying the flight system isn't feasible with our current technology. You might want to have a word with them."

"Potts! I'm dying!"

He struggled to lift his head and look into her eyes with all the pain in his formerly inebriated soul. As usual, she was unsympathetic.

"This is why I told you not to go out partying on a Tuesday night," she said.

"As if you never partied on a Tuesday."

"No, Mr. Stark, I didn't. I waited for the weekend." She started for the door. "I'll get you some water and ginger ale. You'll be ready to go by noon."

"I could also not go."

"That's true, but you will" Her phone rang and she ignored Tony's moaning to answer it. "Hello? Oh, yes Mr. Daniels, I was just about to call you… yes, he will be ready in time for the meeting. I just confirmed it with him."

She left and Tony whimpered in agony. This must be what abandoned kittens on the side of the road felt like.

"I thought I hired an assistant," he mumbled. "Instead I got a new mom."

He almost immediately cringed at the idea. Potts was not at all like his mother. She wasn't even a really strict big sister.

No, she was something else. Something he couldn't pinpoint.

Boy, did he hate not knowing the answer.

"Potts, we should go out sometime."

Surprisingly, he wasn't drunk. In fact, he'd been sober for the last six days while they negotiated a contract with a new satellite company. That was a personal best for him and he deserved some recognition, dammit.

"We are out," she said, and indeed they were in the lounge at the Plaza hotel waiting for their drinks to arrive.

"I mean on a date," Tony said. "You know, with dinner and dancing and no business deals. Just the two of us."

Pepper sighed like this wasn't the first time he'd asked. And, to be fair, it wasn't. "Mr. Stark, you know why we can't date."

"Do I? Remind me real quick."

She rolled her eyes. "First of all, it's against company policy. Even if I didn't work directly under you, we're still in the same department and fraternization among employees never works out well. Second, dating your PA would reflect badly on us with the press. Finally, maintaining a professional environment in the workplace is crucial to overall productivity and good financial health."

Tony whistled. "Lot of big words there. You've done your homework, Potts."

"I have to," she said, but couldn't hide a slight smile. "If I don't, who will?"

"Good point." Tony leaned back with his hands under his hand. "It's funny, though. I didn't hear anything in there about you not wanting to date me."

Pepper opened her mouth, but none of her pre-established responses to his flirting came forth. Instead, she blushed heavily and turned away to tap on her phone.

Tony chuckled to himself. She was kind of cute when she was flustered.

Not that she wasn't always cute, but…

Even though Pepper wouldn't date him (and all jokes aside he did begrudgingly see her point), that didn't mean she wouldn't date at all.

Five years had passed since the pepper spray incident. There had been a few guys in that time, or so he assumed. He was too busy keeping track of his own one night stands to pay attention to Pepper's.

One day, out of the blue, she asked to leave work two hours early. The last time she did that was three years ago.

"Hitting the town, Potts?" He meant it as a joke, but also not. Tony wasn't a genius for nothing and he'd noticed the changes in her make-up and the unfamiliar perfume lingering in the air.

Pepper cleared her throat. "As a matter of fact, yes. I'm going on a date tonight and I need to get my hair done."

He wanted to say her hair was perfect the way it was because it was perfect and whoever this guy was probably didn't even notice. He also wanted to say he needed her to stay late because they had some extra paperwork to go through. Surely he had something buried in one of his desk drawers for her to look at.

"Oh, that's nice," he said, leaning back in his big plush chair. "Didn't know you were seeing someone."

"We're casual at the moment."

"Just looking for a midnight ride, huh?"

Pepper glared at him, but it wasn't her offended face. More like her 'I think you're funny but I'm not going to say it because that will just fuel your ego so I'm going to pretend to be offended' face. He'd become an expert in differentiating between the two.

"I'll be sure to have all my tasks done before I leave," she said.

"As if you need to tell me," Tony snorted. He read some papers while Pepper went to her office. Fifteen minutes later, he was still on the same paragraph and needed to stretch his legs. "So… what's his name?"

Pepper glanced at him, then went back to typing. "Craig."

Craig and Pepper… Crepper?

God no...

"What's he do?" Tony fought to keep his posture loose. "Let me guess. He's a genius billionaire in charge of his own company-"

"He's an investment banker."

"Fun. Where are you going?"

"To dinner and maybe a movie."

"You know what you're going to see?"

"We'll decide when we get there." The intercom beeped and Pepper pressed the button to silence it. "Looks like your two-thirty is here."

Tony barely paid attention during his appointment with… whoever this guy was. Something something missile guidance revamping something. His eyes always trailed back to Pepper behind a wall of glass. When she left for the night, he hung around for half an hour before going home. It was just too quiet without her.

A few months later, Pepper asked for another early day.

"Sure thing," Tony said, chewing on his bottom lip. "Got a hot date with Craig?"

"No, just dinner with my parents. It's my mom's birthday tomorrow," she explained. "Actually, Craig and I decided to just be friends. I think he's seeing someone else now."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that."

Tony tried his best not to grin as he said it, but he was grinning for the whole rest of the day.

After Tony completed renovations of his Malibu home, he started doing more work from home. This meant Pepper had to come over more often than not. Aside from a requisite 'want to see the master bedroom' quip, Tony had allowed her space in his massive home. She had an office and a guest room complete with a private balcony for when she wanted to work outside.

Being as she was, most of their private time centered around business. Making deals, planning meetings, arranging his schedule, and lots of other fun and exciting activities. On weekdays, she arrived promptly in the morning and left before sundown. Unless it was quarterly report time or they were on the verge of closing a huge deal, she never deviated from this schedule.

So it was strange when he left the basement one night at midnight after five hours working on his new convertible to find Pepper asleep on the couch.

Her tablet and some papers were on the floor where she'd dropped them. One arm was tucked under her head, no pillows in sight. She'd taken her shoes off, and while Tony was no foot fetishist, her new pedicure was lovely.

She sighed and shifted in her sleep as Tony gently squeezed a throw pillow under her head and draped a blanket over her. He would've carried her to the guest room, but Pepper was typically a light sleeper and putting her in an awkward position might mean she wouldn't come over as much.

He gathered her things and stacked them neatly on the coffee table. Hopefully, those pages were in the correct order, but if they weren't, she'd have them right in under a second.

Tony stepped back to watch her chest rise and fall. Her face was so peaceful. Not like the cool serenity she used to calmly destroy brown-nosing idiots at meetings. It was like he was finally seeing Pepper in her natural state of being.

He liked it.

But of course, he liked it. He liked her.

And maybe he shouldn't be staring at her while she slept. That was kind of creepy.

He was never going to see Pepper again.

'No,' he told himself, 'don't do that. Stay positive. Stay positive.'

The problem with staying positive is that it's hard to do when you're running through the desert with no food or water and you've just escaped captivity and watched the man you spent three months forming an emotional bond with die before your eyes.

Suffice to say, this was not Tony's day.

He'd only briefly considered what would happen if the escape was successful. Best case scenario, he got himself and Yinsen out and they found a village less than a mile away with friendly locals who had food and a satellite phone handy. With both of those things now off the table, Tony stumbled through the sand, careful not to run too fast and waste energy. If he had to guess, the temperature was roughly a thousand degrees Fahrenheit. He'd probably sweated another five pounds off.

The one good thing about being lost in the desert was it gave him time to think. About all his mistakes and all his missteps. All the things he never realized he should've done.

He should've told Rhodey how much their friendship meant to him. Tony had been a pain in his ass since college and yet Rhodes never abandoned him.

He should've told his father he loved him. Twenty years he spent ignoring and pushing away that one simple truth, and now he couldn't avoid it. Howard Stark was an asshole, but so was Tony Stark. Like father, like son as they say.

He should've told Pepper… God, the things he should've told Pepper. Listing them would kill hours of time while the elements slowly killed him. He should've told her how important she was, not just to Stark Industries, but to him. How much he appreciated everything she did for him. How happy he was to see her every morning. How thankful he was that she didn't quit after two months and take that severance package. How much better she deserved than to be in his shadow. How much he truly cared about her from the bottom of his heart.

How much he…

God, this heat was unbearable. Couldn't even think straight.

When he saw her again after hours in an air-conditioned plane, being fed jello packets and wanting nothing more than a hunk of real meat, none of what he should've said came to mind.

"Your eyes are red. A few tears for your long lost boss?"

It would have to do.

It should've been another quiet post-return evening in.

Tony didn't feel like flying that night, otherwise, he'd be out on the town already. The plan was to watch cheesy sci-fi movies and laugh at all the mistakes until he fell asleep. Now he was trapped in his own body, eyes unable to close, mouth unable to open. He stared up at a monster wearing a familiar face as he literally ripped his heart out.

"Oh Tony, this is your ninth symphony," Obidiah said, among other bullshit villain monologue crap Tony couldn't hear over his own internal screaming. "This is your legacy. A new generation of weapons with this at its heart."

'Fuck you,' Tony wanted so badly to say. 'Fuck you, you lying son of a bitch. Fuck you fuck you fuck you-'

"Too bad you had to involve Pepper in this. I would've preferred that she'd live."

Someone once said there were five or six profound moments in everyone's life. Tony didn't know who that someone was or if he didn't just make that whole thing up in his head. Whatever the case, this was one of those moments.

Never before had he wanted so badly to kill someone. Not just kill them, but make them suffer the worst sort of torment. He wanted to rip Stane apart with his bare hands, destroy him from the inside out. Make him regret even thinking about threatening Pepper.

He focused all his strength on his legs, making his toes wiggle. The ringing in his ears was fading, but not fast enough.

'You can do this,' said the voice of Pepper in his ears. 'You can do this.'

His fingers twitched and he slowly clenched a fist.

He wouldn't lose one more person he loved.

#Pepperony #pepperony week #pepperonyweek19 #Tony Stark #Pepper Potts #5+1 Things

123 notes · View notes

weasley-gal · 5 years

Photo

Cindy’s Top Ten Movies of 2019!

Ahhh...2019. In the interest of building suspense, I could be all cagey about this countdown, but let's face it: For me, 2019 was the Year of Rocketman. As lousy as the real-world year was, it was salvaged by Rocketman. Someone suggested in jest (maybe?) that Rocketman should be numbers one through ten on my year-end list, and that would be fair enough; HOWEVER...I did like some other movies this year, so I'm gonna give you--yes YOU, dear reader(s)--ten of my favorites. Just know in your hearts that the other nine fall way behind number one. Way, WAY behind.

The usual disclaimers:

A movie's position on my year-end list does not necessarily reflect its original Weasley score. Some films age well, bear up, and even improve under repeat viewings. Some...well...some do not. Also, I live in a rinky-dink town, so great movies like JoJo Rabbit and 1917--pictures that almost certainly would have found spots here or gotten very close--have not made themselves available to me yet. This is disappointing, but unsurprising. I'd hung my entire holiday break on the prospect of seeing 1917, only to discover on Christmas Day that its Christmas opening was limited release, and I have to wait until January 10th. Humbug. Finally, I think three or four of these movies already made Variety's "worst of" list for 2019, so kindly do not be too shocked when I diverge from The Serious Critics (TM).

Without further ado, presenting my top ten films of 2019:

TEN

"The most important qualification for any leader is not wanting to be leader."

THE TWO POPES

2019 threw me a nice surprise on its way out the celestial door, with the Netflix original The Two Popes. It's a deliberate, thoughtful, and timely film carried by a pair of the year's most exquisite performances: Jonathan Pryce as Pope Francis and Anthony Hopkins as Pope Benedict XVI. While the subject matter is weighty, this movie is an absolute delight.

NINE

"I'm glad I'm a revelation and not a disappointment."

DOWNTON ABBEY

This big-screen adaptation of the popular television series Downton Abbey, is, in fact, something of a revelation. A totally new story in the familiar and much-loved setting, with just the right amount of fan service, it is a joyful exercise that hits nearly every note perfectly. Making its case for the big screen are breathtaking costumes and production design...and Mr. Barrow finally seeing a bit of happiness doesn't hurt, either.

EIGHT

"We're gonna bury Ferrari at Le Mans."

FORD V FERRARI

At a glance, Ford v Ferrari might seem like a film appealing exclusively to car enthusiasts; however, that assumption does a great disservice to both the film and the viewer. Ford v Ferrari is an inspiring story about people. It's a nail-biter from start to finish, it has heart to spare, and it's fronted by great turns from Matt Damon and Christian Bale. Beautifully filmed race action makes this one to see on the biggest screen you can find.

SEVEN

"It always fits...eventually."

SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE

Technically, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is a last-year movie, but for me it's a this-year movie, and--despite its being the very first film I saw way back in January, 2019--it's far too great to leave off my best-of list. A Marvel property in the hands of Sony, Spider-Verse is smart, funny, touching, and better than the entire Avengers catalog combined.

SIX

"This is a twisted web, and we are not finished untangling it, not yet."

KNIVES OUT

Knives Out is a great piece of original cinema crafted from artful twists, clever humor, and terrific performances, layered with a gorgeous Gothic setting and an ominous score. Written and directed by Rian Johnson, this perfect murder mystery is a huge creative and financial win for the cinema, and I recommend it without hesitation or qualification.

FIVE

"This is the worst...and best...and most terrible...excellent thing that's ever happened to me!"

THE KID WHO WOULD BE KING

Hands up if you missed the Kid Who Would Be King at your local cinema? Yeah, I see you, ALL of you. The good news is that one of the year's most wonderful pictures is now available for streaming and download, and you shouldn't make the same mistake twice. The Kid Who Would Be King is a charming movie, great fun for people of all ages. Truly one of the year's best.

FOUR

"Si vis pacem, para bellum."

JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 3 — PARABELLUM

The John Wick franchise has become quite the phenomenon, and deservedly so. Continually upping the action ante in Fast-and-Furious-like fashion, these movies are so much more than just your garden-variety shoot 'em ups and beat 'em ups. John Wick is the role Keanu Reeves was born to play, and Parabellum raises the stakes for Wick while doubling down on masterful fight choreography and stunning cinematography. Here's to many more adventures for John Wick!

THREE

"Bruce is the direct line to all that's true in this world!"

BLINDED BY THE LIGHT

Blinded by the Light is another terrific picture that didn't exactly set the box office on fire. Inspired by the true story of one Springsteen superfan, and built on the Boss's epic catalog, it's a hopeful tale about overcoming prejudice and the limitations set for us by ourselves and by others, one of the year's most inspiring movies.

TWO

"Tell the truth to everyone, whenever you can."

YESTERDAY

Yesterday is yet another of 2019's under-appreciated gems, a beautiful, unique movie fashioned around the timeless music of the Beatles. Himesh Patel is a delight in the lead, and--while the premise requires suspension of disbelief--Yesterday is a charming picture that captivates with its "what ifs?" as well as its iconic soundtrack and enchanting cast.

ONE

"You were never ordinary."

ROCKETMAN

My number one movie of the year, and of the decade, was set on May 31st, when I saw Rocketman for the first time. I saw the movie at least twice a week as long as it was at my local cinema. I've watched at least part of it every day since it became available for home viewing. Outside of a week or so around each of the wonderful concerts I saw this summer, I've listened to nothing but the Rocketman soundtrack since the end of May. My phone and all my desktops have Rocketman wallpapers. I've joked (hmm?) that I only speak Rocketman now. The truth is, I'm not interested in speaking anything else. Pre-Rocketman, it had been a decade since a new movie made its way into my all-time top ten. Then there was Rocketman. Pre-Rocketman, my favorite acting performance hadn't changed since 1993. Then there was Taron Egerton's astonishing turn as Elton John. Pre-Rocketman, I was finding reasons to stay away from the movies. Then there was Dexter Fletcher showing us the beauty of real imagination. Rocketman is more than just a well-crafted film that reflects on an iconic artist's inspiring life. It is a film that uses Elton John's art to tell his story in fantastic, creative fashion. It is a film that uses exquisite detail in its styling and costumes to further its vision. It is a film that draws something sparkling and new out of a classic discography. It is a film that is not bound by dull, linear timelines or small minds. It is a film that surrounds a performance for the ages with others that bear it up. It is a film that shows, however dark the times, you will find the light. In doing all these things, it is a film that is saving lives. Rocketman is a film that is, in every way, magnificent. Thank you, Dexter Fletcher and company, for giving us this beautiful movie. Whatever the critics say and whoever wins the prizes as Awards Season bears down upon us, nobody has done anything more valuable this cinema year.

A few Honorable (and Dis-Honorable) Mentions:

While Taron Egerton deserves all the awards, all the time, for his work in Rocketman, there were some other performances this year that also gave me life:

Jamie Bell (Rocketman): Without Bell's Bernie Taupin as his stalwart cornerstone, Egerton's Elton could not have flown. It's a lovely, understated performance that has been grossly underappreciated.

Tom Holland (Marvel Cinematic Universe): Holland is a real gem, a standout who consistently steals the show from bigger names who get weightier work in the MCU. No matter how good, bad, or painfully bloated the movie, Holland is an absolute delight.

Renee Zellweger (Judy): Who knew it was even possible for me to stop hating Renee Zellweger? Well played, 2019.

Rebecca Ferguson (The Kid Who Would Be King/Doctor Sleep): There was little I enjoyed more this year than watching Ferguson chew her way through this pair of pictures. Oh, and if I start walking around wearing a hat, don't ask, m-kay?

Chris Evans (Knives Out): God, I love seeing Chris Evans do *anything* besides Captain America. Bonus points if he gets to be funny. He's really funny, despite his obscenely gorgeous mug.

John Boyega/Oscar Isaac (Star Wars: Episode IX — The Rise of Skywalker): These two, individually and together, draw joy out of what's otherwise a fairly mundane exercise. If Finn and Poe somehow jumped to another saga in the Star Wars universe, I wouldn't complain.

