#they are both smart kids who excell in different ways and they could have shown sasukes growing respect for her if she actually got

[mistninja]

I wish sakura and sasuke were, you know, friends :/

[skellebonez]

I AM SORRY FOR THIS SKELLE BUT I MUST: 5 (kidnapping them was the only way I was going to get them here),6 (let's make a deal, shall we?) and 41 (can you teach me how to do that) with the demon bull fam and mk with a little hint of 64 (I may have eaten seven of them already). NOW GO HAM MY DUDE

Oh I had way too much fun with this one. I took S2E4 (spoilers mentioned for that!) and some tweets made by one of the show producers on the same day as fuel for a very silly idea I had. I don't write what can be considered "Crack treated seriously" (or at least semi-seriously, this is not a 100% serious fic) often but when I do I go hard. This is more focused on MK and others than SpicyNoodles so it's a bit more gen fic than a full on ship fic as well.

Kidnapping them was the only way I was going to get them here/Let's make a deal, shall we?/Can you teach me how to do that?/I may have eaten seven of them already.

"Red..." MK started off slowly, watching as his boyfriend's face flushed and twisted in embarrassment. "Can you tell me why your mother showed up at my apartment and used her wind vortex thing to teleport us here without an explanation? And then left us in your..." He looked around, noting that aside from the excessively large throne and two smaller thrones beside it this room looked like a... "Living room? On a couch?"

"I can-" Red Son started, raising a hand before pausing a frowning deeply. "Actually, no, I can't explain. This is just weird, even by my parent's standards. I have no idea what is going on, but since you're still here..." He shrugged with a hopeful smile, shaky through the uncertainty. "Maybe it's not bad? I mean, if Mother was truly upset or wanted to do something bad surely she would have not left us to our own devices. Maybe she’s... uh... happy I finally have a boyfriend?”

At the pointed raise of an eyebrow from MK that hopeful smile faltered a bit. Happy Red Son had a boyfriend for the first time in a couple centuries? Under different circumstances he wouldn't doubt that! Happy when that boyfriend was MK?

Oh he did doubt that.

He knew that they shouldn't have been sneaking around the way they had been. It had made sense at first, two people on opposite sides of a feud lasting centuries who discovered they actually enjoyed spending time together more than fighting each other. One who decided he very much would rather not follow through with any kind of domination and see his family hurt, who realized "actually my sworn nemesis isn't so bad", and another who decided "my life is already weird enough, why not give this befriending my enemy thing a shot".

And then one thing lead to another and before they knew it their secret friend meet up became a secret boyfriend meet up. They'd managed to keep everything under wraps for a while (except from Mei because, well... she was his best friend! He couldn't not tell someone and she would have found out fast if he wasn't obvious, and she had quickly become a mutual source of support for both of them), though MK knew Pigsy and the others knew something was up. They didn't question him, though, aside from the occasional good natured jab. "Wow MK, you seem happy today. Got any plans?" and that sort of thing. They seemed to trust him to make his own decisions, as long as he was happy and healthy and eventually told them. (Sun Wukong, however, may have caught in a little when he jokingly asked if MK had gotten a boyfriend and MK had choked on his drink. He never brought it up specifically after that but he was smart. Too smart.)

Red Son, on the other hand, was fantastic at keeping secrets when he tried. Or MK thought he was... the last few months gave no indication that either of his parents had discovered their little sneaky rendezvous. Then Princess Iron Fan broke into his apartment and, well, here they are. Clearly something had gone wrong somewhere along the line.

Before MK could follow through with any questions of whether or not there could be a fate worse than instant death that involved lulling him into a false sense of security, the two men froze at the sound of quickly approaching voices.

“Could this not have been done another way, my dear?”

“Kidnapping them was the only way I was going to get them here, you know that. Noodle Boy is not that gullible, contrary to what we first believed.”

Ah... shit... Red Son’s parents.

Mk quickly ran through all the possessions he had in his apartment and wondered if he had time to text Mei or Pigsy the world’s fastest will and testament and if that would be legally binding. He just hoped he had something for Pigsy to handle the Phantom Orderer they'd had for the last year.

They always ordered on the app and prepaid and managed to leave him a sizeable tip in his tuk-tuk after he dropped off the food at whatever random location they indicated.

"Good," PIF's voice rang clear, far faster than he could even attempt to pull out his phone, and MK turned to see that she was casually lounging on the shoulder of the Demon Bull King. She jumped down, her wind lightening her fall so much so that she barely made a sound when her feet touched ground. "You've made yourself comfortable."

MK couldn't bring himself to move, as much as he very dearly wanted to run away as quickly as possible. Yes, he was The Monkie Kid and had progressed far enough that he could probably escape without much problem. Yes, he and DBK had had an understanding after the White Bone Spirit and Lunar New Year Festival (though he still didn't know if PIF ever found out about that one). Yes, Princess Iron Fan had shown little interest in him before and had even worked beside him with no complaints (she didn't even care enough to attack during the Food Wars thing!). But that was all before she apparently found out he was dating her son behind her back while they were technically still enemies.

He was glad at that moment that she had grabbed them before they went to get lunch... his stomach was doing back flips that would make a gymnast jealous.

"Uh, yes Miss-Mrs-Muh-M- Princess Iron... Fan?" MK couldn't help but stutter awkwardly, holding onto the hem of his jacket and worrying it as he tried to keep his composure. He looked beside him, watching as Red sat straighter and kept an even expression on his face that he couldn't quite place. His hair seemed to spark softly.

Though she raised a brow at this, PIF didn't comment on that at all. Instead she made her way to the other couch across from them as opposed to what was clearly supposed to be her throne, leaning forward right her elbows on her knees and her fingers laced together in front of her. DBK stopped behind her, seemingly content to stay standing.

"Noodle Boy... you prefer to go by MK, is that correct?" She started, and he nodded slowly in confused response. "Hmn... so. You've been dating my son for quite some time. Many months... no, a bit over a year if I am not mistaken in how long his behavior has changed." 'Oh shit' went MK's brain. "You must be quite serious, if you're willing to go through so much just to see each other. Late night meetings. Secret hideaways. Sneaking onto Flower Fruit Mountain, even." 'Oh SHIT' it repeated in horror. "That's quite the dedication to show toward anyone... I hate to admit it, but I am quite impressed." 'OH SH-wait what?'

"Bw-huh?" Was what MK managed out, half a sound that was almost a word and half a squeak of confusion.

"The fact I myself remained oblivious until only a few weeks ago is quite something. Let's make a deal, shall we?" She continued, sitting back straight and looking like the proud Princess she was and not like a woman sitting on a couch that looked comically small in front of her enormous husband. "You and Red Son no longer have to hide your relationship from us and in exchange..." she paused, as if relishing the building tension between herself and the couple before her. "You will come over at least once a week so we can get to actually know you properly."

MK froze. Red Son froze even more.

Then his entire head lit ablaze as he jumped up and gestured at his mother with a gaping mouth. "Th-that's it!? I-I was... I was RIGHT!?"

PIF barely reacted to this, merely lounging sideways as she put her elbow on the arm of the couch and rested her cheek on her hand.

"Whatever you were right about, I suppose you were. But yes," she shrugged, honestly looking... kinda happy? "Has this been about a year ago I perhaps would not have understood what you saw in Nood-MK. But I can see how happy you have been lately, and there's something about him that is like... what did you say he was like, darling?" She turned to DBK, who shrugged himself with an unreadable expression.

"A ball of sunshine given human form."

... that was not what MK ever expected to hear from the Demon Bull King's mouth...

"Yes, that's it," she nodded as if this was completely normal and ignored how Red Son flopped back down onto the couch and stared at the ceiling. "I'd hate to admit it, but you've grown on us through out sparse interactions. Somehow. And we have been eagerly waiting for the day we could finally welcome someone into our son's life. So what do you say? Do we have a deal?"

She seemed... serious. MK may not know her that well, but it was clear to anyone when she wasn't being so.

"Uh... o-ok? Sure?" MK said softly, nodding in amazement as DBK and PIF actually smiled at this.

This was the strangest day of his life, beating our every single demon fight and even the day he got the Monkey King's staff. But he'd take this strangeness over the alternative 500 times over.

"Excellent," DBK nodded himself, there was a lot of that about. "That seems to have worked out n-"

Everyone paused at a loud grumble echoed the room, all turning to Red Son as he flared up in embarrassment this time.

"Don't look at me like that, we were supposed to eat half an hour ago and I am starving," Red Son grumbled as he sat up, not looking anyone in the eye. "I don't suppose we could. Eat now? Please?"

Despite the situation, MK couldn't help but smile at his pouting.

"I could bring us some food from Pigsy's?" MK offered in an attempt to contribute. Something. "I mean, I know Red likes it and you kinda seemed to like it the one time you tried it and... uh... yeah."

"Actually... I may have eaten seven of them already..." PIF admitted, looking away in embarrassment. "l've tried not to give into the temptation, but your father's noodles from the Food Wars were so... I just can't resist ordering some secretly after 5 or so weeks!"

"So you're the phantom orderer!" MK gasped out in shock, but after a moment he frowned and rubbed the back of his head. He had a bit of an idea. "Well... I could... make some for us instead?" He ammended his offered softly. "I may not make it exactly like Pigsy does, but I can get pretty close as long as you have the ingredients! And you wouldn't have to worry about me going there and coming back! We can eat like. Immediately!"

"I think that sounds acceptable," PIF said with a nod as she stood, but MK could see a bit of excitement sparkling in her usually cold eyes. "Come, Red Son. I need to discuss some upgrades the Bull Clones have been asking for with you. Your father can assist him in the kitchen until we are done."

Red looked over at MK and only stood to follow his mother once he nodded, giving his father a pointed look before exited the room. MK, in the meantime, looking up at DBK with a gulp and followed him as he lead the way toward their kitchen.

It was... well, bigger than he was used to. But pretty normal, regal size and decor aside. And it seemed, once he was given the nod of ok from his host (and wasn't that a bizarre thing, DBK and PIF being his hosts on a home visit to his boyfriend's parents... he was going to need to get used to that) he checked the fridge and counters and found he had just about everything he needed to make what he had in mind.

"Can you teach me how to do that?" DBK asked after a moment, startling MK into nearly dropping the sauce he needed for the broth. "Not the recipe itself, just..." He gestured to the counter. "Red Son has a bit of a proclivity toward cooking and he's been trying to get me involved, but we've never cooked anything like. That."

His words were awkward and stilted, but MK could tell he was trying. The same way he could tell PIF wasn't kidding with her offer. They just seemed to... want to get to know him as a potential... son-in-law... huh.

"Sure, but you're gonna want to shrink down a bit for this."

Lunch turned out amazing and, while awkward (much like most of the day)... it was nice not to have to hide their dating for once. And Red actually seemed pretty happy! Though he learned quickly that the Monkey King was still a bit of an (understandably) sore subject that was best avoided. For now.

Maybe not forever though.

(When PIF very not subtly dropped him and Red Son both off inside Pigsy's Noodles after their lunch, the only response he got was a "oh, so they finally found out huh? Looks like things went well" from Pigsy and Tang. Maybe he wasn't as sneaky as he thought he was...)

[kylosgenesis]

Teardrops on Fire

Synopsis:

Steve Rogers is the last Alpha of the an almost extinct Lycan pack. With only less than 100 members left. Steve must produce an heir to ensure the species survival and reduce the chance of attacks from others. Omegas are rare, and betas have a hard time producing children. Steves reality is finally setting in as his obligation of producing an heir faces a major set back.

Reader is the last suitable omega to mate with Steve, due to the fear of her daughters fate in the pack, her mother kept her hidden from the pack after her own exile. Only her mother, and Bucky's family know of her existence. Bucky is Steve's right hand man, and the packs best warrior! He and the reader developed a friendship and bond over the years, but age forced them to become distant.

What happens when she presents and her first heat cycle comes? Her body is in excruciating pain and a strong fever quickly overcomes her body. Facing the fear of her daughters possible death, her mom calls on the only person who can save her at this point, Alpha Steve! Bucky and the alphas friendship will be tested. The reader will be faced with her love for Bucky or her duty to the pack.

Chapter warnings : descriptions of death, abuse, blood, and mentions of miscarriage.

Chapter 2: Honey I tried

“When did it start?” Bucky was holding on to the edge of his kitchen table.He felt nauseated with the thought of her, sick and yearning, He couldn't even picture what she had grown up to look like, A part of him was scared of his own emotions.

“It hasn’t yet!”

“ At least not as of this morning.” her mother was breaking apart! Bucky could tell she was very scared and exhausted! He knew that her daughter's well being must've weighed heavily on her, he could see the physical manifestation of her pain. In just a few hours her nails had been bit to the core, and her tears streaks had left vivid and raw tracks around her cheeks.

“Buck! I know this is a lot to ask, but you have to tell Steve! Were worried she wouldn't make it otherwise. This will be her first heat”

He’d almost forgotten his mothers presence in the room, cause he turned around and met her eyes, tears streaming down her face. She'd grown fond of her friend's daughter over the years. After her own kids had left to form their own lives, she could still go to her and relive some memories of her little ones' younger days.

“I know! I'm still wrapping my head around it, but I know what I have to do” agitation surrounded his voice. He didn't know when his heart started to feel like it wanted to jump out of his chest or when he gripped the glass of water that was left on the table so hard it shattered, but it was evident that he wasn't going to be getting any rest that day.

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

Bucky parked his pickup in front of Steve's house. It was the largest house in the village, it wasn't Steve's choice, but he'd inherited it from his father, and his father had inherited it from his father before him. Being the house farthest away from the city limits, but right in the middle of the village meant Steve was protected, but could also be easily accessed.

Looking back at his passenger seat he saw Winnifred with her mom cradled upon her shoulder, comforting her best friend through the probably the second hardest day of her life.

“You should stay here Ma, I'll go get Steve” I know he’ll be happy to see you, but I still don't know how he'll react to her'' He opened his tool box on the bed of his truck and pulled out a large fleece blanket. Neatly folded he handed it over to his mother.

“Just keep her company till I come back”

The lights in Steve's house were on, but Buck could hear the sound of wood being shopped and Steve's grunts coming from the back of the property. As he reached his best friend's view, he took a deep breath. It was all gonna be different now, for all of them.

Steve had a large pair of headphones in, and was clearly a few songs deep into his playlist because when Bucky came around the corner; Steve almost lost a hold of the axe he was holding! Lookin at Buck he lowered his bulky headphones and stabbed the axe to the soft moody ground next to the small uncut piece of wood he was about to turn into lumber.

Steve's hair was not as long as Bucky's, and he had taken a liking to a neatly kept beard.

He grew it out as a joke at first! Clint dared him to grow it for a month, and after a month he'd grown fond of the style.So for the past year now, Steve looked less like a young soldier, and more like those lumberjacks from the cheesy romance novel covers his sister Rebecca loved to read.

“Hey Buck, didn't expect you around so late” Steve combed his hair back with his fingers. A nervous habit Bucky had noticed since childhood, especially when he had a lot on his mind.

“Couldn't sleep?”

Bucky was concerned for his friend, momentarily forgetting the reason for his sudden visit.

“ Banner called! Wanda was there earlier today, she wasn't feeling well. Turns out she was pregnant, and didn't know it!

“Steves that's awesome, when is she due ? we need to celebra…” as he looked into his best friend's eyes he saw the pain behind his look.

“She was miscarrying at the same time she found out she was pregnant, Buck. That's the third pup we've lost this year.I don't know how we're gonna get through this, It's getting harder and harder to keep everyone safe, and pretend we're not gonna be extinct in 50 years”

“Steve…” Steve's gaze was filled with a mixture of tears and rage. He took everyone's pain personally. And hearing about Wanda had awoken an unease within his soul. He couldn't fight the problem! How could a man used to protecting and fighting, deal with a problem that didn't require a fight?

“There’s an omega! She presented this morning!

“Who is she?”

“Remember Katerina? She … uhh … after she was exiled from the pack, she had a daughter!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 20 years ago

“We can't just let him die! We have to take him outside the walls! Someone out there can help him”

Joseph was the second in command to Benjamin Rogers. Two of the strongest alphas the entire western district had ever known. Both feared together, but explosive apart.

Benjamin had fathered a son 7 years earlier, a frail boy. He was often sickly and his future wasn’t promised! He wasn't meant to live much longer, the boy had once again woken up sick. A high fever overcoming his small body.

Benjamin had changed after his wife's death, he blamed the boy for Sarah’s death. A man that was once kind, and dedicated to his family, now lived like a wandering dark shadow inflicting cruelty against anyone that disagreed and crossed his path. His pack was strong! But there was no harmony, only fear.

Sarah had been a beautiful alpha as well as Benjamin. She had a hard time carrying Steve to term, at 7 months she fell bedridden and two weeks later, she had a seizure that compromised her pregnancy. Benjamin himself had to cut the boy out of his dying wife. That choice, as his wife laid there lifeless , covered in blood, and cut open like an animal awoke a demon in Benjamin. He saw death in his son's eyes, that is why he could never love him. He could never care!

Katerina took care of his young baby like her own, she had struggled to have a baby of her own so when Joseph came home holding a still bloody wailing baby, she fell madly in love with the small bundle in his arms.

The boy was small, but smart! He picked up words as young as a few months, and as a toddler he was incredibly gifted. Steve excelled in art, and even knees bit of music. Katerina loved to sit down and play piano! A young Steve would lean into her side and follow suit to her fingers on the side of the pano with his small hands. Joseph and Katerina watched him grow up, and took care of him.

Steve got sick often, but nothing too serious!

One day as she prepared breakfast she had a feeling of dread on the pit of her stomach, she ran upstairs to check on Steve and found him comatose on the bed!she wailed as she held her adopted infant son to her chest. Joseph came running to her after hearing her screams. He picked up the boy from her hands and loaded him into the car, with Katerina at his side he headed to Benjamin's house.

That was the first time Benjamin had seen his son since his wife died, his son himself nearly dead!

"Please Ben! He needs help! There's another pack two hours away, they have a doctor that can help him. She can heal him for good, please open up the walls so we can go to her! They both pleaded with Ben for hours, but to no avail!

The man was already covered in anger and reeking of alcohol, “Don't you dare challenge your alpha Joe! If I find out you defied me and left this territory you will never be allowed back”

Katerina couldn't let her boy die! With that warning in heart, she and her husband plotted to get little Stevie outside the pack territory, and to that doctor.

Behind Ben’s back, and knowing the consequences in his heart Joe called the Alpha from the neighboring pack, the other alpha had the resources ready for them to arrive in the morning. His doctor, a witch, was ready to give little Steve the life he deserved.

In the early morning of the night they sped their way through the woods. Once they reached the border a car awaited Rina, a beta from the fury pack was ready to take them to their pack.

Ben had closed the pack off to treaties when his wife died, he believed the world was dangerous and the pack was better off without interruptions, he couldn't even save his wife! His pack did not deserve to be mercied, they didn't deserve to live if she couldn't. So Ben slowly watched his pack become secluded and lost.

In the morning Ben, even drunker than the night before, had shown up at Joe's doorstep demanding to see the boy. Fully convinced he'd be dead by now, when Joe failed to produce an explanation as to why his wife was gone and so was Steve.

Ben lost it!

He called a pack meeting on which he publicly executed Joe, whether it was a display of power or just pure psychopathic joy. Joe’s death left the town broken, when Katerina came back with a healed Steve, she found herself widowed and exiled.

As a last sick jab into Joe’s heart even after his death, Ben took Steve!

As the years went by Steve forgot his early years, he forgot Joe and Katerina!

Steve remembered stories of his betrayal, her exile! How their actions forever changed a pack. He grew up kind, giving, and strong! Even if Steve didn't experience or know much love from his father, he was full of it!

And thanks to that witch both Katerina’s little growing heartbeat and Steve were stronger than ever!

Tags:

@austynparksandpizza @exposition-belongs-somewhere

[buckysbabygorl]

Best Friend’s Brother (College AU) Part 2: An Introduction

Summary: Y/N goes up to her friend’s ‘summer home’ for spring break to forget about the daily stress of being a student. She’s ready to let loose and have fun, but she wasn’t prepared to meet her friend’s attractive older brother...

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Warnings: mild swearing, drinking, sexual inuuendo and themes

Word Count: 2,002

Dedicated to @marvelrose

Part 1 , Part 3

Series Masterlist

Rebecca had been right.

The interior was far more incredible than the outside.

The seclusion and privacy of the estate added to the homey ambiance of the luxurious mansion; the interior was decorated in soft creams and whites, with dark wood furnishings to contrast. The front foyer was immaculate and grand; its staircase leading to the upstairs level was immense and curved along the east wall of the entrance.

Y/N looked to the ceiling and admired the crystal chandelier hanging decadently over them. The delicate glass glistened beautifully with the light, and Y/N noticed then their lack of dust; as if they had appeared there in this moment exactly. Completely untouched.

“It’s quite beautiful, isn’t it?” Brimsby commented.

Not knowing how else to describe the sight, Y/N slowly nodded in amased agreement. It really was beautiful, but somehow beautiful didn’t seem to articulate the sight justly.

Bags in hand, Brimsby motioned for her to follow him to the staircase. “This way, Miss. Your room as well as Miss Barnes reside on the upper level.”

He started his walk, but realized she hadn’t followed him, too caught up in the appearance of the house. A small smile pulled at his lip; understanding the young lady’s fascination with the place; though his amusement had been long ago diluted as his days at the estate passed

“The upstairs is just as wonderful as the down, my dear.”

