#the cartoons moms lived together for a while but eventually decided it worked better for them to live in separate houses

[schtroumpfcurieux]

love that both cartoons AND the comic introduced a mom to Gargamel, but none of them are the same

Implying that Gargamel has three moms.

[chaoticpuff17]

Suga, We’re Going Down

part 15

masterlist

Hello, my darlings! Here’s an update for you! I’m off to work on the next part of WTCAD! and just a reminder that @chimchimsauce​ released her new book this week. Don’t forget to check it out, you can find the link in on her page. love you all!--- chaotic puff

If anyone at Jin hit Entertainment had been asked if Min Yoongi was a family man, they would have said no. Min Yoongi was a terror, a quiet one but a terror none-the-less. He was focused, driven, extremely talented, and a famous grouch. A family man was not a description anyone would have associated with him, and yet Kim Seokjin was looking at a nervous manager who was bringing forward some odd requests that the famous rapper had made. The requests included the acquisition of an apartment building and to bring him listings for modernized hanok houses in Seoul. To make this odd business even more strange, Yoongi had asked that they look into primary schools as well. Jin could understand why the poor man was confused and concerned. It was very unlike Yoongi, which was why the young CEO was on his way to talk to the artist 

The problem was to talk to the artist, he had to interrupt dance practice for the new mv, and something about interrupting Yoongi while he was holding a sword was extremely unappealing, but it had to be done. Someone had to ask about the odd requests. Jin was sure that there was some sort of perfectly reasonable explanation, and then they could all move on with their lives. 

“Hey, Yoongi!” Jin called walking into the practice room, only to be met with a dark glare from the man who was quite literally holding a sword. 

“What?” he growled incredibly displeased by the interruption. 

He was moving Y/N into her new apartment today, and Yoongi wanted to be there to help her get settled. She had insisted on doing all of the packing herself, and he knew she was back from classes already and probably hard at work packing up her small apartment. He trusted Jackson with her. He knew he would help her pack up, but that didn’t change the fact that he wanted to be the one to help her. He wanted to finish practice and get out of there as quickly as possible. If he couldn’t help her pack up the old apartment, he could still help her settle into the new one. And flowers, he was going to bring her flowers. She would enjoy that. But Jin wasn’t helping any of these plans come together any faster with his interruptions. 

“Can I talk to you for a sec?”

“No.” Yoongi grunted, brushing back his hair as he glared at his hyung. 

“It’ll just take a minute.” Jin continued on cheerily even though Yoongi was giving him a look that would have sent anyone else cowering. Yoongi sighed, setting the sword aside and going to get a drink of water as he waited for Jin to get to the point. “So one of the managers came to me saying you’d been making some odd requests.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Just wanted to make sure that everything was okay. It’s not like you to buy an apartment building, and you’re looking for a house, schools? What’s going on, Yoongi?” 

“She has a kid.” Yoongi grunted, flopping down onto the floor for a break while Jin stared at him as though he’d suddenly grown a second head. 

“Who has a what now?” 

“Y/N, she has a kid.” he repeated. “Toddler. Cute little bugger.” 

“She has… a child?” Jin repeated pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration as he tried to take in the new information. “Did you know about the kid?” 

“Found out on Saturday.” the other man shrugged, seeming remarkably unbothered especially considering the magnitude of what he’d just said. 

“And you’re buying a whole apartment building and a house because?” 

“Kid’s dad is harassing her.” 

“Okay?” Jin didn’t want to push too hard, but getting information out of the rapper could be like pulling teeth. 

“She needs a safe place to go, her and the kid.” 

“So you bought an apartment building?” Yoongi nodded. “Then what’s the house for?” 

“House is for her and the kid.”

“You said the apartment was for them.” 

“House is for all of us. Eventually.” 

Jin was dumbstruck as the implication of those words hit him with full force. Min Yoongi, the surliest son of a bitch he knew, had a family. He’d taken a sugar baby, and suddenly he had a whole family. He’d accepted another man’s child to the point he was planning a future around the kid and his mom. 

“That’s…” 

“It’s not hers.” Yoongi grunted seeing the older man’s head about to burst. “Not biologically. It’s her nephew, but he’s hers now.”

That made a little more sense to Jin. “And the birth dad is harassing them?” 

“Showed up at the park by her house without notice. Really freaked her out.” 

“She didn’t tell you about the kid?” Jin asked, sliding down next to Yoongi. He needed to sit if he was going to have this conversation. 

“She took the job to take care of him. Her family’s not in a good way.” Yoongi explained, taking another drink of water. “She was trying to protect the kid.” 

“And you’re okay with this?” 

Yoongi shrugged, thinking fondly on his angel and their kid. “She’s a good mom, and he’s a good kid.” 

Jin nodded along, still trying to wrap his mind around this. “And the kid actually likes you?” 

Yoongi scoffed, but a small smile tugged at his lips. As soon as the kid had decided that he was fine, the kid had been absolutely fascinated by him. It was painfully clear to both him and Y/N that the kid didn’t have a lot of men in his life. That was fine though. He had Yoongi now.

 “Why wouldn’t he like me?” 

“Cause you’re a grump?” Jin suggested, playfully bumping the other man’s shoulder. “Got a picture.” 

Yoongi looked at him in surprise, but he grabbed his phone pulling up a picture of Y/N and Eun Jae he had snapped on Sunday afternoon when the pair had fallen asleep on the couch for an afternoon nap after Eun Jae had run them both ragged around the penthouse playing princesses and dragons all afternoon. Eun Jae had been the brave night protecting the princess, and Yoongi had been made to be the dragon trying to steal Y/N away from her protector. Eventually the little guy had worn himself out, and the family had settled on the couch for a snack and an afternoon cartoon, before both mother and son had drifted off. Yoongi hadn’t been able to resist snapping a picture of his small family. 

“He’s a cute kid.” Jin smiled, handing the phone back to him. It was odd to see Yoongi with a family, but even if the indicators were subtle, Yoongi seemed happy. 

“Yeah.” Yoongi agreed. “He looks like his mom.” 

“So the house and looking at schools and everything, it’s all for them?”  Yoongi nodded. “Alright then.” Jin clapped, nodding resolutely. “That clears things up. When do they move into the apartment? And when do the guys and I get to meet the little guy?” 

“Y/N moves into the new apartment today. Eun Jae is going to be with her grandmother till Friday, and you idiots don’t get to meet him.” 

“What!” Jin squawked , highly offended. “Why not? We’d be awesome uncles!”

Yoongi growled under his breath. “She’s skittish about the kid, and I won’t have you idiots freaking her out.” 

“Freak her out! How could I freak her out? I’m world wide handsome, you know? And I’m great with kids!”

“Not the point, Jin.” 

“I wouldn’t freak her out!”

“She has every right to be skittish, and I get more time with my kid before you idiots start crowding in.” He huffed, bopping the other man over the head with the empty water bottle. 

“Alright, alright.” The CEO surrendered. “Congrats, man. You seem happy.” 

“I am.” 

“Why don’t you take the rest of the day off. Go help your girl get set up in that fancy building you bought for her.” 

Yoongi nodded gratefully as the older man got up from the floor complaining about old bones. He was more than ready to get out of JinHit and go see his angel. He had all sorts of surprises ready for her at the new place, some he could show her and some he couldn’t.

He had the apartment furnished for her, getting some better quality appliances and furnishings for her. His family could only have the best after all. He’d even had the kitchen stocked in preparation for the move. He’d gotten a bunch of new toys and things for the kid too.

 Those were all things that he was excited to show her, but he knew better than to tell her that he owned the building, or that he had her entire security team living in the building as well. He knew what she’d say about that. She’d argue that it was too much, that it was unneeded, but he didn’t want to take any chances with her safety or Eun Jae’s. He even had a guard keeping an eye on the kid while he was at the grandmother’s. She’d certainly have something to say about that, but she didn’t need to worry over that. Their safety was his concern now, and he’d do whatever it took to protect his angel and their kid. 

With Jin letting him leave early, Yoongi was more than ready to go see his angel. He needed a shower first, but then he was free to go help her settle in. A quick text from Jackson had told him that she was already at the new building. A text from one of the bodyguards he’d hired to look after her had told him that Kim Taehyung had also been trying to keep an eye on her- trying and failing. Yoongi wasn’t about to let him get close to his family, especially not when his relationship with his kid was still so fragile. He hadn’t even known there was a kid in the equation till a few days ago, and he didn’t need the sperm donor showing up and confusing Eun Jae on who his father was.  For now, the little boy was safe with his grandmother, who Yoongi had been reliably told was a battle axe of a woman who wouldn’t be letting any strangers or anyone from the Kim family anywhere near that little boy. 

Yoongi got to the apartment to find Y/N preoccupied stringing up a set of bumble bee lights around the living room. He’d ordered a ton of stuff for the apartment, all things that he thought would be warm and comforting for her and the kid. It was colorful and bright, and ten times better than her old apartment. It had enough space for Eun Jae to play and for Y/N to do her schoolwork all while being within the safety of a building that Yoongi owned and staffed. The front desk had been given Taehyung’s photo with strict instructions not to allow him into the building. He wasn’t getting near either of them so long as Yoongi had anything to say about it. 

“Miss, you should really let me.” Jackson fretted hovering around Y/N as she put the lights up, making sure she didn’t fall. 

“I’m fine, Jackson.” she rolled her eyes. “I am perfectly capable of  putting up some lights.” 

“You could fall!” Guessing from the harried voice of his employee, Yoongi could guess that this wasn’t the first time that Y/N had refused to let him help today. 

“I let you put up the paintings!” 

“The paintings were already here when you got here!” 

“Eh.” she shrugged. “Someone who wasn’t me put them up.” 

“Babe,” Yoongi called, startling both of them and accidentally causing her to lose her balance on the sofa as she spun around, but Jackson was quick to catch her and equally quick to set her down again and excuse himself. 

“I wasn’t expecting you.” she muttered, shuffling from foot to foot. 

“Wanted to help you move in.” he smiled, stepping forward to place a quick, soft kiss to her forehead. “How do you like the place?”

“It’s too much. We really didn’t need something this…” 

“You did.”  he cut her off, holding out the bouquet of hydrangeas. 

“They’re lovely.” she smiled, a little tiredly, but it had been a busy day for her. “Let me get these in some water. I assume that’s what the vases are for?” He smirked following after her as she moved around the apartment. “You didn’t have to furnish it. You’ve already done so much for us, more than what we agreed upon.” 

“I wanted to,” he shrugged. “Besides, we need to renegotiate the terms of the contract anyway.” 

She turned to him with wide eyes, clearly nervous by the thought of renegotiations. “Nothing bad. Eun Jae puts a new light on things. I want to make sure that you and he have everything you need, give you both some more security.” he assured her. 

“You’ve already…”

“It’s not up for discussion, angel.” her mouth clicked shut immediately as she nodded. “Don’t look so grim, babe.” he laughed, tipping her chin up. “It’s just a few little things to take Eun Jae into account.” 

“He likes you.” she sighed, letting her sling an arm over her shoulder and steer her back towards the sofa and the half hung string of lights. “There’s not a lot of people that run around with him like that.” 

A swell of pride rose up in his chest at that. “I like him. He’s a good kid.”

“It’s nothing major right? The changes to the contract?” 

“No.” he pressed a kiss to her messy hair. “Nothing major.” It was just a few things to ensure their future, nothing she needed to worry about right now.

“Thank you again, for everything.” she sighed, sinking into the sofa and curling slightly into his side. 

He hummed, tugging her in a little closer. It was cute how she thought that this was big. It was nothing in the grand scheme of things. This was just the beginning for them, and this little apartment was no place for them to raise a growing family. 

“Anything for you.” 

part 16

[consumeconstantly]

Innocence, avoidance

Summary: Jason Todd cracks crass jokes and dirty comments like they’re his lifeblood. It turns out, he’s just getting it out of his system before he sees his little sister again. (Or: Marinette gloms onto Red Hood after her parent’s death, and there’s no way anyone can stop her from being with her older brother.)

___________________________________________________

Jason Todd, AKA Red Hood, is not the kind of man people go to when they want to complain about their life problems. They go to him when they want a quick, oftentimes violent solution; Red Hood isn’t exactly a renowned empath. In comparison to his other Bat Family counterparts, he is at least 10 times more crass and almost 15 times more violent. 

It is accepted that although Red Hood makes situations turn out for the better, he is no shining paragon of human virtue and kindness. People trust him to watch their backs and not to fuck them over so long as they’re working within his very clearly defined set of values, but he’s just not the kind per person that anyone would entrust their kid to during their Friday date night.

Until somebody does.

The door to the warehouse is already open, and he has a gun in his hand, ready to threaten the little crowd he’s gathered today when a woman hops out of her car and shoves a pig-tailed girl with wide blue eyes and an almost blindingly neon pink outfit towards him.

“There you are, you weren’t at the drop site!” says the woman, who instantly begins to back away from the two of them once the little girl picks herself up off the ground that she landed on. Red Hood notes the license of the getaway car, making a mental reminder to deal with them later, but the car makes tracks. The little girl frowns at the disappearing car, eyes the gun in his hand, then decides that she’s going to stay put. 

Red Hood looks at the rabble that has convened in the warehouse, down at the little girl, then back again. There are at least five people in the room that are eyeing the little girl greedily, and he’s sure that if he just lets her go, she’ll be captured by one of them faster than he can bat an eye. He doesn’t exactly have time to put the girl in a safe place, not when it’s taken him months and a good number of heads in order to draw these people here. 

She looks wary of the gun and of him, but not scared. Everyone else? Half of them look like they’re about to burst out laughing, and the other half have looks that he’s eager to wipe off their faces.

“Aww, look at that! Hood has finally found his way into the dark side of the business. What’s next, prostitution?”

Without hesitation, he shoots with deadly accuracy at the man’s hand. The man keels, bending over and clenching his bloodied appendage. Other than the man’s screams, the room goes completely silent.

Red Hood casts another glance at the little girl, who has, slowly but surely managed to inch away from him and into a safer position. She’s holding onto her sparkly purple plastic backpack like it’s the only thing that’s keeping her alive. Smart kid, not to run. Or was it dumb? He wouldn’t shoot her, and he’d take out anyone else who tried to, but the girl didn’t know that. She probably just assumed that she was going to his next target.

“All of you shut up while I deal with this.” He inhales deeply and kneels down to get on eye level with the girl. Not that she can see much of his eyes, given his helmet, but still.

He has half a mind to go after the woman, but he’s not about to leave the little girl amongst the group of criminals that are gathered in the warehouse with him. Briefly, he wonders how the hell that couple even knew that he was going to be here tonight. He also wonders what he’s going to do with the kid. “What’s your name, kiddo?”

She looks up at him, hands clenched around a plastic pink backpack with some kid’s cartoon on the back, then looks out at the people that have gathered. There’s a moment of silence, and Red Hood is sure that she’s weighing her current options. Smart kid. Eventually, she shifts her body weight closer to him, apparently drawing the conclusion that he is the safer option than the other people who are here tonight. Smart kid.

“It’s Marinette, sir.”

No last name. Not sure if that’s a pointed decision to keep her identity at least partially concealed, or just because she doesn’t have one.

“And those weren’t your parents?” It stands to reason that the people in that care aren’t her parents, but he needs to make sure.

Marinette clenches her backpack tighter. “No, sir.”

“Where are they?” He has a sinking suspicion if those weren’t her parents, and she’s not up in tears, asking for a phone to call them, that--

“They’re dead, sir.”

Sometimes, Jason wishes he could be wrong on things like this. 

“Then who were they? And don’t call me sir. Too formal.” 

“My mom’s... second cousin, I think? I never met her before, but I got sent here anyway.” 

One of the men shifts. He’s one of the men who Red Hood pegged as a possible child trafficker. Underneath his helmet, Jason’s eyes narrow. He now has a fairly good idea of how the couple figured out that he was going to be here tonight.

“Do you know how to get back home?”

At that, Marinette's mouth almost twitches up into a smile. “No sir. I don’t think there’s a home to go back to, anymore.”

Red Hood sighs. Putting the information presented to him together, he quickly comes to the conclusion that Marinette’s parents have died recently and that nobody in her immediate family has found out about their passing, or they don’t want her. Somehow, the couple picked her up-- possibly when she was going to a friend’s house, judging by the whole school girl look she has going on-- and thought she would fulfill the trafficking requirements laid out to them. 

That means that there aren’t a lot of options available to her. He can redirect her to the foster care system, but everybody knows foster care messes up kids permanently. Even though she looks to be pretty street smart, he couldn’t just let her live out on the streets in good conscience. Her outfit looks too clean for her to ever have lived in poverty, and she definitely checks the box for a lot of the trafficking rings that have been popping up recently. Mixed descent, the possibility to be pretty when older, and very, very pure. She’d get picked up off the streets within hours if she just let her be. 

He decided that he’s let her have the final say. “What do you think I should do in this situation?”

She shuffled her pink ballet clad shoes, eyes darting to the sides. He had to give the girl this much at least; even though she had the whole innocent look going for her, she was very aware of her surroundings. Her body language implied that she didn’t believe him to be that much of a threat— and in any other case, he’d fault her for that, but given that let their surroundings were a drug den he’d let it go— and tilted herself so she could have as many people in her sights as possible. “Sir, I think as long as you could get me out of here safely, I’ll figure out how to take care of myself.”

The man Jason was watching, the possible trafficker, tensed. Yeah, Jason is definitely going to have to take care of him later. This kind of a reaction as good as cements the suspicions he’s had. 

“Tell you what, princess. Do you mind waiting outside for me? I’ll help you out once I’m done here.”

Marinette eyed the rest of the room. “How long will you take?”

She’s asking all the right questions. Maybe it will be easy for her to fit into the slums of Gotham. 

“Not long,” Red Hood promised. “Ten minutes at most.”

The collection of people who have gathered in the warehouse all swallowed uncomfortably. Everybody knew that when Red Hood dealt with things quickly, it typically ended in copious amounts of bloodshed and shock. 

“Okay,” Marinette paused, grip loosening on her backpack. “Ten minutes.

#

Red Hood doesn’t particularly want to have Marinette around for the violence that’s about to occur, but she’s already seen him shoot one person, so it’s too late to shield her innocence. And violence? It’s a slippery slope.

He makes quick work of the room; half of the people he brought out here, he kills off directly. The other half are made to watch as the people they’ve associated with for years die in front of their eyes. This is a power play. A way to… persuade them to reform. Because the people he’s left alive? Red Hood has left them alive for two reasons. One. They’re not nearly as bad as most of the higher ups in Gotham. Two. If he kills all of the people who have dabbled in anything bad, the chain will be completely messed up, and there will be too much room for unknown variables to make their way up the ranks. He wants people he can control. And the people he’s left alive? He can keep all of them in line.

Marinette is not waiting outside for him. They’re right next to Crime Alley. This is not going to end well.

#

He’ll give the little girl props for somehow managing to avoid his detection. 

To be more precise, he’s hoping that she’s simply avoiding his detection, and hasn’t gotten swept up in something bad. 

It takes Jason three hours-- three hours-- to find the girl who can’t be much older than ten. Probably not even ten, judging by her size. 

“You’re lucky it’s me finding you, and not someone else, Pixie.” He finally catches a glance of her glaringly sparkly backpack, complete with fairies and unicorns covered in some sort of holographic overlay.

Marinette immediately backs up, looking definitively worse for the wear. She’s gained rips in her clothes and  a nasty looking scraped knee. Her face loses all color when she sees him. “S- sorry, sir. I swear I wasn’t running away, it’s just that there was someone outside who tried to grab me, and--”

If Jason didn’t know better, he’d believe the girl. 

However, he does have a decent number of connections, and those connections ensured that nobody was going to be able to come near the warehouse once his ‘meeting’ started. Though, he’ll have to have a talk with them, given that someone tried to pass the goods right before it started. Jason is fairly sure that the couple has been apprehended by now, but checking later tonight won’t hurt. 

Which means Marinette made the decision to run.

Again, that would have been a very, very smart decision had she not found herself in Crime Alley of all places. It looks like she’s learned a little bit about why she should stay away from places like this.

“It’s fine, Pixie. Like I said earlier, just call me Red Hood, or Hood. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Marinette balks.

Jason sighs. “Look, I know it’s hard to believe, but you can trust me. I’m not going to force you to do anything you don’t want to do. All I want is to see you safe.”

“But,” Marinette bites her lip. Her eyes drop to the guns at his side. That’s… that’s a good reason not to trust him, to be honest. If he were in her position, he’d already be running.

“Do you have anyone you can contact? Anyone you trust? I can take you to them.”

She’s starting to tear up, and god, Jason cannot deal with crying children. Marinette’s big, blue eyes and pigtails and her general smallness. He just can’t. “Please don’t cry. Please don’t cry. What, do you-- do you want a cookie or something? I can bring you to a bakery before we talk? Sweets are supposed to cheer kids up, right?”

Marinette lets out a watery laugh. 

“I like macaroons,” she offers.

#

“So, how old are you?”

In the warmth of the bakery, Marinette looks markedly more relaxed. She went to the bathroom to clean her face and cut off, and now she looks like the poster child of one of those band aid ads. Lively, a little mischievous, and, you know, a child.