The Cast of Jumanji: The Next Level: Top to bottom, a perfectly cast film, and a lesson in how the right actors can elevate any property.

As a matter of interest, if you watch the Irishman and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood back to back, you can effectively calculate how many hours you'll wish you had back when you're on your deathbed.

I would like a word with Gary Oldman's and Sebastian Stan's agents, please.

Cats: Make. It. Stop. Please, just...make it stop.

As this most challenging year winds to a close, I wanted to offer a sincere thank you to everyone who takes the time to read my reviews, and especially those who engage on any of our various platforms. Special thanks to Daniel for allowing me to be a part of his great page, and for tolerating my unceasing randomness. (Hotel Transylvania 4 in 2021, my friend!) I take no one's support for granted, and I’m ever grateful for you all. I wish our readers many blessings as this festive season comes to a close and we roll into 2020. See you at the movies!

#movies #top ten #rocketman #yesterday #blinded by the light #john wick #the kid who would be king #knives out #spider-man #into the spider-verse #ford v ferrari #downton abbey #the two popes

21 notes · View notes

nicolemagolan · 5 years

Text

Two Cities, One Galaxy: How Star Wars Connects And Divides Us

Early in 2019, I wrote a personal essay about Star Wars. It centered around SWCC (Star Wars Celebration Chicago) and my experience of watching the live stream in my living room at 4am, when the episode IX teaser and title was unveiled.

It’s about fandom, the internet, and isolation. It’s about how Star Wars impacted my life, and about my relationship with my brother.

It also, eerily, foreshadows the disappointment I would eventually feel about The Rise of Skywalker. So here it is, under the cut. Please give it a read, and let me know your thoughts!

***

My phone blinks 3:30am, April 13th, 2019. In Chicago it’s 10:30am, yesterday. I should be asleep. I should stay present in Auckland, where no one else is awake except the moths gathering on the kitchen window.

My brother is slumped beside me, eyes closed, lost somewhere between sleep and boredom. We sit in the darkness of our living room, outlined by the grey glaze of the television. I’m wearing pyjama pants and yesterday’s T-shirt. An empty bag of chips is screwed up on the carpet, a half-drunk can of Lift Plus sits on the mantelpiece.

I stare at the TV. Waiting. My knee bobs up and down. I glance at my phone, and refresh Twitter. The tweets are coming in a blur: people yelling in caps lock, streaming without punctuation, some of it indecipherable, some of it from me. It’s happening kids / MERRY IXMAS, EVERYONE / I'm trying to remember it's called Star Wars Celebration not Star Wars oh my god I'm so stressed-ebration / I AM READY TO BE EPISODE IXed. The world around me is asleep, but the world under my thumb has never been more alive.

I take another sip of Lift Plus and feel its energy tingle through my bloodstream. Or maybe that sensation is the force.

When I was in class earlier in the day, wearing a Star Wars tee, writing in a Star Wars notebook and drinking from a Star Wars bottle, I was already stewing in anticipation. My mind was in another galaxy; speculation ran through me like shooting stars. My dedication to the Star Wars universe is fuelled not by the incessant marketing or the cheap merchandise, but by the passion I have for stories, space wizards, and the cute-yet-creepy alien bird race known as the Porgs.

Star Wars Celebration Chicago is set to begin livestreaming on YouTube in just a few minutes. A countdown slowly ticks on screen. This will be the first big panel of Celebration, and the one I am most eager to see. The panel is for Star Wars: Episode IX, consisting of a Q&A session with cast members. Our first real, palpable look at the film, at beloved returning characters, and the new additions, to hear from returning Director J.J. Abrams what his vision for IX is.

But the real reason anyone is staying up all night to watch the livestream isn’t to see Abrams dodge spoilery questions. It’s to be amongst the first to witness the Episode IX trailer. The very first teaser trailer. Imagine a choir singing angelic sounds behind that one word and maybe you’ll begin to understand. What I really want is to catch a glimpse of the upcoming film, to learn the title—oh my goodness, the title—along with thousands of far, far away fans; some watching live in the dead of night or crack of dawn. The lucky few are crowded into the panel room itself. I swipe through pixelated and blurry selfies posted with #SWCC. It’s a big auditorium, packed with media, families, and cosplayers, and many are swinging lightsabers above the crowd’s heads. Purple, blue, green, and red beams of light. The stage itself is lit up with a bright blue backdrop.

When I told my parents I was going to camp out in the living room to watch the livestream of Star Wars Celebration, they rolled their eyes. When I asked my brother if he wanted to join me, he cried, ‘Whyyy,’ before revealing his true colours when he showed up on the couch at 2am.

He was all too keen to eat my snacks, but now as time crawls forward, he seems to have come to the conclusion that it is ridiculous to stay up for something you can watch on your phone, from your bed, when you wake up. I have come to the conclusion that he is lying to himself. On the path to the dark side, perhaps.

He’s always joined me on my silly adventures, making fun of me along the way. But the fact that he’s willing to be there is enough, as he is now. Star Wars has been a part of his life as much as mine; we grew up roaring Chewbacca impressions and fighting with cardboard lightsabers; He’d be Darth Maul and I’d be Obi-Wan (so I got to chop him in half every time). Kids would tell me I was a weirdo for liking Star Wars, for playing with Barbies and Darth Vader figurines, blurring the lines between allocated girls’ or boys’ toys. But my brother and I knew: Star Wars is a fun space adventure for whoever wants to enjoy it.

We got older and the movies lost a touch of their magic: the internet revealed the intense hatred shovelled at the prequel trilogy. Little-me had loved the ridiculous Jar Jar Binks, but the middle-aged fans who grew up with the original trilogy saw him as an offence to their childhood obsession. (JUSTICE FOR JAR JAR is the hill I will die on.)

Then Disney bought Lucasfilm and ushered in a new era. I have a series of selfies from midnight premieres—me grinning from ear to ear, my brother with eyes closed and discontented frown (his go-to photo pose)—in the blurry light of the Imax screen on Queen Street. But one glance at his smiling face during the film and you know he loves this galaxy as much as the next fan.

Sometimes that’s the problem: our love for this story is so great and so ingrained, that it can bubble over into endless online debates. Debates become heated, become personal, become hateful. In this era of social media, everyone has a voice, but the ones who spit poison are the loudest. We struggle to find common ground sometimes. But it’s always there, beneath out feet and on our TV screens. We love Star Wars. We love to watch it, re-enact it, dissect it, wear it, read it, and write about it. Whether the common ground we stand on looks like the sands of Tatooine or the lake country of Naboo, it’s all the same galaxy. Even though the galaxy-shattering film The Last Jedi threatened to destroy us, we can find a way to stand together. Because when the fans unite, at movie premieres, or conventions, the fandom can become something worth celebrating.

Like today, right now, 3:59am in my living room.

I look up from my phone. The countdown reaches zero. I hold my breath. A soft echo of music trickles through the speakers, and John Williams’ familiar score wraps around me like a blanket. Goose bumps pop up on my skin.

The Star Wars logo vanishes and the screen cuts to black. I snap up and nudge my sleeping brother’s arm with my toe. He jolts awake, looks at the black screen and scowls.

‘Nothing’s hap—’

He’s cut off by a roaring applause as the blue-lit panel stage lights up the screen. The room around me fades. I’m in Auckland with my brain fuzzy, and I’m transported to Chicago with heart thumping.

My brother jumps up and stands in front of the screen. ‘I’m going to the bathroom.’

I babble, ‘butthepanelisabouttostart,’ craning my neck around his legs.

‘Oh well,’ he says. He walks off.

Stephen Colbert is pacing around the stage, babbling on about Dagobah and S-foils, trying to work the crowd up—unnecessary, since we are all waiting for the cast and crew.

I’m leaning forward, straining my eyes, and wondering if anyone actually finds his ‘jokes’ funny. Twitter tells me, yes, they do. The excitement level is high, making everything fresh and exciting, even if it’s a Star Wars pun heard years ago. I almost feel like I could twist my neck and hear people whispering behind me, instead of tweeting alongside me.

The closest thing to this feeling in my own city is Armageddon Expo, the annual convention at the ASB Showgrounds in Greenlane. Nerds I’ve never met become my best friends. We jam the halls like squashed-up skittles. I don’t know their names but I know who they are. When I’m dressed in Rey’s dusty scavenger outfit, with staff in hand and hair bunched in three bobbles, young girls point and giggle. I wave at them, their eyes wide with wonder, and my heart is full.

The internet fandom space is a mix of tweet-before-thinking garbage and fun bite-sized meta. The real-world fandom spaces, such as Armageddon, are a big geeky party; no one hiding behind an anonymous wall, and no one left out.

This livestream is somewhere in between. I am connected online from where I sit in Auckland. Reading tweets and writing tweets and liking gifs. Yet I am in Chicago, oblivious to the sleeping city around me.

Stephen Colbert brings out Director J.J. Abrams and head of Lucasfilm Kathleen Kennedy, and the content we’re all waiting for finally begins. I take in every detail, every non-answer. I enjoy it. I loathe it. Stephen Colbert asks unanswerable questions, like the fate of Daisy Ridley’s character, or how the relationships develop. No word is uttered more than ‘spoilers’.

The cast members are introduced onto the stage; first is Anthony Daniels who plays C-3PO—one of the remaining few original cast members from 1977. He waves hello to the crowd before looking for the cameras. In his charming British accent, he says, ‘On tweets today people were, all over the world, saying “wish I could be here”. And I know we’re on camera, so I don’t know where the camera is, but whoever is in Australia or…’ He pauses for a flicker of a second, ‘…all the other countries around the planet; I wanna give you a big wave, and you are here in spirit. Okay?’

I grin a little wider. Of course he would mention our neighbour, Australia. So close, and yet so far.

In New Zealand, despite the growing connections through social media, I feel isolated. Even in the vast Auckland city, where I easily get lost in the busy roads and busy people. New Zealand is separate. And that’s part of what makes it special.

But the isolation is also part of what makes being part the Star Wars fandom special.

It’s a larger world. Out there in space; out there in the world wide web. Legendary or anonymous, you can be a part of something. You can tell your story; you can make one up. After movie premieres, there is a sense of privilege and power in that none of my fellow fans in America have yet seen the movie. The Last Jedi came here a few days early, and I knew all the things before anyone else. We were isolated again. And it felt so good.

Did I go and post spoilers? No, because I’m not an asshole (you know who you are). But I told people they’re gonna love it. I told them the film is exciting and unexpected and dabbles deliciously in subtext in a way that’s fresh for Star Wars. I sign off with eagerness for the upcoming dissection and discussion of the film.

The next day I’m shocked to learn that many many many people felt it was a ‘betrayal’ of Star Wars. A disaster of a movie. A cluttered mess of a story, an anti-climactic sequel that instead of building on what came before, tore the past to shreds. My brother is one of them.

And the fandom split in two.

But not today. Not tonight. I refuse, and so does everyone on my Twitter feed, because we’re tired of defending Rey, who is not a Mary Sue; and Vice Admiral Holdo, whose purple hair does not make her a lesser fighter; and Rose Tico, who fell victim to dude-bros saying she’s the worst character ever, she ruined their childhood, and Asians don’t belong in Star Wars; until eventually the actress, Kelly Marie Tran, deleted all her social media.

When Kelly walks onto the panel stage, she gets a standing ovation. There are tears in her eyes, and there are tears in mine.

They introduce the new cast members, and display behind the scenes photos, and babble on about the brilliant practical effects. There’s a touching tribute to Carrie Fisher, an awkward bit about Adam Driver’s chest, and the introduction of new droid D-O. When the duck-inspired droid rolls onto the stage, you can hear cash registers ring.

My brother comes back in the room as the panel is winding up. He flops into the chair and sighs. ‘So, did I miss anything?’

‘You missed everything.’

‘So I didn’t miss anything then,’ he smirks.

Stephen Colbert asks J.J. Abrams if there’s anything he wants to leave with the fans. I lean forward. ‘This is it,’ I screech.

This is it. It boils down to this simple, repeated moment in time: the day, or night, or very-early-morning that a Star Wars trailer is about to debut. I am alone, and yet so very not alone, united in a nerdy passion that doesn’t call for such depth of devotion. But here we all are. Here I am. And here’s Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (omg).

I switch off the TV. The darkness eats my eyeballs.

‘How am I supposed to sleep after that!?’ I yell. ‘Palpatine. Freaking Pal-pa-tine! NO! YES! Why?!’

Silence.

My brother is asleep.

I throw a pillow at him. ‘DUDE! Palpatine is back!’

He mumbles, ‘Haha, lame.’ His eyes don’t open.

I slide down the couch until I hit the hard floor. The Rise of Skywalker. Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. I sit there in the lonely living room, and let my thoughts trail off into the dark.

#star wars #writing #my writing #the rise of skywalker #swcc #star wars celebration #star wars essay #personal essay #creative nonfiction #tros #writeblr #sw

4 notes · View notes

mimitxtghost · 6 years

Text

THE GUY WHO GREW HORNS:

I found a story similar to what TXT went with. It is one of a boy who grew horns. I read it and found it quite entertaining. So I think you might like it too.

“ In the aftermath of his girlfriend's mysterious death, a young man awakens to find strange horns sprouting from his temples.“ - Anonymous

Here is the synopsis:

Ignatius Perrish (Daniel Radcliffe) was always seen by the people in town as an outsider. None of that mattered to him, because he was in love with Merrin Williams (Juno Temple). They are lying beneath a tree in the woods kissing. She asks him if he's horny. He says he's getting there. Ig promises to love Merrin for the rest of his life. She just wants him to love her for the rest of hers. Ig wakes up lying on the floor clutching a bottle of vodka. He groggily goes into the living room and puts on a David Bowie record to play "Heroes". He sees Merrin dancing for him. Outside his window is a news van and many angry protesters, holding signs that condemn Ig to hell. Merrin has been murdered, and everyone thinks he did it.

Ig calls his lawyer friend Lee Torneau (Max Minghella) for help. He then goes to his family's home for sanctuary from the press. Ig's brother Terry (Joe Anderson) wants to help Ig clear his name. Their father Derrick (James Remar) has sought a lawyer for Ig, but all the other lawyers want Ig to take a plea, while Lee knows he is innocent. Lee later comes over to join his friends. He tells Ig that any evidence found on Merrin's remains were burned in a forensics lab, thereby leaving Ig with nothing to prove his innocence. Ig vows to find the real killer and finish him off. Ig goes to a bar where the bartender refuses to serve him because the other patrons are afraid of him. Glenna (Kelli Garner), an old friend of Ig's, takes pity on him and pours him a drink. She offers to go have a drink with him, but he wants to be alone. A large gathering of townspeople come together for a vigil around the tree where Merrin's body was found. Her father Dale (David Morse) tearfully talks about his daughter and also accuses Ig of killing her. Ig watches from a treehouse above them. After everybody leaves, Ig stomps on a statue of the Virgin Mary and then pees all over the candles. Glenna catches him and tells him to calm down. Ig blames God for not caring about Merrin when she needed help. The next morning, Ig awakens after sleeping with Glenna to two horns protruding from his head ...