As she took in his words, she quickly followed him, excited to view more of the architecture and decor.

She trailed behind him, lightly tracing the wood railing as she ascended the staircase.

So polished, she thought. So smooth.

It was evident the amount of care put into the place; each sconce and crevice she had seen so far was catered to with a consistent and loving upkeep. Somehow, it made the place all the more beautiful.

“How long have you been with the family?” Y/N asked.

Brimsby stopped at the top stair for her, waiting to speak until they could walk in side by side.

“Decades my dear. I began working here as a young boy when the children's grandfather was the head of the household. ”

“Wow,” Y/N said, “So the estate has been in the family for quite some time then.”

“Indeed it has.” He spoke proudly as they rounded the second landing, pleased with the effort he had given after all these years.

Y/N tried to picture it; a little Rebcca running through the halls with her brother. That same energy from a kid never leaving her; that overwhelming happiness and the love for this estate...

“You’ve really taken care of the place,” She complimented, “I’m sure the Barnes are grateful.”

He led her down an attached hall of the landing, dark and sturdy doors accompanying them on each side. Bedrooms, she assumed.

“Anyone would agree... Rebecca loves you like family.”

Brimsby smiled at that, “Well, I’m grateful to have them as well. They’ve been very gracious to me, being here hardly feels like work at all.”

Y/N hummed happily, “If you do what you love…”

“...You’ll never work a day in your life.” He finished. 

Y/N chuckled slightly as they came to a stop. Placing the bags on the floor, he turned back to the young girl with his hand on the doorknob.

“And this,” Brimsby gestured to his right, “is your room.”

Y/N hadn’t known what to expect; but she certainly hadn’t expected this.

The entire trip up; Rebecca hadn’t mentioned a word of the appearance of the place. No warning about the massive mansion, the immense space. Y/N pictured a quaint cottage on the water, the average two point five bedrooms, and a bathroom all of them would fight over in the mornings.

But that hadn’t been the case at all; the home had been the definition of opulence. And this room had been no exception.

The room was spacious, much like the rest of the house. It had the same creams and whites, but the furnishings in the room weren’t the dark modern wood she had seen. They were softer in color and lacked varnish; she assumed antique. The massive bed that lay in the centre of the room had plush pillows, and a thick comforter that swirled in patterns of light blues and yellows. As Y/N walked further in: she noticed the props of the room were also vintage; lamps and ash trays on the bedside tables, and the books and ornaments on the shelves looked as though they were pulled from a different time. The far wall was nearly entirely window, a long bench running underneath the sills for sitting. 

“Do you think you’ll be comfortable in here, Miss?”

Y/N turned to Brimsby, who waited patiently at the door.

“It’s incredible. I couldn’t ask for a better room.”

He smiled, entering and setting her bags at the foot of the bed.

“Excellent. I shall leave you to get better acquainted with the room. Do let me know if there’s anything more I can do for you.”

As he was leaving, Y/N called for him.

“Thank you, you’ve been wonderful. I really appreciate it.”

He smiled, “Of course, any friend of Rebecca’s is welcome in this home. It was lovely meeting you.”

“Likewise.”

With their conversation ended, Brimsby closed the door behind him and left Y/N alone.

Y/N made no rush to unpack, instead seating herself on the bench at the window, looking to the trees at the front of the house.

She shook her head in amazement, “Can’t believe this place.” She said to herself.

She knew she’d thank Rebecca over and over again for this experience: the house alone was amazing. A luxurious stay with your best friend, an entire week to yourselves…

Well, not exactly yourselves, she realized.

I wonder what the boys will be like, she thought.

So far everything Rebecca had said was positive; but she may have been biased. Regardless, Y/N figured that she’d at least get along with James and his friends, based on the fact Rebecca and him were cut from the same cloth. Both pursued careers in Law, wanting to ‘make a difference in the world’, and on that notion alone Y/N could respect James. Apparently, he was funny; charming; more rowdy than most, but sometimes he had his moments.

“He gets really quiet every now and then.” Y/N remembers Rebecca saying, “Thoughtful, I think he tries to come off that he isn’t sensitive, or smart. But he is, he really is…”

Y/N smiled at the thought, admiring how highly Rebecca thought of him. Y/N was still skeptical, of course. But at the very least, she would have to give him a chance.

“Steve! You in there?”

Y/N turned at the voice, watching as the door swung open and in walked a young man.

He was dressed casually; khaki pants and a dark polo shirt slightly stretched by his tall, muscular stature. He was quite handsome; with strong features and dark hair. As Y/N made eye contact with him, he startled slightly; his blue eyes widening and his lips pouting in confusion.

“You’re not Steve.”

Y/N chuckled as she rose from the window seat, “No I’m not.”

From his demeanor and dress, she knew he wasn’t someone employed at the estate, and figured quickly that he was one of the boy guests.

“Hm,” He muttered, his hand still placed on the doorknob. He chuckled as he peeked further into the doorway. “I think I’m in the wrong room.”

“You think?” she teased.

He laughed awkwardly as he rubbed his hand along the back of his neck. “Yeah.. I hate to admit it but I’m still getting lost in this place.”

He entered the room and walked towards her, “I’m sorry, I’m being rude. I’m Bucky.”

“I’m Y/N, Rebecca’s friend.” She said as she reached out her hand.

His smile was friendly as her palm fit against his “I figured, how are you liking the place so far?”

Y/N sighed as she admired the room again, “it’s incredible.”

“Yeah?” He beamed at her contentment.

She nodded vigorously, “Yeah. This place is beautiful. Rebecca didn’t tell me anything about this place; it was all secret.”

Bucky chuckled, “Yeah, she has a flair for the dramatic.”

“Have you known her long?” Y/N asked.

Bucky’s brows pinch in confusion, “Yeah, her whole life…”

“Really? I didn’t realize how close she was with James’s friends.” She admitted.

Bucky started to speak but instead he just smiled cheekily. “Yeah, I’d say we’re all pretty close.”

“Oh, I didn’t realize.” She stated. “You’re looking for Steve, right? James’s friend?”

Bucky bit his lip as he nodded, a hint of a laugh in his voice as he spoke. “Um, yeah I am. Which reminds me; I’m still haven’t found him.”

“Oh, right.” Y/N nodded.

The longer Y/N looked at him, she realized how incredibly handsome he was. Sharp jawline, pouty lips, big blue eyes, incredibly fit... if you weren’t careful, you could get lost in a man like that.

“You want some company?” She asked shyly.

Bucky smirked as he gave the girl a quick once-over, “If you’re ‘company’, of course.”

Y/N felt herself blush, stealing a glance at the floor as she lost the words to respond.

If all the boys are like this, then I’m definitely screwed.

Bucky held open the door for her, and tried to exit without making her flustered state noticeable, but couldn’t hide from Bucky’s eye.

“I’ll be honest,” He started as he closed her door behind him, “We weren’t expecting you guys so soon.”

“Rebecca said the same thing actually, something about you guys showing up on Sunday?”

He shook his head at her statement, “No she said we should come up on Sunday; we just assumed that meant she wanted to meet up that day.”

“I guess they both wanted to beat the other to the punch, huh?”

Bucky puckered his lips to stifle a laugh, “Yeah I guess they did.”

Bucky took a moment to really look at the girl. Rebecca had shown him pictures before, but they did not do her justice. She was gorgeous in person, and that voice… he could listen to her talk all day if she’d let him.

“Have you met him before?”

“Who, James?”

Bucky nodded as he led her around the top landing, and started down the stairs. “Yeah.”

“No, but I’ve heard lots about him.”

“Yeah? Like what?” He asked. Bucky stopped and leaned back against the railing, shoving his hands in his pockets as he patiently waited for her answer.

Y/N turned on the stairs and placed a foot on the next step, balancing herself as she met his curious eyes. “Charmer, funny, a big softie once you get to know him… that sort of thing.”

“Seems like a dreamboat…”

Y/N rolled her eyes, “The way she paints him, yeah…”

Bucky tilted his head to the side as his tongue darted to lick his bottom lip. “You believe her?”

Y/N shrugged as she turned away from him.

“I think so. But she might be exaggerating,” she called over her shoulder, “She’s trying to get me to fuck him.”

She heard Bucky’s laughter echo through the foyer, the sound of his footsteps following short after.

“Wow, haven’t even met and she’s already planning the wedding?”

Y/N smiled as she nodded, turning to face him as he landed at the bottom of the stairs.

“You gonna do it?” He asked teasingly.

Y/N bit her lip as she thought, “Not sure yet. Guess I��ll have to meet him first.”

Bucky nodded as his gaze found the floor, hiding the look of excitement and mischief he’d attempted to keep a handle on. But he couldn’t help it; the girl was clueless, she made it too easy.

“I guess you will.”

~

Part 3

OmG wHaT iS BuCkY HidInG o_O

Jk y’all hoes know. We ready for Part 3? We’re getting to the steamy stuff soon ;)

[mrsparknamjoon]

01. the linchpin | reliability • kth

index | next

pairing: taehyung x reader word count: 1.900 genre: drama, light angst rating: pg-13 warnings: cursing au: ceo/office trope: enemies to friends to lovers tags: ceo!taehyung, office!au, best friend!yoongi, unresolved emotional tension, mutual pining, slow burn crosspost: ao3

summary: a predictable mistake in buying shares becomes the perfect opportunity for taehyung to show everybody in the company no one is above his rules. what he didn’t know was that his plan would backfire making him question what the real meaning of trust is

A/N: this story began as a drabble bc i love dramatic scenes, whether in movies, television or books. confrontation is always one of my favorite things about them so i decided to try to write one for the first time ever. clearly i still have a lot to learn but i hope you like it!

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Another meeting, another group of incompetent people that I can't believe I hired. Sitting at the end of a long wood table, I scrolled through my phone reading a few emails while all the shareholders took their positions. It was absurd that I had to call a meeting on Friday night because of a predictable and, quite frankly, stupid mistake but here we were.

“Mr. Kim, we're ready” my secretary said discreetly as she handed me a folder filled with documents.

“Thank you” I replied as I got up from the chair and started spreading the papers on the table in front of me.

“Good evening! First, I would like to thank you all for coming on such short notice. The reason for this emergency meeting is to talk about the purchase of a few Min Industries shares” I paused and gazed into the eyes of everyone present. Some of them were curious, tired, others frightened and one in particular very angry.

“I believe all of you realized that ever since it happened our company has started to fall into devaluation, thanks to someone’s stupid and hasty decision” I continued while looking at the documents before me. “I don't want an explanation about what happened or why it happened, just how we are going to solve it” I turned and faced my main suspect, “Today”

“Mr. Kim, if I may, I think I speak for everyone here when I say that there is nothing legally wrong with the purchase” said Lee Sung, one of our oldest and most efficient lawyers. Still, it was a matter of principle for me and everyone knew that.

“I understand, Mr. Lee, but this is not what I'm worried about” I began calmly walking around the table while elaborating my thoughts, “You see... although Min Industries doesn’t compete directly with us they have affiliates who do. Therefore…”

“Therefore it’s smart to buy the shares precisely because it gives us more control over the affiliates” said Y/N, interrupting me.

I couldn't help the smirking that escaped my lips. Y/N took the bait and it was all I needed. From the beginning, I knew she was the one leading the expansion project and everything was going well until she put my credibility with Min Yoon Gi in check.

Yoon Gi and I are old friends, practically brothers, but our families have a particular rivalry that has lasted for almost 50 years. It is nothing that explicit or dramatic. An outsider wouldn't see the animosity, for example. I see it as a truce, however, it's still a delicate matter for our parents and grandparents. When we both took over the businesses, we agreed that we would not repeat their mistakes and promised to interfere as little as possible in each other's company. If it was strictly necessary, we would have to talk before any steps were taken. That was the deal and that is why I was furious at Y/N's audacity to make a decision like this one. She was aware of our family's situation even if not exactly about what I had promised my friend.

“Are you serious, miss Y/LN?”

“Why would I be kidding?” she replied looking confused, twisting the pen between her fingers like she was bored.

“I have no idea, but to call that a smart decision, one that immediately impacts my company's profit, not to mention my personal reputation, seems like a joke. And a bad one to say the least” I said, staring at her intensely as I approached her chair.

The atmosphere got heavy and I couldn't care less. I was right and everyone knew it. Y/N took a risk, as she is paid to do, but the risk was not worth it and she needed to take responsibility for it. If it was anyone else I would have already fired without even calling a meeting. Luckily, she's a key part of the company and one of the shareholders as well so I decided to scold her in front of others to send a subtle warning that nothing goes unnoticed by me and that measures will always be taken, regardless of the level of the hierarchy. This is my way to send a warning because I don't do threats.

Y/N gulped and shifted in her chair, visibly uncomfortable with my proximity.

“So I'm going to ask you again, miss Y/N: are you serious?” I crossed my arms and tilted my head to the side, watching her try very hard not to lose her composure. I had known Y/N for a long time and she always managed to be as cold as me, yet on occasions where her professionalism was questioned her replies used to be impulsive.

“Mr. Kim, I'll be frank” she started, standing up and walking towards the pulpit next to the projection screen. “It was indeed a risk on my part to put Vante Enterprises ahead of such a high-profile acquisition and, for the embarrassment caused, I sincerely apologize”

“Why do I feel like there's a 'but' coming?” I asked, sitting on the chair that she left vacant.

“But"

“See?” I turned to Seo Nu sitting on my left. He laughed politely because I laughed first. Deep down he didn't think it was funny and just wanted to suck up to me. Clever.

“But I still believe that in the long run, we’ll reap great results… excellent results, in fact! Here's a chart” Y/N pointed at the screen in front of us and began to confidently defend her decision, clearly and calmly, completely different from the Y/N of a minute ago who I thought would lose her temper.

* * * * * * *

The meeting room broke out in applause as soon as Y/N finished presenting a chain of detailed information regarding the shares, and although I was surprised by the level of research she prepared, I was unable to hide my dissatisfaction as CEO by confirming that Y/N still didn't understand the problem.

“Could you guys excuse us?” I looked at Y/N and then at the other shareholders. Since the person responsible presented herself there was no need to keep putting on a show, right? I got up, buttoned my jacket, and returned to my original spot on the table to organize the papers I had left lying there.

While arranging them all in a pile, the room emptied and Y/N approached.

“You love to exaggerate things, don't you?” she snarled looking me up and down.

“You love to ignore the rules and interfere with what doesn't concern you, don't you?” I fired back mimicking her attitude.

Y/N stopped for a moment and studied my expression. For a split second, I could feel a question in the air as if she wanted to know if that's what I actually thought of her — a nosy and unprofessional person who ignored her superiors on purpose. I didn’t. She looked hurt. Still, her voice gave no indication that my response had affected her.

“I love my work! It's great and you pay me well” she said, taking the papers from my hand. “Oh, what do we have here?”

“Don't be childish, give me the papers Y/N” I motioned my hands and closed my eyes feeling exhausted.

“What are these projections? How come I have never seen them before?” Y/N's voice came out louder than before depicting a mixture of shock and disbelief. “There is no actual proof that these companies are connected, it doesn't make sense” she walked back to the pulpit, eyes glued to the documents to compare the numbers and references with the slides she had spent hours preparing.

“Y/N give me the papers, that information is above you” I demanded in a firm tone. “Besides, my intention with today's meeting was to get you to find a solution to your own mess but even that you weren't able to”

“How can I solve it if I don't have all the information, Tae Hyung?” Y/N lowered the papers she was gripping so tightly in front of her face and I could see red, teary eyes along with the angry tone in her voice. She hadn't called me Tae Hyung since college and that felt like a blow in my stomach.

“If I had known that the companies were connected I would have thought twice before buying the shares... I…” Y/N's voice failed but she cleared her throat and continued “...this is your fault!”

“Mine?” I asked dumbfounded.

“You left me in the dark and I made an important decision without having all the information” she pushed the papers onto my chest and started pulling the projector's wires angrily, “This is not what I call trust”

“Seriously? Are we going to talk about trust? Bit ironic, don’t you think?” I started chasing her around the room while she collected her belongings and threw them into a big purse.

Y/N snorted like what I just said was absurd.

“You know very well the situation between my family and Yoon Gi's. I always made it clear that we don't do business with them and yet you went there and did it” I placed my hand on top of her purse, preventing her from continuing what she was doing. “Where is my trust in you now?” I questioned her almost in a pleading tone.

Y/N pulled the purse off the table in one swift motion and I almost lost my balance.

“You know what? You're right. I was wrong” she said, looking defeated. “I shouldn't have shown interest in shares that involved Yoon Gi's company, but you definitely shouldn't have hidden these documents from me either” she continued taking a few steps back, slowly moving away from me. “And that's where you fucked up. You're still obsessed with secrets and rules, keeping everyone who tries to help you away"

“Wait a minute” I interjected. This was unfair, it was not like that.

“I'm not done talking” she gazed at me very seriously and I had no choice but to stop and listen. “I know that we have differing opinions on many things and I have teased you too much in the past 10 years with my analysis and requirements, but I never... I say never... would do anything that would harm the company”

“I know” I whispered, feeling kind of dumb for blurting it all out like that.

“It doesn't look like it” she placed the purse on her shoulder. “For me, you're trying to find a reason to get me out of here”

My jaw dropped in shock. Y/N had no idea how much I valued her work, and at this very moment, I didn't know what to say first. An apology? An explanation? A plea? I could have said anything, but I didn't. Not even a fucking sound. My mouth remained open as my thoughts flew through my mind at a frightening speed, making it look like I was confirming her impression.

“I’m gonna save you the trouble. I quit”

Y/N gave me what looked like a small bow or maybe a quick nod as if to excuse herself and then left the room without another word, leaving me leaning against the table without understanding what had just happened, finding myself, for the first time in a long time, completely alone.

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𝗳𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗺𝘂𝗰𝗵 𝘄𝗲𝗹𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗱 ❤ 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗺𝗲 𝗮 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗹𝘆 𝗼𝗿 𝗮𝗻 𝗮𝘀𝗸! 𝗶 𝘄𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗹𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ revised version: 09.25.2021

[indecisive-behaviors]

Okay so I just reblogged a thing talking about season 2 and 3 of Cobra Kai and I have some Thoughts about what they did to everyone’s character arcs in this so if you’d like a rant it’s under the cut with spoilers from all 3 seasons plus spoilers for all 3 Karate Kid movies

Okay so my issues start with one very key scene that I personally think fucked up the whole rest of the narrative, and by extension everyone else’s character arcs: which is from Different but Same. And no not that scene- not yet at least.

The first scene that I think fucked over the narrative and killed several character arcs was the beach scene. Miguel, reasonably distraught over the idea that Sam is hiding him from her dad(which she is actually doing to be fair), gets completely drunk and when Sam and Robby arrive together he loses it, pushes Sam and subsequently gets dumped. Now why do I think this ruined everything? It completely goes against Miguel’s character up to this point. Miguel is absolutely trying to mimic Johnny in a lot of key ways but also up to this point Miguel has also been Johnny’s conscience; he’s smart and kind and had not at all shown to be anything even close to what Johnny was in KK1. He’s stood up for his friends, defended the girl he likes from bullies, he’s a huge mama’s boy and a bit of a hopeless romantic. In no episode up until that point does he ever display any tendency towards unnecessary violence, despite Johnny’s “strike first” motto. Miguel getting wasted and violent does not add up in my mind. Miguel is supposed to be a narrative parallel to Daniel for fuck sake. Also, and this is my main complaint, there is no fucking reason for Miguel to immediately jump to the conclusion that Sam is seeing Robby- literally none. They look very much alike, hell Robby looks a little like Amanda honestly, he could very well be her cousin for all Miguel knows. Robby and Sam don’t even act like a couple in the shot- they’re literally just sitting next to each other at family dinner. None of this subplot makes any fucking sense.

And then, obviously, there’s the very next scene- Johnny goes with Daniel back to his place, tipsy and happy and seemingly in a very good place with each other. Then Robby shows up, Johnny loses his shit and Daniel proceeds to get pissed and kick Robby out. Now there is one thing I point out about this scene whenever I talk about it that doesn’t add up: no where in this scene is it ever even implied that either Johnny or Daniel know about Robby’s original intentions. (Also nothing up till that point ever even establishes why Robby knows about Daniel and Johnny’s rivalry in the first fucking place for the record). There is no reason for Johnny to suspect that Daniel knew and was hiding it, or even that Robby was doing it on purpose, and there is no reason for Daniel to get mad or even suspect that Robby knew what he was doing or was lying about it; and the fact of the matter is that Robby never actually lied(also Daniel never fucking asked) about his home situation. His mom was neglectful and an addict, and his father wasn’t in the picture. That’s it, and none of that was a lie. Now I’m not sitting here and denying that what Robby did was wrong because it absolutely was-- it was manipulative and unfair to Daniel and he had a right to be angry when he found out it was the case but there is nothing to suggest that he didn’t just jump to conclusions. And also, personally, I don’t think any of that justifies kicking a teenager to the curb, and one that Daniel explicitly knows has no one and nothing to fall back on. Be angry, be furious with Robby, but leaving a teenager to fend for themselves is cruel and completely unjustifiable behavior from a grown ass adult(also there’s a whole can of worms involved in Daniel never trying to figure out where the fuck Robby’s parents are and letting him live there without an explanation but that’s for a different rant).