She takes a delicate bite of the shortbread cookie-- not a macaroon, there aren’t many reputable bakeries in Gotham that are close and have French pastries. “Nine and a half.”

Oh man, she’s younger than Replacement. 

“You’ve really got no family here? None at all? No friends you can call?”

“No, I’m from France.”

Well, that certainly answers a lot of questions. But brings up additional ones. “You speak English very well.”

“Maman and Papa ran a very popular bakery. We got a lot of foreigners. Before we moved to Paris, we lived in New York.” She takes a sip of her drink, whipped cream stuck on her nose. “And I don’t remember anyone from New York. We moved to Paris when I was three.”

Jason sighs. “What do you want to do?”

“Maman said that if I were ever left on my own, my only job was to survive by any means.” 

“That’s…” He tries to find the right words. “Interesting advice.”

In what parallel universe do parents of a bakery in Paris-- one of the major cities in the world with the lowest crime rates--tell their children to survive by any means?

“Did she tell you how?”

Marinette tilts her head, pigtails bouncing. “She told me to trust my instincts and never to trust the police.”

Great. That explains why she didn’t ask for someone’s phone to call the police. Not that the police in Gotham are the best people to go to for a case like Marinette’s, but then again, there’s not really anybody good to go to for a case like hers. 

Vague advice is the best way to get a kid killed. But since Marinette isn’t already dead, it stands to reason that her instincts haven’t failed her yet, and he really does have no clue what to do with her.

He briefly contemplates taking her to Bruce, but strikes the idea down almost instantly. Marinette fits all of the requirements to become a Robin. Tragic backstory, black hair, blue eyes. He’s not going to put another child into Bruce’s hands just so he can ruin their life by not doing his job. Besides, Bruce doesn’t know he’s alive yet, and he wants to keep it that way for now.

“Then what do your instincts tell you to do?”

Does he feel like an idiot for asking a nine year old that? Yes, but what else is he supposed to do? Taking care of kids was never part of the job description when he signed up to be Red Hood. (Then again, it wasn’t like there was a job description to begin with.)

Marinette takes another bite of one of the cookies on her plate. “They tell me to stick close to you.”

Even better. She’s imprinted on him.

@jasonette-july-2k20

[cdt12345]

We've been friends many years but I've never thought to ask; Top 10 gay OTPs?

1.) Ian & Mickey (Gallavich) - Shameless us

What can I say about these two that we haven’t already said about them?! They are my absolute all-time favorite couple ever! Gay or straight. They perfectly complement each other, they love each other on a level I feel like I’ve never seen before (and I have watched a lot of tv/movies), they’re like a comedy duo, they support each other, understand each other better than anyone else ever will, they fell in love as kids, they bring out the best in each other, and they’re each other's best friend. I’m a sucker for opposites attract, who are also best friends. Gallavich really fits that bill. I wish they didn’t have to struggle so much to get their happiness, but I’m happy they finally got it. When they got married, it felt like the biggest victory ever! We went through those years of struggle with them, rooted for them, mourned for them when John Wells let Noel go after season 5. So much has tried to keep these two apart, even real-life circumstances tried to keep them apart. The chemistry between these two characters and between Cameron and Noel was so powerful, they were brought back to the show. That kind of thing doesn’t happen very often. When an actor leaves a show, they don’t usually come back as a series regular, let alone two actors who have already left the show. It felt like a miracle! I will never forget getting the news that Noel was coming back from you @luckyshazmrsmonaghansblog I was crying with happiness bc we wanted this for so long and I never believed we would get to see both Cameron and Noel back on the show. Or that they would get their happy ending outside of a jail cell. Especially after Cameron left the show in season 9. With their return we got a wedding, an entire season of them as a married couple, we got to see them dance with each other twice, we got them singing together, we got to see them start a lucrative business together, we got to see them free and happier than we’ve ever seen them before, and we got to see Terry get what he deserved after putting them through hell. We are only halfway through season 11, but I already feel so fulfilled with this extra time with gallavich that we were never supposed to have. JW tried to take that away from us. I will never understand why, but he failed. I am not surprised this is the one I wrote the most about. I can go on and on about gallavich!

2.) David and Patrick - Schitt’s Creek

This was everything I ever wanted to see onscreen, where there was zero homophobia. The pansexual character didn’t need to have a big coming out or tell everyone in the town of his sexual orientation, except his best friend. The gay character had a coming out with parents who loved and accepted him for who he is and was only upset that he felt he couldn’t tell them sooner. I dreamt of a day where I could see this kind of representation onscreen. The casual treatment of their sexuality was so refreshing and something I’ve been waiting for. There is no darkness or huge struggle they had to overcome to be together or a sad ending for them. They were allowed to be together without the major conflicts most LGBTQ characters have to go through. Once David made the first move Patrick was comfortable allowing himself to fall for David and start a relationship with him. He was so sure of his feelings for David after that first kiss, he never looked back and I loved that. They had such an adorable love story. Truly one I have been waiting to see for so long between two LGBTQ characters. They made me smile every time they were on screen. They are another of my OTPs that are exact opposites who complement each other perfectly. Patrick was welcomed into David’s family and blended in with them so well, even when he and David had very different upbringings. Patrick serenading David with Tina Turner and then Mariah Carey at their wedding is one of the most romantic things I have ever seen!

3.) Holt and Kevin - Brooklyn Nine-Nine

Captain Holt and Kevin are strange men on their own but together they are the perfect pair. They get each other in a way no one else does. The best part is their adorable fur baby, Cheddar! They seriously make the cutest family! I was so nervous when they went through a rough patch for a while because I didn’t want them to split up. Thankfully, they made it through and are still going strong!

4.) Will and Vince - Will & Grace

On the show's first run, Will and Vince were in a serious relationship and Vince was Will’s longest relationship on the show. They broke up a few times but were together by the series finale. The two reunite during the funeral of Will's father. There was a time jump on the series finale. Though I didn’t love everything about the last episode, I did love the fact that Will and Vince had been together for 20 years and raised a son together, who was conceived through in vitro fertilization with a surrogate. After the time jump, nearly twenty years later, their son goes to college and meets Grace's daughter, whom he would eventually marry. Though I wasn’t happy with the fact that Will and Grace didn’t stay close over the years, it did allow for their kids to one day meet, fall in love, and get married. I did like that outcome out of the finale. My family and I used to watch the original show, but we refused to accept or watch the 2017 revival because they completely changed everything from the original series finale. The second I found out they were changing everything; I knew I couldn’t watch it. They even wiped the existence of their kids from the first series finale. The revival was an attempt to cash in on the reboot craze and I wasn’t happy about that already, but even more so when they were going to break up one of my OTPs for easy money. Bobby Cannavale, who played Vince, has become even more famous since starring in Will & Grace. So, I already figured he wouldn’t be back for the show as a regular, but I know he did guest star. I won’t accept the revival and to me, Will and Vince stayed together, and their son married Grace’s daughter. THE END!

5.) Albert and Armand - The Birdcage

Miss Albert and Armand were the earliest gay couple I remember ever watching onscreen when I was eight years old. I have watched this movie more than I can count over the years. It is a family favorite that we quote often. Their son is planning to marry a girl whose father is in politics and is very conservative. They have to hide the fact that he has two gay fathers for one night, but everything goes awry, and comedy ensues. Nathan Lane and Robin Williams give a wonderful performance without resorting to using the stereotypes that are often used on gay characters, especially back then. It’s a classic!

6.) Stefon and Seth - Saturday Night Live

Okay, hear me out on this one! They’re not the most conventional OTPs on my list, but I really do love them so much! Stefon started doing a correspondent segment on Weekend Update on SNL. The first time Stefon came on, he flirted with Seth Meyers. The second he did I was like ooh they would make a cute couple! Stefon the wild party guy and Seth the serious news anchor. It was a match made in heaven for me. Before Seth Meyers left SNL to do Late Night with Seth Meyers, Bill Hader came back to play Stefon for Seth’s last episode. I didn’t expect what happened next to happen at all! They gave Seth and Stefon the ending that I haven’t even gotten from some actual scripted shows. I never expected Stefon and Seth to have this big ending, but I could not be happier that they did. I’m posting the link to the six-minute skit/ending and I hope it works. It’s worth watching. Though the video says it’s Stefon’s farewell it was really Seth’s farewell episode.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rj-wYWMdWNk

7.) Mr. Simmons and Peter - Hey Arnold!

Anyone who grew up watching this show already knew that Mr. Simmons, Arnold’s teacher, was probably gay. It was hinted at in the Thanksgiving episode. Arnold and Helga visit Mr. Simmons on Thanksgiving at his house and his family and “friend” Peter are there. Mr. Simmons mother says she didn’t know Peter was coming to dinner and Peter responds with the infamous line “There’s a lot of things you don’t know.” When Mr. Simmons mom tries to get him to take a woman friend to the ballet, he says he loves the ballet and Peter gives him a disapproving look and Mr. Simmons immediately declines. Those were enough hints for us fans to decide Peter was his boyfriend. Years later, the show's creator Craig Bartlett finally confirmed Mr. Simmons is gay and had them together in the 2017 Hey Arnold: The Jungle Movie. It was so exciting to finally get the confirmation years later, even though I was already certain of it for many years. I was happy that the cartoon no longer had to settle with vague hints about it.

8.) Callie and Arizona - Grey’s Anatomy

I was very happy to see a lesbian couple on prime time tv and I really liked both characters. I was excited to root for them but sadly as most couples on this show, their relationship took a turn, and I wasn’t thrilled about it. I was disappointed that it came to an end. By then I was already getting tired of watching the show. It was starting to feel like a chore to watch it every week. I tried to stick it out because I don’t like to give up on shows in the middle of it, but I just couldn’t do it anymore. I’m glad I did though because the shocking events with Derek Shepard, is something I’m glad I wasn’t around for. Anyway, I heard things between Callie and Arizona got even worse, so I was even happier I left when I did.

9.) Sherwin and Jonathan - In a Heartbeat

This was one of the cutest things I have ever seen! I wish this got the full-length movie treatment instead of a short film. But it was still a step in the right direction for the LGBTQ community. Gay characters in cartoons always bring me such joy and that was the focus of this short. A boy with a crush on another boy with a cute ending. What is not to love?!

10.) Mitch and Cam - Modern Family

Another show I had to give up on in the middle of the series. The show began to be less funny and more annoying to me. Another reason, that really has nothing to do with the show itself, that used to annoy me was that this show repeatedly beat out Parks and Recreation during award season. Parks and Recreation is a superior show when compared to Modern Family. This show won almost every year for years and it got really annoying especially when the quality of the show started slipping and they kept winning. After a few years, they finally stopped winning all the time. But before all that, I was a fan of Cam and Mitch. They were a great couple who I loved watching on the show. They were the best part of the show most of the time. But sadly, my annoyance of the show no longer being as funny as it used to be, was enough for me to stop watching.

[sarcasm-with-a-side-of-fries]

My girl

Derek Morgan/Spencer Reid, Derek Morgan & Cory Reid (OC), Spencer Reid & Cory Reid (OC)

(Song fic based on “my girl” by Elvie Shane) 

Authors note/background- Spencer Reid never joins the FBI, he’s a professor at Georgetown university. Derek Morgan is still in the BAU and the BAU members do pop up.Cory is the result of a past “relationship” Spencer was in, her mother is never mentioned because she abandons Cory and Spencer right after Cory is born.He meets Derek at the coffee shop they both happen to frequent. Cory looks like her mother (it’s why she has red hair and blue eyes, although again it’s never mentioned)

She ain’t got my smile that don’t bother me a bit and she’s got somebody else’s eyes I’m seeing myself in.

The red haired, Hazel eye little girl holds tightly onto Spencer’s hand. He had explained to her (the best he could, seeing that she is only four) that he had someone he wanted her to meet.

I’m holding onto every moment god knows I’ve missed a few the day we meant I knew I had some catching up to do.

The first time they meet Cory is a little hesitant, eyeing him with a look that reminds him so much of Spencer. He’s worried for a while that she won’t like him.

“She’ll warm up to you.”

He gives her a small stuffed dog and when the night ends she hugs him before she runs off to bed.

“Told you she'd warm up to you.” Spencer remarks later that night.

“Yeah, I guess you did.” Derek agrees, kissing Spencer temple.

“Did you just admit that I was right?” The mischievous smile that works its way onto Spencer’s face is honestly terrifying.

“Yes and I’m already regretting it.”

She ain’t my blood, ain’t got my name but if she did I’d feel the same I wasn’t there for her first steps but I ain’t missed a moment yet and,

They’ve met four times when Cory decides that Derek must have hung the stars when he lets her ride on his shoulders at the carnival, something Spencer ever so careful would never do.

“Papa, I'm so tall!” She exclaims giggling wildly when Derek pretends to almost drop her.

“Derek be careful-!”

“Relax pretty boy. I’m not actually going to drop her, right Cory?”

“Mhm! Relax papa!” They both laugh at that.

By the end of the day Cory had been completely tuckered out and Derek had moved her down from his shoulder to his hip.

That ain’t ever gonna change I could never walk away yeah she’s my baby my whole world.

“Cory’s asking about you.” Spencer tells Derek over lunch. “I don’t think she understands your job.”

“You could bring her to mine tonight, Clooney’s a general giant who loves kids.”

“Sure.”

Cory falls in love with Clooney the moment she meets him, nicknaming him ‘cloon’ because she can’t pronounce Clooney and it’s too adorable to correct.

“Night night cloon night night Derek.” She mumbles that night patting Derek’s chest tiredly, a familiar small stuffed dog gripped tightly in her hand. Derek hadn’t even realised she’d brought it with her.

“She has dragged it everywhere since you left on that case two weeks ago.” Spencer murmurs with an amused smile.

“Huh.” Derek responds with a smile on his face.

She ain’t my blood but she’s my girl, Yeah she’s my girl.

He’s known Cory for seven months the first time he watches her alone for longer than an hour. Spencer was asked to give a lecture at a college in New York and her normal sitter was sick.

The day went easily, having taken her to the park and then for ice cream before retiring for the day. If you’d told him eight months ago he’d know the lyrics to just about every Disney song very soon he’d have called you crazy but… here he is.

Thumb in mouth Cory curls up with Derek her head against his shoulder. “Papa smile more.” She tells him and he’s confused. “You.” She says. “Him smile more.” And or doesn’t make much sense or maybe it doesn’t. “Good.” He doesn’t get the chance to question her because she drops off to sleep shortly after.

He carries her to the the guest bedroom that isn’t much of a guest bedroom anymore considering the toys, blue blankets and child clothes that can now be seen.

It hit me like a train the first time she called me dad (pops) in a three stick figure crayon picture with all of us holding hands.

Her mama (papa) said I understand if it’s too soon for this oh I didn’t let her (him) finish I took it to the kitchen and stuck it right on the fridge.

It's been almost a year when she goes to Derek’s house from school with a scribbled picture and bright smile. She places the picture next to Derek before running off down the hall in search of her stuffed dog and action figures.

Derek picks it up and freezes for a moment staring at the page with an unreadable expression. Spencer sees him from the corner of his eye and crosses the room looking over Derek’s shoulder.

It’s the three of them at the park, she’s standing between them holding each of their hands. That however isn’t the part that caused them to pause, it was what she’d written. They are labeled, ‘me’ , ‘papa’ , ‘pops’ the top of the page dawned with the words ‘my family’

“Oh.” Spencer breathes out. “Look I understand if…” Derek shakes his head standing up with a small smile, sticking the picture among the many others that now littered his fridge.

From that day on he’s pops.

She ain’t my blood, ain’t got my name but if she did I’d feel the same I wasn’t there for her first steps but I ain’t missed a moment yet and that ain’t ever gonna change I could never walk away,

The first time she sees him in a hospital is heartbreaking, her eyes full up with tears. “Pops.” She calls out sobbing when her comatose pops doesn’t respond.

“He’ll wake up.” Spencer says though he isn’t sure who he’s reassuring by that point.

“He was hit hard but he should wake up.” David Rossi, Derek’s team member who Spencer has come to know over the past year and two months. “Always has to play hero.” Rossi adds with a head shake before leaving the two alone.

It’s six hours later when Derek does wake up. “Spence?” He croaks out.

“You're awake! Oh thank god. Don’t you ever think about doing anything like that ever again Derek Morgan or so help me-“

“Move in with me. Both of you, move in with me.”

“What?” Spencer is dumbfounded.

“You heard me.” And Spencer almost laughs at the oddity of the situation.

“I’ll move in with you if you promise never to leave me. Us.” He motions over to where Cory is sleeping.

“Never gonna leave you.” Derek promises.

When Cory wakes she ends up crawling into the hospital bed with Derek (screw protocol) and refuses to let go of his shirt until he’s discharged four days later.

Yeah she’s my baby my whole world she ain’t by blood but she’s my girl.

The Reid’s official move in a month later, waving goodbye to their small D.C apartment with no tears shred.

“Pops. Papa.” Cory says wiggling her way between them on the couch.

“What are you doing up Angel?” Derek asks.

“Dunno.”

They laugh at the sheer honesty but don’t send her away letting her fall asleep with them. Spencer eventually carried her to bed, making sure not to forget her stuffed dog.

She’s Saturday morning cartoons.

The sound of hysterical laughter is heard throughout the house rousing Spencer from his sleep and prompting him to pad into the living room.

Derek is sitting on the couch half asleep, Cory sat on his lap intently watching ‘bubble guppies’ and petting Clooney.

Spencer smiles and if he snaps a picture, no one needs to know.

She’s hey can I sleep in your room?

Cory learns to hate when Derek leaves for cases, sometimes going as far as throwing tantrums when he tries to say goodbye but that never changes her response to him coming home. No matter how mad she was at him for leaving.

Derek comes home close to midnight and doesn’t expect to see Cory until morning but is mistaken as she’s sitting up on the couch in the living room when he enters the house. “I made the mistake of telling her that you were on your way home.” Spencer explains, which cues Cory in on Derek’s arrival.

“Pops!” She turns around standing on the couch and reaching out insistently. “Your home.”

“Hey Princess, of course I am. I always come home.” Spencer smiles fondly.

“Can I sleep with yous?” She asks looking between Derek and Spencer innocently.

“Of course you can Cory.” Spencer says walking over to kiss Derek.

“Yuck!” They both laugh loudly.

She’s bigger than the plans I ever had. She's making me a better man.

“I never thought I’d get this.” Derek tells Spencer one night.

“Hmm?” Spencer prompts wrapping himself around Derek.

“This.” He motions around. “You and Cory.”

“I thought it would always just be me and Cory.” Spencer admits. “No one wants to date a single dad who’s a college professor with a past off… expect you did.”

“You're not your past Spencer.”

“And you're not yours.” They don’t address the true meaning of the sentence instead Derek smiles, lifting a sleeping Cory into his arms and heading down the hall.

She ain’t my blood, ain’t got my name but if she did I’d feel the same I wasn’t there for her first steps but I ain’t missed a moment yet and that ain’t ever gonna change I could never walk.

The wedding is in June, they’d been together for two and a half years when they decided to get married.

Cory is the flower girl, Henry the ring barrier.

Derek’s team is there, his mother and sisters too.

Spencer mom is there, along with a few of his professor friends.

Hotch is Derek’s best man, his groomsmen and woman being Penelope and James.

Reid’s best woman is JJ, his groomsmen and woman being Emily and Rossi.

It’s a small thing really.

There’s a party afterwards.

“Papa lap.”

“Cory I’m eating.” He tells her with a stern look.

“Pops lap.”

“I’m eating too princess.” He responds. Still not deterred she pushes Derek’s arm out of the way and climbs into his lap successfully seeing as Penelope had changed her out of her suit before dinner. (She had refused a dress and neither of her fathers saw it necessary to force her into clothes she doesn’t want.) “Alright fine.” Derek huffs although there’s no heat in his voice.

“Pushover.” Spencer mummers into his wine glass ignoring the glare his husband shot him. “Cory, do you want your own plate of food?” Spencer asked and got his answer when she shook her head instead picking food off of their plates.

Yeah she’s my baby my whole world, she ain’t my blood but she’s my girl.

It’s six months later when they all sit in a family court room, their friends and family sitting on the public benches behind them.

They sign the papers in front of everyone and then the judge announces loudly, “I hereby declare Cory Reid-Morgan adopted.”

They go out for ice cream as a large group to celebrate, Cory happily running around with Jack and Henry afterwards.

When it’s time for everyone to leave Cory demands to be picked up by Derek who complies. She rests her head on his shoulder and quietly murmurs. “I love you.”

“I love you too princess.”

“To the moon and back?”

“A million times.” Spencer comes up from behind wrapping his arms around Derek's waist and resting his chin on the shoulder not occupied by Cory’s head.

“Love you Derek.”

“Love you too Spencer.”

Yeah she’s my girl.

[chsamuseum]

Learning Cantonese: A Family Adventure

“If flamingos turn pink when they eat so much shrimp, why don't cows turn green when they eat so much grass?”

As parents, we’ve encountered a lot of thought-provoking - and often fun - questions. Some have been easier to answer than others. Some are asked by our kids, others are ones we’ve asked ourselves.  