He gets dressed and asks Glenna if she notices the horns. She does, but doesn't react beyond a laugh. She sees a box of doughnuts on the coffee table and asks Ig if she can eat all of them. He says yes, and she stuffs one in her mouth. It makes her stomach feel bad, and she washes it down with Diet Coke. Yet she still wants to eat the whole box because, as she casually tells Ig, she wants to get fat because everybody thinks she is trash and that nobody would sleep with her unless they were drunk like Ig was. Ig goes to the doctor to get the horns checked out. A little girl is screaming in the waiting room while her mother sits and does nothing. The mother tells Ig that she wants to kick her daughter's ass, divorce her husband, and go have sex with her black golf instructor because she prefers "black cock". A disturbed Ig goes to the receptionist and gives back the form he had to fill out. The receptionist tells Ig that she just wants to tell the mother to shut her kid up. She asks Ig if he thinks it's okay and he says yes. The receptionist gets up and yells at the mother to take her "screeching pig" out. The mother angrily yells at the receptionist and goes up to her. Ig grabs her arm and gets a peek inside her mind. He sees the woman having sex with her golf instructor and dealing with the screaming daughter at home. The little girl also tells Ig that she hates her mother and wants to burn her in her bed with matches. Ig sees the nurse. She is checking his blood pressure but is fixated on his horns. She tells him that she knows her boyfriend is seeing another girl. The doctor comes in and sees the horns but doesn't bother dealing with them and instead tells Ig that he wants to have sex with his daughter's friend, and then offers to snort oxycontin with Ig. Ig just tells him to saw the horns off. The doctor puts Ig under anesthesia and he passes out. We see a flashback to when Ig was a child and he first saw Merrin in church. She shined the light reflecting off her cross necklace in Ig's direction. Derrick tells him it's morse code. After the service, he finds Merrin's necklace, broken. Later on, Ig would hang out with Terry, Lee, Glenna, and another kid named Eric by the docks. They lit off cherry bombs and talked about Merrin, to whom Ig is attracted, which upset Glenna because none of the other boys seemed to really notice her. After lighting off a number of cherry bombs, Eric tells Ig he'll give him his last one if he rides down a log rail in a cart naked. Ig takes the challenge and rides off into the lake, hitting his head on a log. The logs come together, trapping him underneath. Lee jumps in and rescues Ig. Eric is forced to hand Ig the cherry bomb. Lee fixes the cross necklace and gives it to Ig in exchange for the cherry bomb. Ig gives it back to Merrin and starts hanging out with her. Ig learns that Merrin's mother passed away from cancer. They go back to his house and listen to David Bowie. Terry runs in and tells Ig that the cherry bomb blew up in Lee's hand. They run to the hospital where the boy has lost two fingers. He does feel happy seeing Ig and Merrin together. Ig later confesses to Merrin that it was Lee who fixed the necklace, and he blames himself for what happened to him. Merrin assures him that she left the necklace for Ig to find. They have their first kiss. Ig wakes up to see that the doctor left the saw in the horn to have sex with the nurse right next to him. Disgusted, Ig leaves, only to see in the mirror that the horns have grown. Ig finds a priest and asks for his help. The priest coldly suggests that he can get a rope and hang Ig, or Ig can do the deed himself. The only person that doesn't notice the horns is Lee. This makes Ig think the horns don't work on good people. Ig goes to his parents' home and hears the truth from both of them - his mother thinks she would be happier if he wasn't her son, and Derrick always thought Ig was a difficult child, and that he hates Ig for supposedly killing Merrin, because she was the only thing that he loved about Ig. He also reveals that he had someone burn the evidence in the forensics lab. Ig calls Lee about this, who says it's probably a blessing in disguise. Ig goes to the bar but is harassed by a gaggle of reporters trying to get a hot scoop from him. Ig tells them to fight each other, and whoever wins gets to interview him. The reporters then get into an intense brawl while Ig walks into the bar. The bartender threatens to hit Ig, but Ig tells him he doesn't want to do that. The bartender admits he wants to burn the bar down and collect the insurance money. Ig demands anybody in the bar to tell him if they know anything about Merrin's murder. The other patrons just admit more sinful things, and one man takes his pants off and whips his penis out. Ig leaves as the bartender lights the place up, and he walks past the reporters, still fighting. As Ig sits in his car to have a smoke, he notices a small box in the glove compartment. In another flashback, we see that Ig was telling Lee and Terry that he was planning to propose to Merrin that night at the diner, and that the guys would join them to celebrate. Ig later goes to the diner to meet with Merrin, who looks melancholic. She tells Ig that she is moving to Los Angeles, which he thinks is a good chance for a fresh start. However, Merrin says they should break up and see other people to know if he really wants to spend the rest of his life with her. He thinks she is already seeing someone else. She starts to leave, and Ig gets up and loudly argues with her until the manager tells him to leave. Ig leaves without a fight, just as Terry starts to come in. The next morning, Eric (Michael Adamthwaite), now a cop, finds Ig sleeping in his car and asks him when he last saw Merrin. The fact that Ig asked if something happened to her only fuels Eric's suspicions. Ig returns to the diner to talk to the waitress, Veronica (Heather Graham), who has been feeding the police false information about Ig on the night Merrin was killed. Veronica told the cops that Ig dragged Merrin into his car and took her into the woods to kill her before having anal sex with her. All of this so that Veronica can be featured on the news as a key witness. Ig goes to the jazz club where Terry plays with his band. Glenna approaches him and admits that she was always in love with Ig, which he did already know. After the performance, Terry meets Ig outside and admits that he was with Merrin after Ig left the diner. Ig attacks his brother and, as he touches him, sees into Terry's mind to that night. Terry drove Merrin away from the diner, but she ran away into the woods in the pouring rain. The next morning, Terry woke up in his car with a bloody rock in his hand. He ran into the woods to find Merrin dead. He wrapped the rock in his shirt and threw it in the lake to avoid being implicated. After this, Eric and his partner come in and cuff Ig. The two cops then make crude jokes about beating Ig while they jerk off. The next day, Ig finds Lee in town wearing Merrin's cross necklace. Lee denies it at first but then says she gave it to him. Ig breaks down, thinking Lee was the one that Merrin was leaving him for. Ig then goes to Dale's home to try and see if he knew if Merrin was seeing anybody or mentioned leaving him, only to have Dale point a shotgun at him, ordering him to get off his property. Ig goes down an alley to forcibly remove the horns, to no avail. A group of snakes slither on over to him, but they do not harm him. They slither onto him, and he is okay with it. Ig walks past Eric and his partner in their car. They threaten to arrest him, but Ig says they would be happier sucking each other off. The two admit they're gay and that they love each other, and they proceed to make out and have sex. Ig then gathers the snakes and finds Veronica in her car. The snakes make their way into the car and bite Veronica all over her face and body, scarring her and ensuring that she can't enjoy a life of fame. Ig, wearing the snake around his neck, goes to find Terry doing a lot of drugs. Ig forces Terry to do an enormous amount to trip out and eventually torture him with the same feelings that Merrin felt the night she died. Terry experiences a horrible trip and collapses. Down by the docks the next day, Ig meets up with Lee. Ig removes the cross necklace from him, and Lee can finally see Ig's horns. And then he admits that it was HE who really killed Merrin. Ig chokes Lee and sees his memories. Previously, Merrin suspected that Ig was going to propose, and she asked Lee if it's true. He said maybe. Merrin recently learned some things about herself and didn't want Ig to be involved with it, so she confided this to Lee. On the night that Ig left the diner, Lee followed Terry and Merrin until they stopped by the woods. Lee found Merrin in there and tried to kiss her, but she pulled back. He thought she left Ig for him, but Merrin says she loves Ig more than anything in the world. Angry, Lee struck Merrin and raped her before cracking her head with a rock. He then planted the bloody rock in Terry's hand and fled the scene. Ig grabs a pitchfork and tells Lee to go turn himself in, but Lee grabs a chain and whips Ig in the back repeatedly. He pushes him in his car and douses it with kerosene, then sets it on fire. Unable to get out, Ig drives the car into the lake. Lee later tells the police that Ig confessed to killing Merrin before killing himself. Ig emerges from the lake, terribly burnt but alive. He returns to Dale's home. Dale now realizes that Ig really didn't kill Merrin. He invites Ig inside and gives him a key that Merrin wanted him to have. Ig hands Dale her necklace, but Dale lets him keep it. Ig puts it around his neck, and then his burns heal and the horns go away. Ig brings the key to the treehouse and opens a box with a note inside from Merrin. It's written in morse code, and it says that Merrin knew she was dying of cancer like her mother, and after seeing how it affected her father, she didn't want Ig to know about it since he would have only wanted to marry her more, and she didn't want him to live with her suffering. She does vow to find him again someday in the same treehouse. Ig cries. Ig visits Terry in the hospital, recovering from his drug episode. Ig is sorry for what he did, and he tells Terry that Lee is the real killer and that he's going after him. Ig goes to Lee's house and asks him to join him for a walk. They go into the woods to the spot where Lee killed Merrin. Eric appears with a shotgun aimed at Lee, followed closely by Terry, who told Eric about Lee. Lee appears to go quietly, but he trips Eric and grabs the shotgun and shoots Terry in the leg. Ig grabs the pitchfork and tries to pull the shotgun out of Lee's hand, only to aim it directly in Eric's face and blow his head off. Ig and Lee struggle, when Ig then takes off the cross necklace. He suddenly grows wings that lift him in the air, and then they catch fire. His whole body is consumed by fire until he morphs into a demonic creature with bigger horns. Lee shoots at Ig, who bleeds lava, but he charges at Lee and impales him with his horn and throws him against a tree. The snakes then come by and wrap themselves around Lee, and one snake slithers through the impalement wound and into Lee's mouth, gagging him to death. Ig, now having avenged Merrin, falls and begins turning to stone. Terry rushes to his brother's side. The film ends with the opening scene of Ig and Merrin under the tree, suggesting they have reunited in death.

| Source: imdb.com/title/tt1528071/plotsummary

#txt #tomorrow x together #tomorrowxtogether #soobin #beomgyu #hueningkai #yeonjun #taehyun #bighit #kpop #story #txt theory #txt theories #horns

173 notes · View notes

roses-and-rads-archived · 6 years

Note

i'm always down for romance so what're some shippy headcanons you got...your choice of oc🤠

(I wanna say sorry for this taking so long but I had most of this made and then pushed the wrong button and reloaded the page… I was so mad I couldn’t even look at this for a week)

I’m going to write about my OT3 Preston Rose Danse

They all ended up sleeping together because Rose can’t sleep without someone right next to her (being frozen and then waking up alone gave her real bad fears about being alone in general) so she and Preston were traveling together at first and it just became a thing that at the very least whoever was sleeping would end up kinda on the one on watch. When Danse started traveling with them it didn’t change much til Preston had to like go to Sanctuary and Rose still can’t sleep on her own and didn’t want to bother Danse so went like 3 days without sleep before Danse was like ‘why the fuck aren’t you sleeping and that’s how it became a thing that Danse would sleep with her and then it was just all three of them.

Sturges and David surprised them with a custom wooden bed frame after they’d been living together for six months because before that they’d pushed two beds together and slept on it sideways so no one (usually Rose since she’s in the middle like 75% of the time) would fall through the middle. Ana Lee and Sara made the mattress which is like a king and a half that bed was fucking huge.

Even though christmas isn’t really a thing 200+ years after the bombs but Rose still makes gifts for everyone around the end of the year, usually something she’s made herself or something pre-war that she’s gotten fixed up.

Preston and Danse really hate how much Rose likes visiting the Glowing Sea but after she shows them the church Daniel and Nora got married and explained how much it meant to her to visit it they eased up on their disapproval of her wanting to visit an extremely dangerous place.

Rose is constantly getting them into bad situations because she ignores all the reasons that a building might be boarded up and just wanders in to find what’s hiding behind literal warning signs sometimes. Danse and Preston have their hands full trying to keep their girlfriend from running onto some kinda mess.

They all have PTSD of some kind, some kind of survivors guilt and depression. They all have some info about like mental health but Rose has the most knowledge and tries really really hard to help them with their triggers and depression and other symptoms and ignores herself and it takes them a while to like sit down and have a talk about what they each need and not ignoring their own health.

They all found out Rose is really allergic to mirelurk anything. Preston found out like two days after meeting her when he offered her a mirelurk omlet and she was immediatly sick after like the 3rd bite, even though she continued to eat it until she threw up because at that point she did not give a fuck and also she was in withdrawl and had no idea what was going on. Preston becomes very hypervigilant about keeping her from eating mirelurk at all because she is sick for days afterwards depending on how much she ate.

Danse found out when it was just him and Rose while Preston was sorting out that issue at Sanctuary, he had offered her mirelurk jerky and she ate like a bag of it because she’s constantly hungry and then was sick for three days. Danse felt really bad because he didnt know she was allergic and also he didn’t know how to like help her??? She’s a general??? he can’t just treat her like one of his squad mates!! how?? does he help??? Preston and Danse both have to watch her so she doesn’t eat it ever, it’s not a good time for anyone.

All three of them can be hoarders, picking up something that made them think of the other and giving it to that person. Rose is the worst hoarder tho because she collects anything that catches her eye and Preston makes her go through her collection of junk when it gets to a certain pile size. She hates that even tho she knows he’s right.

At least every other month Preston goes to visit his family in an eastern settlement that is a pretty popular trading spot. His family absolutely adores Rose and Danse and welcomed them both into the family almost immediately. Preston is the only one with family left so it means a lot to them that his family accepted them so quickly.

When they’re in private they are constantly touching, cuddling, and generally just being super lovey all the time. They’re just super casual in public in general but as soon as they’re alone they’re super cheesy lovey holding there’s just a whole lotta love in this relationship.

#you can see i started running out of energy near the end but thank you so much for askin!!!#i dont talk about them that much but i think about them a lot #like a lot #theyre the ultimate friends to lovers like they dont really realize theyre dating til someone asks when theyre anniversary is or somethin #i just love them #fo4 #ot3 #ocs #danse #preston #loml #my post #ri answers #bintangy #i know this isnt fc5 related or ocs or whatever but ive ignored them for a while and i feel bad #rose havis

3 notes · View notes

thisishomenicktoonsau · 7 years

Text

Just A Typical Morning

Sophie is just the typical 10-year-old girl. Except for her family life where she grows up in a foster home with a mom, a dad, 15 older siblings, six younger siblings, and several pets. Yup. Definitely typical.

Hi, whoever is reading this. My name is Sophie Hathaway and this is my life. I am 10 years old and just moved to a new school. I’m not like other kids my age. I mean I go to school, hang out with my friends after school, I draw for competitions, I like soccer and video games but I also like stuffed animals and musicals. So I would say that I’m mostly normal.

Sophie was looking in a mirror getting ready for school in her tiny closet bedroom. She was dressed in a white tank top, a red plaid flannel shirt, jean leggings, and black converse. She tied her long curly ebony hair in a ponytail before putting her signature dark blue messenger hat on and turned to her white Maine Coon cat. “Well, Lion? What do you think?” Lion responded by lazily sprawling out on one of her shirts. Sophie rolled her midnight blue eyes and said “Thanks for the input Lion. Seriously that helps so much.” The moment Lion started to chew on the shirt she yanked it out from under him. Lion started to meow loudly in annoyance. Sophie smirked and said, “Yeah love you too bud.” She ruffled his fur and left her room her door ajar so Lion could wander in and out.

The only way I’m not normal is family wise. I live in a foster home with several other kids. I’ve lived here since I was six years old and grew up in the younger half of the family. Lion came with me because he’s been my cat since I was five though he was my original mother’s cat. I kind of have learned to thrive in chaotic situations after living here for so long.

Sophie was looking for her backpack for school. She didn’t know why it wasn’t in her room with all her other things but she could chalk that up to it getting mixed up with some other moving boxes. She looked in the closest room to her own bedroom, being her brothers Timmy and Snap’s room, and saw a familiar bag strap sticking out from under the blue bed while Timmy’s Golden Retriever puppy, Sparky, was lying on the bed. She grabbed it and pulled it out from under the bed. “Timmy Turner! Can you please explain what MY backpack was doing under YOUR bed?!” Sophie yelled.

A brown haired, blue eyed, buck-toothed boy poked his head into the room. “I needed crayons for my comic book and you have the best crayons in the house,” Timmy explained like it was obvious.

This is Timothy Turner or “Timmy” for short. He’s older than me by a few months and has been here longer than any of us. See when he was two, our foster parents moved next door and noticed something not so good. His real parents were neglecting him and Timmy had a caretaker that was abusing him. So Cosmo and Wanda, who are our parents, did what was best and called social services on them. Cosmo and Wanda eventually adopted Timmy as their son and the rest is pretty much history. The weird thing about this story though is that we think Timmy may have had a twin sibling. Keyword: Think. There were two cribs in the house although since there wasn’t any record of Timmy’s birth and no other evidence that there was another baby in the house, it’s just theory for now. Sparky was Timmy’s tenth birthday present. Mom and Dad got him in March so he’s just a puppy.

Timmy acts like what you think a “typical” ten-year-old boy is. He likes gross things like dead frogs and literally has no idea how girls work to point I’m pretty sure he thinks females have a whole different language. He can be a selfish jerk sometimes but he can be a good brother too. We play video games together a lot and he once told I’m the sister he didn’t know he could wish for.

“Dude. Stop stealing my crayons!” Sophie said rolling her eyes.

“Then buy me some fancy ones like yours.”

“Right. Like I have my own money. We are literally both 10.” Sophie said deadpanned. Sophie was checking her box for missing crayons. Okay, everything seemed in order except. Hang on. Something was wrong with her blues. “Slate, Sky, Navy, Indigo, Cobalt, Teal, Ocean, Peacock, Azure, Cerulean, Lapis, Spruce, Stone, Aegean, Berry, Denim, Admiral, Sapphire, Arctic…. Hey. Where’s my blue crayon? I have all my other blues but not the normal blue one.” Sophie said looking up from her crayon box after counting them.

“Oh yeah! Nerd-tron borrowed it for his science junk notes,” Timmy said getting his own backpack for school.

“Ugh, you gotta be kidding me with this!” Sophie groaned as she stomped to the room next door and knocked.

“Jimmy! I need my crayon! You know I hate having an incomplete box!” Sophie waited for a few minutes before Jimmy opened the door and Jimmy’s mechanical dog Goddard suddenly ran by her legs.

“Oh hey, Sophie. What did you need again?” Jimmy asked.

“My blue crayon. You stole it from Tim who stole it from me.” Sophie explained.

“Oh, that was your crayon! No wonder it was such high quality!” Jimmy said.

“Yeah, so can I have it back?” Sophie asked.

“Of course! Let me get it for you.” Jimmy said as he started to search his desk area. Sophie followed him into his and ZIM’s shared room.

That’s James Neutron or “Jimmy” for short. He’s older than me by about a year and came here shortly after Timmy did. Nobody's quite sure what happened to his parents but Mom and Dad found him just wandering in traffic and took him to CPS. They did find some of his relatives on his father’s side but nobody took him because he’s apparently some sort of “bad omen” or something, so mom and dad took him in. It was then they were like “Well we already got the two kids, why not open up a foster home for more?” So he kinda started the whole Vanguard Home for Wayward Children in a way. He built Goddard when he was around six so it was a year before I got there.

Jimmy is super smart, probably the smartest of all of us entirely being skilled in several different fields of science already. Though this can be annoying when he acts like a know it all and won’t admit when he makes a clear mistake. He stays mostly serious and doesn’t really play too much with us. Mostly because of Timmy. Timmy annoys him. However, he acts like a leader to us and takes care of us so that’s pretty good.

“Ah! Here it is!” Jimmy said holding up the crayon.

“Thanks, Jim. You’re a peach!” Sophie said as she put it in her bag.

“No problem. See you downstairs.” Jimmy said as he grabbed his bag and headed out. Sophie also started to head out starting to recount her crayons until she bumped into a teenage boy with black hair and ice blue eyes.

“Ow sorry, Danny…” Sophie said grinning sheepishly. Danny rubbed his head as he stood up with his Bulldog, Cujo’s leash in hand.

“It’s cool Soph I was just gonna take Cujo out real quick. Hold on. You got a smudge on your face.” Danny said trying to wipe it off.