Now assume none of that weird subplot happens, there is another way to have the Robby and Miguel rivalry that would have made so much more fucking sense and it only hinges on one fucking thing- Robby enters the tournament. It could be with or without Daniel’s approval(maybe even with a KK3 parallel, but Daniel honestly seems pretty into the tournament these days so he’d probably be down for Robby joining and reping Miyagi-do), but all we need is for him to do it.  Robby gets there, and Johnny sees him, potentially rocking a Miyagi-do gi and can have his surprised/hurt moment with him and Daniel, even potentially a confrontation between them. We can also still have Miguel beating Robby in the tournament and having Johnny be conflicted about his son losing. Hawk can even still hurt him and give Johnny his “holy shit this is wrong” epiphany and Miguel not understanding why Johnny wants him to go easy on Robby. Robby can still be hurt and upset by thinking Johnny cares more about Miguel after he loses.

Okay now as for season 2? Assuming everything stays the same in season 1, I have one MAJOR complaint. Robby becoming Sam’s love interest; and no it’s not because I think Miguel and Sam should be an endgame couple when the show is over(I do but that’s beside the point) but because it turns Sam into a plot device. This carries over into season 3 where she starts dating Miguel again and apparently just never breaks it off with Robby which is such a dick move I can not for the life of me imagine Sam of all fucking people doing it. She isn’t perfect by any means but she’s also outspoken and and much more confident by that point and should not have had a problem breaking up with someone in an email. But I digress, back to season 2- the moment I saw that Sam and Robby were going to be a couple I immediately knew the writers fucked up. There was no build up for it, nothing in season 1 to foreshadow this as a possibility(Different but Same doesn’t count because that was a whiplash of an episode) and they just decided offhandedly to put her in the middle of Robby’s and Miguel’s rivalry. There was no reason to make them a couple other than to fuck with Miguel and set up the Tory & Sam rivalry which could have happened fucking anyway with the shit at the country club, the rift between Sam and Aisha, and Miguel’s ongoing feelings for Sam even after he’s dating Tory(also a dick move what the fuck Miguel??). Adding Robby as fuel to the fire was super unnecessary and all it did was set up the clusterfuck that was the season 2 finale.

And OH BOY was that finale a clusterfuck. First of all, as a prelude- Fuck. Daniel. He pulled the exact same shit as in season 1 with dumping Robby the second he does anything even a little bit wrong. But also, as a gut punch, Robby didn’t actually do anything wrong. What was he supposed to do at the party? He couldn’t stop Sam from drinking even though he wanted to, it was her (very poor) choice. But he did what he could, he kept an eye on her, and when the cops showed up, he didn’t just leave her, he put her in the car and drove her somewhere he thought she’d be safe without having to immediately face her father(who super fucking overreacted btw) while she was recovering. This scene, which could have been an excellent bonding moment for Johnny and Robby, and an introduction to Sam getting to know Johnny outside of her father’s influence, was turned into a brawl for no fucking reason. 

Which leads me to the school fight. And right off the bat I’ve got to say this; even as, and maybe especially as, a person who has written post season 3 fix it fics, there is no way for Robby and Miguel to convincingly fix what happened in the season 2 finale. Yes, what Robby did was absolutely an accident and he has already done his time for it. But the elephant in the room is this: Miguel could have died. Or at the very least, been totally paralyzed. There is not a good way to come back from that. They will always have that hanging over their heads, even if they somehow reach an understanding. And I know someone is going to try and make the argument about that being a parallel to Johnny and Daniel in KK1, but if it is that it’s a terrible parallel. What Johnny did was supremely fucked up and I won’t deny that, especially with the Halloween scene and Daniel’s knee in the tournament(which actually was technically more Bobby’s doing, but I digress), but it was never “almost permanently disable/kill someone” bad. (Again there’s a whole can of worms to open about the shit with Chozen and Daniel’s seemingly pretty easy forgiveness of a man who tried to kill him because what the fuck?? But again that’s another rant.) But the writers wanted to push the envelope so now Johnny will always have the tug of war of choosing Robby, who he loves but who also really fucked up, and Miguel, who was the original reason for the rivalry in the first place but who was also the one who, again, almost died because of his son, even if he somehow fixes his relationship with both. It will always be “why did you pick him over me?” and Johnny will never have a good enough answer for either of them. And finally the big complaint- Johnny completely regressing in season 3. Season 3 honestly felt like a rehashing of season 1 because we literally had to see him progress in his arc all over again from square fucking one. He still isn’t there for Robby, he’s still fucking up things with Miguel and his family, he’s still fucking up his relationship with Daniel, he still chooses to miss his appointment with Robby to see Miguel(who would have been there after the appointment and he could have seen him then), he abandons half of his fucking students to fend for themselves and leaves the other half with a man he knows is a dangerous psychopath. And yes we get the cool scene at the end of December 19, but is it worth it?? I’m genuinely asking because, as much as I love that scene, I really don’t believe it is.(edit: Also fuck that whole subplot with Eli and Demetri- you don’t get to just break the arm of the boy who was your best friend and just have that go away with no repercussions. Fuck. That. I hope Demetri gets at minimum an actual on screen apology, and hopefully Eli actually trying to make amends.)

We could have still had the big team up- have Johnny admit to Daniel that he’s fucked up and tell him everything that’s happening with Kreese. Have them join forces to defeat Kreese in the tournament. Have the dumb fucking bet. Introduce Terry Silver in season 4. Have Johnny’s and Daniel’s tenuous truce strained at every turn because they’re idiots. Do all of it. But y’know what? We could have had all of that- all of it- without it being at the expense of at least 2 character arcs; Johnny’s and also Robby’s.

Also before I end this I just have to add- nothing and I mean nothing will ever redeem Kreese or Silver for me. I do not give a singular shit about either of their tragic backstories, I just don’t. I get why and how Chozen got his redemption- he was a teenager when that shit happened, and while the shit he pulled is personally unforgivable in my opinion, he has actively been trying to redeem himself by spending the last however many decades making it up to his community. I’d even understand a Barnes redemption to an extent, even though I wouldn’t accept it, because he was also very young and being manipulated by, again, a dangerous psychopath. But Kreese and Silver? Abso-fucking-lutely not. They were two grown ass adults who purposefully targeted an 18 year old and put him through emotional and physical for weeks, paid someone to intimidate him through both threats of physical violence but also through vandalism, and gaslighted him and isolated him from the only family he had at the time because he beat them in a children’s karate competition. Look, I’m not sorry, I don’t give a fuck about Kreese’s tragic backstory, nothing about what Kreese has done can be rationalized by just saying “oh his mom and girlfriend died and he was in ‘Nam”. And any good thing he does for Tory, or even Robby, does not balance out all the harm he has caused. Silver is even less redeemable- I don’t care that he almost died in war, I’m an army brat I know plenty of people who almost died and don’t act like this. In canon we have evidence of him being completely, unrepentantly evil- the first scene with him in it has him basically confirmed as the BP of nuclear waste, he pays people so he can beat them up, he’s been personally funding Kreese’s child indoctrination classes. They could pull out the saddest backstory for him possible and I would not give a shit. And that’s fine. We don’t need every bad guy to have a tragic backstory- sometimes an evil villain can just be an evil villain for no reason, not all of them need a traumatic turning point that the authors shove in to make the audience sympathize with them. So please, writers, stop trying to make me feel sorry for them because I really don’t and I don’t understand anyone who does.

Okay rant over.

[foreveralwaysanauthor]

I Could Be Every Color You Like

October 3, 2021

Prompt - Full of Colors

Characters - Bentley and various others

Notes - This gave me so many ideas for one-shots.

“Why does that kid like art so much?”

He'd heard that question a lot over the years. It was a simple question and, to be frank, not many knew the answer. The youngest of the Murphy brothers was a chatty fourteen-year-old who was usually seen holding a pen or marker to something. It was only natural that people asked questions, he supposed. It wasn’t normal for people to walk around, drawing everything in sight, but that’s just the way Bentley was.

Bentley was an enthusiastic artist and had been for as long as he could remember. Of course, he usually did so for fun, coloring on napkins and such, but his art was always meticulously done. He’d learned to draw from his mom when he was really little. Miles recalled once that Bentley had drawn all over one of their bedroom walls when he was three, but his mom was so happy with how it looked that she refused to wash it off or paint over it. Bentley was just an artist through and through - it was what he was good at.

In school, the teachers that knew Miles and Royce expected Bentley to be just like one or both of them. First was the oldest - Miles, the hardworking, above-average student who had excellent manners and was part of both the automotive department and the school newspaper before graduating early. Then came Royce, the kid with straight A’s since kindergarten who spent most of his free time studying in the library or writing in a journal. But, when Bentley came along, their expectations went out the window.

Bentley was far more artistic than his brothers, doodling in the margins of his paperwork and turning it in, only to receive a note from the teachers, telling him to please stop. While he kept his grades up, even after Miles left for Florida, he could never seem to meet the precedent set forth by his brothers. His teachers tried to talk with his father about his attention problems and constant drawing, but the man never answered the phone. When he did, he’d answer in the same manner every time before hanging up - “Did he kill someone? No? Then leave me the hell alone.” After a while, the teachers stopped caring as much and left him alone, which was nice.

The only teacher he’d liked was Mr. Samuel Hatfield, his art teacher in middle school. The man was a giant at six foot seven but had the biggest heart in the building. He took his time with each of his students, making sure they understood what concepts he was teaching them and could handle their own. For once, Bentley could claim the position of teacher’s pet with pride. The teacher took pride in Bentley’s artwork, using them as examples for other classes and, occasionally, the upperclassmen who needed encouragement.

It felt good to be appreciated.

So, when Royce whispered to him one night in the confines of their bedroom that they’d set aside enough money to move in with their older brother, he felt torn. He desperately wanted to move in with Miles, far away from their father, but he also wanted to stay so he could continue feeling special for his art. It was all he felt he was good at and he loved feeling important, but his love for his brother outweighed that a million times over so his decision was nearly instantaneous.

The next day, after working his busboy job at the diner on the edge of Main Street, he took off on his bicycle for the art shop next to the library, using his collective tip money for the day - a whopping seven dollars and fifty-four cents, nearly triple what he usually got - to buy a small sketchbook and a discounted paint set. The rest of his money, he planned on pocketing. He and Royce would be leaving soon anyway, what did it matter what he spent the extra cash on now?”

The cashier frowned at Bentley as he counted his money, coming up just a couple of quarters short. He sighed, debating on which item he wanted to buy more. Just then, the door jingled next to him and he instinctively looked up, meeting gazes with his art teacher.

“Hi, Mr. Hatfield,” Bentley greeted quickly before turning back to his purchase.

“Well if it isn’t Bentley Murphy,” the art teacher greeted. “Why am I not surprised to see you here. Buying anything good, kiddo?”

“A goodbye gift,” Bentley claimed with a grin. “My brother and I are leaving town to be with our big brother.”

“Ah,” Mr. Hatfield exhaled. “Is this a gift for your dad or your older brother?”

“Nope,” Bentley exclaimed. “This is for me. Something to remember Myrtle Beach, I guess.”

The teacher nodded slowly, taking in the information as Bentley spoke. “So, where does your older brother live again?”

‘Uh oh. Too much info,’ Bentley thought to himself. ‘Don’t get caught. They’ll call the cops if they know where we’re really going. Be smart like RJ. Think, think, think.’

“California,” he lied in feigned excitement, sending his teacher a brilliant smile. “He moved there a couple years ago to be with a girl he liked who moved to Los Angeles.”

The teacher nodded again and smiled. “Well, since this is a parting gift, I’ll cover it, kid.” The man reached into his pocket and pulled out a wallet.

“Actually,” Bentley began, “I think I’ll put the paint back-”

“Leave it, Mr. Murphy,” Mr. Hatfield stated firmly, setting down some money. “It's just some paint. I have no problem helping you to further your talents. Save your cash for spending time with your brother.”

The cashier took the money from Mr. Hatfield and bagged Bentley’s items before handing them to the fourteen-year-old. Bentley and the man said their goodbyes before Bentley went outside and hopped on his bike, riding quickly toward home. When he arrived home and found only Royce there, the two boys packed their bags and left not long after, leaving only a simple note in their place. The next fifteen or so hours were spent biking to their Uncle Tommy’s house - a man who had despised his sister’s husband since he’d met the man and had been encouraging the boys to leave. Once they arrived, they took the man’s car - with his permission and knowledge, of course - and took off for Florida. Ten hours later, they arrived pulled into the town, a sign with bold letters saying “Welcome to St. Pete Beach” being their only welcoming committee.

Royce pulled Uncle Tommy’s car into what they believed was Miles’ address, if his letters were anything to go by. They got out of the car and knocked on the door a few times before anyone answered. It was just barely eight in the morning so it wasn’t unexpected, but the anticipation was killing them slowly. Bentley was mildly surprised to see his oldest brother - who looked like he was just woken up by them - whip open the door, wiping his eyes a few times before pulling them both into a tight hug. They were shown to their room, finding it decked out in just about anything Miles had found that he’d thought they would like. To Bentley’s surprise, a brand new art book and some canvases were laid out on his bed, accompanied by various types of paints, markers, and pencils.

Their brother’s friends became family to them and they were accepted fairly quickly. Lela set aside time every day just to paint with him on the beach. Mick would teach him and his brothers photography in her spare time. Butchy took him and Royce for walks to the park so Royce could write in peace while Bentley drew in his sketchbook. Tanner took him to an art gallery on the edge of town just for fun. It was like being an artist was something to be proud of. Like there wasn’t any competition to have better grades or better abilities. It was an air of tranquility that the fourteen-year-old hadn’t felt since his mom approved of his artwork as a kid.

Over time, he began noticing the colors of people he spent the most time with. Whether it was the color of their eyes or in the things they surrounded themselves with or their favorite colors, Bentley saw them each in a different light. If he said them out loud, it would make sense to absolutely no one, but that was fine by him. He made sure it came across in his artwork instead of in his words.

For instance, Miles gave off rays of baby blue with a hint of red - calmness, safety, and love - so those were the colors Bentley used to draw his oldest brother with most. Royce was a brilliant, sunset orange - smart, vibrant, and playful - and it suited the middle brother better than he ever cared to admit. Mick and Butchy together were green with dashes of lavender, a colorful combination of love, strength, and balance - a source of protection and love that was unending and reliable. Lela was pale pink, full of innocent love for those around her.

So, when asked why he loved art so much, Bentley had only one answer to give: the colors.

[myhealthmag]

15 EASY WAYS TO BE HEALTHIER

More and more research is showing that the key to lifelong good health is what experts call “lifestyle medicine” — making simple changes in diet, exercise, and stress management. To help you turn that knowledge into results, we’ve put together this manageable list of health and wellness suggestions.

We asked three experts — a naturopathic physician, a dietitian, and a personal trainer — to tell us the top five simple-but-significant lifestyle-medicine changes they recommend.

Besides giving you three different takes on how to pick your health battles, this list gives you choices you can make without being whisked off to a reality-show fat farm — or buying a second freezer for those calorie-controlled, pre-portioned frozen meals.

1. THINK POSITIVE AND FOCUS ON GRATITUDE

Research shows a healthy positive attitude helps build a healthier immune system and boosts overall health. Your body believes what you think, so focus on the positive.

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2. EAT YOUR VEGETABLES

Shoot for five servings of vegetables a day — raw, steamed, or stir-fried. A diet high in vegetables is associated with a reduced risk of developing cancers of the lung, colon, breast, cervix, esophagus, stomach, bladder, pancreas, and ovaries. And many of the most powerful phytonutrients are the ones with the boldest colors — such as broccoli, cabbage, carrots, tomatoes, grapes, and leafy greens.

3. SET A “5-MEAL IDEAL”

What, when, and how much you eat can keep both your metabolism and your energy levels steadily elevated, so you’ll have more all-day energy. A "5 meal ideal" will help you manage your weight, keep your cool, maintain your focus, and avoid cravings.

4. EXERCISE DAILY

Did you know that daily exercise can reduce all of the biomarkers of aging? This includes improving eyesight, normalizing blood pressure, improving lean muscle, lowering cholesterol, and improving bone density. If you want to live well and live longer, you must exercise! Studies show that even ten minutes of exercise makes a difference — so do something! Crank the stereo and dance in your living room.

Sign up for swing dancing or ballroom dancing lessons. Walk to the park with your kids or a neighbor you’d like to catch up with. Jump rope or play hopscotch. Spin a hula hoop. Play water volleyball. Bike to work. Jump on a trampoline. Go for a hike.

5. GET A GOOD NIGHT'S SLEEP

If you have trouble sleeping, try relaxation techniques such as meditation and yoga. Or eat a small bedtime snack of foods shown to help shift the body and mind into sleep mode: whole grain cereal with milk, oatmeal, cherries, or chamomile tea. Darken your room more and turn your clock away from you. Write down worries or stressful thoughts to get them out of your head and onto the page. This will help you put them into perspective so you can quit worrying about them.

1. CHECK YOUR FOOD ’TUDE

What we eat and how we feel are linked in very complex ways. A healthy approach to eating is centered on savoring flavor, eating to satisfaction, and increasing energy, rather than focusing on weight. Check your balance of low-calorie foods, nutrient-dense foods (providing many nutrients per calorie), and foods that are calorie dense but nutrient poor.

Most Americans need to eat more fresh whole foods (in contrast to processed, highly refined foods). Try to add more whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables, and legumes into your meals. Pair these carbohydrate-rich foods with a healthy fat or lean protein to extend satisfaction.

2. EAT LIKE A KID

If adding more fruits and vegetables sounds ominous, look to “finger food” versions that preschool kids love — carrot and celery sticks, cherry tomatoes, broccoli florets, grapes, berries, and dried fruits. All are nutritional powerhouses packed with antioxidants.

3. BE A PICKY EATER

Limit saturated fats and trans fats, and aim to eat more foods rich in anti-inflammatory omega-3 fatty acids to cut your risk of cardiovascular disease and maybe even improve depressed moods. The equivalent of just one gram of EPA/DHA (eicosapentaenoic acid/docosahexaenoic acid) daily is recommended. Eating cold-water oily fish (wild salmon, herring, sardines, trout) two to three times per week will provide both EPA and DHA.

Adding up to two tablespoons of ground flaxseed and eating meat, milk, and cheese from grass-fed animals will provide you with a healthy dose of omega-3s.

4. USE FOODS OVER SUPPLEMENTS

Supplements are not a substitute for a good diet. Although many health experts recommend taking a multivitamin and mineral supplement that provides 100 to 200 percent of your recommended daily value, each and every supplement should be carefully evaluated for purity and safety. Specific supplements have been associated with toxicity, reactions with medications, competition with other nutrients, and even increased risk of diseases such as cancer, heart disease, and diabetes.

5. GET SATISFACTION

Both eating and physical activity are fun, sensory experiences! In both, aim for pleasure — not pain. Pay attention to the nutritional value of the foods you choose to eat, as well as your sense of satisfaction, relaxation, tension, exhilaration, and fatigue when you sit down to eat. Check in with yourself as you eat, rekindling your recognition of hunger, fullness, and satisfaction when considering when and how much to eat.

1. GIVE YOURSELF A BREAK

“I spend countless hours doing cardio and never seem to lose that last ten pounds!” is a common complaint I hear from clients. Give yourself permission to shorten your workout. Believe it or not, overtraining could be the problem. Your body can plateau if not given adequate rest to restore itself, ultimately leading to a decline in performance. Fatigue, moodiness, lack of enthusiasm, depression, and increased cortisol (the “stress” hormone) are some hallmarks of overtraining syndrome.

Creating a periodization program — breaking up your routine into various training modes — can help prevent overtraining by building rest phases into your regimen. For example, you might weight train on Monday and Wednesday, cycle on Tuesday and Thursday, run on Friday and rest on Saturday and Sunday. You can also help balance your program by simply incorporating more variety.

2. THINK SMALL

Often the biggest deterrent to improving health is feeling overwhelmed by all the available advice and research. Try to focus first on one small, seemingly inconsequential, unhealthy habit and turn it into a healthy, positive habit. If you’re in the habit of eating as soon as you get home at night, instead, keep walking shoes in the garage or entryway and take a quick spin around the block before going inside.

If you have a can of soda at lunchtime every day, have a glass of water two days a week instead. Starting with small, painless changes helps establish the mentality that healthy change is not necessarily painful change. It’s easy to build from here by adding more healthy substitutions.

3. KEEP GOOD COMPANY

You can do all the right things — but if you have personal relationships with people who have unhealthy habits, it is often an uphill battle. The healthiest people are those who have relationships with other healthy people. Get your family or friends involved with you when you walk or plan healthier meals. Making healthy changes with a loved one can bring you closer together as well as motivate you.

4. MAKE A LIST…AND CHECK IT TWICE

Take a few minutes and write down all the reasons you can’t begin an exercise program. Then look at the basis of each reason. For instance, if you wrote, “No time” as one of your reasons, then perhaps that’s based on a belief that an exercise program takes a lot of time.

Starting with even five minutes a day will have a positive effect because you will have created a healthy habit where one didn’t exist before, and that’s a powerful mental adjustment. A closer look at your list will expose those false beliefs hiding behind each excuse.

5. SIGN UP FOR AN EVENT

Let’s face it, exercising just for the sake of exercising or losing weight can get boring. Spice things up by signing up for an event like a run/walk race or a cycling ride where you can be part of a team.