One question I wrestled with was: “Should we try to teach our kids Cantonese - and if so, how?” Trying to decide whether to teach our kids Cantonese was not easy. I spent hours researching, often searching online late at night, thinking through each of our language decisions and options. Then, after finally deciding to teach our kids Cantonese, I spent hours figuring out how to actually do that.

Amazingly, today, our entire household speaks Cantonese! Along the way, we created bilingual Cantonese picture books to support our own learning, which grew into our own indie publisher Green Cows Books, named for the fun questions that emerge out of bilingual learning - and out of parenting in general.  Most importantly, we continue to have fun. I'm sharing our story, with all my doubts and second-guessing, in case it helps another parent. 

The Green Cows Books logo (Courtesy of Karen Yee). 

How I got my entire family into speaking Cantonese

So...how did this turn into a family adventure? How did we go from one native (but limited) Cantonese speaker to the entire household speaking Cantonese?  Why do I spend so much time making Cantonese-English picture books?

First, before my son was born, I made the reluctant - but relatively quick - decision that we were NOT going to teach him Cantonese. I was the only Cantonese speaker in our house, and even then, I had grown up in California and mainly learned "around the house" language. While I had attended weekend Chinese school, my reading and writing were limited. Simply put, I was intimidated. Other voices seemed to validate my fears: Parenting forums debated the wisdom of trying to teach kids multiple languages. Well-meaning relatives suggested Cantonese was a “dying language” and Mandarin might be more useful. And of course, there just weren't Cantonese resources available. So we decided to focus our efforts on Mandarin, a language neither I nor my husband speak.  

Then my son was born, and things changed. While my Cantonese was limited, speaking English to my own kid just didn’t feel like “home.” I decided that however basic my Cantonese was, I would try to pass it on. If I failed, nothing changed. But, if I succeeded, then my son would speak a "dying language” spoken by 74 million other people around the world.   

So I began speaking Cantonese to our son - and this is where everything jumbles together time-wise. It was difficult at first - I felt awkward, and there were words I didn’t know (I had to learn them first!). We introduced Cantonese and Mandarin songs early on, but waited until our son turned 2.5 before introducing Cantonese cartoons (all on YouTube!). It was also tough for my husband for a while - once our son started speaking Cantonese, my husband could not understand what we were saying. But with a little one, we said the same phrases many times a day - "let's go!", "time to eat,” "drink your milk!", etc. Somewhere along the way, my husband learned basic Cantonese.  

Meanwhile, I searched non-stop for Cantonese books. I found a lot of books in Chinese and English; some books with Mandarin pinyin or zhuyin; and some books with Cantonese romanization. But I found nothing focused on spoken Cantonese.

So I began making my own Cantonese learning materials. I’d noticed that our board books had images of apples, ice cream and grapes - but nothing with Chinese food. So I printed out pictures of egg tarts, sesame balls, shrimp dumplings, almond tofu and tong yuen to learn alongside words like "apple" and "banana". No disadvantage at the dim sum table for our son! I also included materials to support my husband - primarily key phrases such as “What do you want to eat?” and “I want to eat...” We’d quickly realized that just a few basic phrases go a long way towards communicating with toddlers! 

A portrait of Karen Yee, founder of Green Cows Books (Courtesy of Karen Yee).

Our materials worked amazingly well. When we finally took our 2-year-old to dim sum, he recognized a lot of the items. He even tried to order for himself: “daan taat!” (egg custard tart). (Though the waitresses paid very little attention to our toddler.) Eventually, I turned these materials into our first book, “My First Everyday Words in Cantonese & English.”  

Today, our older one is trilingual. He learned Mandarin at daycare, Cantonese at home, and English. He was talking nonstop by 18 months. Our relatives generally also agree he has a better Cantonese accent than I do, even though he learned his Cantonese from me. I think he must have applied his Mandarin to Cantonese! His Mandarin is apparently excellent, and he was even chosen to represent his school at a reading contest.  

Our 2-year-old is fluent for his age - he and his older brother speak Cantonese, but sometimes switch to Mandarin. While I’ve heard that learning multiple languages simultaneously can cause speech delays, neither of my kids experienced this. I think this might just be personality-driven! My husband now speaks Cantonese. And my mother-in-law also has picked up Cantonese. Being able to speak Cantonese (or even just understand the basics) has made for easier conversations with extended family.

A portrait of Yee’s family, all of whom contribute to Green Cows Books’ language offerings as writers and translators (Courtesy of Karen Yee).

So, where are we now in this learning adventure?

Our books are family activities. Topics are chosen by our kids, and each book is fully kid-approved. For example, every find-and-point-item - such as in Goh Goh and Dai Dai's Big Day with Elephant - is thoroughly tested.   

Our Mandarin translations are actually done by our older son. He's been (informally) translating for us since he was able to talk, and translating books pushes him to stretch his Mandarin. He gets to choose kid-appropriate language - and his own pen name - to appear in the books. He’s also now started school - they teach English through what they call “Reader’s Workshop” and “Writer’s Workshop.” We now sometimes write together!

Honestly, I don't have much of a roadmap. Some days, I can't even think ahead to dinner and what we're going to eat. I want us to continue creating books that are useful for parents and for kids, for everyday communication - but even if they're meant to be educational, I want them to be fun and easy to read. As our kids have gotten older, we’ve also moved towards slightly more advanced story books. We're also experimenting all the time. For example, we introduced a few other languages, including in Korean and German (our friends wanted to do their own translations!). 

I hope that you will join us on our adventure!

I would love to hear from other parents who care about bilingual education. As a mom, I’d love to learn about what’s worked for you, and how you support your kids with their language learning. For those who are focused on Cantonese (or Mandarin), I'd love suggestions and feedback on future books. Please get in touch!

Written by Karen Yee, a member of the CHSA community. A Cantonese-American mother of two, Karen’s efforts to teach her sons Cantonese inspired her to found Green Cows Books, an independent publisher of bilingual children’s books in seven languages (and counting!). She lives with her family in San Francisco. 

[holidaywishes]

Embers III

Chapter III: I try to explain you

  Summary of series: Katie moves from Peachtree, Georgia, to L.A. with her son, Alex to start fresh after the death of her husband. When she meets Evan Buckley, a young firefighter, she falls fast but will her son be so quick to accept Evan into his life?

  Summary of chapter: It’s been a few months that Evan and Katie have been seeing each other but Alex has yet to find out because Katie is unsure how he’ll handle it.

  Warning: Some angst but not much (that’s coming later)

  Author’s Note: Hope everyone is liking this series! With this quarantine, and working from home, I’ve had a lot of time to focus on Tumblr stuff; I can’t tell if that’s good or bad but I’m here... Anyway, thank you so so much for reading this little series. I don’t know how long it will go for but for right now, I’m really into it. So cheers!

  masterlist

  the other masterlist

xx

Katie’s P.O.V

  You had always been terrible at keeping secrets. Your parents always knew your tells, Jesse could always pick out when you were acting different and your friends never let you finish a sentence if they thought you were holding back. But you hadn’t kept any secrets from your son, this was just one you needed time to sort out.

  “Evan..” you whispered trying to wake him up, “you have to go. Alex is gonna be up soon.” He moaned and you pushed him one more time, before eventually resulting to kissing him awake

  “Good Morning” he smiled and kissed you back

  “Good Morning. Now get dressed,” you insisted, “you shouldn’t have even slept here last night.”

  “Oh come on, you haven’t told him yet?” he asked, still half asleep, “I’m tired of sneaking out of your window every morning...”

  “Then stop sleeping over..” you joked

  “I like waking up next to you”

  “Cute.” You opened the door quickly to see if you could see or hear Alex, “now go.”

  “Are you ever going to stay over at my place?”

  “I don’t know, Evan,” he sighed as you walked over to where he was, placing your hand on the side of his face, “I want to. I just need to find the right time to tell Alex what’s going on between us.”

  “Is there a reason you haven’t told him yet?”

  “It’s complicated, Evan. It’s not that I don’t think he’ll like you but he still...” you started, “loves his father. I don’t know how he’ll react I guess.”

  “I understand. I didn’t mean to push.” He pulled you in for a hug and kissed the crown of your head. The two of you pulled apart and Evan smiled at you before crawling out the window and you watched him sneak past the windows in case he passed by Alex’s room. You had every intention to tell Alex about your relationship with Evan but the fact that you still hadn’t taken your wedding ring off, made you think that it might confuse Alex.

  “MOMMY!” Alex called and you rushed to the door, finding him staring out the living room window

  “What’s wrong?” you asked and he pointed outside

  “I think someone was trying to break into the house” he said plainly, you joined him by the window

  “I don’t see anyone,” you assured him, “come on. Let’s get you some cereal.” Alex shrugged and sat down on the couch, turning on his cartoons and you caught a glimpse of Evan and her eyes went wide as you tried to shoo him away without Alex noticing. You were able to make your way to the kitchen to get him breakfast and when you came back, he was so focused on the T.V. that he practically shoveled the food into his mouth.

  “Can we call Nick?” he suddenly asked

  “Nick? My client Nick? Why?”

  “He’s fun. He always let’s me use his stuff”

  “I’m sorry, what stuff?” you asked in your best mom voice and Alex tightened his lips, “mhm.. that’s what I thought.” You huffed, chuckling to yourself as you went on with your morning. You and Alex soon decided to go to the park and your mom met you there.

  “He’s such a happy kid. You’re raising him well.” Helena said as the two of you sat on the bench by the playground, watching Alex play

  “I’m trying,” you dropped your head, “I just don’t know how to do it without him.”

  “You don’t need him. You’re a great mother and Alex loves you.”

  “But he needs a father...” you sighed

  “He needs to be loved. Maybe Jesse could’ve taught him things that you won’t be able to. When your father died there were times I thought you’d need him more than me, or that you wanted him more, but I did the best I could,” she confessed, “and I think you turned out pretty good.”

  “You were great! I just..” you stuttered, “I don’t think I was ever prepared to lose him. And now I’m just trying not to screw up Alex’s childhood”

  “So, you’re tiptoeing around his feelings”

  “What?”

  “I’m not oblivious little one. I know you’ve been seeing someone.” Your cheeks flushed red and you tried to hide your face, “he can handle it you know.”

  “Mama,” you started, “I don’t know how he’ll react. He might be able to handle it next year or two months from now but now? He’s still grieving his father” You turned your body to your mother,

  “Baby,” she said softly, “he will always grieve his father. It’s his father. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t want you to be happy.”

  “I just don’t want him to get hurt”

  “He won’t get hurt, you just need to tell him the truth.” You bit the inside of your lip and contemplated what to say, “Katerina, sweetheart, are you happy?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Does this boy that you’re seeing make you happy?” You couldn’t help but smile when you thought of Evan and your mom knew she had her answer, “then Alex will see that, he’ll feel it and he’ll be happy for you.” She tilted her head as you looked back at her.

  “I hope you’re right.” You said, hugging your mother for reassurance.

xx

  “Understand something, Evan,” You said strictly, standing in your living room waiting for your mom and son to come home, “Alex is 8 years old. He may react... unpredictably. I need to tell him myself before he sees the two of us together.”

  “I understand” Evan smiled

  “He’s met you before but--” you sighed-- “I just want to make sure that he’s okay with it first.”

  “I got it. Don’t worry, everything’s gonna be fine.” He said, grabbing your hand to place a kiss there. You took a deep breath and smiled up at him

  “Okay,” you breathed, “they’ll be here any minute. You should probably head out.” He laughed but agreed, heading to the door.

  “Mommy! Mommy! Look,” Alex shouted as he flew through the door, “I drew you a picture!”

  “It’s beautiful,” you cooed, “thank you baby!”

  “Well hi there,” your mother said, nudging you to introduce Evan, “I’m Helena, but you can call me Leny.”

  “Nice to meet you, Leny,” he said, stretching out his hand to shake hers, “I’m Evan.”

  “Nice to meet you, Evan.”

  “Alex, sweetie,” you brought your son over to see Evan, “you remember Buck right? From the firehouse?”

  “Hey buddy!” he tried but Alex cowered behind you

  “What’s he doing here, Mama?” he said and you looked up at Evan with sympathetic eyes

  “He was on his way out,” you leaned down, “but he just came over to...”

  “See if you wanted to come back to the firehouse,” Evan interrupted but Alex still hid behind you and Evan seemed to take the hint, “it was good to see you again, kiddo.”

  “Bye Evan.” You said, leading him outside

  “It’s going to be okay,” he reassured you, “let me know how it goes tomorrow.” He leaned in to kiss you quick before your mom pulled you back.

  “Alex, come talk to me for a second liebling” You said as you turned back into the house, your mother gave you a quick look that seemed like she was unsure of the conversation you and Alex were about to have; You just shook your head and your mother went into the kitchen

  “Mom, can we have Gnocchi tonight?” Alex asked as he jumped on the couch

  “Sure, baby,” you knelt down to be eye level with your son, “but I want to talk to you about Evan.”

  “Who’s Evan?” he said as he picked up a toy that was laying on the couch

  “Buck”

  “Oh, him. Okay”

  “You like Buck right?”

  “I guess...”

  “What if I said that he and I have been.. seeing each other?”

  “I mean--” he snickered, “It’s better than smelling each other.” You laughed but forced yourself to continue

  “No, Liebling,” you held his hands, making his eyes meet yours, “Evan and I have been spending a lot of time together over the past few months and--”

  “Like you’re friends?” he interrupted

  “Well--” you said, rubbing circles on the backs of his small hands, “we’re more than friends.” You waited for Alex’s response, hoping for the best but expecting the worst.

  “Okay...” was all he said, “can I go play now?”

  “I don’t know. Do you understand what I just told you?”

  “Sure,” he said, “You and him work together but you’re also friends”

  “Work together?”

  “Yeah. You said you’re more than friends..”

  “That’s not what I mea-- I like Evan.. sort of the way I liked daddy...”

  “What? NO!” he whined

  “Alex..”

  “You can’t like him the way you like daddy! Daddy wouldn’t like that”

  “Sweetie, daddy would understand”

  “NO HE WOULDN’T!” he yelled, “YOU’RE BEING BAD!”

  “Alex please listen to me. Daddy is gone and I miss him very much. I will always love him, that won’t change. Ever. But Evan... makes me very happy.”

  “I DON’T CARE!” he shouted once more, jumping off the couch and pushing past you, “you’re not supposed to be with him. You’re only supposed to be with Daddy!” With a loud slam of the door, Alex sulked in his bedroom while you collapsed on the floor.

  “Well that went worse than I could’ve expected” you said as Helena sat next to you

  “He’s just going to need some time. To understand...”

  “But that’s the thing. I think he understands everything, he’s just stubborn.” You sighed and looked down the hallway toward Alex’s bedroom door, “sometimes I think he believes that Jesse is going to come back, and then other times I can tell he knows he’s gone.”

  “He’s 8. He’s still processing.” Your mom replied

  “Should I not have told him?” you asked

  “Of course you should have. And no matter how you told him, it probably would’ve happened this way.”

  “Very comforting...”

  “Sorry, love” she said, shrugging her shoulders and the two of you laughed.

xx

  “He didn’t take it well” Your text to Evan read

  “How are you feeling?” he replied

  “I’m fine. I just wish it had gone better. I know he still misses his dad but you should’ve seen him. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so angry..”

  “He’s a kid and it’s new. He’s had you all to himself for the past year and now, he doesn’t...”

  “I guess. I think we might just have to ease him into this..”

  “Like stop sneaking around?”

  “Probably a good start”

  “That’s good with me.”

  “I thought it might be. Maybe we can set up like a dinner?”

  “We could have it at the firehouse? Bobby’s a great cook and that way there’s a bunch of people to buffer”

  “I think that’s a great idea!”

  “Perfect! I’ll let everyone know they have to be around.” You could feel Evan grinning from the other side of the phone and it made you smile as well.

  “Wonderful!” You hoped that the dinner would go well and that Alex would come around, but only time would tell.

[popculturebuffet]

Top 10 Regular Show Episodes

Close Enough is Close! 2 more days and a show i’ve waited without hyperbole years for will finally land offically. While i’ve seen three episodes preelease, one because of a french film festival the other two because HBO made an oopsie, and it’s more than likely i’ll be seeing those episodes again thursday, it dosen’t make it any less special, as with an offical release comes the fandom finally becoming a thing and the ablility to watch the episodes over and over again.. on computer till HBO gets it’s shit together but still. IT’s a great time.  And my hype for the show made me revisit it’s big brother: Regular Show. Created by what would happen if you condesned california into a person, JG Quintel, Regular Show, as you all damn well know but I like doing anyway so as rigby would say, STOP TALKING, was about two slackers and best bros: Laidback hipster and hurricane when it came to talking to women, Mordecai and Rigby a high strung, idiotic, impulsive, and frequently angry racoon who worked, when they absolutley had to, at a park. Joining them at the park were their coworkers and later closest friends: Benson, their constnatly angry boss who constnatly belts out empty threats to fire them and has a rather sad personal life, Skips, a centuries old yeti whose literally seen it all and despenses advice for the duo and is voiced by everyone’s faviorite grandpa/jedi/murder clown Mark Hamill, Muscle Man, a grotesque blob of a man who likes  “My mom” jokes and breaking things, Hi Five Ghost, Muscle Man’s sidekick who got like.. one episode focusing on him alone over 8 seasons moving on, and Pops, an odd but unfailingly sweet and kind vicotrian era gentleman whose also basically immortal and is Bensons’ boss in name only.  The Park Crew spend their days working, or in our main duo’s case trying to get out of work to do anything else,  while dealing with every day issues that would quickly ballon into insanity. Getting pops a birthday present of Fuzzy Dice from a local pizza place ended up with the crew having to fight a bunch of anamatonic animals that were stashing diamonds in there. Trying to get concert tickets involved getting caffine from the nipples of a giant sentient coffee bean in order to stay awake long enough to do the extra work. And Mordecai trying to delete an embrarassing message off his crush Margret’s voice mail lead to him and rigby getting hauled in front of a bunch of a message guardians, one of which is a sentient smoke signal that wanted to burn them while the other replied with “we’ree not going to burn them when have we ever burned anybody”... I love and miss those guys. Oh and it’s resolved by having to playt he embarassing song he sang while said message beings groove to it then ask him to colaberate with them on their album. THis show was on all the drugs and I am all the hear for it. I could go all day obviously but this section is long enough as is, let’s move on. 

Regular Show came at JUST the right time for Cartoon Netowork: Similar to how the 80s doom patrol comic started off really bland and cookie cutter and not at all doom patrol and then grant morrison came in, had hte previous writer kill almost everything, then rebuilt it from scratch with crazy, CN had few shows left and was coming off a really terrible attempt at competeing with NIck and Disney Channel’s live action dommance with a bunch of dude broy reality shows and other ill conceved ideas. The network had a few shows, Total Drama, The Clone Wars which got better and I need to watch those better seasons at some point, but they weren’t enough to make the network thrive again.  SO enter adventure time and regular show: BOth were creative, funny , a bit rough around the ages, and kind of nuts, but both were massive hits: The shows hit almost every demographics sweet spots: Kids like the bright colors, fun designs, and insanity, teens loved the edgy bits of the humor and also the insanity and 20 somethings and older both found refrences they got and loved, and well.. insanity. I mean being fucking nuts but also wonderful is kind of the watchword for most animation nowadays. While in the past in my own head i’ve played down Regular Show’s part in things, after all it came second and had a rough patch I told myself.. but I was wrong. Both shows had a lot of the same elements; insane stuff, great voice acting and good humor especially as they evolved.. but both also evolved in largely the same way and that way helped change animation for the next decade: Both, despite being comeidies, regular show keeping to it a bit more than adventure time did as they evolved, had the characters grow, something a lot of animated comedies didn’t do as much ast the time, even the good ones. THey had season long arcs, things that are now standard features in most cartoons for good reason were MADE standard by these shows. It’s just regular show’s legacy got diluted by shows that TRIED to copy it but both failed to see that it grew past season one or that it’s being okay for kids but really based in adult life and problems meant copycats like fanboy and chum chum, sanjay and craig and breadwinners, all thankfully long dead, eventually sputtered out and died. That and Nick is REALLY shitty at maintaing shows or treating creators with anything resembling respect. Somehow Teen Titans Go is still alive despite having similar failings but you can’t win everything. It didn’t help gravity falls came along right after and proceded to be even more influentail than both of these shows. Hmmm I just realized I haven’t done any gravity falls reviews here.. I gotta get on that. But while the show got eclipsed in quality and popularity I do still think it holds up for the most part as funny, charming and with , for the most part, good character arcs, it’s just that a bit of incosntientcy, some abrubtly done actions and a REALLY fucking terrible arc in season 6 dull the show a bit in comparison to what came after, but I do realize now it’s still worht watching, remembering and laughing at. It may of not been the greatest, but damn it was good.  So with my nostaliga for the show popping up, my faith in it restored, and it’s sucessor showing up in a few days, I decided to do a little something for the ocassion. I WAS going to do a full on review, but had troulbe finding an episode as some of my faviorites are part of a larger arc that was hurt by a later arc, and the show ping ponged between slice of life and utter insanity enought hat it was hard to peg down to jus tone or two episodes. So while I WILL review the show eventually, it has both good and bad episodes needing it, I decided instead to dig out something I hadn’t done in far too long: a top whatver lists! Now while I do get these things are clickbaity, because they are, I.. honestly just love making them. Even if i’ts not for any specific purpose I just love ranking, the stress, even if I normally hate stress given my anxiety, of trying to narrow them down, and the satisfaction of taking a ton of episodes and melting htem down into the best of them. And with a show as long and varied as regular show, If igured this was the best way to show it off before I dived into it eventually. I’ll obviously be doing more top, and bottom lists in the future, but for now this seemd like a godo place to get back to it. As  Now a few more things before we finally get started. Yes I know i’ve gone on for a few years now but i’m almost done. This list is obviously, my opinon. If you disagree fine, and feel free to comment or shoot me an ask about it but I stand by my list and what I choose. I had to boil down over 60 episodes I picked to possibly  be on the list and even after it was down to 40 cuts were really difficult, .. Also just as a quick note there are no episodes from seasons 1, 6, 7 and 8, and that’s not on purpose, as the last two seasons are really good, it just fell out that way and i’m sorry about it. So with that out of the way grabs some sodas and wings, get out your maxi gloves, and bring out your best sentient earworms wearing sunglassses, after the cut I count down the top 10 Regular Show episodes. OOOOOOOOO!