“Mom c’mon stop!” Sophie whined as she tried to squirm out his grasp.

Danny groaned and said “Sophie. If you just hold still this would be over in a second.”

A high-pitched male voice called to them interrupting the squabble. “Danny! Sophie! What type of eggs do you want for breakfast?”

“Scrambled, please! And can I have hot chocolate to drink SB?” Sophie asked politely as she rushed to the banister to get away from Danny, making him sigh shaking his head.

“Of course sweetheart! Danny! What about you?” SB called back from the kitchen.

“I’ll take sunny side up SB!” Danny said as he and Cujo walked down the stairs. Sophie watched SB’s elderly cat Gary go downstairs followed by Lion and Sparky.

Those were two of my older brothers Daniel Fenton/”Danny” for short and Spencer Bob Sawyer-Patterson or “SB” for short. They both came here not too long after Timmy and Jimmy.

Danny is 14 and a freshman in high school. His parents were great scientists but died tragically in a lab accident when he was around four-ish. While his sister’s Jazz and Dani went to an all girls home Danny was not allowed to follow them making him end up here. Soon after he got here Mom and Dad got him a bulldog named Cujo to help him cope.

Danny is a really kind older brother. He’s kind of one of our parents second in command. So much so we actually call him mom because he always scolding us for doing the stupid things we do and wiping crap from our faces like you just saw. Danny always groans when we call him that even though he tells groan-worthy puns in return. Though we all know he secretly likes us calling him that as a term of endearment.

SB is 20 and currently going to culinary school while he lives here at home with us. Like Jimmy, we don’t actually know what happened to his parents. Every time he’s asked about it SB just bawls his eyes out. So we just stopped asking. All we know about his parents is that they are the ones that took SB to get his cat Gary, who has lived so long none of us know how old he is. Not even SB who got him as a full grown cat. Timmy swears he’s immortal while I’m just hoping we don’t come home from school one day and find him under a sofa “sleeping”.

SB is super sweet to all of us though he can be a little clueless and super innocent at times. Though I think he knows that strangely enough. Mom and Dad let him cook the meals for all of us cause he’s just such a good cook. He even makes all our lunches for school which takes so long he actually gets up at 4:00 AM to take his time making them. He’s definitely more of an early bird than any of us.

“Danny! Hurry up! We gotta leave in 30 minutes!” a black haired and violet-eyed teenage goth girl called from downstairs. Danny got to the bottom of the stairs with Cujo in hand and Sophie followed close behind.

“I know Sam. I just gotta take Cujo out to pee.” Danny said as he kissed her cheek before going outside.

“Morning dad,” Sophie said as she passed Sam to get to the kitchen.

“Good morning to you too son,” Sam said as she bumped the back of Sophie’s head.

Sophie went into the kitchen where she saw her brother SB with his curly dyed bright yellow hair with his original ginger hair peeking out and bright blue-eyes putting food down in front of her other older brother with dyed pink hair and dark brown eyes named Patrick. Jimmy and Timmy were already in the kitchen racing each other in an egg eating race. “Morning SB. Morning Pat-Pat.” Sophie said as she kissed both of their cheeks.

“Morning Soph-a-Loaf! Your breakfast is almost ready!” SB said cheerfully as he put down a fruit salad down for Sam who just walked in with her spider-shaped bag.

“Thanks, SB,” Sophie said sitting down next to Patrick who was scarfing down his food loudly which went along so nicely with Timmy and Jimmy’s muffled yelling. Sophie giggled as Sam pinched the bridge of her nose.

SB put a hand on her shoulder and asked “Tea?” Sam nodded quickly as SB poured her a cup of earl gray tea.

That is my sister Samantha Manson or “Sam” for short and my brother Patrick Star. They both came here about a few months after Danny and SB. Both have connections to Danny and SB too. Sam has been Danny’s best friend since kindergarten and now she is his girlfriend. Patrick has also been SB’s best friend since kindergarten.

Sam is the same age and grade as Danny. Her parents tried to force her into a life of fame and fortune that she frankly never wanted. So much so she ran away from her parents and ended up here. She and Danny just kind of clicked and got together by the end of middle school. Mom and Dad were pretty accepting of this. They just ask Danny and Sam make sure if and when they do something they are either out of the house, the entire family but them is out of the house, or lock the door which I’m still not sure what they mean by that. Do they mean kiss? Cause they’ve kissed in front of us before. Like more than once.

While we call Danny “Mom” we call Sam “Dad” a lot as an inside joke between all us. If Danny mothers us by taking care of our injuries and wiping stuff off our faces then Sam fathers us by punishing us when we do something wrong. Like when one of my older brothers, Manny, “wandered” into a Victoria Secret to see girls. Even Danny knew that he was a dead man when Sam went to fish him out. I do still look up to her as one of my female role models. I mean she so strong-willed and passionate that I kinda wanna be like her when I’m older.

Patrick is 22 and currently going through community college though he’s not that great at it. Not that he’s stupid, he’s just a little slow. His parents have been out of the picture for a while so his older sister was taking care of him. A few years later he said his sister got “lost in the tide”. Whatever that means. He also has a pet a rock named Rocky that he randomly just found in the park one day and took it home with him.

Patrick’s such a sweetheart and really tries hard for us despite his faults like him being slow and kinda lazy too. Seriously he like sleeps a lot. I think I tend to pick up habits from my siblings cause I swear I have fallen asleep in some weird places just like him. Mom and Dad depend on him to feed the pets while SB feeds us.

Patrick got up and started putting down the food bowls for the pets after scarfing down his breakfast. He put down a bowl of nuts and bolts for Goddard, three bowls of big dog for Sparky, Boodles, and Perrito, a bowl of medium dog food for Cujo, two bowls of cat food for Gary and Lion, he put some sprinkles on Rocky, put out a muffin for Minimoose, and he put out a bowl of clams for Grudge. Goddard, Sparky, Gary, and Lion were already eating. Danny came in with Cujo and Cujo made a dash for his bowl as SB put down Danny’s and Sophie’s eggs. As SB poured Sophie’s hot chocolate into a mug, a tan boy with messy brown hair and green eyes rubbing his eyes sleepily came into the kitchen.

“Morning Tak!” Sophie said chipperly.

“Subah mere pyaare parivaar.” (Translation: ‘Morning my lovely family.’ {Hindi}) Tak said obviously not being too terribly awake as he made his way to the toaster. He spent a minute staring at it before he started to hit it. “Why. Won’t. This. Cursed. Machine. Work!”

Danny promptly went and stopped Tak from hitting it. “Tak. Leave the toaster alone. If you want toast so much then just sit next to Sophie and I’ll make it for you but Tak... the toaster isn’t even on.” Danny calmly explained.

“Oh…” Tak mumbled blushing as he sat next to Sophie. Sophie giggled and kissed his cheek.

That’s my brother Tak Pupanunu. He’s 13 and came here about a year after Danny, SB, Sam, and Patrick. He was the first one of us to come from a different country which he was raised in India. As far as we know his parents gave him up at one of the shrines and was adopted by his Uncle Jibolba and his adopted older brother Lok. However, Jibolba started to get sick and had to stay in the hospital most of the time. They moved to America so Jibolba could get better care. With Lok already being of age and Tak wasn’t it was inevitable he would be put into foster care. Tak is still allowed to visit Jibolba and Lok so it’s all good.

Tak’s gotten a good grasp on English though he still isn’t used to the technology. He’s a lot more mature than people give him credit for though he has been dragged into the childish side of the family by me, Timmy, and Snap before too. I was really scared when I first got here but Tak really helped me and actually treated me like a person unlike most of the legal people I had to go through to get here.

Now, this is where stuff gets kind of complicated so listen up. There was a very short pause between when Tak came and when the next kid came. Like maybe a month or so. Then Mom and Dad got five kids in a month. Like no joke. The first week were my brothers ZIM and GIR, the second week was my brother Manny, the third week was my sister Jenny, and the fourth week was my brother Blik. All of that in a row. It’s kind of insane how it happened.

“Good Morning my HORRIBLE family!” said a boy with light green skin, lavender eyes, and black hair strolled into the kitchen.

Sam rolled her eyes as she handed Tak his toast. “Morning ZIM. Did you take your meds this morning?” ZIM paused before shaking his head no.

“Zion Issac Martinez! You are supposed to take those every day.” Danny scolded.

ZIM looked down kicking the floor and mumbled out an apology. Danny sighed as he got him the right amount of pills and a cup of juice. ZIM took them without any protest.

Sophie then realized something. “Hey ZIM? Where’s GIR?”

ZIM looked at Sophie and said, “Well I did think he was following me down the stairs.” Suddenly everyone heard a loud squeaking noise. Sophie suddenly went to the stairs and caught a little five-year-old with bright blue eyes and long curly black hair.

“Hi, mama!” GIR chipperly said. Sophie sighed as a plush moose started floating around her.

“Thanks, Minimoose. Your muffin is on the counter.” Minimoose squee-ed happily as he flew into the kitchen. Sophie carried GIR into the kitchen with her.

“ZIM! You need to watch your baby brother better!” Sophie said as he put GIR in one of three booster seats and getting a bowl of Cheerios for him to eat.

“Not my fault he can’t walk downstairs.” ZIM shot back as Minimoose somehow ate that muffin in one swift motion.

Those are my brothers Zion Issac Martinez or “ZIM” for short, Greggory Ian Ramirez/“GIR” for short, and their robot Minimoose. ZIM is 12 while GIR is only five. GIR actually came here when he was pretty much a newborn. Oh, where to begin with these two. See ZIM was born to his mom as a really sick baby and he still is kind of sick but it’s better than when he was a toddler. I think it’s a sickness that affects his stomach and his liver so he can’t eat right and makes his skin this sickish greenish hue I call ‘I’m about to puke.’ green.

Anyway, their mom died shortly after GIR was born and with no father in the picture ZIM & GIR’s cousins took custody of them. They were abusive towards ZIM and didn’t take care for GIR. Eventually they just kinda got bored of toying with ZIM and listening to GIR’s cries that they just dropped them off here and didn’t look back. ZIM soon built Minimoose to care for both of them with daily reminders for ZIM to take his meds and keeping an eye on GIR.

ZIM is a bit… much? Oh, how do I even describe him? He’s brash, overconfident, and arrogant literally thinking he’s better than every one of us and better than anyone that he’ll ever meet. I have a theory that it’s because of him being bullied for being this sickly that he just ended up like this. He’s also really smart like Jimmy he just can’t really focus on a project for too long. I think mom once said after bringing him home from his doctor that he has ADHD or something like that. ZIM is a good guy. Really he is. It's just really, really, REALLY hard to find the good in him. He does have his moments though. As for GIR well… I can literally describe him using two words. Sunshine and Sugar. Make of that what you will.

“We should probably teach GIR how to properly walk downstairs at some point,” Jimmy pointed out.

“We could probably cut his hair and he would be fine.” Timmy also pointed out as Sophie got out a brush and gasped.

“Absolutely not! His hair is a gift to society and should never be cut!” She started to brush GIR’s hair and tie it back into pigtails as GIR happily ate his Cheerios.

“So are you gonna brush his hair every single day?” Tak asked teasingly.

“I will if it means preserving his beauty!” Sophie said confidently.

“What are we talking about?” a boy with tan skin, chocolate brown eyes with a scar over one of them, and curly chocolate black hair walked in with his bag.

SB handed him a plate with a sausage smothered in hot sauce. “Soph-a-Loaf got offended by the idea of cutting GIR-Bear’s hair.”

“I don’t see what the big deal is? It’s just a haircut to make him look shiny and clean!” Patrick said clapping.

“Of course it’s a big deal! How else is GIR gonna get all the ladies in his kindergarten class? He’s stinking handsome with his hair.” The boy said ruffling up GIR’s hair as GIR giggled and the boy took a bite of his sausage.

“Thank you, Manny for seeing my point,” Sophie said.

“Anytime Mi Amor,” Manny said winking at Sophie. Sophie groaned and rolled her eyes.

That’s my brother Manuel Pablo Gutierrez O’Brian Equihua Rivera or “Manny” for short. He’s 13 years old and actually is the second one of us to come from a different country. That being Mexico. His parents got divorced when he was really little and lived with his father and grandfather. However, it was deemed an unsafe living environment for Manny to live in so he was sent here. Both his parents and grandfather do still have visiting rights so that’s good at least.

Like Tak, he adapted to speaking English pretty fast and unfortunately has developed quite a habit of flirting like I mentioned with the whole Victoria Secret incident. Also, he just likes rebelling against authority just for the fun of it. Don’t get me wrong he’s just as protective as all my other brothers but he can be a bit obnoxious sometimes.

“What? Can’t handle my charm huh?” Manny said wiggling his eyebrows.

“Yeah, something like that…” Sophie mumbled.

Manny narrowed his eyes and squeezed her sides as he said “¡Ataque sorpresa!” (Translation: ‘Surprise Attack!’ {Spanish})

Sophie let out an inhuman noise and bumped her knee on the table. “You little ffff,” Sophie growled blushing.

“Sophia. Language. Little ears are listening.” Danny said pointing to GIR.

“...fluffer.” Sophie finished with a bite in her voice. Manny laughed along with Timmy and ZIM as he high-fived them. “Why do I suffer this type of abuse in this household?” Sophie grumbled.

“Boys leave your sister alone. Just cause she’s younger than you doesn’t give you the right to pick on her just at random. At least be consistent if you are gonna tease her,” a teenage girl with red hair, blue eyes, and a robotic brace on her right arm and leg scolded as she walked into the kitchen. The boys rolled their eyes and each mumbled out an apology.

Sophie smiled and said “Thanks, Jenny.”

“Anytime Soph. Say, Jim? Can you loosen up the brace on my arm? I think it’s too stiff and I can’t really move it around that well.” Jenny explained.

“Sure thing Jen!” Jimmy said getting out a screwdriver from his backpack.

“You keep a screwdriver in your bag?” Sam asked raising an eyebrow. Jimmy just shrugged and got to work.

That’s my one of my other older sisters Jennifer Wakeman or “Jenny” for short. She’s 16 and is the oldest of us girls besides Mom. Jenny and her mom got into a really bad car crash that left Jenny’s mom paralyzed from the waist down and in a wheelchair. Jenny wasn’t hurt nearly as bad but it left her right arm and leg paralyzed and unusable without special braces. Jenny can still visit her mom who now lives in an assisted living facility. She lived in all girls home before being transferred here.

Despite the trauma she’s been through, Jenny is a super sweet and upbeat person if not a little naive at times too. She’s usually the one who takes all of us shopping for clothes whenever we need it. She’s super into fashion and literally spends hours on the computer researching the latest trends so she can be a designer when she’s an adult.

“Finished!” Jimmy said as he pulled the screwdriver away and put it back in his bag. Jenny flexed her arm and sighed happily grabbing a granola bar to eat.

“Much better. Thanks, Jimmy!”

“No problem Jen.”

“By the way after school, we need to go to the mall for some new summer clothes,” Jenny stated munching on the granola bar.

“And who’s exactly paying for this?” a man with brown skin, black hair tied back in a man bun, and goldish eyes asked as he walked into the kitchen with a newspaper under his arm.

“Good Morning Blik!” Jenny said cheerily as she hugged his arm. “I was kinda hoping you would?” Jenny asked batting her eyes at him. Blik side eyed Jenny and it was then decided by Sophie that her sister needed help.

Sophie tugged at Blik’s pants and said in a cutesy voice “Pwease Bliky? We are growing children. We need new clothes.”

Blik blushed at the nickname, sighed, and picked Sophie up placing her on his hip. “Alright fine. I will pay for the clothes.”

That is our oldest brother Blik Cramdilly. He’s 25 and just finished college this year but moved back to help Mom and Dad take care of us all. His father ditched him and his mom after he and his brothers were born. Unfortunately, their mother passed away when they were kids and their grandmother passed away when they were teenagers. This led to them being unable to inherit their massive fortune and while his brothers, Waffle and Gordon, had family members to take care of them due to both their father's side of the family, Blik did not. This is how he ended up in foster care. Six months later he did inherit his fortune along with his two brothers before they went off to college. However, Blik remained loyal to our strange family and would come back to visit us until he graduated. He then came back home to help raise us and help with the finances.

Blik can be a real grump sometimes. And loud. Very loud too. He likes buying things for himself so he can seem very powerful to those who try to cross our family. Even though he acts like it’s the worst thing in the world I think that he secretly likes buying us things. I don’t know, he just seems like he’s in good mood after seeing me with the tablet he bought me for drawing or when SB thanks him for the new set of pots and pans Blik got for him. He also is the one who keeps track of our doctor visits and allergies surprisingly enough. I think that shows he’s at least somewhat concerned for our wellbeings.

“Ugh, do we have to go clothes shopping AGAIN? We already have okay clothes.” Tak complained.

Jenny sighed and booped Tak’s nose. “Someday dear brother you will understand the importance of fashion.”

Blik put Sophie down and said, “Alright does everyone have their backpacks?” He was met with a chorus of Yes’s, Yeah’s, Yup’s, and Duh’s.

“Alright then. SB give everyone their lunches.”

“Okey Dokey!” SB said cheerfully as he handed everyone a personalized lunch box.

The lunch boxes were hanging up on a rack in the kitchen. Each lunch box was a different color to tell who’s was who’s. Blue for Jimmy, Pink for Timmy, Green for Danny, Violet for Sam, Yellow for SB, Lime for Patrick, Orange for Tak, Magenta for ZIM, Teal for GIR, Brown for Manny, Bright Blue for Jenny, and Light Pink for Sophie.

“By the way, your sushi is in the fridge whenever you eat your lunch today,” SB said looking back at Blik who was getting coffee.

