#theres so much more where this came from

[pacinglikeghosts]

kat's au moodboard - single dad!carmy au

howdy hi! my best friend/lovely beta (make-easter-gay-again on ao3) and i have been working on this au since i forced him to watch the bear, and with s3 coming out on thursday, we wanted to share a little something! we're still working on it, but we have a good bit written and want y'all to have a little taste.

here is 1000 or so words from the prologue, just to get you warmed up!

preview under the cut :D

Carmen Berzatto has never felt more like an Italian stereotype. Considering he’s a loud, aggressive chef with a huge, interweaving web of a family and an almost sensual relationship with fine wines and cheeses, that’s a high bar to cross, but he manages somehow when he finds himself on Nat’s doorstep, barely 26, desperately trying to keep the baby balanced on his chest asleep. It’s a sticky, cloudy summer evening in Chicago, the kind that would make any midwestern kid nostalgic, but Carmy has been shuffling between trains—the subway, the L, and the Amtrak that he’d booked with the money he meant to save for next month’s rent—since six p.m. yesterday without a wink of sleep. He wouldn’t notice a tornado ripping through downtown unless it delayed his arrival. 

For the past 36 hours, every minute has been dedicated to making it through the next and getting to his sister. 

And to her credit, when she opens the door, Natalie reacts to the situation about as well as he could expect. 

“What the fuck?” 

“Hello to you too, Sug,” he greets, attempting to adjust the baby on his chest without waking it. 

“What the fuck, Carmen?” she repeats, her eyes bulging so wide she’s teetering on the edge of looking insane. And, Carmy loves his sister. More than anything. But she looks like shit, the indigo circles under her eyes deep enough to look like bruises and a stained sweatshirt thrown haphazardly over pajamas. He knew vaguely that things hadn’t been easy for Sugar since Mikey’s death—managing The Beef’s finances, having a kid, raising said kid into what appeared to be a holy terror of a toddler—but he wasn’t expecting to return home and find his sister in such a state. Granted, he’s sure he doesn’t look much better. “You don’t come home for Mikey’s funeral, don’t talk to me for months, and then show up with a fucking baby? How did you even get that baby?”

“It’s a little hard to explain,” he says. She leans into her hip, no shit written all over her face. 

Despite being maybe the worst little brother in history, the only thing that made him hesitate in coming to Nat for help wasn’t any of their family’s issues. Not even his impressive stubbornness was enough to convince him that he could handle an infant in a sub-200 square foot apartment in New York City alone. But she has a life of her own, and a family of her own. He knows his baggage is truly the last thing that Nat needs right now, but he needs her—desperately. Of anyone in the world, the only person he knows he can rely on in this nightmare he can’t wake up from is his sister. 

Natalie, thankfully, senses the panic and distress that lingers on her brother’s face, and ushers him inside. “We were just about to eat dinner,” she explains, attempting to push toys and piles of laundry out of the way with her feet as if welcoming the mayor of Chicago into her house, not her idiot younger brother. “If you’re hungry.”

“Uh, coffee would be good,” Carmy concludes, staring at a framed family photo in the hallway. “Maybe, uh, a place to, uh…” He shrugs his shoulders to indicate the baby, and she nods curtly, her eyes flitting around. 

“I’ll have Pete get some of Gabby’s stuff from the attic,” she says, sharply turning on her heel and walking towards the kitchen. Carmy follows, watching as his sister effortlessly scoops the toddler up and carries her with them, ignoring a prolonged squeal of protest and flailing arms and legs. “Pete! Grab an extra plate, will you?” 

“Yeah, sure thing, honey…who was—Carm!” Pete greets, coming around the corner with a plate and silverware in hand. He glances for a second at the baby, tries to school his obvious double take, and squeaks out, “What’re you doing here, man? What’s up?”