10. I Like You, Hi (Season 5, Episode 26) As you’ll be able to tell by the rest of this list Season 5 is my faviorite, and it’s where I feel the series hit it’s peak before next season lead to it’s valley. It’s got a ton of great episodes, as this list will attest, some great character development, and was still really damn funny.  But what put it over the top for me was the Mordecai and CJ arc. At the end of the last season as you probably know the show wrote out Margret, having her finally get into college like she’d wanted since she got an actual character back in “Camping Be Cool” instead of just being “that hot girl mordecai really likes but is too scared to persue”, and another fantastic episode we’ll be getting to, Mordecai was in position to move on.  Re-Enter CJ. CJ was introduced earlier in the season 3 ep “Yes Dude Yes” which itself is really good, where Mordecai thought margret was engaged and with Rigby’s encouragment, ended up meeting CJ, stands for Cloudy Jay if your curious, a sentient cloud voiced by the wonderful LInda Cardenelli, aka wendy from gravity falls and currently co star of the equally wonderful show Dead to Me. Seriously go check it out on netflix, it’s really good. It naturally went pearshaped since Margret wasn’t engaged, he tried going out with both, she turned into a thunderstorm out of rage... as you do.. it’s like the season 6 plot but less infurating and more understandable.  But the two remeet, and had a kiss on new years while not knowing it’s the other person under am ask.. and then CJ ran and both thought the other was upset: MOrdecai for him being MOrdecai, and CJ for running out on him and agreed to be friends. That didn’t last, though it did give us another classic on this list, as while exes can be friends and all, the two still had something between them. Thus came this one. And it was a hard one as it barely inched out the finale of their relationship arc, Real Date, which had the ceo of a dating company try to break them up and be really damny funny but it’s ulitmatley this one being just as hilarious while being a great character piece that gets it the rub.  As the episode opens Mordecai and CJ have been spending a LOT of time together and i’ts clear there’s a spark there.. but Mordecai insists it’s platonic. And yes there is a bad habit of animation being unable to accept females and males who are into the oppistie sex can’t be friends without being attracted to each other. It’s being cleared up more lately, but as Star Vs showed it still happens sometimes. But it works here: The two STARTED with dating, made out on new years, and are attracted to each other it’s just clear both were in denial about it. It’s not saying “well they have chemstiry so fuck their partners’ like star vs or “if you loved someone once those feelings will return and destroy yoru current relationship” like next season.... season 6′s arc is a tirefire burn it.  But the issue is forced when, while texting about an extreme baking show together while CJ’s at her job at a sports bar, it autocrrects from Yuji, the show’s host, to you hi, sending the title message “I like you, hi”. Mordecai, being even less adept with his feelings and anxiety towards women than me and trust me that’s saying something, spirals and we do get the episodes best scene, narrowly beating out it’s climax, where Mordecai summons a war council.. aka the rest of the main cast minus benson but plus Thomas, the intern who I wish stuck around longer even after he turned out to be a russian spy because they ran out of ideas for him, voiced by Roger Craig Smith and distractingly using his future sonic voice. 

I just.. love everything about the scnee. From the term pulling a mordecai, to Rigby joining in, deservedly as he’s had front row seats for a lot of this bollocks, to everyone’s suggestions especially Muscle Man’s half assed one that somehow, but unsuprisngly, works for him and Starla.  Naturally Mordecai comes up with what Rigby HIMSELF admits is a Rigby level half assed scheme to get an actual photo with Yuji rather than just admit the truth. Yuji himself is an utter delight, having had his star not rise as fast as he’d like thanks to autocorrect and being entirely on board, and when it backfires as MOrdecai ends up autocorrected and sends the message thrice and gets sucked into the phone again, admits i’ts “pretty extreme’. I love the guy and i’m prety sure he showed up again, to my delight. 

In the phone Mordecai meets some old friends, the message guardians who I mentioned in the “insane shit this show has done” bit earlier: old forms of messaging who police texting, all voiced by Rich Fulcher of the Mighty Boosh and Snuffbox Fame. 

I love Rich and wish these guys could show up in close enough. Maybe they can, I don’t know how rights issues with turner properties work when it comes to two diffrent audiences entirely. Anyways what really makes the episode, besides the great callbacks in this scene, is when confronted with everything going on, Mordecai.. tries to run into the void, with Rigby, The Message Recorder and the Smoke Signal all encouraging him to come back. “There’s nothing out there for you, literally it’s just a blank void”. With the leading tape recorder pointing out from their text history not only how great CJ is but how much he seems to like her with Mordecai finally coming back and admitting the obvious: He does like her.. he’s just scared of beefing it again. Which he does but that’s not the point. Rigby, who as part of his character development helps Mordecai quite a bit with this stuff by being a neutral party, though he also likes CJ better than Margret which is a mood even though I don’t care which one you ship mordecai with frankly, you do you, I have my prefrences. And with that Mordecai finally texts her and asks her out, with her accepting via winky face.. with an added text to clarify it for his neuotic ass.. which is also a mood as my neuortic ass could use that a lot. Overall just a wonderful , hilarious and good bit of character growth.. that season 6 throws in the oven, but that’s a long rant for another day. On it’s own, “I LIke you, hi” is a good character piece for mordecai whlie still being really damn funny. 

9. Thanksgiving Special (Season 5, Episode 15)

Regular Show was really damn great at holliday specials. Their terror tales from the park every halloween were always a nice treat and a good replacement for Simpsons “Treehouse of Horror” which still exists, it’s just no one cares at this point, and their christmas and new years episodes are both really damn good, the first Christmas Episode being in contention for this list even. But to me the best of the best was easily Season 5′s  thanksgiving episode. 

The premise is simple: Mordecai and Rigby accidnetly destroy thanksgiving dinner, which the park crew is having for everyone and their famllies and, refusing to take Benson trying to dismiss their attempts to help fix their mistake, end up joining a songwriting contest to try and win a Turducken.. a natural one that’s born every 1000 Years because this is regular show. To do this they have to beat a parody of everyone’s least faviorite president Donald Trump, Rich Buckner.  The fact that trump was basically the main villian of a holliday special a year before he became president is not lost on me and  is one of the most accurate depections of the man i’ve ever seen. The fact Rich steals the prize despite our boys winning from his blimp with a grappling hook is peak trump. The fact Trump has’nt stolen more things with a grappling hook in real life is only because his hands are too small to use one. 

Getting past our president for my own sanity, the episode also has really great subplots: Muscle Man and Fives go to  a sports bar to get sides and end up pissing off a former football player and getting into a touchdown dance comppetition, sadly not set to the super bowl shuffle, while Benson, Pops and Skips go to get a turkey and end up fighting over it with men dressed up like a piligrim, a first thanksgiving era native american and a turkey, to which they don’t even really give an explination for.. granted most explinatoins on this show are insane but even by regular show standards, this gets none. And I love it for it.  While as you can tell the episode is really damn funny, what really sells it is the emotional core: For once while they do fear for their jobs a bit Mordecai and Rigby’s main motivation in this messup is genuine guilt and wanting to fix their mistake, and they work hard at it, even giving a genuine and awesome heartfelt song that notches itself up with other thanksgiving classics “That thankstiginv themed soul sketch on snl” and adam sandler’s turkey song also from snl. Not a high bar but it’s really good regardless

The episodes’ real strength though is it’s emotional core: For once instead of saving their own asses or understadnably wanting to get one over on the cranky and in the worse written episodes obnoxiously overbearing benson, they simply feel terrible about possibly runing the meal for their arriving parents and everyone elses parents and families and their friends and work to right the wrong. It’s not the first time they worked to do something genuinely good with no benefit to themselves, but it’s probably the best and Benson’s I forgive you, while hilarious is also really sweet. And speaking of sweet

It ends on a really sweet and touching note, as Mordecai and Rigby, after escaping a blimp via a wish on a golden wishbone because of course, make it home to find the various weirdos the park crew met have brought them thanksgiving, and their parents will be there and we get a nice touching ending as the main duo get a well earned toast from Benson. Just an out and out amazing thanksgiving special and a good reminder of what the holiday means.

8. Trucker Hall of Fame (Season 3, Episode 37)

Moving on from Season 5 for a second, Season 3 was where the show really started to hit it’s stride to me. While Season 2 was a nice increase in quality from the sometimes choppy and heavy on “everyone is an asshole” comedy season 1, Season 3 was where the increased focus on the rest of the cast outside of our main duo balloned and what seeds of character were planted in season 2 beautifully bloomed. And this episode is one of the best examples of that.  This one focuses on Muscle Man, who earlier on was basically the main duo’s rival alongside his buddy high five ghost, and kind of a dick. While “Kind of a dick” never left any discription of Mitch Sorenstein, this and previous episode muscle woman showed there was more to the goblin man than we thought. It’s also one of regular show’s few early mostly serious episodes and unlike the benson ones, again this list was tough don’t come at me with a machete, and realy showed why muscle man is the human tire fire he is. The episode introduces, and quickly kills off, muscle dad, mitch’s dad who gave him a love of pranks and was a truck driver who died as he live: mistaking a fake bear for a real one during a prank. Muscle Man being not the most stable person on a GOOD day, spirals, as seen above, and Benson tasks mordecai and rigby, since Fives isn’t good with death ironically and isn’t holding up much better, and as a much later episode shows the two became besties in high school so he probably knew muscle dad for a good ten years so he’s probably not in a great place either, nice stuff, to go with him to put his dad’s ashes in the trucker hall of fame.  What follows is a sweet and damn sad episode. While Mitch’s frequent breakkdowns can be hilarous their also really sad and having lost my grandpa since this episode aired, I can relate to being fine one minute and a total shrieking wreck the next over the smallest thing. But it also shows that Mitch genuinely thinks of our main duo as his friends, and that beneath his testorrone positned exterior he’s a decent guy, being genuinely greatful. Of course being regular show the 3 end up squaring off with some truckers, while Mitch also grappels with the revelation his dad wasn’t one but a forklift opperator who faked being a trucker for his son’s benifit and dleft a tender note in his picture, figuring correctly his son would break it open when he found out... oh and because this show is still nuts his ghost ends up saving them at the end which is really sweet , as mitch decides trucker or no his ashes deserve to be there. Also his ghost shows up again at thanksgiving so apparently he can just come back once in a while, which is nice but dosen’t demnish the bittersweet feeling of this ep. And as I said the show has a good grasp on continuity as this ep marked a turning point for our main duo and muscle man: while the’yve bonded before after this, aside from mitch’s habit of christmas pranks and his faking his death, they really don’t nearly get as annoyed by him ever again. i’ts a sweet touching ride tha’ts uncharacristic of the show’s usual chaos but really works. 

7. A Bunch of Full Grown Geese (Season 4, Episode 19) After a few episodes that were more sentimental on this list, it’s good to get back to some good old regular show madness for this one, which was also the series 100th in production order and is a worthy milestone episode. Season 4 was really good building on the good will from Season 3 and FINALLY having payoff to the margret and mordecai thing, more on that in a bit. Not as much to say as seasons 3 or 5, but it was still spectacular.  The sequel to another ep, fittingly given it’s #100, full grown geese has our duo tasked with removing a bunch of obnoxious geese, with Benson in dick mode refusing to give the two more help, though it does lead to one of the show’s best scenes when he gives his usual your fried threat.. and fitting a milestone episode, Rigby calls him on never going through with it and the threat being as empty as my dreams. Benson responds by going nuts and angrishing them out of his office.. really funny. But yeah with the geese attacking them and , in their first attacking, poor pops, and no way to combat them, the two turn to the baby ducks, a bunch of baby ducks from the episode titled that who show up to help.. and this being the 100th episode of an already grant morrison level nuts show, it turns out the geese seek to conquer earth, voiced by david warner of course and have laser eyes.. and can combine. And the ducks do so again, mecha style, and add in our heroes and a bunch of call backs in one of the series best and most batshit sequences> The ending is also throughly satisfying as while our heroes win, Benson chews them out for tearing up the park in the process.. only for the ducks mom to call him out for not only yelling at the ducks, who are just kids, but at mordecai and rigby after they just saved the park from being a smoldering crater and not just trashed and he backs off. Just a fun episode where the crew just went nuts and the results speak for themselves. 

6. This is My Jam (Season 2, Episode 13)

Now this one I couldn’t NOT include. This is one of the series best even after it’s immense growth, and a beloved classic for a reason. And like the above it’s a good classic case of regular show hyjinks while also being relatable this time: Rigby gets a brainless but catchy pop song from the 90′s stuck in his head and despite growing to hate it, and Mordecai hating it because this episode establishes him as a hipster, and seemingly exercises it.. only for it to manifest as a GIANT CASETTE WEARING SUNGLASSES THAT PLAYS THE SONG JUST BY EXISTING AND DANCES CONSTANTLY. it’s utterly glorious and used to great effect, also annoying benson because he’s constnatly annoyed. To beat it the main duo get the rest of the park’s help at Skips suggestion to form a band and craft an even BIGGER earworm to cast it out. Oh and there’s a great scene where Pops is forced to awkwardly dance with the incarnation of the 90′s “But I won’t use my best moves”.  The climax also has one of Benson’s best moments as, after he’s irritated all episode, he comes in hot, with both the cast and audience expecting him to chew out mordecai and rigby.. only he’s mad because they forgot drums are key to an earworm and saves the day with his drumwork. It’s a great subversion and one of the first times Benson was more than just the angry but understandable, at times, dickhead boss. Just an utter standout and one of the show’s most memorable episodes for a reason. Also the line “you can’t touch music but music can touch you’ is great. 

5. Meteor Moves ( Season 4, Episode 28)

This one was a long time coming and to me is a great example of writers taking their own shortcomings and making something awesome out of them. I prefer that: instead of just retconning away bad writing use it as a tool.. I try to do that myself when possible. See early in the show as you all probably know, Mordecai’s crush on Margret was just a plot device: he had a crush on the cute waitress at the coffee shop so they used it to get him to do things. A gratioutis shot of her in bike shorts got him to bet all computer rights for life that sort of thing. The show.. wasn’t great with female characters till season 3 and even as it grew, as season 6 and just.. forgetting to give CJ a proper ending as a character shows, still grappled with it. It took writer Kat Morris saying “no no stop go to jail” to them wanting ot make CJ a difficult woman type, whatever horrifying thing that is. I don’t want to know, let’s move on. The point is it wasn’t till season 3 that Margret and her best friends, and Rigby’s future wife, Eileen got fleshed out a bit: Eileen got smarter and turned out to be good at wilderness stuff while Margret was chill, nice, if annoyed by the chaos around mordecai, and funloving, while also having a clear goal in stark contrast to her future boyfriend: going to college. Even after coming back it was botha fter finsihing college and to start a career. It wasn’t incredibly deep, but it made me not be ehhh to her mere existance like before. The show also started developing her and Mordecai’s relationship seriously with the two bonding and the previously shown Butt Dial showing for the first time, after previously having a terrible taste in men and then just not noticing his crush, that she was receptive to how mordecai felt. And the two had several moments and two dates even, it just.. never went anywhere for some reason.

And this was INFURATING to me: See back then shows had a tendency to just pop in love intrests SOLEY for plot fuel like margret with no intention of following through with things either through rejection or a relationsihp upgrade and by then I was sick of it. The whole spike and rarity thing in MLP (which to be clear I wanted her to just reject him but nope, even after I stopped watching she never did. ), Isabella and Phineas. I was fed up so I went from being “eh” about it to annoyed supremely.. but the thing is the writers realized this.. and course corrected. The first step was picking up Margret, where Mordecai agrees to pick her up to get her to the airport for a college interview and we get a nice deconstruction of things as Margret is anticpatiing things going wrong, and wrongly blames Mordecai for it.. I mean it is his fault sometimes but half the time weird shit just follows him. However she’s won over by him working past it, getting her there in time and kisses him.  That blew me away and made me think well it’s finally here.. and it was.. ALMOST. However the creators wisely, if frustratingly to past me, took one more episode to iron it out: Metor Moves has the two growing closer, and semi-going out, but Rigby pops mordecai’s bubble pointing out he never actually made a boyfriend girlfriend move and her move could’ve gone either way. So Mordecai , after seasons of being wishy washy and awkward, finally decides to go for it as he, rigby, eileen and margret go to a metor shower.  Being Regular Show it dosen’t go as planned as his attempted kiss is blocked by the guardians of the friend zone.. which is a real, phantom zone esque place here and that’s just fantastic. And it’s also clearly mocking the hell out of the concept, which is dumb. if you want to ask someone out just do it, I learned that the hard way. And if you really are friends, if she says no then you’ll accept it and keep a friend anyway as I have. But it’s clearly parodying it and Mordecai get sreplayed all the times he ALMOST made a move but didn’t but refuses to accept this clusterfuck, realizes he was a screwup when it came to this.. and kisses her.. and this time the two enter a relationship> Granted it barely lasted but still, it was nice while it did and this ep is just great for it. While not the funniest, it’s up this high because it took somethign the show did wrong.. and turned it on it’s head and into a character flaw and had mordecai grow past it, with a genuinely romantic moment on top as well as an utterly funny and batshit concept. It also had some Rigleen, as by this point rigby stopped being a hateful wastebasket to her and warmed up to her, and I regret there’s no reigleen episodes on this list. Their the shows best couple and utterly adorable. Just wanted to mention that at least once this list. 

4. Laundry Woes (Season 5, Episode 1) From the begining to the end. While sadly Morderet didn’t last too long in canon, which blows, it did give us some great episodes while it lasted, as with the above entry and their breakup in Steak Me Amedeus. As mentioned before Margret left for college, which while abrupt feeling did pave the way for great stories: The Mordejay arc mentioned above and that will pop up again very soon, This was one of them: the ep while lacking on laughs is a good emotional rollercoaster and starts with an amazing montage that catches us up from the end of season 4: Mordecai is miserable, as you’d expect and wallowing in it with Benson, of all people, letting him. And given Benson seems to have a heart attack any time Mordecai and Rigby aren’t working, that’s huge. But eventually his friends refuse to let it go on and in a really touching montage help him through it, taking him out places, giving him good times and eventually.. the fog starts to lift and he starts to enjoy himself and by the end.. he’s himself again. It’s one of the series best sequences, told with no dialouge and showing just how far the rest of the cast had come: Benson actually wants to comfort mordecai but is encouraged not to at first, underfstandably as it probably woudlnt’ help, and a crew that were once, aside from Pops who much like Krillin is everyone’s friend, just coworkers who barely tolerated each other, and are now close as family and help their own in need.  But Grief isn’t a straight line and just as Mordecai’s recovering he’s sent spiraling when he finds Margret’s sweater and uses ita s a flimsy excuse to go return it. It’s here I also get to talk about Rigby, who grew from an impatient idiot who hated Mordecai’s romantic endevors and actively sabtoaged them at times, to an understandting wing man who, while understandably frustrated with his best friend’s own idiocy with women, turned out to know more and be the wise council he needed, triggering both is relationships and only bailing out during the season 6 clusterfuck and even then was there to comfort him after it was all over and go to his aid to pull him out of another misery hole. And here he gives Mordecai the hard truth: He shoudln’t do this, it’s just going to tear both him and margret up again and he just put himself back together. He’s not going to let his best friend do this to himself. And while there is a supernatural elment, the sweater comes to life and tries to get Mordecai to force margret back with him and give up college, likely voicing his darkest wants that he hates himself for wanting, but it feels more like a manfiestation of Mordecai’s own issues than the usual madness. Like “Trucker hall of Fame”, a rare senntence, it’s a less funny packed more grounded episode. And in the end it’s mordecai himself, after rejecting the ghost sweater and seeing his ex truly happy , that gets him to NOT talk to her and just.. let it go. IT’s a good emotional episode and SHOULD HAVE BEEN the end of their relationship... but i’ve ranted about the cheating storyarc enough here, moving right along. 