“Thanks, SB.” Blik said taking a long sip of that coffee from a ‘Nope.’ mug.

A frazzled looking woman with pink curly hair and wearing a yellow blouse came into the kitchen. “Okay! It is almost time for school! Is everyone in the kitchen? Let me get a headcount,” she said as she started silently started to count.

That’s our mom Wanda Cosma. Her dad runs a successful garbage company and she’s the heiress so we get funds from her dad. It’s pretty cool. She may run the company if she ever gets sick of being a stay at home mom which I don’t think is happening anytime soon.

She’s pretty much our responsible parent. You know the usual stuff. Stopping us from doing stupid things and making sure we don’t go to the hospital more than once a month each. That kind of stuff. She tends to play bad cop in actually disciplining us instead of letting us run wild and free. She’s actually really great at balancing all of us and making sure we get the attention we deserve and/or crave.

“Wait there is only 13 of you and Poof is upstairs with your father so which nine are we missing?” Wanda asked.

Blik looked at what lunch boxes are left. “Indigo, Aqua, Fuschia, Bubblegum Pink, Red, Gray, Bright Green, Powder Blue, and Moss Green.”

Wanda was trying to connect the colors to the kids as Sophie spoke up. “Snap isn’t down here.”

“And Boodles didn’t come in for breakfast…. so Bunsen isn’t up yet either.” Jimmy deduced.

“Neither did Perrito so Dora isn’t up,” Jenny added.

“Meaning Marinette and Tikki aren’t up either,” Sam concluded.

“Now that you mention it… I don’t remember seeing Adrien or Plagg get up either.” Danny said.

“Well, I know Vendetta and Charlotte are up,” Manny said shrugging.

“Where are they then?” Wanda asked with her hands on her hips.

“In the backyard with Grudge doing… something? I don’t know. Vendetta is a weird kid.” Manny said throwing his arms up like ‘what do you want me to do about it?’

Wanda sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose as she walked out of the kitchen and into the foyer. “Snap White! Bunsen Knai’livac! Dora Marquez! Marinette Dupain-Cheng! Tikki Dupain-Cheng! Adrien Agreste! Plagg Agreste! Charlotte Winfrey! Vendetta Mortcheva! It is time for school! Come to the kitchen!” Wanda waited for a moment before she heard feet running from the downstairs bathroom and down the stairs.

From the downstairs bathroom was a pale teenage girl with blueish-black short pigtails blue eyes, and freckles carrying a five-year-old girl with fair skin, short dark red hair, and matching blue eyes. The two coming down the stairs was a very lightly tanned teenage boy with blond hair and green eyes carrying a five-year-old boy with dark brown skin, messy black hair, and matching green eyes.

The two teens nearly crashed into each other as they both said with a slight French accent: “Sorry mom!”

Wanda shook her head. “What were you doing that took you so long? Marinette? Adrien?”

“Tikki’s hair was a real mess so I’ve been messing with it so it stays flat for the day,” Marinette said as she let Tikki down to get a poptart from SB. Wanda nodded to Marinette before looking at Adrien and Plagg for their excuse.

“Plagg was being a butt and whining about going to school so he was not being cooperative this morning,” Adrien said bluntly.

“SCHOOL IS BORING!” Plagg yelled from Adrien’s arms.

“Plagg sweetie. If GIR and Tikki have to go to kindergarten then so do you. As much as you want it to be so, Adrien can’t carry everywhere.” Wanda explained calmly.

Plagg pouted and said “Fine but there better be Camembert in my lunch.”

Wanda nodded and looked at SB who was giving the Bubblegum Pink and Red lunch boxes to Marinette and Tikki. “Oh right!” SB said as he grabbed the Gray and Bright Green lunch boxes and walking over to Adrien and Plagg. He handed Adrien the Gray lunch box before kneeling down to Plagg’s height giving him the Bright Green lunch box.

“And I put extra Camembert so you can be an extra good boy today!” SB smiled.

Plagg grinned hopping up and down. “Cool! Thanks, SB!”

If you couldn’t tell the girls are Marinette Dupain-Cheng and her little sister Tikki while the boys are Adrien Agreste and his little brother Plagg. Adrien is 15, Marinette is 14, and Tikki and Plagg are both five years old just like GIR. All four of them are originally from France actually and came around the same time about a few months before Poof was born so it was a little stressful for mom but dad handled it really well. Marinette and Adrien are also dating too and follow the same rules as Danny and Sam.

Marinette and Tikki’s parents tragically died in a car crash on a really rainy night while Marinette was babysitting Tikki. Her parents always dreamed of moving to America with their daughters to start a franchise of bakeries so that’s what Marinette told her grandmother, who really was too busy traveling to take care of her granddaughters. So she came over to America with them and dropped them both off here and they stayed here ever since.

Adrien and Plagg’s story is a bit more troubling. See shortly after Plagg was born Adrien’s mother went missing and Adrien’s father became more and more closed off towards his sons. His father wanted the Agreste name to be absolutely perfect with no smudges what so ever. So he forced Adrien to be a model and controlled what Adrien did, where he would go, who he would talk to, and even what he ate. Plagg though wasn’t as treated as “nice” as Adrien was. Their father didn’t see Plagg as his son due to his skin color and locked him away in a back bedroom. Adrien was the only one allowed to care for him and this caused Plagg to become inseparable with Adrien. After Adrien’s bold move of divorcing his father, he and Plagg were moved to be closer to their mother’s friends, the Bourgeois’, who lived in America leading them to come here.

Marinette is a lot like Jenny actually. She’s sweet, outgoing, and very into fashion. She’ll be the one most likely to help Jenny shop for clothes for us. This is because the boys don’t care except for Adrien, all Sam knows is Hot Topic, I get distracted by the simplest things, Dora is still new to this “teenage girl” thing, and Tikki, Vendetta, and Charlotte are way too young to understand. Though her differences from Jenny, Marinette is a bit more awkward in social situations and way clumsier than any of us. She has her moments of confidence though. Especially when she’s sticking up for Tikki or any of us for that matter.

Tikki is the polar opposite of both GIR and Plagg oddly enough. For a five-year-old, she is incredibly calm and quiet. Like to strange level. Of course, she’s extremely kind and loving towards us. Sometimes though she just quietly follows us around. She does this for cookies. We give her a cookie and she goes away to follow someone else. We know we shouldn’t be feeding her habit but that’s literally all we can do. She won’t accept anything else. The only one that doesn’t seem to mind is Marinette because she’s used to this. Tikki is a really sweet girl though.

Adrien is definitely a people person during parties but he’s actually much of an introvert due to his father’s “brainwashing”. We’ve been helping him get more freedom though. This has turned him into a more fun loving person. Oh sure he’s still kinda serious but he’s getting better. Unfortunately, Danny has gotten him into saying puns and it’s gotten kind of annoying. Still, Adrien is an extremely kind person despite what his father has done to him over the years and is being a big help to us with the smaller kids.

Plagg apparently used to be a very silent and obedient child under his father’s rule according to Adrien. Yeah... I don’t buy it for a second. To me at his best Plagg is carefree and sarcastic, at his worst he’s a lazy and sour little kid. He has become Timmy, Manny, and Snap’s protege when it comes to pranks. It sucks but it makes him happy so why not? Plagg is also an extremely picky eater. He will not eat anything unless we give him Camembert cheese with it. It’s kinda weird.

“By the way Mari? Tikki? Where’s Dora? Don’t tell me she’s still asleep.” Wanda said.

“Oh no. Perrito was whining earlier this morning so Dora took him out earlier than she usually does.” Marinette said as she bit into a banana.

Adrien came and wrapped an arm around Mari. “I think it was like six o’clock when she left cause I was in the bathroom with Plagg.”

“Well do you know when she’ll be back?” Wanda asked. Marinette tried to remember as Tikki tugged on her foster mother’s pant leg. “Yes, Tikki? What is it?”

Tikki starred at Wanda chewing on her poptart until she finally said: “Dora said she would be back before school.” Just as Tikki said that in walked a 12-year-old girl with tanned skin, long chocolate brown hair, and brown eyes holding a leash with a chocolate lab at the end of it.

“Lo Siento mama. Perrito really had to go to the bathroom,” (Translation: ‘Sorry mom.’ {Spanish}) the girl said.

Wanda sighed and said “It’s alright Dora. Just remember to take your phone with you next time you go out with Perrito. Okay?”

“Si, mama.” (Translation: ‘Yes, mom.’) Dora said letting Perrito off the leash to get his food. “By the way Patrick, could I have one of those little cookies for Perrito? He had a hard time going outside.” Dora asked. Patrick nodded as he got a special biscuit for Perrito and put it in Perrito’s food.

“Dora! Here’s your lunch box.” SB said handing the Fuschia lunch box to her.

Dora grinned and said “Gracias SB!” (Translation: ‘Thanks, SB!’)

That’s Dora Marquez. She’s 12 years old and roughly came here about a few months after I did. Like Manny, she came here from Mexico and moved to the states when she was around eight years old with her parents, her little brother and sister, her grandmother, and Perrito. When she turned nine her parents had to go back on an expedition of the rainforest to help some injured animals so while her grandmother and siblings stayed in the city, Dora and Perrito moved in with us.

Dora is a super kind person. Like to the point that it’s almost sickly sweet and I don’t think I’ve ever seen her get angry at like anything. She is kind of a tomboy like me so I look up to her a lot and like to go on adventures with her. Though lately she’s been getting more and more girly. I mean I don’t mind it so much it’s just that I either have to go with my sisters who are girlier than I am or with the boys who can be very, very annoying. Otherwise, though Dora is probably the nicest sister I could ask for.

“Dora? Did you see Bunsen or Snap get up for school?” Blik asked as Dora turned to him.

“Well I did see Bunsen’s door closed but I’m not sure about Snap,” Dora said shaking her head.

“Oh. Snap is still asleep. At least he was when I left our room.” Timmy said casually.

Wanda and Blik both facepalmed. “Sport, if he was still asleep why didn’t you wake him up?” Wanda asked.

“I dunno. I’m not his keeper!” Timmy argued.

Blik mumbled an ‘Oh my god.’ as Wanda asked: “Can one of you please go and remind your brothers that you can’t sleep in on a school day?”

“I’ll do it!” Sophie said raising her hand and then running upstairs.

“Thank you, sweetie!” Wanda called after her.

I guess it’s my turn to tell you about me huh? Like I said at the beginning my name is Sophie Hathaway and I’m 10 years old. I used to live in Hawaii with my biological family and we were all pretty happy. That was until my mother died when I was three then our family just started to drift apart. By the time I was six years old everyone was kinda placed where they needed to be and while I was supposed to go with my uncle, he was traveling too much to take care of me. So that’s how I ended up here a few years after Blik came but before Dora, Marinette, Tikki, Adrien, and Plagg. I still see some of my older siblings often enough and my dad comes to visit us once a month with my siblings Skylar, Silas, Liv, Nate, and Stef so it’s okay I guess.

I was really scared of everyone when I first got here though. The smells and sounds were all different and while I was used to having a big family these people were basically strangers to me. Also, I spoke Hawaiian primarily in my old house and now I am forced into English daily now which six-year-old me did not approve of at all. However, they were understanding knowing I needed time and over that time I learned to trust them which was very hard for me to do. Now I couldn’t imagine my life without them.

Sophie finally made it upstairs and was pulled from her thoughts when she heard the bathroom faucet running.

“Maybe Snap or Bunsen is already up?” Sophie thought as she knocked on the bathroom door. “Hey, is someone in here?” A few seconds later a man with neatly combed green hair holding a little baby boy with a tuft of curly purple hair and purple pajamas came out of the bathroom. “Morning Dad! Morning Poof!” Sophie cooed at her little brother.

“Morning Muncha-Bunch,” Cosmo said kissing the top of her head.

That’s our dad Cosmo Cosma. He eloped with our mom! His mom never did forgive him for that but it’s fine. She stopped being mad at our mom when we came into the picture. She’s like the super cool grandma that brings us gifts like all the time.

Cosmo is our fun parent that likes to take us on trips and out to eat a lot. Though Wanda seems to rain him in when he goes too far because he can be a little careless at times but he definitely loves us. Like I said he’s the good cop to Wanda’s bad cop. He usually sneaks us dessert when Wanda scolds us too hard.

And that little baby he’s holding is our baby brother Poof. Poof is Mom and Dad’s only biological kid but despite that, they still love us equal. Poof is only like a year old so he’s the youngest of all of us

He is literally the sweetest thing. We all take turns looking after him. Except for Vendetta, Charlotte, GIR, Tikki, and Plagg. Four out the five of them should never be trusted with babies. I mean Tikki is arguably okay but everyone else is a disaster waiting to happen so just trust me on this. Don’t.

“So what are you doing upstairs? I thought you guys were ready for school?” Cosmo asked bouncing a gurgling Poof.

“Well most of us are but Snap, Bunsen, Charlotte, and Vendetta aren’t. They didn’t come downstairs.” Sophie explained.

“Well, I saw Snap was still in bed with his door open and your sisters are outside but not sure about Bunsen,” Cosmo said tapping his chin.

“Thanks, Dad! I’m gonna go figure this out.” Sophie said.

“Okay. Get your brothers up though. We are on the clock!” Cosmo said patting her head before heading downstairs with Poof gurgling.

“I will!” Sophie called back.

She made her way to Timmy and Snap’s room to see her light blond brother hugging his pillow dreaming. Sophie sat down on his bed and started to gently shake his shoulder. “Snap. C’mon you gotta get up. We gotta go to school.”

Snap groaned and gripped his pillow tighter. “Mmmm five more minutes Buckette…” He said in his thick Bronx accent.

“No, you need to get up like right now,” Sophie said sensing the urgency of the situation. “We leave in literally 15 minutes.” Snap snored loudly to indicate the conversation was over. Sophie narrowed her eyes and said, “You leave me no choice dear brother.” Sophie pulled back her covers, slipped her hands under Snap’s light blue t-shirt, and tasered his sides.

Snap flipped the heck out and made a girlish squeal before falling out of bed. “What the heck Buckette?!” Snap yelled his bright blue eyes glaring at her.

“Told you I was left no other choice.” Sophie shrugged sticking out her tongue.

That’s one of my younger older brothers, Snap White. He’s 10 like me and Timmy though he’s a few months older than Timmy. He came here about six months after Poof was born. He originally came from a foster home in Greenland before moving to the states. Specifically the Bronx part of New York City which is where he gained his accent. So his speaking is a mix of West Greenlandic and English. He didn’t really enjoy being moved again so he acted out a lot which concerned my parents. He got super mad at a teacher for telling him his superhero clothes were ridiculous and put glue on their chair which Mom and Dad were not happy about. Then one day he saw me drawing and asked me if I was an artist. I said yes and suddenly he’s super cuddled up to me. Cut to a day later and we are basically best friends. He tells me that his cape is actually his old baby blanket and it’s the only thing that makes him feel secure. I told Mom and Dad and they took care of it. Since then Snap has been one of my closest brothers.

Snap can be really stubborn about things he thinks he’s entitled to like you just saw with the sleep problem. He’s always looking for ways to get out of boring things like adult parties or school and tries dragging us along with him. He is super clingy though like in a physical sense. He’ll cling to your arm, random hugs, hold your hand, etc. I think he may have abandonment issues but I don’t really wanna say anything to him since he’s just gonna deny them to be a “real man”.

“Þú ert að borga fyrir þetta.” (Translation: ‘You are going to pay for this.’ {West Greenlandic}) Snap glared as he put on his mask and cape.

Sophie laughed and shot back in Hawaiian, “Inā 'oe makemake i wale loaʻa i loko o ka wahi mua au makemake ole i kūpono ai i loko o ka hoʻokolokoloʻiaʻana” (Translation: ‘If you would have just gotten up in the first place I wouldn’t have resulted in the torture.’)

“I’m just saying when you walk through that door this afternoon you are dead,” Snap said as he put on his gloves and boots before walking out the door. Sophie just responded by blowing a raspberry at him. Now she was going towards Bunsen’s room.

Sophie noticed the door was closed so she knocked on it. “Bunsen? You up? We gotta get to school.” After waiting for a minute Sophie quietly opened the door to see Bunsen’s St. Bernard puppy, Boodles, sitting at the door waiting to be let out for breakfast. “Okay, Boodles go get breakfast,” Sophie said pointing downstairs. Boodles barked and ran downstairs. Sophie quietly went into Bunsen’s room and shook his shoulder while he slept. “Bunsen we gotta go to school. Wake up.” Bunsen slowly woke up and grabbed his glasses rubbing his eyes.

“Sophie? What’s wrong? Why are you rushing me?”

“We need to go to school in like 15 minutes,” Sophie stated.

“WHAT?!” Bunsen screamed as he rushed out of bed and to put his school clothes on.

That’s one of the newest members of this family Bunsen Knai’livac. He’s 12 years old and originally came from Taiwan because his parents thought more opportunities would arise here. He’s still getting used to being with us and speaking English mostly instead of Chinese. He got here about two months ago but he’s made progress at least. The first thing he connected with was Boodles in a pet store so naturally, Mom and Dad got Boodles to give him some stability. He still does have panic attacks about breaking the rules cause he grew up in such a strict household. We’ve been getting really good at calming him down and he’s even joined theater at school!

People who don’t really know Bunsen would describe him very loud and excitable which I mean is true to a certain degree. However, to us, we know him better than some strangers. He has the anxiety of letting his parents down constantly on his shoulders that he wouldn’t be a real functioning member of society. He can be a total theater nerd sometimes but for the most part, he’s pretty quiet and nice with the occasional bits of snark here and there.