Carmy takes a moment to figure out the best way to answer that question. This baby is apparently mine, but I have no recollection of having sex with anyone who could be its mother, and I can’t raise it on my own, and you guys are my only family? I decided to come back and take over The Beef, and oh–by the way–I have a kid now, apparently? I’m just visiting? “I–uh…” he says instead, shifting his focus to Natalie, who seems as though she was one wrong choice on Carmy’s part from throttling him in her kitchen. 

“Pete, can you go up to the attic and grab some of Gabby’s old stuff? I think we put the crib and shit up there,” she instructs, with a look that clearly reads we will talk about this later. 

He catches Natalie glancing at him every so often, in between fussing over her daughter and plating up the food. Sitting quietly at the dinner table, waiting for the rest of the family, he feels like a kid, like he’s gotten himself into something way over his head. 

Carmy had only eaten a few things on the train, mainly sugary snacks to keep him going when even his anxiety succumbed to his exhaustion, so the beef stew Natalie offers him tastes better than any Michelin-awarded meal he’s ever had. He devours two bowls, barely stopping to look up at the other three people (two people? Two adults and a toddler smushing mac and cheese around her high chair?) sitting around the table. 

After dinner, Natalie and Pete retreat upstairs to get Gabby to bed, and Carmy feeds the baby, unpacking his CVS bag of baby essentials: the diapers, formula, and pack of three bottles he thought to buy before he skipped town. Then, the three adults settle into the living room, a cup of tea in Natalie’s hand and a second (or possibly third, he’s lost count) cup of coffee in Carmy’s. 

“Yeah, so, walk me through this, Bear. You’re a father now?” Nat asks, tucking her legs underneath her. “Did you pay attention in sex ed, like, at all?”

Carmy uses his free hand to rake through his hair. He needs a shower, desperately, but between his newfound fatherhood and hauling ass to Chicago he hasn’t had time to breathe, much less consider hygiene. Maybe that’ll be added to the list to do tomorrow, nestled between find an apartment and learn how to be a better parent than his own in 24 hours–no therapy. “Yes, Sugar, I paid attention,” he replies, eliciting a scoff from his sister. “I…fuck, I don’t really know how it happened. I-I was at work, and my phone kept blowing up like when Mikey died, but no one was fucking dead, it was just some unknown number telling me to get to this hospital in Queens because my baby was there, and I kept telling them I think they have the wrong number, but they said the mother said the father’s name was Carmen Berzatto, and she left as soon as she could. I didn’t even get the name of who it was…just signed the birth certificate and left.”

“What’s their name, then? If you signed the certificate, you had to give them a name,” Natalie asks, slowly trying to piece together if he was plain stupid or genuinely a saint. 

“Uh…her name’s Brie,” he mumbles, the full force of his actions over the past two days coming to a head. The name takes a moment to come to mind, both because of the exhaustion and because he hardly thought about the name since he wrote it down. He’s been calling it—or her, really—the baby or the kid in his head all this time. 

She blinks. “Brie?” she repeats, before groaning. “Jesus fucking Christ, Carmen. You would legally marry cooking if you could.”

“I wasn’t thinking, Natalie! I got the call, and I needed to pick a name, and I was in the middle of making a brie appetizer, and I couldn’t fucking name her Blackberry or some bullshit like that! At least Brie sounds like a name!” 

Natalie stares at him before setting down her tea. “As soon as her classmates find out her dad’s a chef and she’s named after cheese, she’s going to be bullied. Do you want that?” He doesn’t, he knows how shitty kids could be, especially about a kid with anything that was seemingly different about them. “Look…I’ll get some of the books Pete and I used for Gabs. Pick a new name.” 