3. Portable Toilet (Season 5, Episode 16) Back to the Mordejay arc. And yes this arc is my faviorite and while I didn’t make it clear at the time I really shipped the two, even before it became canon. I had nothing against morderet, these two simply had more chemistry and these episodes built CJ up as more of a character than Margret was at the time. It’s why that later arc sucks so much to me: it destroys a perfectly good relationship and story arc for dumb reasons and never really did enough with it to justify doing so. I’ll get to it some day, or if someone comissions it soone rthan some day, but as you can tell i’m still sore over it and great eps like this are part of the reason why. It’s the same reason i’m sore on how Tom was handled on star vs. But as you can also tell as bitter and lemon scented as I am.. these eps are still objectivley great and thus took up a third of the list basically.  Case in point Portable Toilet, which zooms back a bit to when neither would admit they were into each other but were now friends at least. Also Eileen was CJ”s friend now because plot convience. I mean they worked, and it bothers me a lot that the creators claim cj washed her hands of her even though she’s not the one who made out with margret... which come to think of it adding her to rigleen.. not a bad idea. I mean Rigby didn’t really like margret true, but they did almost go out before mordecai killed him and then reset time because Mordecai’s always kinda sucked. I’ll file that away for later. But my new OTP aside, I did like the two bonding and what not.  Anyways with their outside park friend/RIgby’s future girlfriend now friends with Mordeai’s future girlfriend the four have apparently been hanging out which, while i’ve bemoaned off screen stuff at times, works here and regular show uses it better than most shows. While Rigby can clearly see Mordecai and CJ are into each other Mordecai is as we covered in denial and while that dosen’t really progress here, it does lead to one of teh shows finest hours. When talking would you rathers, CJ semi-flirtly dares Mordecai to eat his lunch sandwitch in a portable toilet, which he agrees to and drags a reluctant rigby along for. This being regular show, it goes south fast as the two get stuck, with Rigby’s clautrophiba kicking in leading to an amazing exchange Mordecai; Dude that makes no sense! Rigby: You’s makes no sense! While our dynamic duo try to get mordecai and rigby out the two are carted away and repalced with a new portable toilet, a deluxe one. Also we get another great bit when our dynamic duo find Muscle man, in a robe with choclate’s claming “Eileen, other girl, this isn’t weird” before screaming “This isn’t weird”. Turns out old portable toilets are taken to be blown up by the miltary and we get one of the shows best one off characters in the general, who not only explains it as “toilets being about the same size as the enmy” but when told he should call the president says “the preseident is not my father i’ll blow up as many toilets as I want.”. Spectacular. So now it’s a scramble for one twosome to rescue the other, Rigby lets out a cathartic “THANK YOUUU MORDECAI” over the flirty toilet dare, and the day is saved> This one is another pure comedy one, even if it ties into a plot I really like, and i’ts gold for obvious reasons and manages to take blowing up porta poties, a premise that dosen’t seem that funny, and make it utter comedic gold. Speaking of pure comic episodes that are utterly insane...

2. Cool Bikes (Season 3, Episode 7)

This one feels like regular show boiled down to it’s core: semi-relabtale hyjinks dovetalling into pure madness. And the premise sounds like a shit post i’d make: Mordecai and Rigby want benson to admit their cool and get into progressively weird outfits and tricks to their bycycles to do so, eventually becoming so cool their put on trial by the council of cool , ending up having to make a runner when Benson finally breaks down and admits it.  The premise is utterly stupid in the best way possible, with the conflict being the kind of petty bullshit we all get into from time to time with our aquantinces: not wanting to admit something and loose the argument withthings escalating. And in regular show terms it escalate sperfectly into the entire unvierse being threatned adn our heros being on trial for their lives. There’s not much to say here, it’s just pure comedic gold with a premise that just works. It also has good moments for Benson with his finally admitting they are cool and saving the duo’s lives whne he realized he just gave them a death sentence. Utter fun. And now we come to the finale, my faviorite episode...

1. Dodge This (Season 5, Episode 15) 

Yup this arc again. But this one has more than my ship going for it, and it’s why it soared to the top: It takes the excellent character work of other episodes and weaves it with excellent comedy to create an utter delight and the episode I remember most fondly and most often. It’s just great. The second part of the Mordeijay arc, not counting yes dude yes, the episode is half that and half sports movie: The Park Guys have been taking part in dodgeball as a team bulding thing and it shows how far Benson’s come as he not only praises mordecai, and launches the mordecai and benson ship in the process, but gives his team full wings and his full support, a far cry from his usual self. It’s also the first big instance of him getting hammered on wings and it’s glorious to see drunk flirty benson.  Benson is also genuinely congratulatory to the team’s ace mordecai, and most of them realy for b eing valuable and hopes to win this year.  IN their way are two things: The magical elements, aka the floating baby heads that gave skips his immortality, his friend with sparkly eyes who works for them and death himself whose a recurring character and fucking great and who were their bowling rivals too. The other is CJ is back, and Benson in another good moment actually talks mordecai through it and his nerves over it assuring him. So we get a great sports piece as our heroes work through various callbacks and even beat the magical elements iwth Rigby’s hilarious and rediculous rignado manuver, which is as dumb as it sounds and winged a guy hilaroiusly before with Benson scolding him like a toddler.  Of course it ends up with Mordecai and CJ against each other, both incredibly awkard over things as mentioned before, and both ending up in a stalmate that magical dodgeball guardians have to resolve because, let’s do this one last time. IT’S REGULAR SHOW. We do get a good moment though as the two work through their awkwardness: both thinking the other is rightfully mad: Mordecai for his two timer date with her and Margret and CJ for running out without talking to mordecai after they had a moment on new years. The both work past it, the park strikers loose,benson likely gets hammered again off screen.. it’s a good one and I have no shame in putting it at number one. It’s got heart, really great jokes, and some good charcter stuff, not to the level of other episodes on this list, but it wasn’t a full episode of that like those were and still works to move the plot forward and is still a classic. Just a fun, breezy, well done epsidoe fully rooted in the cast’s characters and getting laughs out of that.. mostly benson.  And with that this giangantic list comes to a close> I hope you enjoyed it, if you liked it follow me for more. I’ll be doing close enough coverage every week, as well as amphibia and owl house among other reviews. Until we meet again, later days. 

[chelseaheskett]

CHRISTMAS EVE, 2019 @ THE HOLT HOUSE

They were late getting the presents under the tree this year. Not for a lack of trying: Vanessa, quite adventurous, thought it would be fun and hilarious to tear off all the wrapping paper and low-hung ornaments from the Christmas tree. It was frustrating, sure, but all Chelsea could do was laugh when she found her little girl surrounded by baubles and fir and gift wrap in the living room. If she didn’t laugh about it, then she was sure to cry about it. Laughing and cleaning it up seemed easier. No use crying over spilled milk and all that. Now her and Elliot were up early morning Christmas Eve, preparing for the holiday before the sun could come up, while the rest of the house was still sound asleep. 

They were almost through wrapping and re-wrapping all the presents when they took a break. Chelsea constantly had to pee, anyway, so Elliot was the real hero. He did most of the work. “Here you go, baby.” She said, emerging from the kitchen with a freshly brewed cup of coffee for him. Empty wrapping paper rolls and jagged edges and small torn pieces of wrap covered the coffee table, so she handed it to him directly on the couch. She plopped down beside him, cradling her stomach. Twenty-seven weeks pregnant, now. Thankfully, Chelsea was starting to even out a little, mentally. Elliot was in and out of his sling, getting closer to recovery. Everything was starting to settle again. The miracle of Christmas! God, she loved Christmas. Ever since meeting Elliot, and falling in love with him then, it had become her favourite time of the year. She was so content that she didn’t even mind the early wake-up time. 

Chelsea threw her legs over Elliot’s lap. They were still warm and comfy in their pyjamas; Elliot in a long-sleeved shirt and his trademark cartoon PJ pants. These ones were white and fleece and had snowmen and reindeer and other animals printed all over them. Chelsea was in loose and matching flannel maternity PJs that she paired with pink bed socks. She flexed her toes in them, scratching the soft material against Elliot’s forearm. “You know what I want for Christmas?” Chelsea prompted, shifting to tuck herself under his arm, so she could cuddle into his chest. She paused for dramatic effect, wondering how his mind was going to wander... It did sound a little suggestive, in nature. She let him go that way for a moment, kinking an eyebrow, before finally putting her request out there in the open. “I want us to pick a name for the baby.” Chelsea raised her head, peeking up at him to gauge his reaction. “Can we do that today, please? Can we do that now?” She asked, sounding hopeful. Put on the puppy dog eyes, just in case.

They decided on a first name together by the time one of the babies (Isaac) started wailing on the monitor. Luca. They were going to call their little peanut Luca. There was something about short names, when it came to their boys: Jack, Isaac, Luca. Alex, too, in a way. Even if it was a nickname for Alexander, and even if he had nothing to do with Chelsea, it still counted. Chelsea still liked to count him, rest his soul. Their girls had long names, for some reason? Genevieve and Vanessa. It was cute, when she thought about it. She grinned, when she did. She loved her family. And that’s why Chelsea loved Christmas so much: spending so much time surrounded by her favourite people, celebrating them and showering them with gifts and love and appreciation. It was Thanksgiving turned up a notch. She just felt so happy. So happy and loved and fulfilled.

By noon, everyone was awake and dressed and running amok. Jenny was with Lucy until tomorrow morning, which kinda sucked, but Chelsea tried not to let it ruin her good mood.  Vanessa and Jack were in the kitchen with Elliot, who was cutting them up fruit for a snack. Isaac was clutching Chelsea’s cardigan on the couch, and trying to rip the holes wider in her jeans. He touched her stomach constantly, copying what he saw Elliot do all the time. Babbled to her belly, too. There was an animated Christmas movie flickering on the TV in the background, but Isaac wasn’t paying attention. He was more interested in watching Chelsea browse the internet on her laptop. She scrolled through her computer with one hand and brushed through Isaac’s hair with the other. 

“Elliot, baby, come here!” Chelsea shouted from the living room. Vanessa and Jack came running through the archway with plastic bowls. Elliot wasn’t too far behind, carrying one for Isaac. “Thanks, hon.” She said, tilting her head up to give him a kiss when he got close. “Say ‘thank you, Daddy’, baby.” Chelsea turned to Isaac to coach him. “Tank you, Daddy.” Isaac enunciated, grabbing a hold of his fruit bowl. He, too, lifted his chin to get a kiss. Chelsea lightly laughed. Yeah, this was the good life. Elliot sat down beside them on the couch and Chelsea passed over her laptop for him to see. Isaac nibbled on a piece of chopped up banana and slid off the couch to join Jack and Vanessa on the floor mat by the television set. He left his bowl behind, but Isaac never got too far away from them, anyway. Chelsea moved it to the coffee table, clean now, and bumped her shoulder against Elliot’s.

As always, Chelsea had to explain. “There’s this lady that makes these name signs, y’know, for like... newborn announcements and for room decor and... it lets you type in a name and see what they look like, with the design you want, before you buy one, so...” Her leg was bouncing, she was so excited. She pointed to the preview image on the laptop. A wooden circle, with animals printed on top, and the name Luca Elliot scripted above a hand-drawn star. They didn’t get a chance to discuss middle names earlier. Chelsea hoped he liked it. Hoped he wouldn’t push back against it, considering it was his name. Chelsea sucked in a breath. “What do you think? Do you like it? The... the sign and the name, I mean.” Chelsea asked, thumbing his wrist. “Should I buy it?”

The doorbell started chiming. Chelsea pulled a face, wondering who it was. Her Mom was in Wilmington until her flight back tonight, and they weren’t supposed to be seeing Macy and Amy and their families until dinner tomorrow. Last minute Amazon delivery? She wasn’t sure. “I’ll get it!” Chelsea announced, struggling to get off the couch with all her baby weight. She held her bump as she walked to answer the front door. 

Happiness was only momentary. The other shoe always dropped eventually. And again, again, everything came crashing down around her. Around them. They couldn’t even have one day, one damn holiday, without something bad happening, could they? Her shoulders tensed. She gritted her teeth. “What the hell are you doing here, Christian? You need to go.” Chelsea practically spat, holding onto the door, quite ready to slam it in his face. She felt sick at the sight of him. Angry. She’d punch him in the face again if she had to. 

“Chelsea, please just give me a chance—”  

“A chance? Are you dumb?” Chelsea cut him off, laughter bubbling at her lips. “It’s literally Christmas. Leave. Now.” It was either of his own accord or in a body bag, at this point! 

Christian held his ground. “Yeah, you’re right, it is Christmas.” Chelsea squinted at him, wondering what the hell he was trying to get at. “And my father is in town—”

“Good for you, asshole!” She swore, interrupting him again. Thanks for rubbing it in, Christian. Chelsea’s eyes prickled with tears, briefly thinking about her own father, and tried to close the door. Christian kept it open with the palm of his hand. Chelsea’s heart started to race. He could easily overpower her, like he’d done once before... but Elliot and her kids were in the house. Where was Elliot? She was surprised he hadn’t come to check on the door. It didn’t matter. He was better off staying out of this one, staying safe inside the living room. 

“My father, William Pearson.” Christian said forcefully. So? Sounded like a common name. Must’ve been plenty of them in California, let alone in all of America. But Chelsea wasn’t that stupid. She connected the dots pretty quickly. Refused to swallow the thought, though. Nope. She couldn’t believe that. She wasn’t going to buy into his bullshit.

“Goodbye, Christian.” Chelsea tried to close the door again, but it was no use. The fear and anxiety felt like it was choking her; labouring her breaths. 

“Elliot’s my brother.” Christian said it, anyway. Chelsea squeezed her eyes shut. She couldn’t be hearing this. Not now, not ever. “I swear I didn’t know. I just found out...”

“You’re lying.” Chelsea’s voice was rough. She opened her eyes just to glare at him, trying to will him away. Christian reached his hand out to... touch her? Comfort her? She wasn’t sure, but took her opening and slammed the door shut. Deadlocked it. Almost caught his hand in the frame. That would’ve been good, that would’ve been payback. Chelsea tried to control her breathing, hiding behind the closed door. Christian was still outside, on the porch. She could hear him.

“I have proof! I have pictures, I brought my birth certificate. I have Elliot’s, too. I have it all here.” Christian said through the door. Chelsea turned to press her back to it. Elliot was standing there, right there in the entryway. Oh God. Her knees started to buckle. Chelsea had to grip the door frame to keep herself from collapsing. Her heart rate was through the roof. 

[bluepluto03]

mcu spiderman rewrite/au i may or may not do

ok so first quick disclaimer! i do not hate the mcu spider man movies in any way!! i actually enjoy them quite a bit and have seen homecoming like 4 times! and i absolutely adore all the actors in the movies, especially tom, zendaya, and jacob 

but the problem w/ the mcu spiderman movies is,,, they’re just not spiderman. at least from a writing/thematic perspective, which sucks bc so much other stuff about them is great! like tom holland is the perfect peter parker, which is why it seems so close to being right, but with the way the script is actually written... it’s just. not spider-man. 

i feel the need to explain all this/my problems w/ the movies b4 i get into the actuall au idea/plot, so please bear with me for a sec

for context, I’ve loved spiderman my whole life. i’d watch the cartoons when i was younger, and then went back and watched them all again when i was a bit older and figured out how to pirate stuff lol. i didn’t really know how to get into the comics, so i just kinda read wikis and got second-hand info from fanfics and the other movies

to me, spiderman, (at least, peter parker spiderman,) was always about like... a kid, who saw the world was broken and fixed it because he could. he had the power to fix stuff, so he did. 

as a kid w/ mental illness and a not so great home life... that was something really really important to me. to see another kid out there, who’s been through some shit, but finally has the power to make stuff better, so he is! and it would make me think, maybe i can change stuff for the better, someday, if i just get my chance

but,,,,, the problem is mcu peter parker isn’t that. 

instead of becoming spiderman bc he knows there’s bad in the world and wants to fix it, suddenly his motivation is impressing tony stark?? and don’t get me wrong i don’t hate tony, but the way they wrote his and peter’s relationship basically trapped peter. he could no longer be his own hero, bc he was tony’s successor. and that's never who peter parker’s spiderman was?? he was never a follower, he was a trendsetter. he didn’t become spiderman for approval, hell he had dozens of newspapers constantly slandering him. 

honestly the following in someone else’s footsteps thing was always a miles morales thing. he had to step up to the plate and fill the shoes of a spiderman who had already existed for years and was beloved by the whole city. obviously thats not all he is and simplifying his character to that is incredibly obtuse, but i bring it up bc tbh alot of stuff w/ mcu peter parker is just straight-up ripped off from miles morales. like how peter now goes to a fancy private school, is no longer poor (which is a huge thing w/ peter parker’s character in like every other incarnation), has a living father figure, and is bffs w/ ned, who is a straight-up rip off of miles’s best friend ganke. (for the record tho i adore ned and jacob i’m def keeping him in my rewrite,,,, also i’m glad he’s in the movie bc having a plus sized poc protagonist thats not constantly mocked is incredible) 

so, i’m complaining about all this stuff lol but ur probably wondering how exactly how i wanna fix it lol,,,, 

first, give peter an arc thats more than just..... i want tony to believe in me. my idea for that is basically a type of thing where he learns to rely on others! bc like... peter isn’t good at working w/ others lol, he’d much rather do it all himself so no one else gets hurt. (like in the andrew garfield movies where he just,,,, webs his gf to a car so she can’t run into danger lmao) 

the plot would start at a similar ish position to homecoming, though tony never recruits peter for civil war. tbh not sure if it even happened but we’ll disscuss that later

peter’s been spiderman for a few months, after a trip to oscorp left him w/ a radioactive spider bite. currently no one knows about it, and he’s doing a pretty ok job of dealing w/ everything on his own. until he takes down a big bad, lets say rhino for now, and gains a ton of publicity. after stooping a hudge disaster he’s suddenly in the limelight, and catches the attention of one norman osborn, aka the green goblin 

now, quick sidenote. green goblin is genreally seen as pretty goofy, but there are comic versions of him that are legit terrifying. if im being honest i didn’t even know about that version until i read aloneintherains fic birds eating other birds so ig thats kinda ish how i’m imagining this version of norman? though alot more composed, like the man who could someday turn into that 

so norman becomes intrested in my boy peter, and starts sending ppl after him. possibly the sinister 6, but uhh maybe not bc tbh i think this “rewrite” needs to be split into 2 “movies”/works and i might wanna save that for the hypothetical pt2 (btw if i write this it won’t b for a while cause i got other stuff going on but ig if ppl are intrested i might write some snippits/make more content for it) 

so basically the main plot is peter dealing w/ all these big bads on his own, doing ok at first but later getting really fucked up, and eventually revealing himself to ned and mj which ends up being the only way he can save the day in the end. by relying on others! yay!! 

thats it for the main plot, but don’t worry y’all we got other stuff going on too lmao 

so, for one. my boy peter is realizing he has a crush and just,,,, freaking tf out. (i have yet to decide if it’s on ned or mj. or both. sue me) the crush isn’t definitely resolved in p1, but i imagine there’d be some cute thing of him suddenly realizing and freaking out and almost revealing his powers. 

thing 2! tony stark! he is still in here, and still a mentor to peter, but in a pretty drastically different way. one, he doesn't know about peter being spiderman. he doesn't even suspect it lmao. he just gets involved bc of.... some sort of reason bc peter is so smart. do i know why just yet? no. does it matter? probably but i’m writing this pretty late after i had school all day so i’m too tired to care 

bc tony basically gives peter a real internship/mentorship type thing, peter now has access to all this tech!! and all these funds!! fucking lit!! so he changes from his pajama suit to the fancy one, tho he actually built it!! which i feel like him making his suit is a really big really important part of his character. so it doesn't really have all those random things tony added, tho peter might add stuff himself. he gets Karan as a like assistant ai as part of his internship but she never gets put into the suit

for the fist part tony plays a super minor role but like,,,, the first part is about osborn taking an intrest in him, and him confiding in ned and mj. the second part norman is become progressively more dangorus and peter has to fight him and stuff, kinda proving he is strong enough to be spiderman/be trusted to the whole world, beyond just ned and mj. also him actually getting together w/ either one or both of them bc...... bc i want that. 

oh btw idk if tony finds out or not in p2? if he does it’s either at the end or in a scene like the one w/ may bc like. please imagine the shenanigans of peter and ned (who both have high intellegence but low wisdom) in tony’s lab, obviously trying to hide the fact that peter’s spiderman. like he walks in on them and peter looks all frumpy bc he’s been trying to change real fast, and ned’s shirt is messed up bc he just stuffed the mask down the front of it, and mj is just. chilling behing them. so tony just like assumes stuff and is like....aight.... have fun.... 

oh btw the last big change that i didn’t really have anyway to insert natrually into this,,,, so remember how i said ned was kinda a ripoff of ganke? well, the writers claim he’s a “composite character” so i figured, why not give him traits from other famous spiderman side character so he actually is a composite character! 

so like,,,, throughout p1 it’s referenced that ned has a kinda dickish estranged ish dad that he hates and his mom doesn't really like but kinda forces him too... theres some mentions of his dad wanting him to transfer to a private school and being kinda rich, bur he dosen’t want to bc he knows his dad is a total dickead,,,, anyway end of the movie we find out norman osborn is ned’s dad, and ned hates him even fucking more bc it’s like bitch?? u tried to get my (maybe) bf murdered?? tf?? and its lowkey bc he can’t reveal peter’s id, but then in p2 after norman takes matters into his own hands and tries to kill peter on his own ned just fucking yells at him while the man is in jail and is like fuck u lmao 

soooo thats my really messy au idea!! i’m really tired sorry if this is hard to understand or rude! for the record i have nothing against the ppl who adore these movie’s, i just think they could be better! 