Doing so gives your workouts a new purpose, and it’s fun to be around others who are exercising just like you — not to mention that most events benefit nonprofit organizations, which doubles your feel-good high.

[femmeharringrove]

we belong - chapter one

tag squad!! - @a-magey​ @harringrovetrashh​ @lostnoise​ @greyspilot​ - if you’d like to be added to the list hmu!!

     Steve Harrington is arguably the strangest beta in Hawkins. Everybody agrees on this one fact. In a town comprised mostly of betas, it’s easy to notice when one is different, and Steve’s behavior has him sticking out like a sore thumb. He’s got plenty of normal beta characteristics, sure. He’s an excellent peacemaker, a level-headed thinker most of the time. But he’s incredibly fiery when he wants to be, aggressively protective, like an alpha hovering over his pack. He’s also adopted six older pups out of the blue, and the rest of Hawkins has watched in utter confusion as he��s marched about town herding his kids along like an omega watching over his litter.

     Billy Hargrove isn’t sure what to make of it.

( read on ao3 )

     And it’s not like he usually spends his time thinking about the brunette’s habits, not outside of the night the other started swinging fists in an attempt to protect Max and her dipshit friends from his rage, but he’s had plenty of time to think lately. He’s had nothing but time in this stupid hospital, with its stupid walls and stupid sterile smell. Once he gets out, he’s determined to never step foot in this place again. Max has been visiting every day, according to the nurses, and her company makes it bearable at best. She actually spent the first three nights sleeping in the waiting room with Harrington of all people.

     Harrington, who, according to Max herself, was admitted into the hospital the night of the mall incident too. Billy just barely remembers seeing the beta there that night; his face littered with bruises and oddly bloody. Max didn’t know what exactly happened, Steve and Dustin won’t tell anyone about it, but from what she gathered the Soviet Union was involved. Billy doesn’t think about that too much – he’s more interested in the way Steve’s been at the hospital every single day with Max, as long as he’s been conscious to see it.

     The nurses say Steve’s been with her ever since he was discharged, coming in every day and comforting her whenever she gets upset. He’s seen the beta do it too, the way he opens his arms up the moment Max’s lip begins to wobble and holds her close until she’s calmed, petting her hair and murmuring in her ear something he can never hear.

     Sometimes he brings little Byers with him, and the kid’s nice. Billy likes him. The first time the pup came to visit, he sat right next to the scowling alpha and told him that he got it, he’d been there before, and if he ever wanted to talk about it he’d listen. At the time, Billy snapped about not needin’ to talk to some pup about any damn thing, but that didn’t deter the kid, and now the blonde was thinking he just may take the kid up on the offer. Every time Will comes, he sits by Billy for a few minutes and makes easy conversation before retreating to Harrington and plastering himself to the beta’s side so Max can be close to Billy, piping up to add to the conversation every now and again.

     Other times, instead of Byers, Steve brings the Henderson kid. This one’s loud and pushy, but it’s clear to Billy that this is Harrington’s pup. Steve looks at the curly-haired bastard with all the fond pride of a pleased parent, even when he’s trying to scold the pup. And the kid’s smart, he knows Steve would be hard pressed to actually get mad at him, but it seems he doesn’t really want to make the beta mad anyway – the bond between them goes both ways, that much is clear. They make an odd pair; Harrington’s on the quiet side, more reserved than the pup. Henderson can’t seem to stay quiet longer than two minutes, and he likes saying whatever comes to mind, almost painfully blunt in his mannerisms. Billy has to admire that a little bit, even if it irks him at times.

     Harrington brings the others too, sometimes, but for the most part it’s Max, Dustin, and Will. El will occasionally tag along, quiet and observant, her large eyes filled with kind understanding every time she looked at him, and Sinclair came by once to keep Max company. The kid’s still wary of him, and the alpha can’t really blame him, not in the slightest. Billy supposes he owes the kid an apology. He’s not good at those, but he’ll spit one out sooner or later. He owes a lot of people apologies – Max, all of her little friends, even Steve. Steve’s promises to be the hardest, because the guy’s got this obnoxious habit of being unbearably kind even when Billy’s a dick. Every day he’s come into this hospital he’s offered a gentle smile, a kind greeting, and brings him books to help ward off boredom when he’s on his own. Last week, the beta brought a bag full of yarn and sat there for a good half hour showing him how to crochet and knit. Billy, of course, bitched about it the whole time, because what alpha willingly learned that shit anyway?

     And, hey, if he now has a scarf in the works hiding in that stupid bag, who’s going to say anything about it?

     The answer is Neil, he knows. Neil would kick his ass if he saw the way Billy’s fingers nimbly dance with those needles, regardless of whether his son is sitting in a hospital bed or not. But the nice thing, if it can be called nice, is that Neil Hargrove hasn’t shown his face once in the hospital. Max told him that he came the night Billy was admitted, stayed until the blonde got out of the barrage of surgeries he’d underwent, and promptly left. And yeah, it’s sucky, but Billy supposes it’s for the best. Neil can drain a room of warmth faster than anything, and Billy’s uncomfortable already. And if he came and found Steve sitting there, the chances of being called a fucking fairy were higher than he’d like them to be, as well as the chances of getting the shit beat out of him. Sure, he supposes he can just tell Harrington to go, but the thing is the beta’s good at making the cold hospital room feel a smidge warmer. Billy isn’t sure he wants to willingly force that warmth out for anyone, let alone his father.

     Which is why Billy’s mad at him. It’d be easy if Steve was cruel to him, but the doe-eyed brunette is surprisingly soft. He’s got his edges, his eyes flash with a certain element of danger every now and again, but he’s overwhelmingly made of soft lines and gentle corners. And Billy isn’t sure how to respond to that most of the time. Today, however, crossing his arms as he stares at the beta and his redhead sister, he knows just the answer to give to Steve’s kindness.

     “Absolutely the fuck not.” Max’s sharp blue eyes are wide as she glares at Billy, unimpressed with the alpha’s stony expression.

     “Why not?” she demands. “Bill, you know you can’t come back home, it’s not a good idea for your recovery. Steve’s house is huge, you could avoid him all you wanted!” Her eyes flicker towards the man next to her, features softening for a brief moment. “No offense, Steve.” Steve smiles faintly in reply, hands raising up slightly.

     “None taken.” Billy rolls his eyes, lips pressing into a thin line.

     “Look, I’m not going to live with your stupid babysitter, Maxine.” His voice is a nasty growl, mean and sharp and fully intended to stop this conversation, but Max isn’t that easy to put off.

     “Can you stop being so stubborn?” she growls right back, arms crossing over her chest and teeth baring in a snarl almost identical to his. “I’m just trying to keep an eye on you, you dumbass, because I don’t want you to end up getting worse, and we both know you’re not gonna be able to recover all the way at home!” She’s so goddamn fiery, Billy gripes internally. She’s learned that from him, however, so he hardly has a right to say anything. If he has to put money on it, he’s almost completely convinced this kid’s going to be an alpha. Neil isn’t going to like that, and the idea sends a flash of worry through the blonde for a fraction of a moment.

     “And, what, you think I’ll do better with him?” His head jabs sharply towards the other man. “I’ll try my luck in my own damn house, thanks.”

     “Billy, please!” Max’s lighter blue eyes clash with his ocean hues, her face pinched and far too serious for any fourteen-year-old. “Look, I get it. You and Steve aren’t friends or whatever, but he said he’d let you stay – not live there, you don’t have to move in forever.” Max’s reasoning isn’t half bad, Billy has to admit. Her hands grasp at one another as she presses on, words tumbling over each other in their haste to escape her lips. “It’s just for a little while, just until you finish recovering, then you can come home. Just think about it!”

     “And you think my absence won’t be noticed?” he interrogates. Because Neil certainly isn’t going to react well to something like this. If the man finds out he’s staying with another boy, it’s going to lead to trouble for him and for Harrington. Max waves her hand frantically.

     “We’ll just tell him you’re still in the hospital! He won’t check, you and I both know that.” And she’s right, he does know it. Neil hasn’t so much as called, the chances of him deciding to do so anytime soon are slim to none. His sister’s eyes are staring at him wide and hopeful, and Billy’s too tired to fight her on the matter any further.

     “Don’t you and your stupid friends spend, like, all your time at his house?” he asks, shoulders dropping slightly. Max sees the move for what it is and grins broadly.

     “Well, yeah, but we won’t bother you! Promise.” Her promise isn’t worth shit, they both know it, and judging from Harrington’s knowing look, so does he. Billy’s icy eyes settle on the man.

     “You’re awful quiet over there,” he grumbles. Steve’s shoulders rise and fall in a loose shrug.

     “I wouldn’t have agreed to do it if I didn’t want to,” he replies. “It’s like Max said, we aren’t friends or anything, but she’s convinced you’ll get better faster at my place. If it means that much to her, then I’m game.” Billy’s eyes narrow as they consider Steve. Brown eyes blink back at him, wide and surprisingly kind all things considered. He really hates that. He hates that Max is so worried. He hates most of all that this is his best bet in all truthfulness. A heavy sigh escapes him, turning into a defeated groan as it draws out.

     “This is only until I think I’m better,” he relents, scowling at Steve’s relieved look and Max’s elated bounce. “I don’t give a shit what the two of you think, when I think I’m done, I’m done. And don’t think we –“ A hand shoots out to point at Steve warningly. “ – are gonna get chummy or something. I’m only doing this to get her to shut up.” The beta’s shoulders relax as he leans into his seat. Max, standing beside Harrington, grins broadly.

     “And I promise, I won’t say anything about it,” she relents. “You can come home as soon as you’re better again.” She moves closer to him, wraps her smaller hand around his, and squeezes, a hesitant smile on her face. This is another new thing about their relationship, the ease with which Max shows her affection now. Billy supposes that’s what happens when you almost die. And he likes it, really. Even if he’s been shit at showing it over the years, he does care for Max. He’s protected her from Neil for a long time, and she’s patched him up more times than he’s willing to count. Their dynamic has always been a strained one. But the way Billy’s seen it, his dad’s a bad alpha, and he’s always needed to step up and take that position for the pup.

He’s not sure he’s ever been particularly good at it, but he’s trying, you know?

     And so it’s settled that day. Billy’s going to move in with his high school rival, and he can’t make sense of it for the life of him.

     The thing is, Steve’s not really used to the idea of having a pack. Richard Harrington needed an heir for his company, and Antonella Bianchi-Harrington thought a baby would solve her marriage problems; that was the only reason they’d had a pup. Both had planned on a quiet, strong alpha son, but Steve destroyed that concept the moment he was born; of all the dynamics, only omegas could be spotted at birth due to their genitalia, and when Richard saw what his son was he nearly abandoned him in that hospital. Antonella’s maternal instincts demanded they keep him however, and so he was brought home; that was where her mothering ended, essentially. Growing up, Steve didn’t know that was the cause for his parents’ distaste for him. He knew they despised omegas, but he hardly knew what an omega was, and certainly didn’t know he was a part of that group. All he knew was that his father always looked at him with disgust, that his mother avoided him like the plague, that they never talked about dynamics except when Richard felt like sneering about omegas and boasting about alphas.

     Neither of them were home when a thirteen-year-old Steve woke up drenched in sweat, his leaking slick soaking the mattress, his abdomen cramping and his mind panicked and hazy. He suffered three days in that state, cried and curled up in bed trying to comfort himself. On the fourth day, he made his way to Melvad’s to purchase scent blockers, and that’s how he’s lived life up to this point. That day he presented was the day it clicked, the day he’d realized why his parents despised him.

     And the thing was, he couldn’t blame them, still can’t blame them. Male omegas are a rarity, and many people think of them as abominations. Those who ended up with women are seen as unmanly, and those who end up with men are called names Steve wouldn’t dare repeat in his own head, let alone out loud. Steve knew that before he presented, and he knows it now, so he’s kept his presentation a secret. As far as Hawkins is concerned, he’s just a beta, and he’s not planning on telling anyone otherwise anytime soon.

     But he’s got the kids now.

It was a matter of instinct; Dustin needed help, and so he helped. Max feared Billy’s rage in the Byers’ home, so he fought the alpha. Mike wanted a listening ear to rant about Nancy too, so he began letting the kid come over. He never meant to adopt the gaggle of older pups, but here he is, constantly scenting them and making sure they’re safe and comfortable. Will likes to joke that Steve’s become their pack omega. He’s not entirely wrong, but Steve’s not going to tell him that.

     And it’s the first time he’s been allowed to be himself, really. With the kids, Steve can just be an omega, he can worry over them and fuss and feed them copious amounts of baked ziti. Steve can let them curl up on his chest and groom their hairlines and listen to their troubles. He can mother them about and spoil them to his heart’s content. He’s allowed to give in to his instinctive need to nurture and care for and protect, and he’s beyond grateful because he can’t do this for other people.

     He especially can’t do it for Billy fucking Hargrove, if he wants to keep some sense of dignity. And that’s going to be easier said than done. He sits in his Beamer and watches silently as Max guides the familiar blonde out of the hospital doors. He looks good, Steve decides. He’s got a little limp, looks a little stiff, but he’s moving on his own mostly, and judging from the faint noise Steve hears and the annoyed, faraway look on Max’s face, his talkative attitude hasn’t taken a hit. The omega takes a deep breath and prepares himself as the passenger door is yanked open by Max.

     “ – Which is why I’m half-tempted to write to one of those big-time newspapers and tell them all about this shit,” Billy is ranting. Max looks ready to stab someone.

     “Can you shut up and get in the car, please?” she growls. The elder of the two alphas obeys without much of a fuss, easing himself into the passenger seat while Max deposits herself in the back.

     “Hey, what did those fuckers do with my Camaro?” Billy questions, his sharp eyes landing on Steve with an accusatory look. “You totaled my baby, Harrington, you might owe me a new fucking car.”

     “I’m not buying anyone a car,” Steve replies, throwing his car in reverse and backing out of the parking lot. The Camaro is sitting in Hopper’s driveway at the moment, Steve asked the chief to help him fix it after the mall incident, after learning that the other boy was still alive. The keys are sitting in a dish in his kitchen right now. But Steve’s not handing that thing over until he’s sure the blonde is capable of driving without keeling over and dying on the side of the road. Billy makes a face at him, narrowing his eyes.

     “Well, you at least owe me a pack of smokes, amigo,” he drawls, that stupid smug look creeping over his freckled features. Steve makes an indignant sound.

     “Are you fucking insane, Hargrove?” he spats. “You’ve been in how many lung surgeries and you want to smoke? Absolutely fucking not.”

     “Aw, you’re no fun,” the alpha groans, slouching in his seat and reaching out to lazily flick the radio to life. Steve’s eyes drift off the road long enough to glare at the other boy.

     “Stop complaining and put your damn seatbelt on.” Billy growls, but obeys again, switching the station to some garish rock music and turning it up loudly. Steve’s head is beginning to throb.

     “Hey Steve,” Max pipes up, “can we stop by McDonald’s?” He notes with interest the way Billy perks up at the mention of the restaurant. It’s been months since the guy’s eaten anything outside of the hospital’s shitty cuisine, he supposes greasy fast food sounds as good as a five-course meal in his grandmother's Venetian home right now.

     “Yeah, yeah, alright.” Billy’s master plan must be to drive Harrington crazy, because he begins chanting various menu items like a child as Steve zips down the road.

     To Billy’s credit, if that’s his plan then it’s working. Steve’s considering driving into the next tree he sees.

     He dishes out a stupid amount of money at McDonald’s; Billy demands four burgers, a hefty order of fries, and a huge milkshake. Max settles for one burger, and Steve orders chicken nuggets for himself, much to Billy’s amusement. He teases Steve most of the way home. The brunette throws a nugget at him at some point and Max laughs so hard she chokes on her root beer. Billy is blissfully silent after that, though he grins triumphantly as he chomps on the thrown piece of chicken.

     In a stunning turn of events, today is meant to be a kid-free day. Steve drops Max off at the Byers residence on the way home and cruises on into Loch Nora. Billy’s silence comes to an end with a low whistle. “Damn, pretty boy, I forgot you live in Rich People Central,” he muses. “I’m gonna get so bored around here, everyone knows rich people are stuck up as all hell.” Steve doesn’t feel like dignifying that with a reply, his hands flexing around the steering wheel instead. By the time they pull into the driveway of the Harrington family’s ridiculously large house, Billy’s openly staring at him, and the omega finds himself on edge. He slows to a stop in his long driveway, turns off the engine, and turns to meet that blue-eyed stare, his eyebrows arched upwards. Billy’s eyes are completely unreadable, he hates it.

     “Do you want a picture, Hargrove?” he deadpans. The alpha skips over the question and instead offers his own.

     “Shitbird says you’re here alone most of the time, that true?” Steve’s hackles go up faster than anything, his arms crossing over his chest as he glares openly at the boy across from him.

     “Why the fuck do you care?”

     “Never said I did, Harrington.” Billy holds his hands up in a placating gesture, before settling back in his seat. “Just wanna make sure I don’t wander into the kitchen one morning with my dick out and find Misses Harrington trying to enjoy her coffee or something.” Steve scoffs and rolls his eyes, getting a cheeky grin in response.

     “If I have to wake up and see your dick in the morning when I’m drinking coffee I’m kicking you out, Steve announces, getting out of the car. He hears Billy follow him up to the door, and once the two get in the shorter boy whistles again.

     “Your house feels like a fucking museum, Harrington, you really live in here?” Steve makes a beeline for the kitchen.

     “Yes, I do. And you do too, for the time being.” The brunette yanks the fridge open and grabs a bottle of soda off the shelf. “I let Max bring some clothes and shit over the other day, it’s all in the guest room down the hall on the right.” Steve pauses to give the boy a pointed look. “Do not go into the room on the left, nobody goes in there.”

     “Ooh, sounds ominous. What’s in there, all the Harrington family secrets? Family skeletons? Real skeletons?” Billy’s eyebrows waggle obnoxiously, and Steve rolls his eyes with a long-suffering sigh.

     “No, it’s my dad’s office. Nobody goes in there but him. And it’s where the good booze is, and I don’t need you drinking me dry.” Steve already did that a little over a month ago, nearly got alcohol poisoning during a bad night. hopper found him passed out by the pool and took the omega to Indianapolis to buy replacements; he doesn't think the chief will be too keen about helping out again so soon. To his surprise, Billy doesn’t offer any sort of reply, oddly silent behind him. Steve turns around, another soda bottle in hand to offer to the alpha, and finds him staring at the counter. At the dish on the counter. At the keys in the dish on the counter. The omega moves closer and swipes them up, depositing the metal in his back pocket. “You can’t drive yet, don’t even think about it.”

     “You have my car?” Blue eyes look around as if the Camaro might appear right there in the kitchen. Steve shakes his head, then nods, then shakes again.

     “It’s not here, if that’s what you’re asking.”

     “It was fucked to hell, why do you have the keys?” Billy’s face is completely serious now, his body leaning towards Steve’s intently. The taller boy frowns deeply and takes a step back, his eyes shifting away.

     “I, uh, well. Hopper and I fixed it up. Figured you might want it back. We had to repaint it, I don’t think the color’s exactly right, but it’s working now.” Billy’s eyes stare a little longer.

     “Why’d you put me in the room downstairs?” Steve frowns again, brows furrowing in confusion.

     “You’ve still got stitches in, and Max says the doctors said you shouldn’t go up and down stairs.” Large brown eyes blink at the alpha, who seems to be thinking hard about something, before Billy’s face twists into a sneer.

     “What’s your game, Harrington? Why are you doing this?” Steve hasn’t been this confused since high school math.

     “You needed a place to go, and I’ve got space,” he replies slowly. “It means a lot to Max, and if it matters to her it matters to me. Just wanted to be helpful.” Blue eyes narrow and he stares at Steve for a long time. The omega shifts on his feet awkwardly before finally holding out the unopened soda bottle. “You thirsty?”

     It’s meant to diffuse the odd tension, and it works. Billy blinks, looks between Steve’s face and the soda bottle before he shakes his head and takes the offered drink, all smug charm and general obnoxious snarkiness again.

     “Alright, alright. Gimmie the grand tour, pretty boy. I wanna see as much of the Harrington Mansion Museum as I can.” Steve isn’t quite sure what just happened, but he obliges easily and begins making his way down the hall, shaking his head in wonder. Maybe he sould have thought a little harder about letting his old rival stay in his house; this is already beginning to feel like the beginning of a very chaotic nightmare.

[mytastessuck]

Gorillaz: Humanz

SHere it is, the comeback tour! I was so excited for this album, I sucked all the singles that came out before I could download the album. This album basically reminded me of the reasons I love Gorillaz. All of them. One particular reason a little too well...

Okay, let's get the elephant out of the room. This album is a bit controversial among the community for playing a little too hard to one of Gorillaz' strengths: showcasing cool artists. There are more than a few tracks where Damon doesn't even show up. Hell, my favorite track doesn't even have it on him. Me, I honestly don't care about that as long as I get to hear good music but for the rest of you die hard Gorillaz fans? Just think of this as a compilation album like NOW That's What I Call Alternative/Indie Hip-Hop/R&B/Electronica/Pop.

See? Rolls off the tongue. Now let's get started.

1. Intro: I Switched My Robot Off

Nice. Real ominous. Gorillaz really know how to build up a presentation. Feels like you're walking through the doors of the doors to the Shrine of the Silver Monkey. Anybody remember Legends of the Hidden Temple? Were there doors on that stage? Anyway, awesome.