“Ó, wǒ de shàngdì. Wǒmen yào chídàole wǒmen de lǎoshī huì shēngqì, māmā hé bàba huì shēngqì. Nàme tāmen bù zài xūyào wǒle!” (Translation: Oh my god. We are going to be late! Our teachers are going to be mad and Mom and Dad are going to be mad. Then they won't want me anymore! {Chinese}) Bunsen ranted off quickly as he got dressed.

Sophie sighed and put her hands on his shoulders to calm him down. “Bunsen it’s okay. You made a mistake. Nobody is gonna send you away for that Bunsie Boo.” Sophie kissed his nose to drive her point home.

Bunsen smiled a little and kissed her forehead. “Thanks, Soph.”

“You’re welcome. Now finish getting ready and get downstairs.” Sophie said going out of the room.

Sophie made her way downstairs with Snap close behind. She didn’t think much of it until Snap’s hands found his way to her sides and Sophie squealed and started laughing. “Snap! What are you doing?!”

“Hefnd er mín!” (Translation: Vengeance is mine! {West Greenlandic}) Snap shouted. Bunsen passed them giving his siblings a weird look as Snap tickled their sister and Sophie laughed like a doofus and clung to the stair railing.

“Jenny! Snap is trying to kill Sophie again!” Bunsen yelled as he entered the kitchen.

Jenny poked her head out and glared at Snap. “Snap! Leave your sister alone! Look at her! She’s dying!”

Snap groaned and rolled his eyes complying with his older sister’s request. “Fine!”

Snap continued to walk down the stairs smirking as Sophie panted and clung to the railing. “Oh thank the gods he stopped.”

Suddenly a knock came from the front door. “I’ll get it!~” SB called as he opened the front door.

A 10-year-old boy with poofy blond hair, hazel eyes, and wearing a dark brown aviator jacket with a glow stick bracelet is on his left wrist was standing there with a smile.

“Oh hello, Xavier! You here to go to school with us?”

“Yup! Managed to escape my stick in the mud parents. Is Sophie around?”

“Hey, Xavier!” Sophie waved as she laid on the stairs.

“What are you doing lying on the stairs?” Xavier asked before sitting next to her.

“Snap nearly killed me!” Sophie yelled loud enough for Snap to hear.

“Not my fault you are so sensitive!” Snap laughed from the kitchen.

“I mean he’s not wrong.” Xavier shrugged sheepishly as he sat next to her on the stairs. Sophie playfully hit his arm in response.

That’s my best friend Xavier. He’s 10 years old like me and is a week older than me. While he isn’t part of the family he might as well be. His parents are kind of overbearing so he likes coming over here more. I met him when his family was vacationing in Hawaii. Since then we’ve been inseparable. He was the one who helped me with my English and helped me to adjust to mainland America. Honestly, I couldn’t imagine living without him. He’s just always there for me and gets along with the family well. He’s kind of like the unofficial kid of the family where he’s part of the family but “legally” we aren’t responsible for him. So that’s pretty cool.

He’s super intelligent in the book smart kind of way. I remember when his family visited Hawaii and we became friends, he would read on the beach and I would just listen to him. Sometimes I would even fall asleep to him reading. Xavier is also 87% of my impulse control. Like if I didn’t have him, I’d probably would've died by now from a stupid decision.

“What? I’m just saying you are and there is nothing wrong that.” Xavier said putting up his hands in a defensive position.

“Ugh, you’ve spent too much time with this family. I swear to the gods. You are starting to sound like most of my brothers. You better not start selling me out to them.” Sophie scolded. “BLIK does that enough!”

“Hey! I have never done that in the four years you’ve lived here.” Blik argued as he walked into the room

“Yesterday you sold me out for a root beer to Danny!” Sophie argued.

“That wasn’t a sellout that was a trade. Very different. Now can you please get our sisters from the backyard so we can leave?” Blik smirked.

As Xavier said “Yup” Sophie let out a less enthusiastic, mumbled “Yeah.”

Blik grinned and said “Oh Timothy!~ Sophie needs-”

Sophie immediately hit his arm. “No. Shut up. I’m fine.”

Blik chuckled ruffling up her hair. “Fine then.”

“C’mon let’s go get them,” Sophie said getting off the stairs and heading towards the backyard with Xavier in tow. They walked into a pretty big backyard which has an above ground pool, a trampoline, a small playground, some swings hanging from trees, a sandbox, and a playpen for Poof to keep himself from roaming anywhere he pleases. It also has quite a lot of trees as well. Sophie spotted two girls around eight years old huddled in a corner doing… something? Sophie and Xavier both couldn’t tell what they were doing. They could only see the backs of the short, curly blonde hair of the peach skinned girl and the long, brown hair styled in messy pigtails of the much paler girl who seemed to be holding something.

“Um, Vendetta? Charlotte? Mom says to get inside. It’s time for school and Grudge still hasn’t eaten.” Sophie said pointing her thumb to the back door.

Both girls turned their heads around revealing the blonde girl’s bright blue eyes and the brunette girl’s dimmed green eyes.

“Okay Sophie!” the blonde girl said chipperly as she skipped over to hug Sophie’s waist. “Grudge made a new friend and me and Vendetta watched it!” Charlotte said bouncing up and down happily.

“What do you mean new frien- oh my god!” Xavier shouted as Vendetta came over holding her pet raccoon, Grudge, who had a snake in his mouth. A dead snake in his mouth. Lovely.

Sophie put her face into her hands and groaned. “Vendetta. You know what mom and dad have said about Grudge… erm… “making friends” with wild snakes,” Sophie censoring herself for the sake of Charlotte.

“Stupid Raccoon wanted to make a fiend.” Vendetta stated simply in her thick Bulgarian accent. “That is not mine or Charlotte’s fault.”

“Don’t you mean friend?” Xavier asked curiously.

“I said what I said.” Vendetta shot back rather rudely.

Xavier gave a look to Sophie as Sophie sighed, “Look. I’m your big sister now so tell Grudge to drop his snake friend or fiend or whatever and get in the house so we can go to school.”

“Fine. Stupid Raccoon. Drop.” Vendetta commanded as Grudge spat out the snake.

“Yay! Time for school! Come on Vendetta!” Charlotte cheered as she grabbed Vendetta’s hand skipping into the house.

“Do not touch me you stupid blue girl!” Vendetta yelled as they both disappeared into the house.

Xavier turned his face back to Sophie and said: “I’m sorry but what the heck is wrong with your new sister?”

“Oh, so many things…” Sophie sighed shaking her head.

So like you just saw those are our new additions to the family Charlotte Winfrey, Vendetta Mortcheva, and Vendetta’s pet raccoon… yes, raccoon… Grudge. Charlotte and Vendetta are only eight years old and just got transferred here last month. They got transferred here from their old foster home in a place called Clamberg because the foster home was terrified of Vendetta and her and Charlotte are a package deal.

I’ll explain Charlotte first because really. She’s a lot easier to understand than Vendetta is.

Charlotte got put into the foster care system when she was super young. Both her parents died while attending a music festival outside of Vermont in a mass shooting, unfortunately. This caused Charlotte to be placed in Clamberg with her only known living relative, her grandmother Charlene. The sad thing is that Charlotte still doesn’t know her parents died. Charlene told her that they were both astronauts living up in a space station. Nobody has had the heart to tell her yet. Charlene got too sick to raise Charlotte so when she was six years old Charlotte was placed in the foster care system.

Charlotte is a super sweet girl. Like probably the sweetest you’ll ever meet. She loves everything in the world and everyone in it. Probably if you take her to Disney World she would be smiling the whole time and say hi to all the characters. Even the villains! She is a little… “slow”… sometimes though. She doesn’t quite understand what's happening most of the time unless someone, usually Vendetta, tells her.

Speaking of Vendetta, let's talk about her because oh boy. There’s a lot to talk about.

So as you noticed by her accent Vendetta is from Bulgaria. She moved to America when she was a toddler with both of her parents, her older sister Vasilika, and her twin sister Joanna. Soon after her parents had three more children. Vendetta’s younger twin brothers, Darian & Valko, and her baby sister Rosica. However starting after Darian and Valko were born, Vendetta’s father started to get more...abusive towards his wife and older daughters. Well, TWO of his older daughters. He never laid a hand on Joanna or any of his younger children. He did frequently hurt his wife Violetta and Vasilika but it was Vendetta who got the raw end of the deal. Vendetta’s father, if you can even call him that now, considered Vendetta his child from hell. It wasn’t just physical abuse either. When Vendetta was finally admitted to the foster after the incident (which I’ll get to in a minute) she was malnourished and was so dirty that initial reports had Vendetta’s skin and hair color way darker than it actually was.

About the incident. One night Vendetta’s “father” had been drinking quite a lot. Violetta tried to get him to stop for the children’s sake but that just made him angrier. He ended up shouting so loud he had woken up Vasilika, Vendetta, and Joanna and in a moment of panic, Vasilika grabbed the family gun. When the girls got downstairs that had found their father had just finished strangling their mother to death. When he saw his three daughters standing there witnessing him kill his wife. He was enraged and started moving towards Vasilika first and she ended up shooting him once in the head. He fell dead on the floor inches from his now dead wife. Joanna had broken down into tears. Vasilika had no idea what she had just done and just stood there in shock. But Vendetta… oh, Vendetta. She was furious. She began yelling at Vasilika for not doing that sooner. That they all could have been freed earlier if she would have thought of this. She yelled at Joanna to stop crying and blamed her for being the “perfect” one. She yelled at the corpses of her parents. Her mother for not being stronger and her father for being a complete asshole to his own wife and children. She even yelled at herself for being a ‘devil child.’ The only people she didn’t blame for this was her younger brothers and baby sister since they had nothing to do with this. Later in the early morning, Vasilika called the police and all six of them were put in the custody of CPS. Three of them scarred for life and three of them too young to understand what was happening.

After that Vendetta essentially disowned her sisters and refuses to talk to or about them. She doesn’t talk about her parents either. She still visits her younger siblings as long as Vasilika and Joanna aren’t there. When she got to the foster home in Clamberg she never played with the other kids and spent nights alone in the backyard. The entire staff and all of the children were terrified of her. Accidents started happening around the home and they blamed Vendetta but none of them could prove it. She even one night came back with a raccoon which was Grudge. He was trained to essentially be a house cat. This confused the staff for two reasons. One: Raccoons are not native to Clamberg. So where did she find this raccoon? Two: How did she even train this creature? The staff had no idea on either of these questions and they weren’t about to question Vendetta of all people so they let her keep Grudge. It was just the two of them for two years until Charlotte got there. She was the only person that wasn’t afraid of Vendetta and that struck a nerve with Vendetta. So Vendetta became Charlotte’s soul defender even though she still insulted Charlotte from time to time, though Charlotte clearly doesn’t mind.

Cut to a month ago where the Clamberg foster home had enough of Vendetta’s reign and sent her here far away from Clamberg. Charlotte just came with cause they are now a package deal.

Vendetta doesn't seem that bad as her previous foster home made her out to be. Sure she’s dark, sarcastic, weird, sometimes super mean, and cusses in Bulgarian thinking we can’t hear her when we can. She’s also super bright though and probably the smartest girl in the house. We just wish she would relax a little bit and realize we won’t let her get hurt here but we also realize she needs time and we will give her that.

...What? I told you Vendetta is a complicated creature with a complicated history.

“Let’s just go so we can finally get to school. Max is gonna chew the two of us out if we are late again.” Sophie said tiredly. Xavier nodded and followed her back into the house and into the kitchen. They stood next to Charlotte and Vendetta who was letting Grudge eat his clams from the palm of her hand. The two of them just watched the chaos conduct in the large kitchen as everybody was shouting over each other.

“Alright, kids! Listen up!” Cosmo clapped loudly as all his children proceeded to quiet down. “Okay everybody go upstairs one last time. If you have a pet put them up in your room or if the pet is in a cage in your room feed them. Double check you have everything and then proceed to the van as planned. Ready? Go!” Cosmo yelled.

Sophie picked up Lion and motioned for Xavier to follow her. She was followed up the stairs by Jimmy carrying Goddard, Timmy carrying Sparky, Danny carrying Cujo, SB carrying Gary, Patrick carrying Rocky, ZIM leading Minimoose, Bunsen carrying Boodles, Dora leading Perrito, and Vendetta carrying Grudge. The other siblings followed up the stairs to double check their rooms to not forget anything. All except Blik whose room was the garage and Poof who was safe in his mother’s arms.

Sophie lead Xavier into her room and closed the door behind them.It was a small bedroom with a tiny closet, a small bed, and a small bookshelf. When they move Sophie requested she get her own room since she was a growing young lady now and thought it be better if she didn't share a room with Timmy and Snap. Xavier flopped down on Sophie’s bed as Sophie put Lion in his cat carrier. Lion meowed in protest as Sophie answered back “I know Lion you don’t like it but it’s only for the morning.”

“Do you think he can really understand you?” Xavier asked.

“Mmm, I like to think he does.” Sophie answered as she went to her closet and pulled out a box labeled ‘Special Things.’ She rummaged through it and pulled out two books. One was was a glittery sketchbook while the other was a scrapbook with the title of ‘Family is Forever.’ She hugged them close to her chest before stuffing them into her backpack. “Okay, we can go now,” Sophie said smiling.

“Finally. You know Max is gonna kick us out of the group if we keep showing up late.” Xavier said getting up from her bed.

“No, he can’t,” Sophie said as she opened up her door and turned her light off. “First off he would have to find a new second to replace me. Second, I basically own his soul at this point. So even if wanted too he couldn’t kick us out.”

“Fair enough,” Xavier shrugged.

Sophie went to each room to check everybody was out and essentially take roll for their mother as one of her chores.

Timmy had put up Sparky in his crate as Snap fed his hamster Musty and his pet frog Wiggums. For two fifth grade boys, they could sure make a mess of everything. Sophie was glad she moved out of there.

Jimmy and ZIM put Goddard and Minimoose on chargers and left their neat bedroom. It was neat because they both pretty much spent all their time in the basement lab with Vendetta.

Danny put up Cujo in his crate as Adrien put on his mother’s ring to wear on his right hand and Plagg grabbed his black cat plush from the top bunk of his and Adrien’s bunk beds. Plagg refused to sleep with GIR and Poof in fear of losing Adrien.

SB had put Gary in his cat carrier and grabbed his clean uniform while Patrick carefully put Rocky on the side table on his side of the room. The two had shared a room every since Patrick got there and they decided to never ever switch.

Tak had fed Navis, his and his best friend Jeera’s shared guinea pig, as Manny grabbed his soccer uniform for the day. Tak wanted the room with the biggest window and Manny just wanted a huge bed so they ended up with the biggest room on the floor.

GIR had grabbed his green dog plush and Poof’s baby bag from their room as a favor for Wanda and Cosmo. ZIM didn't even want to be near GIR as he slept. GIR had his own room until Poof was born.

Finally, on the boy's side of the hall, Bunsen had put Boodles in his crate and grabbed his script for play rehearsal. Bunsen just had his own room for now until another boy showed up at the foster home.

Meanwhile, on the girl’s side of the hall, Sam had grabbed an umbrella, since it was supposed to be bright that day, and Jenny grabbed some fashion magazines for her and her best friend who was a girl, Misty, to share at lunch. Their room consisted of a lot of black, pink, and purple. The color scheme was a compromise.

While Dora had put Perrito in his crate, Marinette grabbed her late mother’s earrings to wear that day and Tikki grabbed her ladybug plush from the bottom bunk of her’s and Marinette’s shared bunk beds. As the only little girl in the house, Tikki ended up sleeping with her sister and Dora didn’t mind the extra roommate.

Finally, Vendetta set down Grudge down on her gothic styled bed, since she refused to put him in any confinements, and Charlotte fed her hamster Buttons and her bird Buttons 2 before grabbing her brightly colored girl scout uniform along with Vendetta’s black girl scout uniform. Their room was like night and day. Vendetta’s side was green and black the only decoration being her striped blanket… which was also green and black. Charlotte’s side, on the other hand, was bright blues and pinks with posters and frilly things just thrown everywhere.

Sophie counted each of her siblings going down the stairs before yelling down to her parents. “We are all ready to go, mom and dad!”

“Finally! Let’s go already!” Blik groaned as everyone went outside and piled into the large van.

“Okay, Pacific Grove High School, Summerfield Jr. High, Sunnyside Elementary, Blue River Kindergarten, Grandview School for the Culinary Arts, Seaside Community College, and then the bank. Got it dear?” Wanda asked. “Got it and away we go!” Cosmo announced as he drove away from the house.

Cosmo was driving while Wanda sat in the passenger seat. Jimmy and Timmy were arguing about something stupid again while Danny tried to break them up with Sam chuckling at the three. SB was going over some new recipes he’s learned while Patrick drooled at all of them. Tak was messing with his seatbelt as ZIM was ranting about this kid named Dib. GIR, Tikki, and Plagg were playing with Poof happily. Manny was checking himself in the mirror, Jenny and Marinette were checking their Amazon account for new deals as Adrien listened, and Blik was reading the paper. Snap was telling Sophie something cool while she listened writing in her journal, Xavier read a book, and Bunsen was going over his lines once more as Dora giggled while Charlotte talked to her with Vendetta rolling her eyes in disgust at the two.

So yeah that’s my insane family except for my brother who's in college right now. You’ll meet him later! Anyway, it’s a miracle I’ve survived this long. I’m glad I’m here though. I feel loved where I am and I know that I will always have a place with them even if it seems like nowhere will let me fit in.

17 notes · View notes

the-wonderland-jinx · 5 years

Text

STUDY : JINX

— BASICS.