[quiltwork]

How my traumatic childhood affected my sexuality

So I’m not entirely sure how to go about this, but I used to be gay and trans, and probably a so-called “gay Christian” if u can call it that. To be honest, my abusers were more of that title than I ever was. 

My history leading up to it was rough. When I was 11, I was sexually abused by 2 of my friends who were girls. They were 12 and 13, in middle school, while I was still in the 5th Grade. They wanted me to be quiet and hurry up, don’t tell anyone. No reason why. We slept together watching a sex toy infomercial. I never told my family out of fear I’d be rejected for being bad and disgusting, and be thrown out on the streets. These girls were popular at their school and I went to church with them whenever I spent the night with them in their town. Their friends hated me and would bully and exclude me when they came over for parties. I didn’t want to feel the grief of the sexual abuse that night so I told myself I would forget about it, and it actually happened. Amnesia set in, like it did for every other trauma.

By 12, I was emotionally neglected by my mom. She was busy with work, the house, my unstable abusive older sister, my grandpa, everything but me. I had no real friends so I stayed inside with my technology addiction. Tried grabbing mom’s attention with my interests, never worked. I would daydream that I was a lonely orphaned crying fairy under a waterfall, who was going to make friends the next day. I drew myself and tried to feel good about my developing body, that when I showed mom and my sister the picture, my sister, jealous of my body and any time I could talk to mom, shamed me for the way I drew my body. That it wasn’t good enough like hers, but she was an adult and I was a child. It culminated into another fight between her and mom, with mom almost losing a finger and running off to the hospital, leaving me with my suicidal sister attempting to take her life again. 

By 13, I was confused about my sexuality. Started liking girls and women and not knowing why. Tried telling mom about it, and she’d avoid the topic and tell me not to talk about it with anyone. An old friend who went to my birthday party developed a “crush” on me then. This friend was a Sophomore in high school, while I was a 7th Grader. She grew up in church and saw herself as a gay Christian. She knew my relationship with mom sucked, and told me, “I think I know you better than your mom does, sweetie..”. That was the beginning of her grooming. Of her dressing me up, doing my hair and makeup and taking me out. Teaching me ballroom dancing. Showing me gay pedophilic manga, how to ship same sex friendships in cartoons and anime. Pushing me to continue obsessing over an abusive gay pedophilic cartoon couple. Walking me over to the high school’s Gay-Straight Alliance Club. A Club run by a lesbian Christian woman completely cool with teaching her kids that it was alright to be sexually attracted to inanimate objects like tourist attractions, cars and probably animals. My grooming abuser basically taught me that God loved me and made me gay, so I should ignore those who are “hateful”. 

I came out by 14. There was a girl who was obviously bi curious who kept flirting with me, so I developed a love addiction for her. Did everything in my power to get her to date me, and when she eventually gave in, she started cheating on me with multiple guys. Didn’t know it was her doing it, so I fought them off, or tried to. I had to make sure she wouldn’t leave me, that no one would take her away, that her mom wouldn’t separate us or the school, or else I’d be all alone. She was hypersexual, so I did everything she wanted, even BDSM just to keep her. Even though I didn’t want to and it made me at times very uncomfortable and anxious and dissociative, I kind of liked it anyway. It was a trauma bond. It was what I was used to. 

At 15, I didn’t want to be a girl anymore and came out as a boy. I didn’t want to be doing anything sexual anymore either, so I was asexual. I very obviously was running away from my sexual abuse/grooming and the objectivity it placed on my female identity, but I thought starting my Freshman year anew was the best idea. My girlfriend began to back off after I finally told her I don’t think I can kiss and touch like this anymore, but I didn’t fully realize it. She wasn’t allowed at Homecoming, so my grooming abuser jumped at the chance to take me as her date without my consent. Only found out it was a date through the corsage via my cousin. My grooming abuser was now a Senior. I kicked off my high heels and ran away from the creepy dance floor of grinding bodies where she wanted me to be, and found my school friends and hung out with them until she found me, acting depressed and saying she was going home. My girlfriend avoided me to cheat in the bathrooms, even on my 16th birthday, so I broke up with her. 

2 other things: Our GSA Club went downtown for a vigil for dead gay kids, and my grooming abuser used it as an opportunity to dance with me at the square in front of everyone. She also got me to tell my “transgender testimony” to her class to try to brainwash them too, and it actually worked and I deeply regret it. I was her trophy she worked hard to win and would show me off and use me to further her agenda. 

At first I spend my 16th year depressed and subconsciously searching for a rebound. That rebound left me when I told her I was asexual, too. Then, I went crazy. Was I not good enough because I couldn’t make out and have sex? I tried a one night stand to prove my worth with a curious friend who decided at the last minute she couldn’t go through with it and left me there on the bed. I went home hating myself for being broken and not knowing why (amnesia), that I should give up on girls because I can’t make them happy. I became bitter at a world that only loved you for what you could give to it. I went into Fight mode, angry yelling and protesting at whoever and wherever I was. I dated a sweet boy who didn’t last long due to life’s circumstances so he had to move for his dying brother, dated an older guy who would avoid me or sleep on our couch. At this point, I saw myself as genderqueer and panromantic. 

On my 17th birthday, my grooming abuser came over unannounced. I wasn’t planning anything and frankly, didn’t want to be bothered. She would not stop pulling and tugging at me to go out with her, I kept saying no, and we went on this way for hours. Until at last she tried to guilt trip me, saying, “I just wanted to make you happy...” and left. I ran away from my abusive school to a career high school for my last 2 years, with a lab full of girls and one boy. I thought it was the best new experience I could try having the best friends I always wanted. They sort of liked me, until I let one of them know about my past. Then they immediately began to exclude and bully me in the halls. I stood up for myself, and they hated me and started glaring at me. After graduation when I turned 19, they started cyberbullying me for a year afterward. I became agoraphobic and lived in psychosis delusions that they were watching my every move and knew where I lived and would find me eventually. 

Within that first year out of school, God was calling me to Him. I’d always loved Him since before I could remember, so I went with the feeling. He called me to check into His Word about if being gay was actually alright, and I found out it wasn’t, and it shocked me. I couldn’t reconcile what I read with what I was taught, so I wrestled with it. Why was it bad, why why why? He didn’t give me the answers at first, he let me wrestle for a time.

On my 20th birthday, I drew gay shipping fanart, and that was the day the Holy Spirit held heavy on my heart that what I was doing was wrong. I felt oddly bad for what I did, so I went to Him with an idea: If He truly felt like it was a sin, then I asked Him to change me and I’d avoid all appearance of it for a while until then. If it wasn’t bad, I figured it wouldn’t go away. He would let it be because it wasn’t a problem, and I’d be okay with it. So I repented for 3 months, came back to check, and the feelings were gone. I saw beautiful women as creations of God, as my sisters. I saw those same sex friendships in cartoons and anime as just that, friendships. I was amazed, and eventually told God to reveal anything else I had been blind to, completely grateful for what He had done.

And He started to lift off all of my amnesia, leading me towards trauma and addiction recovery with Him 💕 So, if you haven’t heard it yet, that’s my story 😊

[sandersbayhq]

[Dylan Evans] ✖ [38] ✖ [bisexual] ✖ [the fun-loving guy]

DOB: September 21 Occupation: art teacher at sander’s bay middle school Face claim: Chris Evans pronouns: he/his

Dylan came as a surprise to his parents as they were still in high school when Leslie found out she was pregnant. They named him after Bob Dylan, a favorite musician of theirs. His parents did not get married until Dylan was five. This was due to Leslie (Dwight Evans’ sister) uncertainty with whether or not Derek could commit to she and their son. Her hunch was correct as they divorced when Dylan was sixteen. He left them for another family he had on the side.

Things weren’t always fantastic when it came to his family life but Dylan made the most with what they had. He’d tune out his parents’ arguments with his headphones. He’d listen to the local Nashville classic rock stations and draw.

His drawings served as an escape and consisted of different things. There was still life, cartoon characters from his favorite show, even recreations of DC and Marvel characters from his favorite comics. As he got older his confidence in his work grew and he’d create his own characters and scenes, but he favored scenery the most. He ventured into studying famous painters such as Munch, Pollock, Van Gogh, Monet, etc.

Things didn’t get better with his parents’ marriage and Dylan would spend time away from home with friends. They’d do usual things like ride their bike around the neighborhood, buy candy at the convenience store, hang at their houses. When he was about thirteen he had his first beer. By fourteen he tried pot.

He found smoking helped with the anxiety which came from watching his parents’ marriage fall apart before his very eyes. That mixed with music and his drawings he became such a quiet kid when he was at home. However, when out with friends and others he was all about having fun and getting the most out of life. Even by the time he was fifteen he landed his first job delivering newspapers and eventually working at the local dollar theater.

It came as no surprise when his parents split, Dylan glad it finally happened. He spent that year helping his mom get her life in order. He’d work various jobs and this took its toll on his social life and grades.

Besides music and his drawings/paintings, Dylan loves to watch movies. His taste varies from classics to current blockbusters.

After high school he spent a couple years traveling the US in his old jeep. He met many people and got to experience all kinds of things. He’d crash at people’s houses, some he met that day, or would stay in a hotel.

When he returned home to Nashville he put himself through college, which is where he met Hannah. Unlike the other people he dated Hannah really caught his eye. She was beautiful, intelligent, and creative. They shared a couple art classes together.

They were friends for a few years, hanging out with the same people and going to the same places. When they were 25 they started to date. A  year and a half later Hannah told Dylan she was pregnant and he proposed on the spot. They married shortly after.

When Ava was four, the small family decided to go for a birthday dinner, as it was Hannah’s birthday. On their way home they were in a horrific car accident. It was a miracle Ava and Dylan survived but Hannah perished on the scene.

Dylan and Ava moved in with his mom while he underwent physical therapy for his knee and back. He started to smoke pot again to help with the pain. This was done in secret as he doesn’t want this mom to know. When he was well enough to work he found employment as a substitute art teacher, who doubled as a theater teacher as well when needed.

They lived with his mom for a few years, up until Ava was ten. By this time Dylan saved enough money to afford a house of their own. Around this time his mom’s current boyfriend moved in and as great as it was to have Ava close to her grandmother, being thirty and living at home was really cramping Dylan’s dating life.

During his house search he checked out different cities, besides Nashville, and noticed the housing market and cost of living in Sander’s Bay wasn’t half bad. His cousins lived there which was a plus because he’d be close to family.

Prior to buying a house Dylan applied for a job as the art teacher at Sander’s Bay Middle School. When he flew in for the interview he was surprised to be offered the position a mere few hours later. Ava and Dylan made the move at the start of May and are still in the unpacking process. During the summer he’ll help with summer school and help organize art programs for summer camp.

[dnawield--a]

003. PARENTAL SKILLS

I’ve discussed on other platforms like D/iscord and my own tag ramblings, but I’ve got a mix of the original B/en 10,000 episode, the original AU episode of K/en 10, as well as O/mniverse’s end game for Ben, with my own personal touches on it.

For starters, and to make this clear: my Ben is a trans man, and Kai is a trans woman. This is only in my canon, but this is how my Ben’s future goes. He and Kai meet up during his decade long isolation after he kills V/ilgax when he’s 20 (about to be 21). They find each other again after Ben has finished taking care of a bad guy, and it’s just pure luck that he even bothers talking to her.

I’d also like to preface: these two are a bad match. Ben’s an asshole to her in a lot of aspects, and doesn’t do much in the aspect of comforting. Yeah, he’s not good at comforting people in general, but he’s constantly making comments about how they’re supposed to be together in the future DESPITE Kai’s obvious discomfort with that.

Kai doesn’t fucking like Ben as Ben; she thinks his aliens are cool, and has an affinity for one of his aliens: Wo/lfblitzer. She’s rude back to him, and at times, just rude for the sake of being rude even after he’s helped her with something. They’re just NOT a good match at all. Kai’s a bit more of a dick, but I hate the people who just outright say Kai is the ONLY shitty one in their forced shitty romance in OV. It’s bad for both, they’re both really toxic to each other, and while they had their moments where they were KINDA cute, it was brief. It’s very reminiscent of the shitty 90s romance; y’know when they’re both pricks to each other but apparently that’s charming and not an obvious red flag that these relationships tend to end in bad break ups, divorces, or separation, but WHATEVER. Glamorize a shitty time period of shitty romance in a 2010s cartoon I GUESS.

But back to shitty parenting:

So yeah, that’s the night that Gwendolyn and Kenny are conceived. Ben hasn’t been doing HRT because he just can’t keep track of how long it’s been, and at this point, he’s already had top surgery. He’s always in alien mode so he doesn’t notice when he’s on his period, but he DOES start to notice that his aliens are not as efficient, and eventually he’s putting two and two together.

He waits out having to go back to his home about 7 months in. He’s in constant alien mode, switching to ones that are holding out better during pregnancy until he’s just unable to do anything about it and his aliens’ forms are suffering from it. He would’ve gotten an abortion, but two reason why he didn’t were: he KNOWS he’s supposed to have kids, he just didn’t think it’d be HIM having them, so he’s just going “I hate! This!” and also because he doesn’t trust anyone to do an abortion, and he doubts Azmuth would do that for him. So when he does go back and calls up Kai about it, she actually decides to come back and they DO make plans on how to work with this.

Low and behold, the twins are born when Ben is at the crisp age of 26, and while Ben’s kinda quiet, everyone puts it down that this is stressful ‘cause childbirth is just stressful in general, AND this has to be fucking with him and causing serious dysphoria, so most just leave him alone for the time being. Kai and him do talk about what to name the kids ‘cause they really didn’t think, and Ben just says to name them after his cousins. There’s a subconscious ‘yeah my cousins mean a lot to me’ but ALSO because he just didn’t have any ideas ‘cause he was already thinking about when he was leaving.

Kai was alright with that, though she did say she was gonna do middle names, so Kenny’s middle name is Tsela ( which means resembling a star / stars lying own ) and Gwendolyn’s middle name is Ooljee ( which means moon ). Ben thought they were fine, though in two weeks, it didn’t matter what his opinion was because the doctors came to check in on him to find his bed empty.

He was only in the hospital for so long because they noticed a lot of untreated issues with his health, and the twins’ birth was extremely premature ( his mom’s side of the family tend to have issues with their kids being born too fucking early ), and with the lack of nutrients Ben had his his body plus still super heroing for a majority of the pregnancy, the kids were also in intensive care ‘cause by all means, it’s a miracle those kids aren’t dead.

Everyone tries to get a hold of him, but as per normal, he’s not easy to get a track on. They do find news of where he is via online news outlets. Kai is rightfully pissed, but she does her damn best for the first four to five years, she’s raising them practically alone. Ben doesn’t call on their birthdays. He doesn’t even call to check up on her. For the first two years, she does find money mysteriously in her bank accounts from an “unknown” source, but she knows that’s Ben’s pretty shitty way of supporting his kids. After the third year, and not wanting him to have any say in what he gets from this, she sends a message that goes unanswered directly about wanting him to fuck off. If he’s not gonna be there, she doesn’t want to see money from him.

He does that and stops sending money. She’s still mad about that because wow, not even gonna TRY to maybe argue about it? But she raises them on her own, with her own money. They don’t live nearly as luxuriously as they should be given their father is Ben 10,000, but they get by. Gwendolyn is fine with that as she holds the most resentment about her father not being in her life, but Kenny constantly tries to get into communication with his dad. His mom finds him trying to go out on his own to find his dad because of a lead, and Ben 10,000 doesn’t make any communication until AFTER the original Ben 10,000 episode of the OS happens.

It’s a slow progress, and still takes a good three months ( he is like 31 at this point ), but he gives Kai a call. Naturally, she hangs up the second he says its him. He ends up finally just going to her home, and they have a fight. More so, Kai is rightfully telling him he has a lot of nerve coming back after leaving her to care for them by herself. She mentions the money was a bull shit way to be a father.

And he takes it at face value. He does beg her to let him TRY, but she’s not having it. Ben does bring up some lawyers, and while Kai is pissed about the entire situation, she is happy that in the end, she gets to keep custody, BUT if they kids WANT to see their father, they have every right too. Gwendolyn pretty much only calls Ben by his name, and refuses to call her dad. Definitely hurts Ben, but he gets it.

Kenny, on the other hand, is obsessed with visiting his dad, and for a while, he has a rough patch with his mom because his dad is finally back, and he doesn’t understand WHY she gets so angry he wants to get to know his dad? His dad is the hero of heroes! His dad is a good guy! He fights evil doers and stops them from causing bad things to happen in the world! If anything, SHE should stop being so mad about it. Kai genuinely gets hurt hearing this, and Gwendolyn and Kenny do have a rocky relationship because of their very different views on their father.

Eventually, for their 10th birthday, Kai allows Ben to visit for their party, and promises NOT to give him the stink eye the entire time ( just some of the time ). Ben tends to get along more with Kenny, and sort of avoids Gwendolyn because he just doesn’t know how to make it up to her.

None of his relationships with his kids really get better until his kids are nearing their 20s and they can all actually talk to each other like adults. Gwendolyn definitely calls him out on everything, and even gets pissed if in that verse he has kids with another partner and probably cries about why THEY weren’t good enough. Kenny tells his dad it’s pretty fucked up he’s idolized his dad and that his dad didn’t deserve any of his idolization.

They eventually get onto good terms, but regardless, the three of them know that Kai will be their favorite parent, and that they just don’t see him as their dad. He’s fine with that in the sense of he knows they have every right to feel like that. At the very least, they get along, and they DO eventually just all hang out. Ben and Kai sometimes talk with each other, but usually it’s been Kai telling him he should’ve gotten help. Maybe then he wouldn’t have fucked up so much as a father. He agrees, but he just tells her every time it’s too late to get mad about that again. She can stay mad. He knows his first shot at being a dad was awful, and he’s just grateful that she got used to him seeing the kids once in a while when he finally came to.

Even if he ever has kids with a partner that isn’t Kai, he’s sort of detached to his kids. Not to the degree of abandoning them, but he’s definitely the parent that the kid thinks hates them until they have their sitcom, “No I love you. I just don’t know how to be a good parent. I want to be, but I don’t know how” moment.

[ghost1643]

Seven deadly gems part 4-Gowther

A few weeks after Veronica goes on her date, she wakes up and walks down the hall. She's half asleep. As are her sisters as they wish their father a good day as he had to go to work. After he leaves Veronica takes a sip out of her coff, glanced at the calander and just spit out the coffee in a panic. It was their father's birthday and they completely forgot.

So the girls in a panic go out to town to get heir dad some stuff. Yet, they don't know what to buy him. This ends up in hours of looking for the perfect gift. Except some how, they forgot about a tiny itty bitty thing. Just that they wrote a note telling the gems they would be home by lunch for when their dad gets home. So when they don't show up the gems figure their father cancelled their plans for lunch.

The gems are laughing upstairs watching tv and having jsut so much fun when the door opens. Meliodas just cheers a hi Elizabeth not turning around. Instead the girl's father asks who the hell they were and why they were sitting in on his couch.

Everyone freaks out mentally for a son's. For Diane it's to much with the pressure of everything else being put on her. So she begins to lose focus and shape back into her original shape which is a 30ft tall off coloured gem. When she starts to touch the ceiling, Ban poofs her just to keep her from breaking down the house. Yet, king starts arguing with him about proofing her. Meliodas meanwhile is just looking at the confused male wondering how he's going to explain this.

Meliodas sends his friends outside before explaining everything to Elizabeth's dad. He leaves out no details that are important, well the ones everyone else knows. He expects to find a new home for his friends. Instead Elizabeth's dad just gives a tired sigh before giving a tired laugh and sitting down. He just looks up tired and just explains he knew they were living there since the first two days they lived here, he just was waiting for someone to tell him. Meliodas is shocked at first and just asks why he would be okay with all of this. Again the o,dee human sighs and just says, "Elizabeth needs to be with someone from her own kind."

He then explains that back in the 80's, when he was a teen, he snuck off to this town with his friends to go see a concert. Whilst watching the whole thing he meet these weird looking people but, one caught his eye. She had the same silver hair as Elizabeth does today, had bright blue skin, had a blue gem stone that looked like it was in her skin, and she moved her bangs letting him see she only had one eye. He was so intrigued that he talked with her. This cycle continued everytime he snuck off with one of his buddies for a road trip.

The gem was a star sapphire who lived in a temple with a few other gems called the crystal gems. She fought in a war thousands of years ago and now lived on earth, with a few friends she fought with. Eventually he met these friends, each a different gem stone..or two. They all got to know each other. Eventually the star sapphire, whom he called Lunar, introduced him to his wife while she went out with one of his friends. Eventually, he got married and he stopped going as often. His friend moved up there though, he made sure to call every night. Then next thing he knew, he had two girls, his wife has just be diagnosed ovary cancer and given weeks to live, their dog died, and Lunar showed up on his doorstep one night in tears.