10/10

2. Ascension

Holy hell, Vince really knocks it out of the park on this one. Different beat, nice flow, social commentary...He was not fucking around on this track. Damon's barely on the track but Vince makes up for it with his existential rhymes and chorus back-up. Man, Gorillaz has gotta take advantage of gospel more often.

9/10

3. Strobelite

That didn't take long, did it? Anyway, this is my favorite song on the album. Peven has an incredible voice, the music psychically compels you to dance and...that's it. Sometimes, well usually with me, you just need to go with Simple Yet Awesome. Have a good voice and a good beat. This song has both and I'm pretty sure that one day, a scientist will hear this song and will be inspired by it to cure diabetes.

100/10

4. Saturn Barz

Ah, the lead single from the album. Remember the 360 house, everyone? Yeah, you remember. Glad to have Gorillaz welcome back Reggae into their line-up with Popcaan manning the helms. He and Damon tag-team the eardrums with the power of dread as the instrumentation makes you feel like you're in a haunted house. Welcome back, guys.

25/10

5. Momentz

WELCOME BACK, GUYS! De La Soul returns to say some real shit about time and how you should, respect and stuff. Seriously, awesome track. Kicks so much ass and you can even dance to it as you wonder if this MOMENT will be one of the last times when you feel really happy. Nice...

9/10

6. Interlude: The Non-Conformist Oath

Hey, Steve Martin! I like to imagine a bunch of assholes listening to this and...just not getting it. Not us though. We get it. We're smart. Smarter than those guys...

10/10

7. Submission

This song had to grow on me but years after I got the album and after I learned to appreciate Danny Brown a little more like all humans should, this song became one of my favorites off the album. Don't worry Kelela, he doesn't carry the whole song. Her voice is so beautiful that it can calm a charging rhino or a coked-up Connor McGregor. These make the song a lot classier than it had any right being.

90/10

8. Charger

She's beauty, she's Grace...she's also Jones. Man, I haven't heard from this woman since Corporate Cannibal and she has clearly been keeping up practice. God, how can a woman's laughter both scare and arouse me? Damon's no slouch on this track either, singing about the monster that keeps us all tethered: the charger. I kid, I kid. Hey, did Damon really get a boner on stage when he sung this or are you guys messing with me? Message me if you know.

9/10

9. Interlude: Elevator Going Up

On a recent trip, I tried to go up the elevator but it was card-activated so a desk lady had to help me. That's it.

8/10

10. Andromeda

Damon has to do the heavy lifting here and his muscles have not completely wasted away from lack of use. He tells us to take in our heart and you know what? I did. I took this song directly in my heart...and my playlist.

50/10

11. Busted And Blue

Yeah, this song is a bummer. A good bummer. It's Broken's younger brother who joined the army to make his parents proud after he couldn't get into university like his older brother who managed to form a separate family with his squad and began to think that maybe he was good enough after all before his squad gets bombed and, as he lies legless dying painfully on the ground, a blue butterfly land directly on his outstretched busted hand...

Directed by Mervyn LeRoy

10/10

12. Interlude: Talk Radio

You ever wonder how we get voices in machines? I know you think it's a complicated process but I know a dude who picked up the radio in his electric fan once. Think about it.

8/10

13. Carnival

Again, this song had to grow on me but one day, while I was thinking about Gamzee for a godforsaken reason, I thought "Geez, he talks about the Dark Carnival and the Dark Carnival isn't even some of ICP's best days. What's a good song about a carnival?" Anyway, Anthony can spin a person's mind and mind around just by singing. He's wild.

80/10

14. Let Me Out

Hey, wouldn't it be funny if Mavis was Vince's mother? She's not but that would be funny as well as cool. Her and Pusha T bang on the walls of this track as they rant about the politics at the time of this song. Yeah, they're talking about Trump. That car horn can't protect you forever, you orange bastard.

9/10

15. Interlude: Penthouse

Dear Penthouse: Hi. Does anyone check in on you, just you? I'm here to say I think you're important and you provide a necessary outlet for men to brag about being perverts. At least before the Youtube comment section existed.

Thanks for everything,

mytastessuck

8/10

16. Sex Murder Party

Ooooo, this track puts me in a funky mood. Like, there's a part but there's sex there...and MURDER. So you know it's an awesome party. Kick-ass, right? I know it's kick-ass. Keep dancing, people.

11/10

17. She's My Collar

Pretty sexy song. Gotta love people vauging about being used in a song. That's why we love Offspring, that's why we love Damon on his knees onstage. Hey, there was a post that said Noodle wrote this song about her girlfriend. That was an excellent post. Well done.

9/10

18. Interlude: The Elephant

I SAID GET OUT OF HERE, YOU BASTARD!

8/10

19. Hallelujah Money

Ah, the technical first single. Remember when they said that they weren't going to put this song on the album? Anyway, this is exactly the song we needed after The Incident occurred. Benjamin manages to calm down an entire populace while Damon just fearfully wonders what our future will be like...and he's in the UK. This song is one long terrifying lullaby to an entire country...until the end, anyway.

75/10

20. We Got The Power

A great way to remind listeners that no matter what's happening, no matter who's in charge, we have the power change everything. An excellent message for people who were still recovering from The Incident.

10/10

21. Interlude: New World

Okay, the bonus tracks. Should be nothing special here, right? Just some B-sides and I've never shown favoritism towards B-sides, right?

8/10

22. The Apprentice

A nice song from the same Rag n' Bone Man who brought us "Human". Zebra manages to lay down some nice rhymes as Ray BLK backs them both up with the force of her voice. These guys should form a team with how well they work together. Oh, they should make a virtual band! All they need to do is find an artist...

9/10

23. Halfway To The Halfway House

A very nice song if a bit overshadowed by the others on the album. Still, Peven can't be beat when it comes to crooning and he raises a song from a solid C to a B.

8/10

24. Out of Body

This song had to grow on me also but when it did...lord, this song is weird. Hypnotic suggestions, telephone tones, the song starts then Zebra jumps in to help then who is this person?! Why are people applauding?! Who are you people?! Why are there so many crows gathering outside my house?!

60/10

25. Ticker Tape

Well well well, look who's back. Damon returns with his old friend Kali to join the accuser of the vain Carly Simon to beg us to stay on the album. Sorry Damon, but I got places to do and people to go. There's nothing you can do to convince me to stick around after how long this album already is.

9/10

26. Circle of Friendz

Huh. Seems like a riot is going on. Weird for Gorillaz to get this real. What, this guy is just going to keep saying Circle of Friendz again and again? Is this supposed to affect me? Get real. It'll take a lot more than a nice voice and implications to...

To...

...

...Maybe I should listen to the album again.

11/10

Album score: 25/10

Damn, that took a while. Shouldn't be the case next week when we cover The Now Now. See you then!

[moonlightkitkat]

Caught in a Trap

words: 2920

Marinette had no idea why she'd been summoned to Mr. Damocles’s room. When Lila hadn't shown up that day, she’d hoped that she’d have a day of peace, a day where she wouldn't have to deal with her lies and her bullying. Apparently she'd been wrong.

Her fears were proven correct when she opened the door to the principal's office, seeing the owlish Principle and a pitiful looking Lila waiting for her. For a moment, she thought that Lila had been found out, that she hadn't been careful enough, and hope surged through her.

“Marinette! How could you cheat off of my test!” Lila wailed, a fresh flood of crocodile tears spilling out onto her cheeks. That hope quickly faded as she realized the real reason why she was here. Suddenly she felt very tired, and she slumped into the seat next to Lila. 

“Monsieur Damocles. I didn't copy her test,” she said tiredly. “Besides, Lila sits on the other side of the classroom, three rows behind me. I couldn’t have copied her if i tried.”

The Man’s bushy eyebrows rose at that, and he looked from the sniffling brunette to herself. “I was told that Miss. Rossi was moved to take the test, she said it was too distracting where she sat..”

“Who told you that?”

“Why, Miss Rossi herself!”

Lila looked at her with a pout and nodded. “I can't believe you don't remember that I sat next to you! Alya wasn't there yesterday so I moved seats!”

Marinette’s brow furrowed. While it was true that Alya wasn't at school yesterday-she hadn't studied all week and spent the day cramming for the test-, Lila had stayed in her seat. “Why would it be distracting though? She sits in the very back and doesn't have a desk partner. There's no reason why she should have moved. In fact, she didn't move seats at all, i sat alone during the test.”

Realizing she was caught, Lila quickly stuttered to come up with an excuse. “I asked to be moved because I didn't want to accidentally cheat by seeing Max’s paper! He's super smart, and I was worried that I might accidentally see his answers!”

Smirking, Marinette crossed her arms and leaned back in her seat. “Oh? Are you saying you weren't worried that Nino would get as many answers right then? After all, if you're saying you asked to be moved because you were worried you’d cheat, then you're saying you weren't worried about copying Nino’s answers.”

Sputtering, Lila quickly shook her head. “No! O-Of course not! Nino’s… very smart..”

The Principle nodded, shuffling through some papers on his desk. “Indeed. He did well on his test, scoring an 87%, while the two of you only had a 72.”

Marinette winced as she heard her score. She hadn't had any time to study, there's been several Akuma attacks, two from Lila herself, and she'd been so tired she wasn't able to stay up at all to study. Maybe she could talk to the Master about making some new permanent heroes to help her out.

Sighing heavily, the principle looked up at the two of them. “Now, two of you getting the same score is one thing. However, you two answered the test exactly the same, word for word, and that’s something I cannot ignore. We take cheating and plagiarism very seriously at Francois Dupont, and one of you must be punished. Now, if the person who cheated comes out and says it right now, i will lighten the punishment and let your teacher decide what punishment to give you in reward for your honesty. If not, then both of you will be given detention for the rest of the week, as well as getting extra work from your teacher.

Marinette’s eyes widened in horror, and she felt a pit in her stomach drop. 

Detention? Extra work? She barely had enough time to do her homework as it was! There was no way she could do that! Part of her wondered whether or not she should just give up and lie, saying that it was her that cheated. At least then, she wouldn't have as bad of a sentence, and Ms Bustier would vouch for her… right? After all, Lila would rather be punished alongside her rather than admit that she lied and cheated.

She took a deep breath, and was about to admit to something she didn't do, until a frustrated noise came from Lila, catching her attention.

“Marinette why don't you confess already! Do you really hate me so much that you'd force me to take a punishment I don't deserve just to spite me?”

If only Lila knew how close she was to giving in, just how close shed been to winning, she’d surely regret opening up her big mouth. Her resolve was steadied, her heart hardened, and her mind set. Lifting her chin, she looked at her principle, her eyes not leaving his.

“Monsieur, I did not cheat. Lila is lying. She did not sit next to me, and she sat in the back. I don't know how we have the same answers, but I can promise you that my answers are my own. I even turned my paper in before Lila did.If you want to check before punishing us, please check with Miss. Bustier. Then you’ll know which one of us is really lying.

Lila froze at her words. It was obvious that she hadn't expected Marinette to ask him to check with their teacher. She thought she broke Marinette’s will, that the fight in her died. Only now did she realize that Marinette had not backed down, not by a long shot.

The principle seemed to consider her words, and nodded in agreement. 

“Excellent idea Marinette, i’ll go check right now.” picking up their test papers, he stood up,accidentally knocking over the loudspeaker, fumbling with it before accidentally knocking it on the ground. A high pitched shrill filled the air, and Marinette and Lila both covered their ears immediately, squeezing their eyes shut at the painful noise. In her bag, tikki did the same. 

Quick to click a button that would turn off the noise, the principle laughed and cleared his throat. “Sorry girls, accidentally turned it on. I'll be back after talking to your teacher. Now stay here, ill be right back.” 

Both girls were quiet as he left, and it wasn't until his footsteps could not be heard that Lila turned on her, her eyes burning with fury.

“You couldn't just give up could you? You know, it’d be a lot easier if you just gave in and played along. If you let me win id stop targeting you so much, it's your fault all of this is happening!”

Marinette’s cheeks reddened as she was blamed for her bullying, and she stood up, glaring down at her. “Me? I’m not the one who cornered me in the bathroom and threatened to take all of my friends away if i didn't obey! I didn't force you to lie or bully me! You did that all on your own, and I’m sick of it!”

“Youre ‘sick of it’ hm?” Standing up, Lila snickered and shoved Marinette back into her seat. “If you're sick of it, then why don't you stand up to me? Why don't you tell all of your little friends and take them back? Oh that's right. They like me better than they like you! In fact, they hate you all now! Alya and Nino? They believed me so quickly, and now they're my best friends. Not. yours. The class? Honestly im shocked, I didn't expect them to like a new kid over their own “Everyday Ladybug,” she sneered.

“The only people I can't convince are Chloe, Sabrina, and Adrien. I don't care about the first two, nobody likes them anyway. Adrien though? Oh if only Ladybug hadn't shown up and humiliated me. Then i'd be the one he believes. I'd be his everyday ladybug! No, i'd be better than that. I’m his everyday Volpina.”

Marinette tried sitting up, but only resulted in getting shoved again, grunting as her shoulder hit the back of the chair.

“But just like ladybug, you keep getting in my way! Now stay down, and shut up. Otherwise next time, it wont simply be a cheating test.”

“W-what do you mean?” Marinette asked, scared of what she might suggest.

A wicked smirk slid onto her face, quickly replaced by an innocent pout as she tapped her chin. “Oh, I don't know. Maybe ill say that you've been threatening me, or I’ll manage to get Miss. Bustier to get you moved out of the class because you make me uncomfortable. Oh! Or I could get out my special effects makeup and make it look like you beat me up, I'm sure that would get you expelled for sure.”

Marinette’s eyes filled with tears at the threats. There’s no way she could prove any of that didn't happen. No one believes her anyway, why would they believe her now? The fight in her died out, realizing she'd lost.

“How did you cheat?” she asked softly, her voice a hushed whisper.

“I’m sorry, what was that?” Lila asked innocently, cupping her ear. “I can't hear you, tinnitus and all.”

Gritting her teeth, Marinette growled “how did you cheat?”

Laughing, Lila sat down on top of principal Damocles’ desk, crossing her legs and leaning forward, her chin resting in the palm of her hand. “Oh that? That was easy,” she grinned.

“All I did was to be the last one to turn in my test. Then after class was out, I offered to help grade papers, put mine in the trash, grabbed a blank one and copied every answer word for word. Did you know you had eight grammar mistakes?” she clicked her tongue in disappointment. “It’s a good thing you have good handwriting, it's about the only good thing about you. I thought about copying Max’s test, and then getting a few answers wrong on purpose, or saying things in a different way so I could get an A, but I thought this would be so much better. Any other questions?”

Matinette thought for a moment, looking up at her. “Are you really willing to get detention and extra work just to get me in trouble?”

“Of course!” Lila laughed with no hesitation. 

“After all, all I have to do is bat my pretty eyes and shed a few tears about how you lied and I was wrongfully punished, and i'll have everyone willing to help me do my work! And by “help”, i mean “do”. I have that class wrapped around my finger. For such smart students, they really are dumb, but i wont complain. After all, the only one they can blame is themselves for believing me.”

The door slammed open behind them, and both girls shrieked at the sudden bang the door made as it hit the wall. Turning around, Marinette saw a red faced Damocles, horrified Miss. Bustier, as well as a furious Alya, Nino, Adrien, and the rest of what looked like the whole school behind them.

“Off my desk.” The principle snarled, his eyes narrow.

Like a frightened kitten, Lila hopped off of the desk and was immediately in her seat, her demeanor completely different. Her confidence from before was gone, filled with fear and confusion. Clearing her throat, she looked at her friends and offered a small smile.

“Its okay everyone, you don't have to be so angry with Marinette. She confessed and admitted that she che-

“Oh it isn't Marinette we’re angry with,” Alya growled, her fist clenching her phone at her side.

Lila blinked in surprise, leaning back at the girl’s hostility. “Alya? What’s wrong?

“What's wrong is that you've been lying to me! You've been lying to all of us! You made me believe that you were my friend when all you've done is use me against Marinette!”

Lila froze, slowly looking at Marinette. 

“M-Marinette, w-why would you lie-

“She didn't lie!” Alya roared, stomping forward, only to be held back by an equally angry looking Nino. “You cant lie anymore Lila! We heart it! All of it!”

Confusion covered Lila’s face, her nose wrinkling in confusion. “Heard it? What do you-

It was at that moment both girls noticed it. An echo. Looking at the loudspeaker, Marinette realized it wasn't off. Mr Damocles never turned it off. It had been recording them the whole time. The whole school heard what Lila had said to Marinette, the whole school now knew Lila had been lying to them, that Lila had turned them against their close friend, their friend who helped them so much and cared for them so much. The whole school was furious at this intruder who sought to hurt their Everyday Ladybug.

What no one realized was that Chat Noir was standing among them, his ring in his pocket to resist the urge to transform and destroy the girl who’d tormented his friend, a friend he cared about.

Alya held up her phone, showing that it was still recording. “You can stop lying now Lila, just like a fox, you've been caught in a trap you were unaware was even there.”

Marinette felt like she was going to cry. They knew, they knew she wasn't lying. They realized that Lila had hurt her, that shed lied to them, that she’d threatened her, that she had tried to ruin her life. She wasn't alone anymore.

Alya’s eyes went to Marinette, and they softened. “Marinette.. I’m so sorry.. I never should've stopped listening.. I'm so so sorry…”

Marinette’s eyes filled with tears, and she stood up, rushing to her friend’s open arms. Or the first time for as long as she could remember, she cried. Alya’s arms tightened around her, ending the footage with a simple click. Some moments were too private to be recorded, she learned her lesson after Oblivio.

“I tried so hard to tell you!” She wept. “I thought I lost you!”

Alya’s own eyes began to water, and she buried her face into her friend’s hair, rubbing her back softly. “No girl.. I’m the one who lost you.. I never should have listened to Lila. I was a terrible reporter, I’m a terrible friend. I know I don't deserve your forgiveness, but i'm so so so sorry.”

Another pair of arms wrapped around her, and she felt the brim of Nino’s hat poked her head. “Marinette, you and I have been friends since kindergarten, but I got… I got too excited about Lila. I got too excited thinking about how she'd get me discovered, how she knew so many people, but I forgot that I have my own little celebrity right here. Two if you count Adrien.”

She giggled at that, sniffling as her tears began to slow.

A fourth pair of arms surrounded her, and she looked up to see Adrien’s guilt ridden face. “Marinette… I'm sorry.. I didn't keep my promise.. I promised we'd be in this together.. But I left you.. I was scared, i didn't know things were that bad, i..” he chewed his lip, and Marinette frowned, looking up at him and leaning back from the embrace of her friends.

“Adrien, you abandoned me. You never once spoke up about her lies, and you told me to keep quiet about it because you were worried about Lila being akumatized. I listened to you, I figured if I wasn't alone it would all be okay, but it wasn't. I was alone, everyone hated me, and you sit there and watched. You’re only apologizing now because there's nothing for you to lose here. Well I’m sorry, but i can't be friends with someone who leaves their friends when you know they need you. I don't accept your apology, and I’m afraid I can't forgive you.”

The whole class was silent at her speech, shocked that Marinette could speak like that to her crush. Only he wasn't her crush anymore, he'd stopped being that a long time ago. He'd stopped being her friend too, only she had lied to herself to believe that he still was. Funny, it seemed she was a liar too.

Adrien was stunned, staring at her in shock before laughing nervously. “Marinette you don't mean that..”

“Actually, I do. Maybe later ill forgive you and i'll apologize, but right now this is my truth. I'm not hiding the truth any longer.” turning to Alya and Nino, she offered a sad smile the tension leaving her.

“I want to forgive you both, but it'll take some time. I'm Still hurt by this all.. But I do still want to be your friend, if you’ll still have me that is.”

Nodding her head, Alya offered a warm smile. “Of course we want you girl. We’ll make it up to you, i promise.”

“Excuse me?” a bored and annoyed voice called from behind her. Turning around, Marnette saw Lila, staring at the whole group of them, irritation evident on her face now that she wasn't pretending. “So.. what happens to me now?”

Five words that Marinette never thought she'd hear were spoken, and time seemed to slow. Lila’s face paled, and her eyes widened in shock and horror. Alya and the others cheered and rushed to hug Marinette. Marinette herself was in a state of shock, relief, and bliss all at once. It was over, it was finally over.

“You Miss. Rossi, are expelled.”

[thoughtsofanexcitedspacechild]

benders from atla in real life

So you watched atla and Korra and now you’re obsessed. Like really obsessed. You’ve tried bending the elements in real life but to no avail, and you’d still like to figure out what kind of bender you are. Below, I’ve listed a guide as to what I’ve determined are characteristics and mannerisms of all the bending types based on characters from the show and also real people I’ve met that share the characteristics of benders. (PSA: This is just for fun! pls don’t take any of this too seriously, bc it’s mostly just my thinking.)

Waterbenders: Waterbenders are smart, creative, and practical. They’re extremely organized and efficient and are so versatile, mainly because they’re often prepared for all outcomes. They are efficient and good at planning. 

personality: most water benders can be laid back and serene, but at the same time can be as raging and strong as a storm as shown by Katara. They’re very driven, and rarely change their course, being suprisingly determined and stubborn to reach their goals. They’re also very warm and friendly towards those they love and care about, and often are a good shoulder to cry on. They tend to excel in fields working with their hands as well as medical and healing professions. Their creativity and ability to understand people also make them great teachers. They’re also very family and goal oriented and strive to find a proper balance between both. They are often ambiverted, and like to spend time with people, but also need time alone to recharge. Water zodiac signs tend to be water benders as well as those who identify as Ravenclaws. 