▸ IS YOUR MUSE TALL / SHORT / AVERAGE? Short; 5′0″ to be exact. ▸ ARE THEY OKAY WITH THEIR HEIGHT? Indifferent. ▸ WHAT’S THEIR HAIR LIKE? It varies. Naturally, her hair is long, waves of a crimson sort of color; however, she cuts and, or dyes it every time she moves to a new city. Most commonly, her hair tends to be dyed either a red-ish, pink color or brown; very rarely will she allow it to be its natural red. Length tends to be either to the shoulder or to mid-back. ▸ DO THEY SPEND A LOT OF TIME ON THEIR HAIR / GROOMING? Not particularly. When it comes to cutting and, or dying her hair, she tends to take her time to make sure it’s done properly; this includes putting a good amount of conditioner in her hair to keep it from getting brittle. However, on a day to day, she’ll just quickly run a brush through it and that’s if she remembers! If she’s dealing with cases, she tends to forget to care for herself. Though it is worth noting that her hair HAS to be soft; when it gets brittle, it makes her head hurt and just generally irks her, so really it all just depends, I guess. ▸ DOES YOUR MUSE CARE ABOUT THEIR APPEARANCE / WHAT OTHERS THINK? Yes and no. She has to care, up to a certain extent, because she has to ensure she’s not recognizable to enemies, but also needs to be able to blend in on a certain level; play innocent. Though, if we’re speaking simply on looks alone, she really doesn’t care about appealing to anyone. You could insult her looks and she’ll just give you a look like ‘and I care, why?’

— PREFERENCES.

▸ INDOORS OR OUTDOORS? It varies. ▸ RAIN OR SUNSHINE? Rain. ▸ FOREST OR BEACH? Forest. ▸ PRECIOUS METALS OR GEMS? Gems. ▸ FLOWERS OR PERFUMES? Flowers. ▸ PERSONALITY OR APPEARANCE? Personality. ▸ BEING ALONE OR BEING IN A CROWD? Being Alone. ▸ ORDER OR ANARCHY? It varies. ▸ PAINFUL TRUTHS OR WHITE LIES? It depends on the person, context, what she needs to accomplish, etc.; though if she’s on the receiving end? She prefers the truth, no matter how harsh it might be. ▸ SCIENCE OR MAGIC? Well, science is the known, the one she’s most familiar with, but if there’s a chance, even just a little one of learning real magic, of using real magic? Yeah, magic will win every time; it’s far too interesting not to. ▸ PEACE OR CONFLICT? If you asked, she’d probably say peace; not for herself, but for those she’s fighting to protect. Children. However, in her case, she’s never actually known peace and quite frankly, probably wouldn’t know what to do with it even if she got it.

▸ NIGHT OR DAY? Night.

▸ DUSK OR DAWN? Dusk.

▸ WARMTH OR COLD? Warmth.

▸ MANY ACQUAINTANCES OR A FEW CLOSE FRIENDS? Few.

▸ READING OR PLAYING A GAME? Reading.

— QUESTIONNAIRE.

▸ WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR MUSE’S BAD HABITS? Oh boy, where do we start? Jinx has a laundry list of bad habits, but the first thing you need to be aware of is her serious lack in the self-preservation department. She fights to survive, yes; she won’t simply stand there and allow you to kill her, but only, only to complete her goal. You should also keep in mind, that she doesn’t intend to survive the ending either... This, however, does not stop her from putting herself into dangerous situations on a day to day basis. The quote ‘curiosity killed the cat’ very much applies to her. This includes, but is not limited to, going into places classified as haunted, taking the hands-on approach to dangerous cases, and very simply, speaking her mind, being blunt, when she thinks someones being an idiot. Oh, and it doesn’t stop there. If no one’s around to remind her, she’ll forget to eat and do even the most basic of care for herself and to top it all off, due to night terrors plaguing her, she downright refuses sleep until her body can’t handle it and she just passes out. ▸ HAS YOUR MUSE LOST ANYONE CLOSE TO THEM? HOW HAS IT AFFECTED THEM? Yes. Note: suicide and child death mentions. Jinx will downright refuse to talk about it 99.99% of the time, but the first loss was her brother, though she’ll find out later on that he survived, she lost him when she was six. Her “parents” and brother left one day and never came back; leading her to assume they had killed him and took off. It was only many years later that their bodies were discovered, and she’d learned that it had actually been the other way around. The next was when she was around 14, her best friends, two boys that lived in the orphanage with her, the only ones she’d grown close to, died. The first committing suicide, followed by the other breaking and going on a murder spree, ending with an attempt on his own life via fire and later on that year dying in prison. The last and most heartbreaking, at 18, she gives birth to a daughter, Annabelle. She is only allowed to hold her for a moment before the infant was killed right before her eyes by the child’s own father. More people have died, a lot more, but these are the ones she was closest to and without a doubt the most important. These deaths have made it extremely difficult for Jinx to open herself up to others. She keeps a distance, not only for their safety but hers. She doesn’t trust much, if at all. The only exception to this rule is children. Jinx felt a strong need to protect kids even before having had one of her own, but now? It’s been amplified a hundred times over. A good majority of her resources go to protecting children and she will never stand back and watch one be harmed; she can’t. ▸ WHAT ARE SOME FOND MEMORIES YOUR MUSE HAS? The fondest memory she has is of her and her brother, Daniel. It was Halloween and, he saw how excited all the other children were, but his sister remained bored, sad. She was the only child he knew that hated the holidays, but given their home situation, it made sense. Still, he just wasn’t having it. He wanted to give her, at least, one day, one holiday that she could remember fondly and get excited for, so every year, they’d spend Halloween night in the woods. They’d stay up all night and just laugh and play, being silly until the legs gave out then they’d just lay there and watch the stars together until they fell asleep. Sure, she has other memories, but... this is one of the few that has yet to be tainted for her. ▸ IS IT EASY FOR YOUR MUSE TO KILL? Yes. After Annabelle’s death, Jinx lost it. She couldn’t handle it, losing her daughter like that and thus, killing for her, is now as simple as breathing. Though she doesn’t do so without cause. ▸ WHAT’S IT LIKE WHEN YOUR MUSE BREAKS DOWN? It depends on the breakdown. There will be times when she keeps a monotonous face, void, and kills whoever it is that caused such emotion and there will be times when she just can’t stop crying. Sometimes she’ll even attempt to drink the feelings away; sometimes all three. It all just depends, but one thing is certain, if it can be helped, she’ll do her damnest to make sure it’s not in front of anyone or at the very least, anyone she cares about. Jinx grew up learning that emotions are weakness, and while does she doesn’t completely agree now, she still prefers to keep her breakdowns private. Plus, as mentioned, being around her during a breakdown isn’t always the safest place to be. ▸ IS YOUR MUSE CAPABLE OF TRUSTING SOMEONE WITH THEIR LIFE? With her life? Ermm, that’s complicated. She’s capable, sure, but... it’s very rare that she would trust someone, at all, nevermind that much. Quite frankly, I’m not sure she knows how to trust someone that much. Capable? Sure. Likely? No, not really. ▸ WHAT’S YOUR MUSE LIKE WHEN THEY’RE IN LOVE? A damn mess, that’s what she is. Again, Jinx doesn’t do emotions. She’s not fond of them AT ALL and she never properly developed an understanding of social cues and relationships? Those are so much worse. If we’re being completely honest here, getting attached to someone in this way makes her extremely uncomfortable and confused; it might take a bit for her to sort things out. Her actions will likely show how she feels before she is able to put them into words. She’ll relax visibly, allow more of her personality to show, real genuine emotions, and maybe, just maybe, allow herself to get comfortable enough to get some damn sleep. It takes A LOT to get Jinx to this point, but when she cares, when she loves, she does so, deeply. She won’t be so inclined to keep secrets, and loving someone, actually forces her to take pause, and rethink how her goals will end. When she’s in love, she wants to do more than just survive with them; she wants to live and heaven help anyone that dares get in the way.

Tagged by: @thelordofshadows Tagging: my brain is dead, so if you’re reading this, you’re tagged!

#; tagged meme #; long post for ts #; ᶰᵒᵗ ᶤᶰᵗᵉʳᵉˢᵗᵉᵈ ᶤᶰ ʸᵒᵘʳ ᵍᵒᵒᵈ ᶤᶰᵗᵉᶰᵗᶤᵒᶰˢ ( headcanon )#; headcanon #; hc #suicide tw #tw #child death tw

0 notes

nxrcissasmuses · 5 years

Text

Veronica Rosamie Flores-Cooper

Fc: Shay Mitchell

Age: 30?

Occupation: labor and delivery doctor

The only child to her parents

She had a very nice childhood though there was always the pressure to be perfect. She strived for perfect grades and perfect friends

Growing up her mother put her in beauty pageants which she did until she went to Columbia. At her parents’ house is where her trophies and crowns are stored

Because of her parents being in the public eye of said occupations I need to come up with, she learned from a young age that appearances matter

This naturally leads to some issues she now faces in the matter of her divorce and her daughter which I’ll go into more a little later.

There’s much about veronica that scares her in the fact of how she was raised to always keep a smile on her face even in times of hardship that she feels a sense of fakeness to her.

One of her deepest fears is that eventually the line between real and fake will stay blurred and she’ll never get to be herself

Which is how i think her and Daniel first started out in their relationship. She was away at college in a whole nother state where she could finally be herself for once. And maybe that's why things were so good because she was actually enjoyable to be around.

But then the marriage had shattered the glass when her family started to get more involved back into her life and she kept seeing the flaws in herself and Daniel more and more

Her family and their relationship with her has become strained due to the divorce. It’s a stain they always seem to find and bring up.

Deep down she blames herself for the divorce and even misses Daniel sometimes. She’ll never admit to it though. In the end, they just weren’t good for each other and maybe if she didn’t let her mother’s words affect her so much they might’ve been good. It’s a what if she’ll always have. A regret.

But she can never truly say she hates Daniel and mean it. Not when he’s given her their daughter. She’s their saving grace when emotions run too high.

Another one of her deepest fears is her daughter turning out just like her. To have the fear of not being good enough. To strive to not just reach the ceiling but to break it. It’s a heavy burden she doesn’t want her daughter to have

What I would love to see for Veronica is that she becomes more of herself and not what her parents want. I want to see her thrive emotionally and mentally (and hell lets throw in physically). I want her to somehow try to stop drinking or a more reasonable goal to drink less. I want her to start believing in herself more and have more of a real confidence, not just the facade she puts on for people. I know her and Daniel will probably never be super close, but I know they’ll do whatever they can for Amelia to have a good enough childhood as she can for having divorced parents. But maybe they can become friends or at least entertain the idea of becoming friends once Veronica starts to show signs that she’s changing for the better. Maybe he sees her acting more like she was in college and he just becomes curious on what made this all happen when he clearly wasn’t the reason since they aint getting back together. But ya know just grow into a healthier co-parenting relationship. like they can both go to the park together (with whoevers SO as well) and like just be a normal family. BASICALLY I JUST WANT GROWTH INTO A BEAUTIFUL ASS BUTTERFLY.

Back to some more bullet points cause i cant write like a legit bio rn

I feel like bc of her upbringing shes like hella into schedules and like has a daily planner of everything related to her life aka work and mia’s stuff and like the times daniel is suppose to have her ya know all the important things

I feel like her dress style is pretty much all neutrals. I know boring (as i look into my own closet of neutrals and jewel tones) BUT she’s a classy bitch and will let everyone know it

Uhhh, theres your headcanon of drinking but like we already know that but i thought id include it just so you know i remember it and the others of the charity and the unknown affair

Tbh i think knowing the affair is going to hurt waaaayyy more than the actual divorce papers so yes yikes daniel cause like they tried to save their marriage and it just didn’t work.

“Loving you was young, and wild, and free.

Loving you was dumb, and dark, and cheap.

Loving you was sunshine but then it poured.”

Right now in the timeline I think she feels very alone. But she’s also pushing herself away because she’s afraid of people seeing her all disheveled and not her usual go lucky self.

She’s totally her mother’s daughter.

she also has two hidden tattoos, both small. one is behind her ear and the other is near her hip.

Oh i also feel like in her little planner she has this list of the things both her and daniel agreed on with raising mia so that it’s not super different between the different houses. Like feeding schedules, snacks and what kind, her favorite tv shows and favorite foods at the moment.

And more about mia i like the idea of her having a little stuffed animal she sleeps with and daniel and veronica are like always stressed about where the damn thing is because its sacred at this point. It’s life or death if mister floppy ears or whatever name we want is not found and with mia.

I feel like she also has a lot of self doubt on if shes a good mom or not.

I also feel like she lashes out because of her self doubt in herself and the little voice in her head getting too loud.

Playlist: outta of my mind by khalid, wait a minute by willow, basically every post malone song main repeats are die for me and better now, and you know i hope by gabby barrett, say so by doja cat, nights like this by kehlani, more to come

#( muse | veronica flores-cooper )

0 notes

artificialqueens · 7 years

Text

little light (3/8) (Trixya) - Elissa

A/N: Part three of the one where Katya is Trixie’s brother’s best friend!

(if you’re impatient, full fic is up on ao3 at yekaterinunhhhh, come visit me on tumblr at tempfixeliza)

The next morning, Trixie wakes up in a bed she doesn’t remember falling asleep in. Through the pounding in her head she tries to make sense of her surroundings, and she can feel where her arm is pressed against someone else’s body.

Oh, and she’s naked.

“Shit,” she mutters, grabbing the sheet from where it fell to the floor and wrapping it around herself. She’s trying to tiptoe out the door without waking the other occupant of the bed, heart hammering against her ribcage, when the ringer of a phone begins blaring.

“Mmph,” a voice muffled by a pillow signals the distress of whoever else is in the room with Trixie.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” Trixie, also unpleasantly surprised, fumbles with her phone, trying desperately to end the call.

A body emerges from the mound of blankets and pillows, squinting sleepily up at Trixie.

The room goes silent as she sends the call to voicemail, and her breath gets caught in her throat at the sight before her. Even with the smudged mascara, the curls frizzed out where there used to be carefully sculpted definition, the marks from where her cheek had been pressed against the sheets – Trixie is sure no one has ever looked better than Katya in this moment.

“Hi,” she croaks, her morning voice igniting a warmth in Trixie’s core, sunlight burning through her veins at the sleepy grin Katya gives her. She untangles her limbs from a blanket and smooths out the long shirt she had slept in; Trixie’s not sure whether she’s relieved or upset at the fact that Katya was clothed. But it’s probably for the best, since she can’t remember anything after Daniel forced her to have the fourth shot anyway.

And being with Katya is definitely something Trixie would want to remember, even if it ends up being painfully awkward. Which, if Trixie is being honest with herself, it probably would be due to her complete inexperience.

“Um, I don’t - did we-” Trixie doesn’t even know how to ask the question. She might not have had to, if she was clothed or Katya was naked. It would’ve been easier for her to draw conclusions. Though now that she’s put the thought of Katya naked into her mind, it’s even harder for her to sort things out.

“No! Oh my God, no,” Katya sits bolt upright in bed. Trixie tries to ignore the sting she feels at the tone in Katya’s voice, the enthusiasm with which she denies having had sex with her.

Katya notices her face fall anyway, and realizes what she’s just said.

“Not that sleeping with you wouldn’t be, like, an honor or whatever. Because it would be, you’re really fucking hot and all, I just -” She takes a breath shakes her head, reaching up to push a tuft of honey blonde hair behind her ear. “Sorry, I’m usually a lot better at the morning-after talk,” she admits, a joking smile tugging at her lips (though Trixie is fairly certain the statement is true).

“It’s alright,” Trixie looks around the room, desperately searching for clothes and refusing to make eye contact. “Do you know where my clothes are?”

Katya doesn’t respond, just gets up and heads to the furthest corner of the room where a laundry basket is tucked. “I washed them for you last night. You had - well, what do you remember? That’s probably a better place to start.”

Trixie gratefully takes the clothes from Katya’s outstretched arms and sits down on the edge of the bed, thinking hard. What does she remember? She remembers drinking - just a beer at first, because she had every intention of driving home and Trixie Mattel absolutely does not drive drunk. She remembers a game of truth or dare starting, being coerced into playing when she knew what might happen if she did. And she remembers taking the obligatory “wimp-out” shots when she refused to answer questions about her crush. And there were a lot of questions about her crush.

“The last thing I remember is D asking me if the person I like is a girl or a guy, Adore screaming ‘or a non-binary person’ from next to him, and then the shot I had to take when I refused to answer.”

“So you don’t remember shortly after that when Farrah was dared to skinny dip in the pond and you jumped in after her, fully clothed I might add, because you thought she was drowning?”

Trixie groans and tries her hardest to cover her face with the hand that isn’t gripping onto the bed sheet.

“And then I noticed your clothes started weighing you down and I pulled you out. But there was pond water in your hair and your clothes so I told you to shower while I washed your clothes. When I came back up you were tucked into bed with the towel discarded on the floor, fast asleep, and I didn’t have the heart to wake you so I left you alone.” Katya recounts the whole thing slowly for Trixie, so that she has plenty of time to make sure each word sinks into her hangover-riddled brain.

“Okay, that makes sense,” Trixie nods, still a little uncertain about the logistics but deciding to trust Katya. She has nothing to gain by lying, Trixie knows that. “That still doesn’t explain why I woke up in bed next to you, though?”

Katya shrugs and pulls a pair of shorts up under the hem of the long shirt. Trixie’s eyes are trailing over her strong, toned legs before she catches herself and returns her eyes to Katya’s face.

“There’s only one guest bedroom here and everyone else is asleep on the living room floor. I didn’t want to sleep on hardwood. Plus,” she smiles up at Trixie. “After so valiantly hopping into the lake after you and pulling you to safety like a true knight in shining armor would, I felt sleeping in a real bed would be a fitting reward.”

Trixie laughs, and Katya joins in with her for a moment before the two settle into a brief silence.