The crystal gems had been attacked and captured by a strange look male. Lunar's husband had also been killed. To top it all off, somehow she was having a baby, she had no idea how. All she knew was that she would die having the baby, leaving it all on it's own. At that moment her remembered speaking his mind and saying he would take on the baby, not really sure of what would happen next. His wife loved the idea, agreeing to help for as long as she could. They even gave Lunar a place to stay but, in the same house as a overly curious 2 year old and a grumpy 1 year old. Despite this, Lunar loved loving there for as long as she could.

Sure enough Lunar died having her daughter. The only way they knew she was dead was a bright light they saw coming from their shed and her screams. His wife got in the shed just as their friend died but, in her place laid Elizabeth as a baby, with two eyes. Two mismatch looking eyes. One bright blue like her mom's and the other yellow like her father's. Yet, her gem stone remains on her forehead, hidden by hair she grows out to cover both her hello eye and gem. After she was born, his wife found a reason to hang on for much longer. His wife was given 13 weeks to live, she lived for another 3 years before dying. During those 3 years, his wife gave their girls 3 years of pure happiness and fun. He tried to as well. Later down the line, when the Elizabeth was 12, they started to run out of money, since they used up all the money their mom left them, so he took more work hours. Since then, well he's tried to be there as much as he can.

So he's fine with them there, just so his girls can be happy again...just as long as their house stays intact. After all Elizabeth needs to know about her biological mother evetunally. He does plan to tell her on her 17th birthday this year. Yet, its better she finds out everything about her mother's species from other the same species as her mother. Then if she wants to cut him off, she can. Just as long as she's happy with herself and who she truely is, he doesn't care.

Lunch ends with the sins sitting down and talking with the older male, just getting some questions answered that they're to nervous to ask the girls. Like why there's bugs outside, cause Diane knows she should know it. It's just she doesn't, and she doesn't want to embarrass herself anymore than what she has already. King is also curious about what work is really. Cause he knows Margret is taking two years off to work and t money before going to her first choice university. But, to be honest he has no idea what it truely is on this planet. Ban just wants to know what movie ratings means...Veronica mentioned them once but, he had no idea what the hell they mean. As for Meliodas, he's asks about the human life span. Thankfully they get their answers without getting laughed at..that much.

Anyways the rest of the day involves the gems cleaning up the house, plus decorating it a bit for when the girls get home. They use balloons that were in a cupboard as longs as these weird paper things called streamers. They also cooked...okay Ban cooked, everyone else just tried to. Anyways Ban ended up cooking a whole dinner plus a cake by 6pm when the girls got back with the gifts they ended up deciding on, plus a few new tires on the car which ended up helping them get off the side of the road. They just sit down looking tired when their dad gets back. All three girls panic only to walk into the kitchen, see everything, then just kinda stand their in shock as their dad walks in. They play it off cool and just act like this was all planned. Meanwhile the gems are in basement wtachinga movie, enjoying everything on earth so far. The day ends with the girls watching a bunch of cartoons in the basement with their alien friends.

Time passes and the other following things happen that are I think are pretty fun.

Diane finds out what a bug is by somehow finding a bee and deciding to poke it while it was laying on the ground. Long story short she poofed once it stung her. She has been scared of human bugs ever since even though the girls assured her not all bugs were that bad.

Meliodas tried cooking all on his own. The food looked amazing but, well it tasted worse than what you would imagine. So the girls tried to help him learn to cook, he never improved.

King discovers body pillows. He claims one in the basement and never lets it go. He will literally carry it around the house when he feels like it just so he can take a nap.

Ban tries alcohol after the girl's father brings so home and hates how it tastes. So he gets drunk for an entire afternoon. This leads to the girls trying to hide a drunk man around their house all day.

Veronica goes on a few more dates. Nothing monumental but, it leads to her describing what a date is to the gems. Of course they decide to try this date stuff out and take each other out on a date to the bakery Margret works in downtown. It's rather funny to watch since they're obviously trying but, still have no idea what a date is, just what you do on it. Minus the kissing of course. Yet, once Gilthunder tells them that some dates involve that, Meliodas actually ask Ban what that is since he hasn't known any thee gems that would have kissed before. The whole thing is just entertaining to watch.

King finds out about what fusion is from Diane. He makes it his personal mission to be the first person to fuse with her.he tries to learn how to dance which kinda works...like he knows how to spin now. He just kinda doesn't know anything else.

The gems join in on the girl's game night. This ends up with Meliodas storming off, Diane being grumpy in a corner, king napping, Veronica yelling swears at Margret, Margert yelling loudly at her sister, Ban yelling at them both to shut up, Gilthunder sitting in the corner awkwardly and Elizabeth racing after Meliodas to try and calm him down. While they're arguing Gil slowly slides away the game of monopoly. Then he begs to play another game. Yet, pictornary ends up the same, jsut with different people screaming. Uno ends with King trying to beat the crap out of Ban for cheating. Candyland ends with glares at Diane who somehow won even though she doesn't know how to play. Go fish ends up with Elizabeth jooking around about how much she won. Finally they all find they can play the game of life together without it all exploding. The whole thing was just so tiring that Gil just fell asleep while everyone was getting along.

The girls try to show the gems what books are like. This ends up with King liking short stories, Ban liking a book he keeps hiding but, is a romance novel their grandmother used to own..or st least they're sure it is, Meliodas loved reading fanstay books and Diane reading very gore horror stories as well as manga. The manga makes sense but,the gore horror she seems to love a lot more for some unknown reason.

The girls try to show the gems horror movies. Ban kinda likes them. King hates them and hides behind which gem is closest to him, which is always Diane. Diane absolutely loves them. Meliodas on the other hand, he says he liked them but, he hid the entire time into Elizabeth side, covering his ears everytime there was a loud scream. It was like he was remembering something but, he never brought it up. So she never really talked about it.

The gems discover video games. Meliodas is pretty good at them, king is surpsingly good at them, ban...At least he's trying and Diane is kinda good at them.

Meliodas and Elizabeth fuse a lot more in Privatein the words by themselves. The only one who knows is Ban who takes it upon himself to learn more about the fusion.

Big moment:

A new girl's moves in down the street. She's Elizabeth's age but, she's rather sickly. Like she's lost a lot of weight and hair so the girls know it's something serious. Yet, Elizabeth some how befriends her. Which is a big deal. After all this is the first girl she's ever befriended that her sisters don't know. The gems however aren't sure how to feel about her. Since she moved it they need to stay inside more. King loves it, everyone else doesn't like it as much.

Anyways this all comes down to Elizabeth coming over to the girl's house. The girl panics and close the door, yelling at someone before bringing Elizabeth inside. They hangout for a while before Elizabeth does to the bathroom. Once she's done, the power goes out, which she finds odd. She starts feeling around for a light switch and instead has her hand rested against something. The light come back on showing a slightly purple gem.

"Who might you be?" He asks curiously, eyes glowing making Elizabeth scream so loud that the gems can hear her across the street.

Meliodas so break into the house and rushes to Elizabeth. He however soon comes face to face with another gem. He meets Gunther, one of their old friend. Nadja meanwhile is trying to calm Elizabeth down while her partner just stands there looking confused, wondering what the hell is going on much like she is.

[sammysdewysensitiveeyes]

@thecorteztwins

So, I wound up writing another piece of that “Fabian and Maximus kidnap Luna” scenario, this time from Luna’s perspective.  This is kind of turning into a fan-fic, but feel free to tell me to stop, or tell me to do specific things in the story, since I am using your ideas here.  If I manage to keep this up, I think the next scene will be Fabian’s perspective at the mall, pretending to be Luna’s two dads. 

(Also, I’m pretty sure that Fabian didn’t actually kidnap Luna to “teach Quicksilver a lesson,” but I figure that’s how he’d explain it to her.  Maximus and Fabian are both entirely full of bullshit most of the time.)

           Luna was used to being alone.  Inhuman parents didn’t hover over their children constantly the way human parents seemed to, and royal Inhuman parents even less so.  Her mother was constantly away on some kind of official business, like long, boring meetings or fancy dinners, or dealing with yet another crisis that threatened to destroy the entire city.  Other children took lessons together, but as a princess, Luna was given private tutors.  She’d outgrown nannies, so she was usually on her own when lessons were over. At least when Ahura was around they could play together, when he wasn’t moody and moping.  

           Being alone at the Avengers compound was nothing new, either.  Her father had dashed away to deal with the Wrecking Crew destroying buildings in downtown New York.  At least they were living up to their names.  According to her father, they usually stole things and robbed banks, which seemed weird, since they didn’t call themselves the Bank Robbing Crew.  Luna knew she shouldn’t mind, it was her father’s job to fight bad guys and save people, but he’d promised her that they’d go out for ice cream that afternoon.  And there were so many Avengers, did he really have to go?  He could fight bad guys any time, but Luna would only be staying with him another month before heading back to Attilan (assuming her mother didn’t forget because the Kree attacked or Attilan fell into a time portal or whatever).  

           So Luna was sitting on the couch watching Steven Universe, and feeling very sorry for herself, because this was supposed to be Luna and Dad time, and she was alone again.  The cartoon cheered her up a little bit.  The show was about magic sentient space gems, which was a really neat idea, and they had cool designs, and sometimes there were songs.  But mostly, Luna could totally relate to the main character being a half-human, half-alien hybrid, struggling to fit into either world.

           Absorbed in the show, Luna didn’t look up when the door opened.  Two of the gems had fused into some kind of giant woman, and were fighting weird bird monsters.  It wasn’t until someone picked up the remote and switched the TV off that Luna looked up.

           One man she didn’t recognize.  He was kind of handsome, except for the haughty expression on his face.  He was wearing coveralls and a hat, but she could see wisps of red hair peeking out around his face, and a long ponytail down his back.  His emotions were much uglier.  Luna could see golden pride running through his psyche, polished to an arrogant gaudiness.  The too-bright gold color was twined with sharp neon green malice, a rich, luxurious royal purple of greed, and tightly coiled spirals of orange anxiety.  This wasn’t a good sign.  

           The other man was Uncle Maximus, which was an even worse sign.  He was wearing the same coveralls and cap, reminding Luna of the work clothing that he often wore in the Chamber of Devices.  The anxiety inside him was tinted white, closer to excitement, lying in tangled knots across the same garish pride Luna saw in the other man.  Uncle Max’s emotions were far less orderly, though. His psyche was a polychrome nightmare, constantly shifting like a stained glass window come to life, colors clashing as they shot jagged spikes across his torso.   The only constant was the black.  It wasn’t like the cool pools of blue-black calm inside Uncle Black Bolt, it was a writhing darkness that reached out to stain any color that came into contact with it.   It twisted through her uncle’s body, coiling into his brain, wrapped around his heart. Or maybe it was coming out of his heart? It was hard to tell.  

           “Oh, hi Uncle Max!”  Luna said, not quite sure yet whether she should be worried. Somewhere in the rainbow mess, she could see a faint pink of affection.  “Are you bad again?”

           “I’m never bad, dear child,” Maximus cooed, in a tone more oily than honeyed.  “Others label me so because they don’t have the mental capacity to understand my actions.”

           “Oh.  That sounds like you’re bad again.”      

Luna was never really clear on whether she should be afraid of her uncle.  She had first heard of Maximus as a kind of boogeyman, someone that her tutors spoke of in fearful whispers.  He’d seemed to fit that description when Medusa dragged her down to his dark cell, a soft-spoken monster hiding behind a smiling mask.  Despite his kind behavior (he even explained things to her like she was a grown-up!), talking with him felt a little like cuddling up to a tiger. He seemed to change every time Luna saw him – one day cold and sly, the next day practically jumping up and down with excitement while explaining one of his machines.  He certainly didn’t remain soft-spoken, he got very shouty when his emotions boiled over inside him in an eruption of colors.

Even the adults couldn’t seem to decide how to treat him – he was locked away in a dark dungeon forever, he was ruling Attilan, he was the family’s trusted scientific expert, he was trying to kill everyone, he was building machines for Black Bolt, he was a prince to be respected, he was a reviled lunatic.  No one trusted him, but Crystal had left Luna in his care when she and the rest of the family went to rescue Uncle Black Bolt and Ahura from the Skrulls.  (He hadn’t hurt her then, only talked to her for hours in a way that sounded very much like he was talking to himself.) Was Uncle Maximus good or bad or brilliant or crazy or all of those things?  He certainly wasn’t the nightmare under the bed any more.  Lately, Luna had started to think of him as a badly-behaved child, hiding behind a grown-up mask.

           “What does ‘bad’ even mean, really?”  Maximus asked, taking her by the arm.  “A word to keep people in their place.  It’s a word for the peasants, Luna, not for us. Royalty is beyond good and bad.”

           “I really don’t think that’s true Uncle Max,” Luna said, letting herself be pulled up away from the TV.  She’d seen this episode, anyway.

           “You’ve obviously been spending too much time with these humans, you’re starting to absorb their mindset.  You need to be back with your own people.”

           “Is that where you’re taking me?  Back to Mom and Aunt Medusa?”  Maximus grinned broadly at her.

           “Yes, child, exactly!”  Bright flashes of sickly pale blue inside him screamed insincerity.

           “Really?”

           “Well, we’ll go back to Attilan eventually, but first you can spend some fun time with your Uncle Max and my….associate here. I’ll teach you all sorts of interesting things.  Your education has been far too neglected.”

           “I don’t wanna learn.”  Luna wrinkled her nose as she paused, not letting herself be pulled any further.  Maximus paused with her, apparently unwilling to yank her along.  “I’m supposed to be on vacation from school.  Can’t we do something fun?”

           “Yes, poppet, we’ll do all sorts of fun things,” Maximus promised, and the blue blended with a forest green that suggested he was at least partially telling the truth.

           “For God’s sake, Maximus, just grab the kid,” interrupted the man with the ponytail, annoyance flashing a jagged red.  “We need to get out of here before anyone else walks in.”

           “Watch your tongue, Cortez!” Maximus snapped. “Luna is a princess of Attilan and she will be treated with respect.  Even if she’s part mutant, poor thing.”  He patted Luna on the head at that last comment.  Luna was used to this kind of talk.  Most citizens of Attilan approached her half-breed status with something between barely disguised contempt, or, at best, horrified fascination and pity.  She didn’t see why it was such a bad thing.  Her father had powers just like Inhumans, better powers than most of them!

           “That’s her better half, anyway,” the man grumbled. “Mutants will inherit this world.” Uncle Max waved his hand dismissively.

           “Can I say good-bye to Mr. Jarvis before we go? And I should leave a note for my Dad -” Maximus’ grip on her arm tightened. Luna was suddenly completely certain that she was being kidnapped.  It was hardly the first time.

           “Let’s not bother Mr. Jarvis right now, he’s very busy,” Maximus said quickly.  “Don’t worry, we’ve already told Quicksilver that we’re coming to pick you up.” Luna’s father would never in a million years agree for Maximus to take Luna back to Attilan.  He was the only grown-up who’d always been consistent in his opinion of Uncle Max – namely that they should lock him up and throw away the key.

           “Wait, let me get my clothes!  And my toothbrush!  I can’t go without my toothbrush, can I?”  If Uncle Max let her go to her room, Luna could leave a note for her father.  Or even make a run for it.  Maybe she could hide in one of the many spare rooms until the Avengers came back.

           “You don’t need all that, poppet.  We’ll buy you some new clothes.  We’ll have a shopping spree, won’t that be nice?”  Now Maximus was pulling her towards the door again, so that Luna had to stumble along to keep up.  Luna made a frustrated sound, not quite a growl or scream, just a long “Rrgggghhhh….”

           “Quiet!”  ordered the pony-tailed man.

           “Uncle Max, if you’re gonna kidnap me, can’t I at least take my clothes along?  And my DS? It gets really boring being kidnapped!”

           “What does ‘kidnap’ even mean, really?  Just another silly word,” Maximus said cheerfully. Luna rolled her eyes and thought about screaming at the top of her lungs.  That would at least bring Mr. Jarvis from the kitchen.  But Mr. Jarvis didn’t have any powers, and he’d try to stop them.  Luna was fairly sure that Uncle Maximus would not hurt her.  But he would probably hurt Mr. Jarvis.  Screaming was out.    

           “It means you’re taking me someplace I don’t wanna go!” Luna snapped, as they went through the main doors towards the stairs.

           “But you do want to go with us,” Maximus insisted.  “We’re family.  Family members can’t kidnap each other, right?  We’re going to buy you some lovely new things, and have a really fun time together!”

            “That’s right!” agreed the pony-tailed man, smiling as if it hurt him to do so. “We’re great fun!”

           Luna fumed quietly as they went down the stairs. She didn’t think she could use her powers on both of them at once.  It was really hard to use her powers on Uncle Max, anyway, like trying to run underwater. If she tried he would fight, and then the other man, “Cortez,” would probably do something nasty to her.  It would be easier to take over Cortez, but then Uncle Max would use his own powers to stop him.  She wished desperately for her mother to appear and light both men on fire (not like, completely on fire, just enough to hurt them a little.  Maybe just their toes.)  She wanted her father to zip up the stairs and whisk her away, safe in his arms.  But neither of them did, because they were busy.

           They were always busy.  For a moment Luna hated her entire stupid family.  This wouldn’t be happening if either of her parents had been there, like parents were supposed to be.  Maybe they’d finally learn their lesson when her father came back and found her gone.  She smiled a little to herself, imagining her father dropping to his knees and weeping.

           “Oh Luna, how could I have left you all alone? We should have gone out for ice cream like you wanted!”  He would wail.  “How could I have ever considered anything more important than my precious daughter?” Crystal would join him, and they would cry into each other’s arms.  “Our daughter is gone forever because we were such bad parents!  By Randac, I swear if Luna comes back safe I’ll never make her do boring algebra worksheets ever again!”

           Luna was so caught up in fantasy that she barely noticed as they exited the building and climbed into a van.  She realized as the doors shut that she should have gotten a look at the license plate, but it probably didn’t matter.  If this was a kidnapping (and it totally was!), Uncle Max would announce himself to the family soon enough and make a big showy spectacle out of it.  He was “extra,” a human word that Luna had learned from She-Hulk.  And maybe it wouldn’t hurt that her parents would worry about her for a little while – maybe they should.

           Maximus was strapping her into the backseat while Cortez got into the driver’s seat.

           “Where did you get this Uncle Max?  You didn’t do something bad to someone, did?”  

           “Nooooo, of course not,” Maximus tried to assure her as he settled into the front passenger seat.  “A nice man gave it to me.”

           “Oh.”  Luna mentally supplied quotes to the word “gave,” just hoping that her uncle hadn’t hurt the man.  “Are you Uncle Max’s friend?”  She asked Cortez, who was driving them towards the gate.

           “We are…associates.  Partners, you could say,” Cortez said, glancing back at her. “Listen child, I know we have had our differences in the past, but if you behave yourself and cooperate, I promise not to harm you.”

           “What differences?”

           Cortez abruptly stepped on the brake, Uncle Maximus letting out a startled yelp as he jerked forward into the dashboard.

           “I wasn’t even belted in yet, Cortez!  Can you not even drive through a parking lot without some display of incompetence – “   He went on in that vein, but Cortez was not listening, only looking back at Luna, bright yellow surprise flaring up, then smoldering down into a dull, dark red anger.

           “Do you really not remember?  I once kidnapped you to teach your dreadful father a lesson!  How can you forget someone like me?!”

           “Maybe I was a baby?  People don’t remember things from when they were babies,” Luna suggested, trying to be helpful, and maybe calm his anger a bit.  

           “You were old enough!  You were – no, never mind.  I am the great Fabian Cortez, Spanish royalty, leader of the Acolytes, true successor to the legacy of Magneto, the very pinnacle of the race of homo-superior.”

           “That means mutant,” Maximus supplied.  “Now will you drive the van, or must I lower myself to the task, Cortez?”

           “Nice to meet you, Mr. Cortez,” Luna said. “Don’t feel bad if I don’t remember. I get kidnapped a lot.  It’s hard to remember every time.”

           “Fine.  Fine. I forgive you forgetting.  You are only a child, and children can be forgiven these things,” Cortez conceded, anger visibly cooling.  “But more importantly, Maximus, how will we get her past the guard?  I assume you’ll….”  Cortez glanced at Luna, then back at Maximus, and tapped his forehead in a way that meant to be secret.  Obviously he wanted Uncle Max to use his mind control powers.  Luna wondered if they’d keep using charades around her if she pretended not to understand.

           “Why don’t we do this the easy way?” Maximus said, turning to Luna.  “Luna, we’re going to play a fun hide-and-seek game where you lay under this tarp.”  

           “That doesn’t look very clean.  I don’t think I want to play that game.”  And Uncle Max couldn’t force her.  He couldn’t use his powers on her, that was the one advantage she could play.  That, and the cell-phone in her dress pocket that neither man had noticed yet, but she’d have to pull it out when they weren’t watching her.

           “Oh, but you must!  It’s one of the many delightful games we’ll be playing today,” Maximus insisted.