Mannerisms: 

moving in a graceful and almost water like fashion

their presence and posture is softened but firm

definitely coffee people, but prefer it iced no matter the season and with lots of cream

love the snow in winter and the beach in summer. (obviously feel very drawn to bodies of water)

don’t mind and actually enjoy boat rides/don’t get seasick

usually lean but not too thin. appear toned and exercise well

soft skin that’s always moisturized

aren’t picky eaters and can pretty much eat whatever

are voracious readers

exceptionally good kissers 

core aesthetics:

beach core (obviously)

minimalism

light and dark academia (sometimes. it depends on the person)

Earthbenders: Earthbenders are stubborn, driven, and cunning, although earth benders can span a large variety of people. 

Personality: Earthbenders are unique in that they usually don’t have a few set personalities that they identify with, however most of them share a lot of the same traits. They’re often realists, and see situations for what they are. They’re extremely tactical, and have firm, set ways of doing things. They like routine, and like water benders, always have a plan. They’re even more driven though, and often push themselves and others to succeed and fulfill their plans. They’re precise and intentional, and often don’t do things just for the sake of doing/trying them. They prefer to stick to what they know works best. They can be introverted, extroverted, or ambiverted, (like I said, a very diverse group of people). Although they are very grounded and emotionally stable people, this makes them reliable and a good confidant. They’re decisive and strong in their beliefs. They tend to excel in craft work that’s repetitive, like ceramics, fiber arts, and sculpture, self made business, and analytical fields that involve planning and linear progression of hierarchy. Law is also a common career path seeing as they have a tendency to be unbiased and able to make decisions. They are most common amongst earth zodiac signs and Slytherins are the most common, although some may feel they identify more with one of the other houses since earth benders in an of themselves are a diverse group of individuals

mannerisms/characteristics:

surefooted and agile. rarely trip or stumble

enjoy workouts with weights/lifting

strong/stocky build. muscular

don’t like tall buildings, airplanes, or heights in general

large appetite. Like, they eat a lot

like going barefoot (@ toph)

late nights up studying

don’t willingly accept help a lot

strong arms and hugs/cuddles

square hands with short fingers

actually keeping a planner

loving spring and summer

love wearing all sorts of rings and bracelets

core aesthetics:

forrest core (think northwest of the us and dense forested regions)

sage green (that’s literally it)

punk/hard rock

organized clutter core (having things be cluttered, but knowing exactly where everything is)

Firebenders: Firebenders are natural born leaders. They’re always leading, and are excellent at commanding as well as instructing. 

Personality: These individuals unlike earth benders, are fueled by their emotions and passion. They’re also quite driven, but instead of being driven by logic, they’re often driven to do things based on their emotions. This can be a weakness, but it also makes them stronger. Once fire bending is mastered the correct way, fire benders are often very skilled at channeling and controlling these emotions. They are also brave and courageous and have a strong heart. They in the end always strive to do best and once their moral compass is pointed in a certain direction, they’ll follow it to the ends of the earth. They’re also extremely loyal, making them wonderful friends and confidants. Most of the people in this group tend to associate with fire zodiac signs, and the Gryffindor house although there’s also a large group that tends to identify as Slytherins as well. They excel obviously in leadership positions, but also specifically in law and criminal justice as their strong sense of right and wrong leads them to make the right decision most of the time. Like their opposite element benders, they share a distinct ability to teach just like water benders. They're often introverted and need time to recharge their social battery. 

mannerisms/characteristics:

hating getting wet

always warm

love cardio and workouts that make you sweat a lot

strong looking (honestly most fire benders seem to have an ideal body type) 

drink their coffee black un ironically without trying to be unique

can’t keep a plant alive to save their life

love summer

need good lighting to survive

surprisingly decent at cooking

don’t often procrastinate

loves cinnamon in cookies and cayenne in savory dishes

can be susceptible to fits of emotions

good in bed. (in general ;)) 

have obscure interests and hobbies (tea making, calligraphy, candle making, the list goes on)

Core aesthetics: 

DARK ACADEMIA QUEENS/KINGS

city core

royalty core

Airbenders: Airbenders are warm, compassionate and loving. Their strong sense of detachment from life on earth make these people very different, but interesting to be around. 

Personality: Airbenders come from the versatile element of air making them very versatile people themselves. They’re adaptable to change like water benders, but often these changes rely solely on creativity and not planning. Their commitment to live free of earthly detachment also makes these people very religious and spiritual people. Unlike earth benders, this detachment can often lead to indecisiveness and unsureness. Airbenders can often see pros and cons to both sides of a debate and it can be hard for them to make concrete decisions. Airbenders also don’t like confrontation or commitment, and will often choose to evade threats and sometimes even responsibility unless it’s absolutely necessary that it be dealt with. Nevertheless, this isn't necessarily a bad thing, and often times, air benders are able to deal with things in a non violent and peaceful way. They often are in a daydream, and most have big, bright ideas solely based on how much these people think. They often are kind towards everyone, and will make a point to be respectful, especially to nature and animals. They have a strong sense of who they are, and are often intuitive. They’re unique ability to create makes them gifted artists and performers, as well as spiritual and religious leaders. They can also be gifted writers and mentors to young children and students. Most are introverted, and prefer to spend time with themselves, as often times it’s the most rewarding. Most people in this category find themselves under air zodiac signs, (especially Libras) as well as the Hufflepuff house. (Although some may identify more with Ravenclaw, like Yangchen) 

Mannerisms/Characteristics:

you’d expect them to be graceful, but these people are clumsy as fuck. all. the. time.

despite being clumsy, they are great dancers, and often enjoy forms of dance as exercise as well as yoga

meditate/pray a lot

certified day dreamers

immerse themselves in fantasy worlds and fandoms in general

love sweets (especially any type of sweet filling in a pie crust)

use a lot of blankets

talk really fast when excited 

good with animals

love a good scented candle/incense

tea all the way

could spend HOURS cooped up in their room doing absolutely nothing

feel best during the fall season

could pack everything they need into a suitcase and leave within half an hour and not come back for months

cry at movies

will memorize and recite poetry because they want to

awkward but will honestly treat u right

good cuddlers

Core Aesthetics:

cottage core

art kid core

soft girl/boy

angel core 

[ohwereusingourmadeupnames]

This Too Shall Last 

Pairing: Peter Parker/Tony Stark Rating: Mature (M) Notes: This is based off of @dumb-bitch-starker‘s post that you can find here! I saw it and had to try my hand at it. I’ve got some personal experience with marriage young, so it was a fun one!  Warnings: NSFW stuff - lots of fluff, be ready!  Summary: 

Peter Parker is from a small town in rural Virginia. After winning the National Spelling Bee, he's given the opportunity to go to an advanced private school. Midtown is where he meets Tony Stark, a brown haired boy with an affinity of beating him to the punch. They grow up together and find that what they were looking for wasn't all that far away. This is the story of how these two move from friends to boyfriends to husbands.

Or, the one where Peter Parker is a genius and has an epic friendship turned romance with Tony Stark.

Read it on AO3 here

For Peter, being smart was his foot in the door to a world that for the longest time, he could only imagine. In the town he lived in with is Aunt, there was one school that catered to all of the grades, K-12. There were two stop lights and a singular gas station nestled in the heart of town. Aside from a handful of transplants, most of the town’s population consisted of long lines of families and those that were establishing them. May still had her mail delivered to her by the same man from her later childhood.

All and all – getting out of that place was the only option and luckily – Peter was blessed with the means to do it.

After winning the National Spelling Bee at the young age of 6, Peter got several scholarship offers for some of the private schools around the Virginia area. It would have been nice to actually get away from his little town and go to one of the more prestigious ones – but May needed him around and could only truly afford to see him go 45 minutes away instead of the several hours some of the other schools offered.

Midtown Private catered to the rich of the Virginia Beach area – Peter understood that immediately. Even as a young kid, he realized that his old backpack and battered shoes were something completely different compared to the people around him. It didn’t take a genius (even though he was,) to catch onto the fact that everyone else had drivers drop them off – he watched them file out of their pretty cars from the bus stop every morning. There wasn’t much to be done, though – the opportunity was there, and he planned to take it.

Despite all of the differences between him and the rest of the student population, Peter excelled. After a few days in his second-grade class, it was obvious that the people around him were also of another caliber in the classroom. In his old school, he spent most of his days completely bored. Since the first day at Midtown, Peter felt challenged – his brain finally stretched the way it needed to be. His classmates were able and more than willing to participate in the classroom. A brown-haired boy with quick hands beat him to the punch a lot of the time – but he didn’t mind, there was something to be said about someone just as interested in the information.

At the end of his first week, Peter found out who the brown-haired boy was. His eyes were still wide from the initial shock of walking into a lab that he could fit his entire house into. There were so many different tools and instruments he’d never seen before – things that he couldn’t wait to get his hands on. It looked like a scene out of some of his favorite science fiction movies that played late at night. He sat down at the closest cluster of chairs and looked around with marvel.

The chair at the desk next to him moving on the floor brought him out of his excitement induced trance – he cracked a smile when the brown-haired boy sat down. “You’re the new kid, right?” he asked – the question rattled off without an ounce of hesitation. There weren’t many kids his age that behaved that way; his difficulty making friends stemmed from a lot of things and that was one of them. Tilting his head, Peter took him in for a moment.

“Yeah, I’m Peter,” he finally replied, his body shifting slightly in the seat to see the other kid a little more clearly.

They met eyes for the first time then, the brown of the other’s eyes reminding him the color of milk chocolate melting on the stove. For some reason, that made him feel a little calmer – the hue reminding him so much of fondue night with May.

The kid was smiling at him, his hands flipping open the folder he pulled out of his bag. “Hi. My mom makes me introduce myself as Anthony – but that name is stupid, so just call me Tony.” While he spoke, he slipped a worksheet in front of Peter.

“Do you like science like you like math?” Tony asked him, his eyes looking at the sheet briefly, then straying back in Peter’s direction. It felt weird, having someone understand his likes without evening knowing him – Tony pinpointed him just by observing. He wondered, not for the last time in his life, just what else Tony effortlessly observed about him.

Glancing down at the paper, his eyes lit up when he recognized the microscope on it. Just last Christmas, he got a small lab set that came with beakers and a microscope – he spent hours taking it apart and putting it back together for many weeks after that. The reading level of what he was looking at surpassed even what a class like this would provide for them – so he was immediately excited.

“I love science. I’m going to go to space one day,” Peter muttered, his eyes still looking over the paper in front of him. He wondered where Tony got it – the board at the front of the room said they were looking at the different types of rocks and there wasn’t an accessible microscope in sight. “This is a light microscope, right? What are you looking at with it?” He finally pulled himself away from the difficult information, his brain on fire.

He couldn’t tell if Tony was on the verge of excitement or blowing up at him, the look on his face a little unreadable. “You want to go to space? I want to build rockets. I’ve been trying to read through a book about Apollo 13 – but that words are kind of hard.” He shrugged then, his hand reaching over to take the sheet back from Peter’s desk.

“I don’t know what I’m going to look at yet – my dad said I needed to learn more about it before I could touch his expensive equipment.” Tony made the infamous air quotes and rolled his eyes – the look on his face making Peter laugh.

“My aunt says stuff like that, too. She bought me a starter lab kit last year for Christmas – and I’m terrified to break it. I may never get anything cool ever again, if I do.” He crinkled his nose, the thought making his brain hurt a little. “I’ve taken the microscope in it apart and put it back together a bunch of times – I can help you, if you want,” Peter added in after a second, his eagerness in the suggestion apparent.

Tony took a second to answer back – his cheeks were turned up in a smile, but he stayed silent, regardless. “Okay,” he said simply, a soft look on his face. “Sit with me at lunch – I want you to tell me more about this lab kit.”

That day was forever engrained in Peter’s head – he later came to find out that Tony, who was Tony Stark, son of Howard Stark, the frontrunner in plane, boat, and submarine technology and construction – was the smartest and most sought after friend in the entire school. People did not talk to him for weeks after they sat together that first day at lunch. It was laughable that something as silly as that was the thing that made him an outsider.

For years, Peter ran in the same circle as Tony in a lot of ways. From that fateful day in science on, Tony sought Peter out as a lab partner. Even being in a school where everything was advanced, both boys were more than capable of bigger things. Tony invited Peter to his dad’s lab every now and again – despite how much May hated having to drop him off at the fancy gate whenever he went.

After proving his worth and commitment to thorough research and a safe approach, Tony got access to a lot of cool things; a few of these things he shared with Peter. Between third and sixth-grade, Peter and Tony built a different (and progressively more advanced) robot each year for the science fair. Being friendly with someone like Tony was like being shown a different world; both the boy’s personality and background contributed to that, too. He learned something new about the boy every instance they spent any time together.

Middle brought the ability to do extracurricular activities – an opportunity in which Peter took complete advantage of. Enjoying the robot building process so much, Tony convinced him to join the Robotics team. He also found himself recruited to the track and field team after a startlingly fast mile during physical fitness week. Both activities were so much more than he ever thought imaginable for himself – so he went above and beyond to be amazing at them.

Running came naturally to him, he quickly came to find out. All of his middle school years were spent going to conference, regional, and national meets. The year before entering into high school, Peter broke the 1500-meter record and won a middle school national championship. Walking onto a new campus the next year, Peter found himself embraced by the teammates he had previously and the new ones he gained – not for the first time, he felt surprised by the odd dynamic of the people he luckily found himself surrounded by.

The opportunity to get ahead in college came around his junior year. He took all of the AP science classes and passed with ease, so there wasn’t much left in his high school to take – a select few that were of similar academic standing were cleared to take dual enrollment classes that would count as college credit. There were tons of science he was going to need in college, the ability to knock out a few of them was too hard to pass up.

He barely made it to the early college campus before his first class started late one September – the bus was running behind again and had been all week. Wiping the sweat from his brow, Peter took a seat towards the back of the class – the person next to him none other than Tony Stark. “I thought I’d see you here,” Tony mumbled towards him as he settled in, the now very, very, very handsome boy’s cheeks curling up into a grin. “Did you have to run to get here?

Looking around for a second, Peter noticed there wasn’t much happening – the front of the class empty, no professor in sight. “From the bus stop, yes. The earlier buses always run a little late,” he explained, his chest finally relaxing, the tightness ceasing now that he wasn’t running at full speed, anymore. It felt good to sit down after that.

“That’s no bueno, Pete – I need my lab partner fresh and on his toes. You can ride with me,” Tony stated, his voice definitive, the tone just barely shy of being bossy. “We’re both going to the same place – I don’t mind.” He finished his words with a smile, the look enough to make him laugh a little.

There wasn’t any reason not to accept the offer – the thought of not having to take the bus four times every day sounded pretty dang good. “Okay – if you really don’t mind.” Peter reached across and placed a hand on Tony’s shoulder, his fingers tightening. “Thanks, Tony,” he murmured, his eyes alight.

Tony tilted his head a little, brown eyes watching Peter closely for a second before he nodded – his eyebrows arching. “I really don’t mind. You’re welcome, Pete.” As he spoke, the door opened and the professor walked in, everyone in the class straightening up – the authority of the person at the front of the class still respected at their age.

For the rest of the day, Peter didn’t think too much about Tony or his offer, there were too many interesting things being thrown his way. It wasn’t until they finished their Biochemistry lab that Peter even remembered the offer. Tony caught up to him out in the hallway, his glasses slipping down his nose a little when he stopped in front of Peter. “You don’t have practice until later, right? Want to study for a bit? I’ll take you back when we’re finished. That lab report could use a little work before we turn it in tomorrow,” Tony spoke with such confidence, the quirk in his lips natural looking, not forced like it might’ve been on Peter himself.

The glance down at his wrist was unnecessary, without looking at his watch, he knew it was pushing 2. He wouldn’t need to be back to the high school until 4:30 and with a ride, he didn’t have to worry about catching the bus. “That sounds okay to me – I think I finally figured out how to do the last problem set,” Peter replied, his thumbs slipping under the straps of his backpack. “I think I saw some good reference books when I was in the library yesterday. Let’s head that way.”

That afternoon started a chain reaction of studying together every day after class, the two of them nose deep in books until Peter’s alarm went off. The first couple of times it happened, the dirty looks were numerous – then they got smart about it. Since they were in the early college program, classes ended at the same time every day – so, they rented out a study room and spent the two hours in there, instead. The whiteboards were good for everything they were trying to accomplish, anyway.

One afternoon about halfway through the semester, Peter walked out of his last period lecture hall completely done in. Practice the day before kicked his butt and they were running low on food in the house. He snuck in a granola bar earlier – and his metabolism demolished it before he could even think about being at least somewhat satisfied. School breakfast that morning ran out a earlier than usual, so he was feeling it.

When Tony stepped up to his side a couple of minutes later, Peter looked at him blankly. “I don’t think I’ve got it in me to study today, Tony – I’m exhausted. And starving. Mostly starving, honestly,” Peter babbled, his right hand settling on his stomach – he hoped if he got there fast enough, the growl wouldn’t sound between them.

Peter rolled his eyes when they both heard the gurgle – a spot of red pressing into both of his cheeks almost instantly. He pressed against his stomach a little more firmly then, his thoughts willing the damn thing to shut the hell up. Chancing a glance up, Peter was surprised to see empathy in Tony’s eyes. Despite knowing him relatively well, there was no real way of anticipating how the boy would react – Tony worked on a scale of differing levels of sarcasm. He figured it would take the rest of his life to truly understand the rules to Tony’s game – but it felt good to see the other at least respond positively to his insignificant troubles.

“We’re so caught up on everything, Pete – I’m sure the library can do without us for the day. Do you want to go grab some food? There’s this place, Chester’s, they make the best burgers.” Tony spoke while he fidgeted with his hands, his body much like his mind – always moving, never quite satisfied.

At the mention of food, Peter’s stomach growled again, his mouth watering, too. There were a few dollars in his pocket, the idea of using it to afford food sounded like an excellent one. He nodded his head excitedly, eyes bulging a little. “Yes, that would be amazing. I’d eat your shoe if you seasoned it right. A burger sounds delicious,” Peter agreed, his feet already antsy to start moving towards the door and closer to the food.

It took a little while to get used to driving around in Tony’s fancy car. The contrast to May’s broken-down Chevy made his stomach churn a bit – but on the other hand, he got a little excited about it, too. The black Audi drove like a dream and had an engine that could easily become something too fast for its own good. The inner console was completely touchscreen and the family AI, FRIDAY, could be reached with the controls. One day he expected to walk out to a car that would drive itself.

Settling into the passenger seat, Peter felt better than he did all day and tried not to think too hard about that. In the past couple of months, Peter’s feelings about Tony went from neutral to completely over the hill for him. It wasn’t hard to feel that way about the other, though – Peter knew that from being in school with him so long.

Girls and boys alike would trip over their feet to get his attention. Yet, no one managed to catch it. Tony kept to himself for as long as Peter could remember – no matter how much people wanted him, he didn’t budge. Now that he was starting to feel the same way about the other boy, his stomach felt a little funny – like a weird mixture between giving a speech and watching Batman on TV.

There wasn’t any hope for his silly feelings to be returned, Peter knew that. He couldn’t claim to be a genius without understanding the reality of the situation in front of him. Even still, Peter was unable to keep a lid on it and found himself smiling over at Tony more in the last three weeks than in their entire existence together. Not for the first time, Peter wondered if Tony knew – his friend was too smart not to.

The drive was pretty easy – there wasn’t much traffic at that time of the day, so they were skating down the highway in Tony’s beautiful car in no time. He fiddled with the screen for a while before The Used started to play – the throwback making Peter laugh outright.

“I never pegged you for a 2000’s emo fan,” Peter said through the chuckle, his brain already supplying the lyrics to the song, regardless of his own taunt. Lots of things happened in the early days of Peter’s life – he found a weird kinship with the early 00’s songwriters; their grief and pain were tangible, and he liked that.

Peter watched Tony drum on the steering wheel with one of his hands, the other loosening and clenching with the beat. It was easy to tell that Tony was not a stranger to this type of music – the chorus of Bird and the Worm started and they both broke out singing it, their voices surprisingly meshing together pretty well. “I’m full of surprises, Peter Parker. I also happen to like old rock, too. What do you have to say about that?” Sarcasm dripped from the words, each one settling in the pit of Peter’s stomach – each one making that little flame of want grow the slightest bit bigger.

Catching himself smiling, Peter turned his face towards the window, the cityscape of Virginia Beach flying by them. “I think that’s okay by me. I kind of like surprises. Makes life a little more interesting. I don’t like tomatoes – I’m sure that comes as a great surprise to you,” Peter retorted, his own joke pulling a chuckle from his lips.

Tony shook his head, eyes breaking from the road to glance in Peter’s direction. “Something tells me there’s a lot more to you than just not liking tomatoes. For instance – you can run a 1500-meter race in under 4 minutes. Now that, my friend, is very surprising. I probably couldn’t even make it around the track once in 4 minutes.” Tony joined him in laughter then, the self-depreciative statement nowhere near the truth – Peter could see the obvious signs of that in the way his bicep bulged when he turned the wheel.