“Well… I’ll, uh, leave so you can get dressed and stuff. I think Adore said something about her mom making pancakes?”

“She usually does,” a fond look settles over Trixie’s face at the thought of all the pancakes Adore’s mom had made over the years. “And they’re amazing, too. Make sure they save some for me.”

Katya nods, turning to walk toward the door. Trixie briefly admires how neatly her clothes are folded and stacked before picking up her shirt with one hand.

“Which is it, by the way?” Katya’s eyes sparkle with intrigue as she glances back at Trixie. Her dark-red-manicured hand is perched delicately on the door handle.

“Which is what?” Trixie tilts her head, her fingers grasping the sheet tighter around herself.

“The person you like. Guy or girl?”

Trixie takes a shaky breath, forcing a smile onto her face. “Or a non-binary person.”

Katya nods, a knowing look telling Trixie that she’s aware she’s stalling. “Yeah, or that.”

“It’s, um,” Trixie’s palms are sweating. Should she tell the truth? Should she refuse to answer? Should she straight up lie to Katya?

Could she even do that?

“I won’t tell, you know,” Katya murmurs. Her fingers twitch around the doorknob. “I’m good at keeping secrets.”

“It’s a girl,” Trixie finally admits.

Katya seems satisfied with the answer, a tiny smirk pulling the edges of her lips up as she exits the room.

Trixie gets dressed, pulling her now clean clothes over her body (she picks up on the scent of fabric softener and makes a mental note to ask Adore’s mom what brand she uses). As she gets dressed, her mind begins to wander.

Trixie wonders what kind of secrets Katya’s been keeping - and how many of them she’d be able to learn. She hopes she can learn them all.

The smell of pancakes and bacon wafts in through the crack in the door and Trixie’s stomach gives a loud rumble. She ties her hair up in a messy bun and jets downstairs, a grin spreading across her face at the sight of Adore’s mom hovering over the stove, flipping a blueberry pancake.

“Trixie,” she looks up at her as she makes her way into the kitchen. “I hope you still like blueberries, when Adore said you had stayed the night I knew blueberry pancakes were in order.”

“I do, thank you so much. You don’t have to make pancakes every time I stay over, though,” Trixie hops up into the barstool at the counter, settling next to Adore. “I don’t want to impose.”

“Nonsense,” she slides a plate across the counter.

By the time Trixie and Katya have finished breakfast, nearly an hour later, Adore’s mom has washed the dishes and gone in for her shift at the truck stop diner. Daniel and Farrah are nowhere to be found. Trixie assumes Farrah’s dad picked her up (he’ll take any excuse see Adore’s mom), and Daniel probably went home with Chuck. From where she’s sitting, she can see that her keys are still sitting on the table in the entryway.

Trixie takes a deep breath, steadying herself. Katya and Trixie had been making easy conversation, the flow between them steady and natural. No awkward silences, which would be easy to fall into with someone you just woke up next to naked. Her heart swells with the realization that talking to Katya is just as easy as talking to Adore or Farrah - or even Kim, the person Trixie has known and loved the longest out of any of her friends.

“Do you want a ride home?” Trixie makes full eye contact with Katya, and her breath catches in her throat at the intensity in her blue-grey eyes. The gaze is so intense that for a second Trixie almost feels like she’s intruding on a private moment, but she remembers that it’s her Katya is looking at and a warmth floods through her body.

“That would be great,” Katya nods. “I hate asking my parents to take me places, means I have to spend more time with them.”

Trixie laughs and heads over to pluck her keys from the table. “I feel that. I mean, D is terrible sometimes, too, but it’s so much better being stuck in the car with him than with our mom.”

A look flashes across Katya’s face, a brief hint of emotion that Trixie can’t quite put a name to, before Katya laughs as well. “Yeah, he’s said the same about you.”

“Rude,” Trixie pouts as she pulls open the front door. “I’m a goddamn delight.”

“You certainly are,” Katya smiles brightly at Trixie before walking out of the house in front of her.

The two settle into the car, Trixie switching the CD in the player from one of Daniel’s to her own favorite, a mix CD she had carefully cultivated one night last winter.

“Did you really just turn on Melissa Etheridge? Are you a middle aged lesbian?”

Trixie’s cheeks flush at the teasing tone of Katya’s voice. “I - well, I did. Kind of. It’s a mix CD, but I can change it if you want.”

“No!” Katya’s surprised exclamation makes Trixie turn to face her. “No, I’m - I’m an idiot? Sometimes I say things and they just come out so horrible and I sound like such a bitch; I just wanted to tease you a little I didn’t mean to upset you - if I even upset you, maybe you’re not upset, maybe you’re just-”

“Katya?” Trixie lets a hand fall to rest on Katya’s knee. “Deep breath. I’m not upset.”

She exhales a shaky breath and sags back against the seat. “Thank God. I do really want to listen to the music you like. I think it’s a good way to get to know someone.”

Trixie nods, still a little confused at Katya’s babbling. It had sounded like she was genuinely…nervous? That can’t be true, though. Katya is cool, it’s the most revered part of her reputation. She’s funny and detached, she’s irreverent - and she certainly doesn’t get nervous. What was different now?

“Anyway, I’m going to need directions if I’m going to get you home,” Trixie murmurs as she backs out of the driveway.

“You know where Greenwood Drive is?”

“Near the beach? I’m familiar, yeah.” Trixie flicks on her blinker and heads down a side road. It’s a shorter trip to use the main road, and she knows it, but she wants to spend more time with Katya.

“Is it near the beach?” Katya sounds surprised, and Trixie turns to her, shocked.

“Hold on, are you telling me you haven’t been to the beach yet?”

Katya shrugs, “If we’re being honest, I didn’t think there was a beach here. This town is smaller than the town in the Hannah Montana movie. You guys don’t even have a McDonald’s. Everyone has a McDonald’s.”

Trixie can’t help the laugh that bubbles out of her as she takes in the look of actual distress on Katya’s face. “Don’t disrespect Crowley Corners by comparing it to Two Rivers. And we don’t need a McDonald’s, we have Sully’s.”

“Sully’s?”

Trixie resists the urge to roll her eyes, knowing that the reason Katya doesn’t know about the gems in her hometown is because she was ostracized so quickly after arriving.

“It’s a little shack near the river that sells burgers and sundaes - one of the only good things about this town, really. Well, that and the beach.”

Katya nods and tugs at the hem of her shirt. “Cool, I’ll have to remember that.”

From the corner of her eye, Trixie watches Katya for a moment. She seems a little forlorn - Trixie knows the feeling well. Before Adore had taken her under her wing, Kim was the only friend that Trixie had. She knows what it’s like to feel unwanted in a place where everyone else seems to fit so seamlessly.

An idea pops into her mind and she pulls over to the side of the road, turning to Katya once the car is stopped. “Hey, do you have anywhere to be right now?”

“What? No,” Katya looks around outside the car before looking back to Trixie. “Why did you stop? Is something wrong?”

“Can I take you somewhere?”

She’s a bit taken aback, but Katya agrees, and Trixie hangs a left down a dirt trail that looks more like a long-abandoned footpath than an actual road. Tall grass and clusters of saplings whizz past their windows, and Trixie can’t help but wonder where it is that Katya grew up, and whether they had hidden dirt roads so long forgotten that they’d been lined with new life. From the look of fascination on her face, Trixie has to assume that the answer is no.

The music swells as the car rolls to a stop at the edge of the woods, and the two girls sit in the parked car looking out at the view before them. A lighthouse, empty and derelict with paint chipping off along the old metal railing, stands in front of a long pier. The pier is missing boards, teetering amongst the waves that beat against it. In the distance, if Katya squints just enough, she can see the other side of the river, townspeople wandering around like worker ants.

“This is so…”

Trixie holds her breath, waits for Katya to say it - everyone she’s ever brought here has. They think it’s creepy that Trixie likes to spend time so far away from everyone, think it’s strange that as her refuge she chooses an old, isolated place that hasn’t been touched by technology, that doesn’t have cell service or wifi. They don’t understand.

“It’s so beautiful.”

Trixie turns to her, but she’s still staring out at the lighthouse. “Really? Most people think it’s weird.”

One side of Katya’s mouth lifts into a small smile. “Most people think I’m weird.”

But you don’t is the silent, understood whisper that follows.

The radio times out, plunging the car into a silence perforated only by each girl’s breathing. Katya is watching the waves, the birds, taking everything in - but Trixie is only watching Katya.

“Can we go up there?”

“If you want to,” Trixie says meekly.

Katya finally turns back to her, a peaceful smile spread over her face. “I want to with you.”

Trixie nods and the two set out over the grass toward the lighthouse, coming to a stop at steps leading up to the doors. There’s a thick chain wrapped around the handles, with an impressive looking lock holding the chain together.

Katya sighs at the sight, and Trixie can tell she’s about to say something but she stops when Trixie walks up the steps.

“What are you doing?” She calls from the ground when Trixie’s hands reach for the chain.

Trixie pulls down on the lock and it pops open easily, the chain falling to the ground with it when she lets go. “It’s never actually locked, they just like to put on a show I think. Maybe deter some people from going in and sitting up top.”

Katya’s face is shocked and vaguely impressed, looking down at the pile of metal sitting on the ground in front of the doors. Trixie pushes one open and beckons her forward with a small wave of her hand.

She’s led into a circular room with high ceilings, a dusty table missing one leg standing alone in the center. A staircase wraps around the walls, spiraling all the way up. Trixie explains that the railing on the inner edge of the stairs isn’t very sturdy when Katya wanders toward them, and Katya frowns. The height of the stairs begins to worry her without the railing to rely on if she trips in the dim, decrepit space.

They ascend the staircase in silence, Katya moving along as close to the wall as possible in front of Trixie. The muscles in her legs are shifting beautifully beneath her skin and Trixie can see them, is watching her strong legs carry her up the tall spiral staircase and silently thanking the inventor of denim short-shorts.

When they reach the top, there’s a platform to step onto to reach the glass chamber that holds the light. Katya lifts her foot to enter the chamber at the same time that Trixie sidles up beside her, and when Katya loses her balance for a moment she’s glad that Trixie is there to steady her. One of Trixie’s arms is holding onto her elbow, the opposite hand ghosting over the small of her back.

“Careful,” she urges, guiding Katya with the hand on her back. “It’s a long way down.”

Katya lets out a short, breathy laugh, very pointedly trying not to look down over the edge of the railing. It’s only then, when Trixie notices that Katya’s normal wheezing laugh is gone, that she realizes what must be going on.

“Are you afraid of heights?”

Trixie’s careful to keep her tone free of judgment, but the Katya ducks her head as her cheeks flush anyway. “Maybe.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Trixie frowns, leading her further away from the stairs. “We didn’t have to come up here, we could’ve stayed down there.”

“You looked so excited and I couldn’t say no to you,” Katya rubs the back of her neck and gives Trixie a sheepish smile. “And I’ll be fine. I just need to sit down, I think. Is there somewhere here you like to do that?”

Trixie slides open a door and sits on the ledge around the lighthouse, legs tucked under the railing. She can see Katya’s hands shaking while she shuffles around, sitting next to her. She wraps her fingers around the metal rod in front of her and takes a deep breath before looking back to Trixie.

“Growing up, I was really quiet. I didn’t really have many friends,” Trixie begins. “I had Kim - she’s the president of the theatre club now, but back in second grade when we met, neither one of us really had anyone. We were inseparable for a while, but eventually we drifted a little. Kim got her theatre friends, and I was left alone a lot again. That was probably seventh grade? Anyway, one day after school I was supposed to meet Kim and her friends at the beach, but when I got there they were all there laughing and having a good time, and I just… walked away. And somehow I ended up here.”

Katya isn’t responding, but Trixie can tell from her expression that she’s still paying attention. Trixie’s never spilled her entire life out for someone like this, and she thinks maybe she should feel guilty for dropping years worth of problems into someone else’s lap. But Katya’s gaze is soft, compassionate, and when she reaches out and puts one hand over Trixie’s, she knows she can keep going.

“I came here a lot after that. Most of the time because it was easier than the look of pity on my mom’s face when I spent another Friday night at home instead of at sleepovers like the other girls in school. Eventually I made friends with Adore, and then through Adore I met Farrah and they became my best friends. And we both hang out with other people more, but Kim and I are still close.”

“So how often do you come here now?” Katya tilts her head and leans it gently against the rail.

“Not anywhere near as often as I used to. But it’s still one of my favorite places,” Trixie admits. “Adore and Daniel think it’s weird - they’re the only other people who really know I like to come. But it’s just easier out here.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Trixie shrugs, “It just… is easier to look at the town from further away, y’know? It’s easier to distance myself and… and not hear the judgments. The judgments of the way I dress, or the judgments of how quiet I am, or how I wear my makeup or my hair… It’s easier to be myself here.”

“I understand,” Katya says, and Trixie knows she really does. She looks down to where her hand is still over Trixie’s and pulls it back. Trixie nearly shivers at the rush of cold air on her skin.

“Enough of my life story,” Trixie laughs lightly, eager to change the subject. “I want to know about you.”

Katya’s eyes drop immediately, gaze locked on her lap. “I’m not a very good story.”

Trixie can see the way her jaw is moving as she bites on her lower lip.

“I’d like to listen to it anyway,” she says quietly. She moves her hand until it’s just about to make contact with Katya’s again, then stops herself. If Katya has pulled away, she doesn’t want to push her.

“My parents lived in Russia. I went to school in Russia for a while - until fourth grade, but then they shipped me off to boarding school.”

Trixie frowns. “In fourth grade? Why would they do that?”

“Russia is… it’s not a very friendly place. If you’re different, you’re in danger. I wasn’t born a gay man, so I was slightly more safe. But when I came home from the first day of fourth grade and announced that I had a crush on a classmate and my parents found out it was a girl, they were worried. And I can make sense of it now, but then? I didn’t know what I had done to deserve being sent away like that.” There’s a crease between Katya’s brows that Trixie desperately wants to smooth out with her thumb; she wants to soothe away the painful memories.

“So I didn’t really see my parents growing up, because going home meant going somewhere that I wasn’t safe. And they wanted to keep me from that, but in doing that they kept me from them. I made friends easily in boarding school, had my own…sort of a family. Ginger, Alaska, and Willam. And we were all pretty good kids, we didn’t get in much trouble except the one time Willam convinced us to smoke pot on school grounds. But then my parents finally had enough of Russia, and scraped together money to move here, since it’s safer. They thought I should come back and live with them,” Katya sighs, shaking her head minutely. “And now I’m stuck living in a small house with two people I don’t even really know.”

Trixie’s fingers inch closer to Katya’s. “I’m so sorry, Katya. I can’t imagine how difficult that must be.”

“I guess that’s a big part of why I was so shy and insecure when I came here,” Katya confesses. “I didn’t know where I stood in my own home, much less in a new school. And then the rumors started…” she trails off, scraping away at the chipped paint on the railing with a fingernail.

“I never believed the things they said about you,” Trixie says truthfully. There had been a lot of things said about Katya - that she frequented college parties and slept with older men, that she smoked pot every night, that she had contracted an STD, even that she had been initiated into a motorcycle gang based out of the nearest city. And Trixie hadn’t thought any of them were true.

Katya gives an apathetic shrug, not looking up at Trixie. “Maybe you should’ve.”

“But,” Trixie furrows her brow, “You just said-”

“I didn’t have anyone to talk to when the rumors started. I had no one. Not a friend, not a sibling, not even my parents. I was so scared and lonely, I didn’t know who could’ve said such nasty things about me. They started and I didn’t know what to do, because everyone believed them. So I decided that I might as well be the person the rest of the town thought I was - at least that person was having fun.” Katya’s eyes are closed now, but Trixie thinks she can see saltwater gathering beneath her eyelashes. “All I wanted coming here was to fit in, you know?”

“You don’t have to fit in,” Trixie’s fingers finally close the distance and grasp Katya’s. “This town is - God, it’s fucking terrible, Katya. You shouldn’t want to fit in with these people anyway. You’re so much better than them.”

Katya huffs a cold laugh, opening her watery eyes. “I’m not better than anybody.”

“Yes you are,” Trixie says earnestly, squeezing her hand. “We’ve only talked for such a short period of time, but I already know you’re so much better than Two Rivers.”

Trixie does know. She knows her and Katya have only actually been speaking for a little over 24 hours, but she already knows that Katya is the sun. She’s known since the moment she first heard Katya laugh. Trixie knows that inside Katya is something that makes the flowers grow, that her glow makes Trixie light up in ways she didn’t know she could. That Katya makes Trixie better . She knows that Katya is too good for Two Rivers, but maybe - just maybe - she ended up there anyway to help Trixie bloom.

Katya turns to Trixie with a hint of a smile and Trixie feels something unfurl in her stomach.

“If I’m too good for Two Rivers, then so are you.”

Trixie blushes, glancing down at where their fingers are now intertwined. “Debatable. But anyway, that’s enough sadness for right now.”

“You’re right. You haven’t unlocked my full tragic backstory just yet,” Katya laughs lightly, wiping under her eyes.

“Oh really? What do I have to do to to unlock the full story?” Trixie leans over and bumps into Katya’s shoulder gently.

“There’s a couple side quests and then the final boss. Might be more work than it’s worth,” Katya’s eyes are sparkling when they meet Trixie’s.

“I’m willing to put in the work.” She tries to keep her tone light and playful, but the earnestness of the statement seeps into the space between them.

“Well,” Katya says as she stands, tugging Trixie’s hand. “Come on, then. You can begin your first quest by taking me for an ice cream sundae.”

#trixie mattel #katya zamolodchikova #fluff #cisgirl au #elissa #rpdr fanfiction #little light #lesbian au #high school au

26 notes · View notes