           “Can we also go to store and buy me some new clothing?  Like you said?  I’ll play the game if we can go to the mall.”  Luna knew they could overpower her if they really wanted to.  But Maximus probably didn’t want to do something like that, and he probably didn’t want to deal with her crying or screaming. Buying her presents would be the path of least resistance.  And it seemed only fair, since they were kidnapping her and everything.

           “That’s really not-“ Cortez started, but was cut off by Maximus.

           “Yes, of course, princess!  Just like I said!  I promise!”  The colors seemed to indicate sincerity, although Uncle Max could change his mind on a dime.  But then, resisting might mean that they hurt the poor security guard, and Luna didn’t want that.

           “Okay, it’s a deal.  You promised!” Luna lay flat against the seat and pulled the tarp over herself.  If she played her cards right, maybe she could get her uncle to buy her a new DS.  

[bevioletskies]

let’s stay together

summary: For all his missteps and mishaps, Scott has been on pretty good terms with the Pym-Van Dyne family lately. That is, until Cassie started calling Hank "Grandpa".

a/n: Fic title is from the song Let's Stay Together by Al Green because I've yet to figure out how to title Scott/Hope fics. Takes place post-Ant-Man and the Wasp, with the optimistic assumption that they at least had a month to relax before that post-credits scene.

word count: 3.9k | ao3

The first time it happened, Scott was reasonably certain that the universe had momentarily ceased to exist, or at least, that’s what it felt like. All the air had been sucked out of the room, everything went mind-numbingly silent, and out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Hank turning an alarmingly violent shade of red. Well, THAT can’t be good, he thought.

“Oh!” Janet finally said after a minute too long. Hank was now purple.

So, Scott did what any reasonable person would do (that’s what he told himself, anyway) and promptly stood, hauled his daughter up by the armpits before she could finish her bite of mashed potatoes, and practically carried her to the front door. “This-was-great-we-should-really-do-this-again-sometime-okay-bye!” he blurted out, tripping over his own feet in his attempt to pull on his shoes and jacket at the same time.

“Scott?” Hope was half-skeptical, half-concerned, as she often was when it came to Scott’s...Scott-ness, but before she could get up and follow him, the door slammed shut. She glanced over at Hank; his knuckles were white. “...did Cassie just call you ‘grandpa’?”

“Don’t,” Hank grouched. The color in his face was slowly returning to normal, but he was still clutching his steak knife with a worryingly vice-like grip. Janet patted his hand consolingly before resuming her dinner like nothing had happened.

Hope texted Scott the moment dinner was over, reassuring him that it wasn’t as bad as he thought - Hank had only ranted for three minutes about being anyone’s grandfather, then Janet interrupted to remind him of his age - but Scott’s reply was an uncharacteristically curt response about arriving late at the laboratory tomorrow morning. It was only because of Hope’s good memory that she remembered that it was because Maggie and Paxton were picking up Cassie from Scott’s place, and not that Scott decided to preemptively berate himself at home before joining them to work on the latest iteration of suits.

Janet, who was still getting used to an adult daughter and not the child she’d unintentionally left behind, hovered in worry, fretting over Hope’s shoulder at Scott’s message. “Seriously, Mom, it’s okay,” Hope repeated for the fifth time while she put her jacket on, preparing to leave for the night. “I’m not seven or sixteen, remember? Nothing to worry about. Scott’s just a little...excitable.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Hank grumbled from the sitting room. Despite her best efforts, Hope couldn’t help but roll her eyes like a child.

“Bye, Dad,” she called, kissing Janet briefly on the cheek before walking out the door.

The next morning, Scott arrived even later than he said he was going to be, looking just as agitated as he’d sounded last night. “Hope, I swear, I didn’t say anything about - ”

“I’m sure you didn’t,” she said calmly. “Besides, he’s probably forgotten all about it.”

“I haven’t.” Hank emerged from behind one of the enormous machines, startling Scott. “Did you - ”

“Nope!” Scott said a little too quickly. “Hank, I would never - ”

“Does she call her anything?” Hank wildly brandished his pen in Hope’s direction. She fixed him with a stern expression in return, plucking the pen from his hand and neatly tucking it into the breast pocket of his sweater vest.

“Henry,” Janet called from across the room.

“I already told you she doesn’t,” Hope said exasperatedly. “Can we focus, please?”

“Grandpa,” Hank muttered under his breath as he returned to his workbench, where Janet gave him a playful poke for his troubles.

“For the record, I think Mom was secretly thrilled,” Hope whispered to Scott. He snickered in relief.

After the day’s work was done, Scott and Hope said their goodbyes to a cheerful Janet and a temperamental Hank (though really, when were either of them anything else) and got into Hope’s car, promptly shrinking down to a more...elusive size. It was a new routine for them after Scott had completed the terms of his house arrest, and although there was still a search out for Hope and her parents, it wasn’t too difficult for them to evade the authorities now that they had everything and every one in one place. Scott spent his weekdays working at X-Con Security and Pym Tech, while he and Hope, sometimes Cassie, spent their weekends at his place. Hope had grown quite attached to Scott’s house, finding it far more inviting than her own apartment, and of course, she’d adored Cassie the moment they met. After everything she and her father had been through ever since the Sokovia Accords had come into play, it was nice to have some normalcy in her life.

Scott drummed his fingers restlessly against the window. “Where do you think this whole ‘grandpa’ thing started?”

Hope groaned. “I thought we were going to drop this, Scott. Besides, you and Cassie have been coming to dinner for several weeks now and Dad’s the right age to be her grandpa, so it just...came out. Not that big of a deal.”

“Yeah, but what if it means something?” Hope’s eyes briefly flickered over to his unusually serious expression. “Hank’s never been a big fan of...us.”

“Then it’s good that what he thinks has no impact on our relationship,” Hope said testily, her grip tightening on the steering wheel. Scott winced in memory of how angry she’d been when they first met, often at Scott himself for being in her life, but mostly at Hank for everything he’d done - or rather, hadn’t done. “He kept me out of his life long enough. Just because we’re back to being a family, it doesn’t give him the right to tell me what I can and can’t do.”

“Of course,” he said automatically. He suddenly looked very interested in the loose thread on his jacket sleeve, picking at it with a strange fixation. “Look, I just don’t wanna be the reason you guys fight again, alright? And if he doesn’t want me to be part of your family - ”

“Oh, Scott.” Hope briefly let go of the wheel to squeeze his shoulder in reassurance. “Dad’s got his hangups about you, but you know him, he’s like that with everyone. Doesn’t mean he wants to cut you out. Besides, Mom adores you, and there’s no way he’ll go against her.”

Scott laughed despite himself, his shoulders finally relaxing as he settled back into his seat. “Your mom’s great. Perceptive, too. It’s almost like she can see inside my head - ”

“That joke was only funny the first time,” Hope interrupted, though there was a smile in her voice as she said it. “Please stop telling people my mom was inside you without context.”

Another week went by - a relatively uneventful one at that, all things considered, in which the only mishap they encountered was a couple of random thieves that tried to break into the lab and received an unpleasant surprise in return for their efforts - before Cassie was at Scott’s house again. On the first morning of her return, she was chatting a mile per minute about her most recent soccer game, the last math test she’d had, and anything else that came to mind. “How come Hope isn’t here?” Cassie asked once she’d taken a second to breathe between her bites of cereal.

“She doesn’t live here, peanut,” Scott reminded her, absent-mindedly thumbing through the newspaper.

“But why not? She stays over all the time, and she drives you places, and - ”

“That doesn’t mean she has to live here,” Scott pointed out. He then sighed in realization, knowing they had to talk about it eventually, and now was as good a time as ever. “Hey, when you called Hank ‘Grandpa’...did you mean to do that?”

“Yes,” Cassie said bluntly. “Hope is kind of like my second mom, so her daddy is kind of like my grandpa.”

“Okay, well, I think you scared him a little,” Scott said gently. “I’m sure Hope loves the idea of being your second mom, but it’s making Hank feel like me and her are getting really serious.”

“Serious?” Cassie furrowed her brow in adorable confusion.

“Like we’re gonna get married.” Scott sat up straight as if he just realized what he’d said. “Which is...I mean, you know...wow.”

“But don’t you wanna marry her, Daddy?” Cassie prompted, in the sort of tone she used when she asked him to help with her science homework, like it was just another topic of conversation. “She’s your partner.”

“That’s not - I - oh.” Scott rubbed his temples, willing the conversation to go away on its own. It wasn’t that he didn’t like the idea; in fact, the very idea of marrying Hope was simultaneously thrilling and terrifying and very much something he’d like to do. But it was far too early in the morning to be processing anything more complex than the latest episode of Cassie’s favorite morning cartoon. “Finish your breakfast, okay? We gotta head out soon.”

It was only when the two of them got in Scott’s car - a relatively new investment for him, though it was about as rundown as Luis’s van - that he remembered they were picking up Hope on the way to Cassie’s school. Usually, he enjoyed the ten minutes they had together, where he could just sit back and listen to two of his favorite people in the world chat and laugh like they’d known each other forever, but now he was rather paranoid that Cassie was going to do...something.

“Hey, you two,” Hope smiled, radiant, as she got into the passenger’s seat, leaning across to briefly kiss him. “You’re early today.”

“Daddy wanted to finish breakfast super fast,” Cassie shrugged, grinning toothily. “I think he was excited to see you.”

“Is that so?” Hope quirked an eyebrow in his direction before putting her seatbelt on. “Well, better early than late, right?”

“Right,” Cassie chirped. Scott started the engine, crossing his fingers that she wouldn’t bring it up - “Daddy thinks your daddy is scared of him.” - and there she went. Fantastic.

“What?” Hope rounded on him instantly. “Scott.”

“Listen...sometimes, we say things that - ”

“Scott,” Hope repeated. It amazed him that she was capable of saying his name so affectionately some of the time and so authoritatively, well, most of the time.

“Cassie,” Scott said firmly, glancing at her through the rearview mirror.

“Daddy,” Cassie said plaintively, blinking innocently in return. When that didn’t work, she added, “I don’t want anyone to be scared of anyone,” her bottom lip wobbling in the way that they all knew would change anyone’s mind no matter what.

“I didn’t say Hank was scared of me,” Scott finally explained with a sigh, briefly glancing over at an unimpressed Hope. “It’s just what I was saying before. About him and our relationship.”

“Of course you didn’t let this go,” Hope groaned, turning to face the window. “When it was just me and Dad on the run, he had a lot to say about you. But he never said anything about us.” She turned to look at Cassie, whose nose was scrunched up in worry. “No one’s scared of anyone, alright?”

“So...he doesn’t think Daddy’s gonna ask you to marry him?” Cassie asked. Scott felt the gas pedal slip underneath his feet, nearly flinging them all forward in the process. For the second time that week, he felt his chest seize up with one single word blaring through his head like a siren - PANIC.

“What,” Hope said flatly.

“Hey, hey, no distracting the driver,” he said weakly. “Besides, didn’t we say we were gonna talk about the regulator in my suit before we get to the lab, something about the whatchamacallit - ”

“Were you going to ask me to marry you?”

“No, I - ”

“So you don’t want to marry me.”

Scott paused. “Hope, I gotta be honest, I don’t really know what the right answer is.”

Hope merely shook her head, jaw clenched tight, staring straight ahead. “Just drive, Scott.”

Cassie looked at Scott in silent apology once they dropped her off, hugging Hope as she always did before running up the steps to the front door. The rest of the car ride was expectedly uncomfortable, lacking a single word out of either of them. Upon arriving at the laboratory, Hope continued on like nothing was wrong, hanging up her coat and setting down her bag, briefly hugging Hank and Janet with a warm smile. She then settled down at one of the workbenches and promptly got to work on her faulty blasters, her back pointedly turned on everything else.

Scott meandered around for a bit, picking at the wires in his suit’s regulator (“You’ve got some nerve calling this a working suit, Hank!” he’d said pretty much every single day since he first put it on) but entirely unable to concentrate. All he could think about was how he’d managed to mess things up with Hope, again, and he didn’t even have to get arrested this time for it to happen.

“Don’t you look all bothered?” He looked up to see Janet smiling pityingly at him from the other side of his table. “What’s troubling you, Scott?”

“Didn’t sleep great,” he lied. Janet quirked an eyebrow.

“It’s cute how you think you can lie to me,” she said not unkindly, clicking her tongue in disapproval. “Is it about the whole ‘grandpa’ thing? Because I can’t tell who’s more hung up about it, you or Henry!”

“I’m embarrassed she said it in the first place,” he admitted, setting his tools down. “Cassie loves being around you guys, and I guess I should’ve seen it coming.”

“It’s okay,” Janet said, squeezing his arm. “Personally, I’d love it if Cassie thought of us as her grandparents, she’s one of the loveliest kids I’ve ever met. Reminds me a lot of Hope...before I left her.” Her smile faltered somewhat. “Is it you and Hope, then?”

“You could say that,” Scott said carefully. He glanced across the room to where she was sitting. She hadn’t looked at him since they got out of the car.

“It’s one day at a time with that one, isn’t it?” Janet hummed, briefly turning on her heel to look at her daughter, too. “Always have to remind myself she’s so much...more now. All the things she wants, all the things she is, I have to get used to that.” She turned back to look at Scott knowingly. “That goes for you, too.”

“I’m gonna fix it, Janet,” he promised. “And...please don’t tell Hank.”

Janet laughed throatily, though Scott wasn’t sure what was so funny. “Oh, honey, what makes you think he didn’t already notice?”

Hank, meanwhile, sidled up to Hope’s side in a way that he thought was subtle enough, but she merely gave him a look that said, “I know exactly what you’re doing, and I don’t like it”. “What?” he barked, embarrassed. “I wanted to check your progress on the - ”

“Dad,” Hope said firmly. “Just spit it out, okay?”

“You’ve been tense,” he observed, pulling up a stool so he could sit beside her. “I wanna know why.”

“Because it’s affecting our work?” she snorted, turning back to her blasters.

“Because you’re my daughter.” Her hands paused in mid-air. “I don’t give a damn about the work right now. You’ve been all wound up lately, and it’s affecting you. So what is it?”

Hope couldn’t help but smile at her dad’s usual gruff tone, how it completely failed to hide his concern. “It just...feels like we’re in between everything right now. We’re sort of on the run but we sort of aren’t, we have Mom back but we’re trying to figure out how to be a family again, not to mention you and Scott being weird about what Cassie said even though we’re all growing closer...I’m a little stressed out, but it’s nothing I can’t handle. I promise.”

Hank smiled ruefully. “Someday, those Sokovia Accords are going to be through, and we’ll be free. Respected. And me and your mother, we’re going to make sure you don’t have a single thing to worry about. I’m sure Scott’s on board, too.”

“Surprised to hear you say that,” she admitted. “You really need to stop antagonizing him, okay? I’ve forgiven him for Germany, and I think it’s time you did, too.”

“I thought I already did,” he said, briefly looking to where Scott and Janet were conversing. Janet seemed to be laughing at something that Scott couldn’t quite follow; the very idea that she knew something he didn’t amused Hank greatly. “What, you think I’m working with him and inviting him and his daughter to our house every week because I’m angry ?”

“It’s hard to tell with you sometimes,” she shot back without missing a beat, though her grin was widening regardless. “Be nice, Dad.”

“I’ll...try to say something at our next dinner,” he said through gritted teeth as if the thought of expressing any emotion other than mild annoyance toward Scott was inherently painful. “But I mean it, Hope. Once this Accord nonsense is all over, we’ll get my company back on track, and we’ll be a family. All of us.”

Hope nodded, her eyes shining, and reached out to squeeze her father’s shoulder. “And I won’t vote you out of our company this time.”

Hank chuckled, briefly leaning in to kiss her on the forehead. “That’s my girl.”

Scott and Hope got into Scott’s car several hours later, both still somewhat tense. The rest of their time at the lab had been quiet, with Hank and Janet doing most of the talking. Both of them clearly suspected that there was more to it than they’d discussed, but wisely decided to let it be. Or rather, Janet had caught Hank by the arm every single time he seemed like he was about to open his mouth. “We have to remember she’s an adult, Henry,” she had murmured. “I know we both want her to need our help, but she doesn’t. Not this time.”

“I’m sorry,” Scott said the moment they were on the road.

“You’ve been apologizing a lot lately,” Hope sighed. “What is it for this time?”

“Freaking out, not letting stuff go, and everything that Cassie said this morning,” he replied like a child reciting the alphabet, listing his fingers off on one hand, the other drumming restlessly against the steering wheel. “I almost got over it, you know? But then when we were having breakfast this morning, Cassie said all this stuff about living together, getting married...I started overthinking it.”

She nodded, sinking back into her seat. Her anger had mostly dissipated over the course of the day, evolving into something more akin to contemplation. “I know you, Scott,” she said quietly. “Maybe we haven’t known each other for as long as we think, but I know you. And you know me. You know that I’m not going to sit around waiting for you to tell me or ask me anything. So just...get to the point, and we can move on. For good.”

Scott inhaled, then let out a short huff of an exhale, his fingers still drumming on the steering wheel, though quieter now. “You’re my partner, Hope. In more ways than one. And I...do wanna marry you someday, just not yet. It’s early, and there’s too much going on, and it feels like - ”

“ - like we’re in between?” Hope guessed, smiling slightly.

“Yeah, exactly.” He looked away for a moment to return the smile, his eyes twinkling in the way that made her feel just a little bit more at ease about everything. “So why don’t we get to the ‘in between’ first?”

She paused. “What do you mean?”

“Move in with me. Or, I guess we could get a different place together if you want more space, though I dunno if I can afford a house as big as your parents’, but maybe you could, and - ”

“Okay,” she said, biting her lip to stop herself from grinning as giddily as she felt. “And for the record, I meant it when I said I’m not going to sit around and wait for you to ask.” She paused, letting the smile spread across her face despite herself. “Maybe someday, I’ll ask instead.”

Hank and Janet arrived at the laboratory at precisely nine in the morning, chatting quietly in the elevator ride up to their floor. They hung up their jackets, changed them out for their lab coats and protective equipment, and Hank went about telling his ants their orders for the day. Janet, on the other hand, went to log in on the main computer, only to find someone was already in her seat.

“Hi Grandma,” Cassie said, smiling like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.

Not missing a beat, Janet immediately drew her into a hug, then leaned back to tuck Cassie’s hair behind her ears. “Hey, sweetheart! Never seen you in here before,” she fussed, beaming. “You looking for a science lesson today?”

“Yes, please,” Cassie chorused. “But first, Daddy and Hope wanted to tell you something.”

Janet turned to see Scott and Hope approaching from the other room, looking somewhat sheepish. Instinctively, her eyes flickered to Hope’s stomach, though her daughter’s immediate visceral response told her she was incorrect. Hank then came over to join them, letting out a stifled grunt when Cassie went to hug him as well, though he patted her on the back in return. “What’s this all about?” he asked.

“I’m moving in with Scott,” Hope announced matter-of-factly, holding up a copy of his house keys. “I’ve had it with hiding in my own apartment, what with technically being on the run and all, so this just made sense.”

“Glad I’m the most logical choice,” Scott drawled, nodding her way. “So Hank, Janet...what do you guys think?”

“Oh, we think it’s wonderful! Don’t we, Henry?” Janet exclaimed, briefly turning to narrow her eyes at her husband before clapping her hands together in excitement. “My precious jellybean - ” She swept Hope and Scott into her arms, letting out an overwhelmed sob of elation into her daughter’s shoulder. Hank, whose jaw was clenched but was also not one to be left behind, walked over to awkwardly clap his hand on Scott’s shoulder; Cassie followed, nestling herself in under everyone’s arms.

“Didn’t realize we were gonna have a group hug today.” Still, Scott tried his best to get his arms around everyone, even Hank, who merely squirmed. “If I’d known, I would’ve remembered deodorant - ”

“Scott, I swear to god - ”

“Obviously I’m wearing deodorant, Hank, what kind of guy do you think I am?”

“Okay, I think we’re done here,” Hope sighed, withdrawing herself from the mass of bodies. “So Cassie, you ready for my parents to show you the ropes?” She nodded, looking unusually shy, staring up at both Hank and Janet expectantly.

To everyone’s surprise, it was Hank who reached for her first, gently taking her by the shoulder and guiding her over to his workbench. “Let’s set you up with some protective gear. There’ll be no accidents in my lab today.”

“Yes, Doctor Pym,” Cassie said obediently, hoisting herself up onto the bench stool. Hank paused, turning to look at her, to really look at her. Cassie’s eyes were bright, wide, inquisitive, her posture both anticipatory and patient. He looked over at the others, where Janet was standing between Hope and Scott, her hand over her mouth in a poor attempt to hide her pleased smile. Hope’s eyes shone back at him; he barely noticed her fingers intertwined with Scott’s.

Hank turned back to Cassie. “You know what? ‘Grandpa’ is okay, too.”

a/n: I have been talking about writing this fic for at least six months now and I'm sure some far better version of it exists elsewhere, but I finally finished! Still figuring out my characterization of these lovely characters, so bear with me if anything seems particularly OOC, and I'm looking forward to writing even more Scott/Hope in the future and getting better at doing so. Thanks so much for reading, likes and reblogs would be much appreciated, and I hope you enjoyed :)