“It’s always a surprise to me, too. The last lap, I’m always just running on pure instinct, adrenaline, and dopamine. I didn’t know you knew that, though. We’ve never really talked about it before,” Peter realized, his thoughts manifesting in the words slipping from his mouth. Over the years, they spent so much time together and never broached the layers beneath the surface. Peter felt compelled to change that, even if it was for his own sick pleasure of knowing more about Tony, of having little pieces of him that not a lot of people get access to.

“I like statistics. Me and a couple of the guys from robotics got together to watch last year – it was cool to see the variance in all of our time guesses. You’re talented, Pete. That’s pretty hard to miss.” Tony shrugged then, his hands returning to their incessant drumming on the steering wheel.

Peter was glad for Tony’s shift in attention – the pink color on his cheeks already embarrassing without getting caught out by the boy he wanted to impress. Despite the roaring redness in his face, Peter wrapped himself in the knowledge that Tony noticed him and let the hum of his feelings crank up just a little bit louder.

That first burger stop led to a change in their routine – instead of hitting up the library, they camped out at a table in the corner of Chester’s dining room and studied. At least, it started out as studying. The topics progressively moved from Biochemistry to track and field – then even further past that into a much more personal territory. Peter learned that Tony’s parents weren’t ever around and when they were, he was avoided at all costs. In turn, Peter told Tony about his parents and uncle Ben – about the travesty of the start of his life and the small town he couldn’t wait to get away from.

He figured out pretty quickly how good it felt to simply talk to someone, especially a someone that seemed to understand more than anyone else Peter could remember encountering. Tony listened so intently, like Peter’s words were ones he needed to absorb and digest. Peter felt heard, the feeling so novel that he almost didn’t understand it – that burning sensation of actually being acknowledged. The similar look in Tony’s eyes when Peter gave him the same attention clued him in, though – the boy across from him seemed just as eager to have a pillar to lean on.

And interestingly enough, he chose Peter for the position.

A couple of days before finals week, Tony and Peter were in their normal booth at Chester’s – their shoulders pressed together to look at the textbook between them. The ringing of Peter’s phone shattered the peace of their study sanctuary – he let out a soft sigh at the break in concentration. Answering it swiftly, Peter was surprised to hear the Stanford Track & Field team coach on the other side of the line. After listening intently, Peter dropped the phone back to the table – his chest alight from the news he just received.

“That was Mike Eskind from Stanford – they want to bring me out to campus for a visit when next semester starts.” Peter looked up to catch the tail end of Tony’s huge smile – the look making his guts churn with that all too familiar heat. Shaking his head of the thought, he beamed back – their eyes locking.

“Holy shit, Pete!” Tony exclaimed, his voice the loudest pitch Peter heard him use all day. The boy jumped out of his chair – their gazes still connected. Peter followed suit without much hesitation, his entire body thrummed with excitement and pent up energy. Tony threw his arms around his hips and pulled him close – the throb of the other’s joy enough to make Peter suck in a breath, his own arms wrapping around Tony’s to join in on the embrace.

It felt right – being wrapped up in Tony’s arms. They were solid and warm, the presence of them on Peter’s hip grounding him, keeping him in the moment – the one where he got some of the greatest news of his life. He felt Tony’s head turn a little bit, his breath now gusting against the length of his neck. “Congrats,” Tony mumbled into the skin there.

Pulling back, Peter felt his grin widen, their arms not leaving each other. In the years to come, he wouldn’t be able to say who leaned in first – but all of the sudden, they were kissing. Tony’s lips were warm like the rest of him, the fullness of them pressing elegantly against Peter’s.

The initial kiss was soft, the chasteness of it a little like taking the first sip of a drink to test the flavor. Peter knew in that instant that nothing else would be as good as this – the smooth taste of Dr. Pepper, french fries, and a thing that he could only describe as Tony. It was intoxicating and enough to realize just how fucked he really was.

They inhabited the same space for another couple of moments, then Tony pulled away – one of his hands moving from Peter’s hip to cup his cheek. “I’ve wanted to do that for forever,” Tony whispered, his forehead tilting forward to rest against Peter’s. “Forever,” he mumbled again – the singular fact that they were in the middle of a public restaurant not registering to either of them. Peter closed his eyes and let himself relax into the embrace.

“Me too,” Peter replied after a while, his eyes opening for a brief second before Tony leaned forward and pressed their lips together again. The thought that maybe this might be a thing from now on made his heart skip and his head tilt a little further to the side, deepening the kiss.

Later that night, Peter thought so much about that kiss – about how utterly perfect the first one he ever got was – how, out of all the people in the world, Tony chose him to be on the receiving end of his affection. After getting to know the boy, Peter understood just how big of a thing that was – he didn’t get any in his home life, it made total sense that being able to give it wasn’t the easiest thing. Yet, it seemed to be earlier that day, the memory of Tony’s lips still ghosting across his own.

----

Finishing out the semester with all A’s, some college credit, and a boyfriend still felt surprising – even two months later when he slid into Tony’s car bright and early in the morning. This new ritual of theirs started when winter break ended, and their high school classes started back up. Since they didn’t have any early college stuff until the middle of January, both boys were free to do what they wanted after 11 every morning. Peter didn’t have any commitments until track practice at the end of the day, so they capitalized on it. His lips were so chapped by the end of the three weeks of freedom they had, and the boys were closer than ever.

He still didn’t understand why Tony wanted to drive 45 minutes in both directions to come and get him – but he wasn’t going to complain. Not having to sit on the bus so early in the morning was a beautiful thing, and all the extra time he got to spend with Tony was even better. Sometimes they were early enough to stop off and get some breakfast – and sometimes they skipped the McDonald’s and took advantage of the extra time; Tony’s back seat felt like a second home after so much time in it.

Though they were always all over each other, things hadn’t escaladed between them. Peter knew the feel of Tony’s cock through the tightness of his jeans – he knew the face Tony made when he came in his pants, but that was the extent of it. For a while, Peter worried that Tony would be mad at him for keeping things low level between them. The emotional feelings he felt for the other boy were so strong – he could only imagine what adding more to the physical sense of those feelings would be like.

With the thought in mind that junior year was the most important and the hardest, Peter and Tony kept their hands to themselves more or less and merely enjoyed being in each other’s company. When they weren’t making out in the back of Tony’s car, they studied at Chester’s or in the library, and spent time with May.

She initially wasn’t on board with the whole relationship when Peter first told her about it – then Tony came to the house for dinner and charmed her pants off. The deal was pretty much sealed after that. Tony seemed to enjoy the family aspect of being with her, and Peter enjoyed the look of happiness on his face too much to deprive him.

Peter thought that track season would put a damper on things between them, but it only seemed to strengthen their bond. Tony didn’t have anything other than robotics going on after school and they were currently on a break until championships at the end of the year – so he came to all of Peter’s meets. By the middle of the season, Peter’s teammates recognized Tony and May as his cheering section – and when things got really intense, many of them would join the pair in cheering Peter on. This was his year and the closer he got to it, the more Tony being there meant – the fact that the other cared about him enough to stand in the hot sun and rainy days was motivation and pushed him harder than he ever thought imaginable.

Winning nationals that year felt so sweet – his entire season was more than amazing and a lot of it had to do with all of the love and support he felt on a constant basis. So, it was easy to finally let Tony have the little bit of love they hadn’t experienced with each other yet. It seemed like the perfect celebration for an achievement that most people couldn’t even fathom – let alone achieve three times. The look of pride on Tony’s face made the decision pretty simple. Not even May looked at him like that – like he was the most prized trophy in the world and that Tony was the true winner here, not Peter.

It wasn’t nearly as awkward as he initially thought it might be. Tony spent a long time prepping him – the view of the boy with sweat on his brow and a look of pure concentration on his face something Peter didn’t ever want to forget. He came more than once throughout the process and when Tony did finally press inside of him, the burn of the stretch felt like the lactic acid build up at the end of a race – something he could easily push through. Watching Tony fall apart above him was almost as good as the rush of intense pleasure when his boyfriend finally found his pleasure center deep within. The utterance of his name never sounded sweeter than when Tony gasped it in the throes of pleasure – his lips finding Peter’s as he rode through it.

Slumping together on the hotel bed after they were done, Peter relaxed into Tony’s arms – the other’s soft hands ran over his hair, lips pressing against his neck every couple of seconds. “I love you, Peter Parker. I love you and I’m so proud of you. So proud, Petey,” Tony mumbled, his lips against salty skin disguising some of the words – but Peter heard enough. His heart picked up its pace, the organ not used to this sort of rush. He loved Tony – that much was obvious to everyone that got to see them together. Never in a million years did he think Tony would be the one to say it first, though.

“I love you too, Tony. Thanks for being here. Not just today, either. You’ve been the best support I’ve ever gotten. I can’t thank you enough,” Peter whispered back, his eyes a little teary. Between the exhaustion of his two days of racing and the emotional roller coaster of it all, Peter felt drained – and that meant a little more susceptible to being smacked in the face with his feelings. Looking over his shoulder, Peter reached for an awkward angled kiss – the move stopping the tears in their tracks.

Without missing a beat when they pulled away, Tony pressed a kiss to his neck and shoulder, hands traveling down Peter’s side. “You deserve it. Not just because you’re good – even though you’re fucking amazing. You bring a lot of things to the table, Pete. The more people get to see that, the more they realize just how big of an asset you are. Why do you think your teammates came up with us to cheer you on? You make an impression – you’re the greatest person I’ve ever known.”

Peter turned over to get a better look at Tony, the boy’s words so big. Now that they were facing each other, Peter could see the post-orgasm flush on Tony’s cheeks and the soft smile his lips seemed to be in on a near permanent basis these days. He pressed a kiss to the edge of his smile on both cheeks, then licked his nose in jest. “I think you’re just biased, babe,” Peter decided to say, all of the other words he could have blurted out stuck in the filter – his head everywhere and nowhere all at once.

The rush of air against his cheek when Tony laughed made his body shudder, the goosebumps taking over his flesh a nifty side effect to the soft sound of his boyfriend’s happiness. “You’re probably right.” His reply was quick and followed by a series of kisses against both of Peter’s cheeks. Tony’s hand ran hypnotically from the middle of his back all the way to the top and then back down again – his entire body now completely relaxed into the comfort of his favorite person.

As most do, their relationship changed a little bit after that. With the summer months ahead of them, there wasn’t much else to do other than spend time together. Tony’s parents left the day after they got back from nationals and would be gone for the rest of the summer – which meant they got run of the huge Stark mansion, just the two of them. They spent way too many hours in the lab constructing a couple new versions of some of their older robotics models – and fucking over available surface, too. It was one of the best summers Peter could remember and they didn’t even leave the city.

Throughout the week, Tony took Peter back and forth between his place and May’s – he still needed to do track workouts and such, so he used the mornings away from Tony to do just that. After his last win, it felt important to make sure he kept at it and tried to advance even more than he already was. He committed to Stanford at the end of the school year and didn’t want to give the school a reason to rescind the opportunity they were giving him. He and Tony were both polishing up their essays before sending in their applications – he still needed to get into the school to actually be able to go be an athlete there.

Peter felt lucky, spending the summer days surrounded in the haze of his love for Tony and the fun they could so easily have with each other. Most of his summers before were spent doing odd jobs around town to make a few extra bucks and counting down the days until he could get back to Midtown. It was miserable and Peter dreaded everything about it.

Not anymore, though – the days were dwindling down way too quickly; the freedom of the summer was too sweet to want to give up.

Regardless of his desires, senior year started without much preamble. The beauty of being with someone as smart as Tony came with having every class with him – even their early college classes on the other campus. Each day got to start and end with Tony, the exact way Peter preferred it.

About halfway through the year, May pulled him aside before he could walk out the door – her eyes filled with concern. “Pete – don’t you think you and Tony might be getting a little bit too serious? We haven’t had dinner without him in months,” May said, her face pinched up tight with discomfort. “It’s just – you’re in high school and you two act like you’re a married couple.”

He couldn’t help the laugh that fell from his lips – the truth of that statement hitting him square in the chest. They did and there wasn’t a single part of him that didn’t like that fact. Life with Tony in it was easy – more natural than breathing, even. It never crossed his mind, how the time they spent together might look to people around them. Tony brought him joy and happiness – and those feelings quickly became the sole focus in his life. He felt good and there wasn’t anyone who could take that away from him – not even May.

“Yeah, we do. And that’s okay. It’s not unhealthy, or anything. I like being around him, May. He makes me happy. Isn’t that what you want – for me to be happy? He’s my best friend. I’m not going to give up on the way that makes me feel – even if you think it’s too much.” Peter didn’t wait for her answer, he simply pressed a kiss to her cheek and walked out the door – the black Audi sitting there immediately making him feel better.

Settling into the seat, Peter buckled himself in before reaching across the middle console to put a hand on Tony’s thigh. “Want to know what May just said to me?” Peter asked, a soft smile on his lips. The thigh under his hand moved as Tony adjusted, his boyfriend turning a bit in the seat to see him more clearly.

“That sounds like a trick question – but I’ll bite. What did May just say to you?” Tony put the car into gear and pulled forward, his hand grabbing Peter’s and tangling their fingers together. “If it’s juicy girl talk about me, I definitely want to know.”

Peter brought their joint hands to his mouth and pressed a kiss to Tony’s knuckles – his nose rubbing there for a second. Tony’s hands were always warm, the constant presence of it one of his favorite things about the other boy. “She said we act like a married couple. I can’t lie – I liked the sound of it.” And he did – very much, almost to the point where he wanted it to be the case.

Tony must have liked the sound of that, too – his fingers squeezed Peter’s tightly, his head nodding vigorously. “I too like the sound of that. We might as well be. You’re not ever going to be able to get rid of me,”

Not that he wanted to anyway, Peter thought to himself. The rest of the drive to school, Peter kept the thought at the back of his head – his brain already moving in a billion different directions. They were heading out to California together in the summer, Tony already had plans for their house (though, he failed to share them with Peter,) and his boyfriend was right – there’d be no getting rid of Tony now that the attachment was created. Peter didn’t think either of them wanted to know what it was like to be without the other.

As the year mark of their relationship crept up, so did early acceptance time for Stanford. Between finals week, making goo-goo eyes at each other, and waiting by the mail – Peter felt a little bit of stress. There’d be another opportunity to get into Stanford later on the year, his entire future wasn’t riding on this acceptance letter, yet, he couldn’t stop himself from worrying about it nonetheless.

His record was spotless – but weirder things have happened in his life and he was unable to let himself relax completely. Tony would get in, that was a given – everything about the boy shouted pristine. And despite not wanting to lean on the Stark name, Tony couldn’t escape the prestige that his family offered him.

When the letters did eventually come, Peter almost passed out when he saw the ‘Congratulations’ in the first sentence. He spent so many sleepless nights brainstorming back up plans for no reason. The ability to drop all of the stress and worry away was like lifting the bag from his head – Peter could breathe fully for the first time in what seemed like forever.

Tony pulled him into his arms and pressed a kiss to his lips, the touch lingering only for a moment. “See, you were worried for nothing,” Tony whispered, his nose brushing against Peter’s softly. “Proud of you, Pete.” He kissed him again, this time his lips lingering for a couple of minutes.

The pride they felt for each other made the celebration of their acceptances into college that much sweeter – Tony took his time with every aspect of it, his fingers reverent, his thrusts long and thorough. He pulled every ounce of pleasure from Peter’s skin, while whispering sweet words of nothing the entire time. As Peter hit his peak and felt Tony tumble down with him, the thought of forever came back and hit him again – there was a lot to be said for spending the rest of his days just like this; completely and utterly absorbed in everything Tony was and could be.

----

The rest of the year went pretty quickly after they came back from winter break. Peter scheduled his final semester to be as easy as possible – between the hopes of having his best track season and starting a life with Tony, school was the last thing on his mind. There weren’t too many options for the more advanced classes, anyway – their aeronautical engineering classes the next year would be more than enough.

Some of the best parts of the end of their senior year didn’t come from school or the track. Tony surprised him with a scavenger hunt around Virginia Beach to ask him to prom. The day ended with Tony at the end of their favorite dock with a single red rose. The other knew there wasn’t any need to even ask – they simply put on nice suits the year before and danced the night away. Yet, the fact that Tony went out of his way to make it special felt pretty damn good.

They rode in one of the Stark limos to the big hotel Midtown always held their prom in and spent the entire time making out in the back seat. For some reason, Tony’s fire burnt a little hotter that night. He pulled Peter close and kept him near when they were standing with a couple of the different groups of people they were friendly with. The last slow dance of the night ended with Tony pressing soft kisses to the shell of his ear and muttering about how much he loved him. Getting into the back of the limo, Jarvis didn’t even try to engage them in conversation, he simply rolled up the window and pulled the car away from the curb. Peter couldn’t remember a time when Tony’s touch was so hotly determined.

Their good time at prom translated into an abundance of energy for Peter – the rest of the school year and track season went by in the blink of an eye. Before anyone really knew it, he was lining up for his last ever national’s meet – that thought making his heart thump against his chest. Track was going to get him exactly what he wanted out of his life – it felt a little weird to be closing that particular chapter.

Settling onto the line, Peter closed his eyes and got himself to his spot – the place somewhere in his mind that he could just relax and let his body go. He’d been sprucing the spot up a bunch over the past year, this season one of season best yet because of it. After another second, the gun sounded and Peter took off, his eyes snapping open and completely focused on the run ahead of him.

As he turned the corner of his last ever straightaway in his high school track career, Peter found himself smiling. The last few steps felt like his best yet and when he crossed the finish line to the announcer saying his name over the speaker, he raised a hand in the air and let out a shriek of victory. What a way to end what turned out to be some of the best years of his life so far. Getting there meant so much, Peter couldn’t have done it without the people in the stands supporting him. He looked up to catch eyes with Tony and frowned when he didn’t see him. After a quick look around, Peter noticed him at the edge of the track, a smile on his face.

Tony stepped onto the track; his strides purposeful towards Peter. Tilting his head in question, Peter narrowed the space between them – “Tony, what are you doing?” Peter asked, his face pulling into a grin despite his confusion.  “The next race is – “ he started, but was shockingly interrupted by Tony getting down on one knee before him. Whatever was going to come out of his mouth next was stopped in its tracks, his brain all of the sudden narrowed down and completely focused on the person in front of him.

“This is a long time coming, Pete. I know we’re young and there are so many things that are going to change here soon – but I want to be with you when they do. Growing with you these past couple of years has been the very best thing in my life. You put a smile on my face, and I want that for every morning – every day, for the rest of the ones I have left. Marry me, Pete.” Tony flipped open the box of a simple white gold band, the elegance of its basic nature something that made the rightness of the situation standout. The decision seemed pretty easy after that.

Pulling Tony up, Peter crashed their lips together – his sweaty face and the crowd be damned; his best friend and very favorite person just asked him to share forever. He broke the kiss before it could get too heated, their lips separating just enough for Peter to mumble “yes” in the space between them. The world was narrow for a few seconds as Tony slipped the ring on his finger, a huge smile on his face.

“Well, folks – it looks like our record holder and national champion just got engaged; congratulations, Peter Parker!”

His face flushing, Peter urged Tony off the track and out of the public eye – his heart was pounding, and he wanted so much just to have Tony wrapped around him and nothing else. “I can’t believe you did that. We’re getting married,” Peter exclaimed when they were nestled into the safety of the team spaces under the bleachers. Tony was full of surprises and constantly sweeping him off of his feet. It wasn’t necessary – they both knew that. They were solid and nothing was going to change that. Yet, the weight on his left ring finger spoke volumes, the sweet whisper of the rest of their lives together, and the gentle murmur of a commitment that Peter knew Tony was never afraid to give him.

The glitz of excitement lasted all the way through the metal ceremony and the near constant interviews he gave for a couple hours after that. Everyone wanted to know about the gorgeous stranger that stepped up and asked for his hand. They were curious about everything except his last run around the track – and Peter couldn’t blame them. He didn’t have any interest in talking about running when he could still hear Tony’s words in the back of his head, each one fresh – each one trying to dig a hole in his brain and stay there, to be remembered and kept close.

Peter wasn’t naïve, he knew exactly what getting married young would be like. There were still adult things he didn’t know how to do and leaving May’s house to not only go to college, but be someone’s husband – it was scary. The thought of not having Tony with him, for any reason, was much more frightening than anything else, though; he could learn how to do the laundry and pay his taxes, his genius level intelligence needed to be good for something.

Getting back to the hotel room, Tony pulled Peter through the door and proceeded to slip his hands under the warm-up he’d been wearing since he took off his uniform. His skin was dry now, but Tony’s touch brought the goosebumps rushing back, the surface feeling like it might crack and break all over the carpet if Tony’ didn’t keep touching him. A loud cough from the other side of the room stopped them in their tracks – Peter’s eyes widening when he saw May sitting there, a weird look on her face.

“May – what are you doing here? I thought we were meeting you later?” Peter asked, his brain trying to recall when he gave May his room key. She’d been staying at the nice hotel across the street on Tony’s dime, his boyfriend adamant about making sure May was taken care of. Moving a little, Peter felt Tony’s hands fall from under his shirt, the boy grabbing for his palm, instead – their fingers tangling.

It would have been nice, to marvel in the fact that from here on out, they were going to be together. May didn’t seem to have the same idea, though. She stood and closed a little bit of the space between them – the fact that both parties were standing not lost on Peter. He knew her battle tactics – staying on her feet was the easiest way for May to prepare for an attack. Peter bit down on his lip and prepared for the worst – whatever she had to say, it probably wasn’t pretty.