[wrenkenstein]

POV you put two STEM nerds in a room together and instantly regret your choices

[hellspawnmotel]

terranigma, a cool game

[anna-scribbles]

regained my 12 year old swag(read an entire new percy jackson book in one sitting)

[haemosexuality]

i just heard someone on youtube (T B Skyen) say that silco loved jinx but didnt quite know how to love powder, while vi loves powder but doesnt know how to love jinx. and oooof oof ouch yeah

also it got me thinking and obviously jinx and powder arent two different people shes just going by a different name now but its also not baseless to analyze them as different "characters", or what traits of jinx are part of powder, etc. like the animators literally have a trick where they change her facial structure how they animate jinx to show when shes behaving more like powder. shes completely changed who she is, its jinx now powder fell down a well, sat on the jinx chair embraces who she is etc etc

[littjara-mirrorlake]

trick or treat :P

tasty treat!

enjoy its very good i promise :3

[phonification]

every time i think a bit more about cobs and 3gs i can feel myself losing it a little bit more

[luck-of-the-drawings]

THE BOYS ARE BACK IN TOWN (TO GET SPLATTERED) OOH MYSTERY! PANIC! DRAMA! EMOTIONS!! LOTS N LOTS OF MEAT, SCARES, AND DICK-OUT FUN! BLOOD IN THE BAYOU HAS GOT IT ALL BABY!!!

blood in the bayou would make SUUUCh a great campy horror movie, its real in my heart, so real.....

[sunsetzer]

As someone who gets migraines especially from stress, I have started to hc Edgar as someone who gets stress migraines as well, because he's been running a kingdom by himself for ten years, and he had to deal with an alliance he Did Not want with the empire that totally killed his dad while also secretly helping a rebellion against said empire and also maintaining a persona to make the empire think he's too young and stupid to be doing that- *inhale*

AND THEN he breaks the alliance, and he's actively fighting the empire but he still has Figaro to think about constantly, and then the world ends and the castle gets trapped underground and he has to become a gang boss to find a way back in so he can save everyone before they suffocate- *inhale*

AND THEN they have to go find all their friends, and fight horrible nightmare monsters, and kill god, and finally try to rebuild the world that got destroyed post-game, and after all that now he's the leader of like... the only surviving nation after the apocalypse.

[vaugarde]

my hope for the pokemon presents that i know will not happen is gates to infinity remake ok bye

[m0e-ru]

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY to the day my brain was literally rewired and my gender was being changed by the second SO HERES A GAS STATION SPECIAL before this joint was even a gas station in the FIRST PLACE !!!!

FUCKING FREAK

[thenamessparkplug]

oh boy its starting >:33

just a wee mini animatic to mess around with the design for my hollyleaf au thats been in the works for a couple of weeks lets just say hollyleaf gets a little bit silly:3

song is applause by lady gaga (but a cover because i thought it sounded nicer (and also because its the one in the villains map which ive been watching religiously))

[urmomsstuntdouble]

not to be political but I've seen a lot of people saying that those who call Israel an apartheid don't know what they're talking about and um. As someone who has studied South African apartheid as well as grown up in a Jewish community. This claim has more merit than you think

[zhuhongs]

just found out the lead singer of taiwans biggest death metal band is also an active parliament member since like 2015.... and is still active as a death metal singer. he's a pretty standard taiwanese center left anti communist from what i could gather. which like as a leftist i dont really agree with but i also dont know enough abt taiwanese politics to like make a full judgement. though he seems to be a standard liberal nothing remarkable, radical, or new, not overtly horrible but just bland. but that was something i definitely did Not expect. apparently he's very pro indigenous rights and self determination for indigenous people but being in a centre left mega party like the DPP does not seem like the best way to achieve that. But yea, just thought I'd share

[blueflyingturtleontheway]

Honestly HOW COME that Mia and Me barely has any fandom on this website it has everything

Started in 2010s? Check

Interesting art style? Inspired by Gustav Klimt's artworks

Magic? Is fantasy world of elves and unicorns enough or should I also mention runic prophecies, dragons and bug people?

Drama? Whatever the heck happens between the main three almost all the time but especially in the first season

There's even a pathetic teenage boy interested in magic, a scrunkly snake sexyman and disabled representation! (Although I'm not qualified enough to judge its quality)

[ark1os]

.

I didnt know the tags woulr be so much i shouldve just wrote a long vent 😭😭😭 rip