Turning to Tony first, she looked him square in the eye, her lips moving without any sound coming out for a moment, the woman obviously searching for the right words. “When you asked me if you could marry him, I didn’t think you meant ten minutes later!” May exclaimed, her voice cracking a little with the intensity of it. “I would have liked to have gotten some pictures, or something.” She shook her head, then moved her glance over to Peter, eyes now soft – the heat in them gone the second she started talking at Tony.

“And you – you know you’re only 18, right? Marriage isn’t a joke. Picking up his underwear for the rest of your life is taxing and takes a lot of work. Are you ready for that? To be someone else’s before you even figure out who you are?” May’s questions were valid, her empathy obvious in every action she ever made with Peter in mind. His aunt only wanted to see him excel and succeed – he couldn’t hold her worry or curiosity against her.

Dropping Tony’s hand, Peter narrowed the space between himself and May, his arms wrapping around her shoulders to pull her into a hug. “Do you remember what Ben used to say? When the bones are good, the rest don’t matter. There’s no cracks in the foundation, May. It’ll be okay. I’m scared, too – but I want this.” He pressed a kiss to her cheek then, her arms tightening as the words seemed to sink in.

He knew using Ben against her wasn’t the fairest thing he could have done – it was obvious she felt his loss so sharply still, all these years later and she was still so desperately in love with him. His uncle’s words were ones that stuck out, though. Even as a young kid, Peter knew things weren’t always good for them.

It was a struggle to pay rent with their meager jobs – they were constantly pulling at everything they had to make ends meet; for Peter and more importantly, each other. Peter’s favorite memory of the man was when he pulled both Peter and May into his lap – he looked around the room and said, “this house won’t crumble – the bones are too good.”

And for some reason, that stuck with him. At 5, he had no idea what it meant. He looked around for days to find the bones of the house. Then Ben died and he watched May do everything she could to keep things afloat – the literal backbone of the little family unit that they were. Finding himself with Tony finally made the words mean something to him – the foundation of their relationship was strong enough to keep whatever they decided upright and standing, regardless of the things that came their way.

Tearfully, May looked between them, Peter back by Tony’s side, their hands tangled together once again. “You’re such a dick for using Ben, Pete – but you’re also right. And no matter what I say, you’re going to do what you want. I’m not stupid enough to lose either of you because I’m trying to be a responsible adult,” May stopped then, shaking her head and filling the space between them with silent steps. She embraced them both, one arm around Peter and the other around Tony – both her babies now. “I love you – both of you. Even if you are a couple of idiots.”

Tony’s parents weren’t as kind and made their opinion about it pretty clear. Peter stood next to Tony while Howard berated him about bad decisions and getting ahead in life – his heart broke with every word, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t stop himself from busting open. “Why do you care now? I’ve known Tony my whole life and you’ve never been this interested in what he does. I spent almost every day with him last summer and you didn’t call once. It seems like it’s a little late to have such a strong opinion about his behavior now, Mr. Stark.”

Everyone in the room looked at him for a couple of minutes – the silence sitting heavily in the already toxic air around them. Tony broke the trance and wrapped an arm around Peter’s shoulders, his lips pressing against the side of his head. “I fucking love you,” Tony murmured. He pulled away and grabbed Peter’s hand, the clank of his boots heavy on the floor as he started to walk out of the room. Neither of his parents said anything or tried to stop him – so they walked down the stairs and left.

There wasn’t anything holding them back now.

----

They decided to be understated about it. Tony used a hefty portion of the funds he miraculously did not get cut off from to buy plane tickets to Hawaii. With May in tow, Tony and Peter got married on the beach in Maui – the sunset in front of them and flower crowns made with the local flora in their hair. The man that officiated the ceremony was a native on the island and took them around to all the best spots in celebration – it was absolutely gorgeous to see the beautiful place from such an insider perspective. Their hired photographer took pictures of them on the beach right as the sun was setting. The whole day absolutely magical, despite the fact that it was just the two of them for most of it.

May stayed in Maui when Peter and Tony left to spend their last week before heading to Stanford together in Honolulu. Their penthouse suite was bigger than his entire childhood home and had the most amazing view of the beach from the balcony at the back of the room. They spent their wedding night getting tipsy with May, so it would be the first night they spent together as husbands – and Peter was a little nervous.

For whatever reason, it felt like a totally new thing, being intimate with Tony now. They were the same people – still Peter and Tony, the young idiots in love. And yet, his heart pounded hard against his chest when Tony wrapped his arms around his hips from behind, his husband’s face settling over Peter’s shoulder. “I can hear you thinking all the way across the room. What’s on your mind, husband?” Tony questioned softly, the movement of his jaw a nice weight against him.

“It’s nice to be able to call each other that, isn’t it? Husband.” Peter reached up and placed his hands on Tony’s, his body relaxing back into him.

Tony moved a bit, giving the side of his neck a kiss. “Yeah, it is.” He pressed another kiss against Peter’s skin, and then another – his lips roaming across all the bare pieces of his neck and shoulder that he could find. “You’re the one, you know? I’m glad I finally get to have the world know that now, too.”

Turning in Tony’s arms, Peter wrapped his own around the other’s neck, their chest’s flush together. If he concentrated hard enough, he could feel the gentle beat of Tony’s heart against him – the rhythm of it steady. “Your possessive nature is kind of my favorite. I’m yours, Tony. Forever and ever.” Peter whispered the words, his nose brushing back and forth against Tony’s. “I love you, husband.” He finished off the sentiment with a kiss, his lips slipping across the other’s until he opened up to him, their tongues tangling.

It didn’t take much to stumble their way inside and land on the large bed in the middle of the master bedroom. The hotel chose a high thread count sheet set, Peter sighing when he relaxed against them. Tony really did go all out. Thoughts were soon replaced by nothing but feeling, Tony’s lips devouring his for minutes at a time, his husband only pulling back enough to catch a quick breath, then driving back in.

Tony took his clothes off one by one. He started with Peter’s short sleeve button down. He’d been growing some facial hair, and it tickled when he pressed his lips to the sensitive skin of Peter’s chest. With only three buttons undone, Tony got sidetracked – his mouth finding first the right nipple, tongue and teeth toying with the nub until it was hard and air sensitive. Only then did he switch, the man taking his time to get his desired result out of that one, too.

Nimble fingers finished the job, the tips of them caressing the lower part of Peter’s stomach and ever so slightly under the waistband of shorts and boxer briefs. He didn’t waste any time at all, either – he pulled the button of Peter’s pants out of the loop and tugged the offensive garment down. That beautiful mouth attached itself to the bulge in Peter’s underwear, the warm air making him toss his head back – his traitorous hips thrusting up off the mattress to get more friction.

Peter slid his fingers into Tony’s hair when he pulled the waistband of his underwear down just enough to let his tongue run over the very tip of an already leaky cock. He couldn’t control the babbles that were coming out of his mouth, most of them not even words – just breathless pants and choked off syllables. Tony worshiped at the alter and took his time slipping his boxer briefs completely off, tracing the length of his cock with eager fingers and tongue, then finally closing his mouth around him completely.

The tight grip at the base of his shaft kept him on the edge of his seat for what felt like forever. Both of Tony’s hands were on him, one hand gripping tight, the other moving with his mouth on the downward stroke – it felt like a fire being stoked from the outside in. “Tony, you’re killing me – I’m so close,” Peter mumbled, his hips thrusting up uselessly into the tight grip of his husband’s hand. Brown eyes completely taken by a lust-addled pupil looked up at him, a glow there.

“Cum, then,” Tony challenged, his lips barely coming off of Peter’s cock to get the words out – he felt the hum of every single one.

He wasn’t one to not listen to directions, so he did just that – Peter’s fingers tightened in Tony’s hair, the strands bunched up between them. “Oh, fuck – “

It took him a second to come back around, his eyes blinking the black dots from them to get a better look at the man between his legs. Tony was still laving his sensitive erection with his tongue, his eyes closed, a look of complete contentment on his face. He watched him long enough to feel the heat bubble in his gut – arousal coursing through him once again.

“Mm – back already. How do you want me?” Tony asked, looking up to catch Peter’s eye. He reached down to tug Tony up, his weight settling on top of him once again. He pressed up and gave his husband a kiss, the taste of himself still fresh on Tony’s tongue. The way the essence of who they were tangled together never ceased to drive him crazy – the underlying taste of Tony below the bitterness so intoxicating.

With Tony over him again, Peter could feel his hardness pressing into his hip – the tip wet, small dribbles of precum dripping from it as they kissed and thrust against each other. Breaking away, he let his fingertips brush Tony’s cheeks, a small smile on his face. “How about you sit back and relax for a minute – I’ll show you exactly what I want.” Peter laid another kiss on his lips before using his hands to push at Tony’s chest, his husband moving without much prodding.

“Sit back against the headboard,” Peter instructed, both of them adjusting until Tony was propped up against the back of the bed, creamy thighs straddling him. With eager hands, Peter reached over to the bedside table, his boy scout of a husband leaving the essentials there when they first got in. “Always prepared,” Peter said with a giggle, the lube bottle swinging between them. Uncapping it, Peter poured a generous amount on his fingers and let it warm up – the slickness something he couldn’t wait to feel.

Sitting up a little, he widened his legs across Tony’s lap, his finger finding his own entrance and pushing in. it still took a little while to get used to, the feeling fingers inside of himself, but Tony’s hands running up and down his thighs helped, his entire being relaxing. “You look good like this, Pete. Your eyes are glazed over and your skin is flushed. The running gives you these amazing thighs – and watching you put your own fingers inside yourself… I want to be those fingers, Pete. I can’t wait to be inside of you,” Tony babbled as he watched and caressed, his eyes glued to Peter’s.

He threw his head back, all of his nerve endings on fire – the delightful tug-o-war between the naughty words coming out of Tony’s mouth and the stretch of his own fingers. It was hard to break away from the intensity of his husband’s gaze, but he needed more – he swiftly replaced one finger with two, a groan slipping from his lips from the delightful burn. “I can’t wait either, baby. I can’t – I need you.” He was groaning, the words dripping from his lips without much of a run through his brain to mouth filter.

Neediness in mind, Peter rushed through the rest of the prep – the tease of it doing its job – Tony was mindlessly thrusting up against him and his own body was humming with want and heat; all of it so very delicious.

Peter uncapped the lube again and poured a generous amount directly onto Tony’s cock, his husband opening his eyes wide – “Fuck, Pete,” he shouted, neither of them all that worried about the noise level. He gripped Tony tightly and spread the slick down his cock, his length glistening when he pulled away. “Please, baby – “ Tony mumbled, his hands gripping Peter’s hips tightly as he settled over him.

There wasn’t much finesse to the way Peter simply sat back and took Tony’s length in – he felt the biting burn of stretching muscles and the tight grip of his husband’s fingers, but not much else. His legs were spread wide, his hips merely rolling to keep the entirety of Tony in him, the tip of his dick sitting just barely against his prostate. With the small thrusts up Tony couldn’t hold back, Peter’s innermost pleasure spot was constantly getting serviced, the divine ache of It out of this world.

It didn’t take much time for Tony to start to lose control – “Move, please – more… I need more.” Tony wasn’t much of a talker when they got to this portion of the evening, he showed his pleasure and appreciation through the touches, each caress saying something different, portraying his feelings in that instant. It sent a jolt to his core and spurred him up onto his feet, his arms holding onto Tony’s shoulders for dear life.

Tony’s hands moved to grip an ass cheek in each one, his hold helping Peter lift up a little more. He moved rapidly, then – his control swiftly shot, the shift in position pressing Tony in a little deeper. The only sounds in the room were the slap of skin on skin and harsh breaths – Peter whimpering every few thrusts down against the tip of Tony’s cock; his insides burning, the heat eating him up cell by cell.

When Tony started to lift his hips to meet his thrusts, Peter saw stars – his orgasm rushing over him without warning. “Tony, oh god – “ his cock emptied between them, each splash of cum coating Tony’s still flexing abs.

The rhythmic clenching of his hole must have been too much – Tony came undone beneath him only seconds later. He gripped Peter so hard he could already feel the bruises starting to form there. The delightful wetness within him made him clench again, the move drawing a long groan from his husband’s lips.

“You’re going to kill me one day,” he mumbled, his hands brushing up the length of Peter’s back as he leaned against him. “But what a way to go.” Peter shut him up with a kiss, their shared laugh almost as amazing as the love they just made.

The rest of the week was spent much the same – Peter and Tony tangled up together. They walked along the beach and spent time exploring each of the islands – one of the days, they met May for lunch and talked about all of the cute island guys that she’d been gathering up the courage to talk to. It was pretty perfect – a good way to relax and enjoy the last couple of days of freedom before the fun started.

Tony didn’t let him leave the bed all of the last day. They bought movies on demand and ate really expensive room service. After the burn he got the day before, Peter was grateful to spend the day in the air conditioning, his body worshipped by his very new and very beautiful husband.

----

They said goodbye to May at the airport and took a left when she went right. Peter was expected to check in for track workouts the very next day. It was hard to see her crying face take the corner – Peter wouldn’t get to go back to Virginia until winter break and when they did, it was only for a week. The indoor season would take up so much of his time, he wondered for a while if he’d be able to keep up with the aeronautical engineering program. There wasn’t any point in worrying, though – they hadn’t even gotten there yet.

After the 5-hour flight into Palo Alto, Tony got them a car that took them to their brand-new town house. It was the first time that Peter saw it, so he brushed off the tiredness and explored the two-story home – Tony must have spent a lot of time ordering furniture while Peter took care of their clothes and other belongings.

The entire house was set up – and their books for the semester were sitting on the dining room table. “I had Jarvis come ahead and set everything up for us. He wanted to buy us a wedding gift, but I thought a week in California for a little bit of interior decorating was a good trade-off,” Tony said, his hand caressing Peter’s cheek when they finally settled into the bar stools in the kitchen. “Do you like it?”

Peter moved quickly out of the seat, wrapping Tony in his arms before his husband could move or even think. “It’s perfect. There’s so much space, I won’t even know what to do with myself. I can’t believe this is ours,” Peter replied, a little bit of awe in his voice. It felt weird to be on his own for the first time, but also amazing – they were finally together, finally on their own, and completely free to start their life together.

Of course, it took a little bit of adjustment to get used to things. Tony didn’t do a lot of his own cleaning growing up and Peter washed the dishes for May every night – so it took more than a few discussions to come to a compromise that worked for them both. When Peter was unhappy, Tony listened to his complaints and tried his best. Peter tried to do the same for his husband and most of the time – it worked. The times that it didn’t, there was enough space for the two of them to separate and cool off. Fights were never major, though Tony sometimes tried to make them so.

It was funny – how different married life actually was to what he pictured in his head. There wasn’t much difference to their relationship. They laughed together often and explored the city – when Peter had track events, Tony went with him. People looked at them oddly when Peter introduced Tony as his husband – many of them telling them both that they would have never guessed they were gay, let alone married. Peter merely smiled and pulled Tony towards him; a soft kiss being pressed to the man’s cheek. “Yup, gay and happily married,” he always replied, a soft smile making the words as convincing as they were true.

Tony took a job in the physics lab during their second semester freshman year, his need to fill the time even more pressing now that Peter would be gone pretty frequently. It gave them a bit of separation and made coming back together a lot sweeter. Right before Peter left for his first ever college track meet, Tony took him to the plant nursery to pick out a couple of the foliage he’d been looking at. They initially wanted a pet but figured that a plant dying would be much less scarring than a dog or a cat.

They went home with a whole selection of house plants – a spider plant, a lucky bamboo, some ponytail palms, and a sword fern. They were perfect for the back part of the house where the morning sun peaked in. They would be successful parents one day and that journey started with the plants that they picked out with care. It was fun to argue about how to arrange them and when they ended up on the floor with nothing on but a little dirt from a tipped over pot, Peter figured they’d do an okay job keeping their little babies alive.

College track was a lot different than the high school circuit – the abundance of meets making it a little harder to recover and by default, Peter a little grumpier than usual. A Thursday after a long practice, Peter came home to an empty house. He’d been looking forward to pouncing on Tony, his need for comfort almost overwhelming to the point where he was a little pissed by his husband’s absence.

Pulling out his phone, he called Tony, his head tilting when he heard the man’s distinct ring up the stairs. A soft sigh left his lips when he saw Tony on the bed, fast asleep. All of the bad feelings slipped from him – his face pulling into a grin. The siren song of the love of his life looking so cute in bed pulled him in, too – Peter kicked off his shoes and wrapped himself around Tony, his eyes slipping closed within moments.

The smell of bacon woke him up a little while later. Glancing over at the clock, Peter saw that it’d only been a couple of hours. Grinning at the thought of overcooked pig, he climbed out of bed and hobbled down the stairs, his body still a little sleep addled.

The sight of Tony at the stove was heartwarming, he wasn’t the best cook – he never had to make a meal for himself before moving out here in his life; but he tried, and that was enough. The one thing Peter knew he could make was bacon, though – his stomach grumbled hungrily at the thought.

“Hey, husband,” Peter announced, his voice making Tony turn from the stove with a slight jump.

“Hey yourself. You’re looking good, Pete. That little bit of sleep did you good, baby.” Tony smiled at him warmly, the bright look in his eye never dulling, the intensity of it only seeming to glow more as the days passed. It felt good – to be loved like that. So selflessly, with so much of a person that was willing to give him absolutely everything.

Walking over to give him a quick kiss on the cheek, Peter grabbed his hips, fingers squeezing. “Yeah, thanks – its been a hectic couple of weeks. Conference is coming up, so they’ve got their foot on the gas with training. Speaking of – I can get you a pass, if you want to come.”

Tony flipped the burner off and went about putting things on plates, his husband turning with his hands full to nod enthusiastically at him. “You know I want to come, Pete. I haven’t missed one of your meets yet. It was kind of fun to go to Idaho a couple of weeks ago – I’d never been before.” He set a plate in front of Peter, a glass of orange juice following it a couple of moments later. “I’m going to get your distance coach to like me one of these days.”

Peter ate with one hand, the other playing with the fingers tangled with his own. Tony talked a bit about his day in the lab and told him about the copy of notes he made for Peter that was sitting on his desk in the study. He simply let him talk, Peter luxuriating in the clarity of being with Tony. It didn’t matter if he had a shitty day or that he was tired all the time – having Tony to come home to was nice – better than nice.

A couple of weeks later, Peter was getting ready for a race when one of his teammates came up to him, a question evident in his eyes. Letting out a breath, Peter turned his attention to him. “What’s up, Clint? I’m sure the rumor mill is churning up something good.” Peter said sarcastically, his arms still swinging in an attempt to keep himself warm.

“Why are you married? You’re talented, you’re hot – you could have anyone that you wanted. Instead you’re tied down. Why? Everyone wants to know why.” Clint didn’t beat around the bush, the blush on his cheeks the only sign that he felt a little bit embarrassed by the question. Peter grinned, the question one he could easily answer.

“Because I love him. He loves me. We take care of each other. He’s my best friend. I wanted to be with him forever and so did he. There are lots of reasons.” Peter’s smile grew when he saw Tony coming his way, his husband carrying a Gatorade and a hot dog, the bottle being thrust his way the second he was close enough to Peter. “Because he buys me Gatorade without asking,” Peter added, his arm wrapping around Tony’s shoulder.

Twenty minutes later, when Peter was pulling up from his push through the last lap, he looked up to see a group of his teammates sitting with Tony, all of them clapping and cheering with him – his husband hopping around like a madman. When they caught eyes, Tony stopped, his fingers coming to his lips to blow him a kiss. He mouthed ‘I love you’ at him – Peter’s heart stopping a bit at the softness of his cheeks and the look of pure affection on his face.

Peter ran to the edge of the track and grabbed the edges of the fence, a huge smile on his face. “I love you too, Tony Stark.”

Opening up the text from Clint a couple hours later, Peter couldn’t help but laugh. Tony looked over his shoulder to see a picture of Peter clinging to the fence, the shot of his side profile showing off the huge smile on his face. “Loving me looks good on you,” Tony whispered, his lips pressing against the shell of Peter’s ear.

“Yeah, it really does.”

[arcticdementor]

Oscar Wilde supposedly said George Bernard Shaw "has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends". Socialist blogger Freddie DeBoer is the opposite: few allies, but deeply respected by his enemies. I disagree with him about everything, so naturally I am a big fan of his work - which meant I was happy to read his latest book, The Cult Of Smart.

DeBoer starts with the standard narrative of The Failing State Of American Education. Students aren't learning. The country is falling behind. Only tough no-excuses policies, standardization, and innovative reforms like charter schools can save it, as shown by their stellar performance improving test scores and graduation rates.

He argues that every word of it is a lie. American education isn't getting worse by absolute standards: students match or outperform their peers from 20 or 50 years ago. It's not getting worse by international standards: America's PISA rankings are mediocre, but the country has always scored near the bottom of international rankings, even back in the 50s and 60s when we were kicking Soviet ass and landing men on the moon. Race and gender gaps are stable or decreasing. American education is doing much as it's always done - about as well as possible, given the crushing poverty, single parent-families, violence, and racism holding back the kids it's charged with shepherding to adulthood.

…

For decades, politicians of both parties have thought of education as "the great leveller" and the key to solving poverty. If people are stuck in boring McJobs, it's because they're not well-educated enough to be surgeons and rocket scientists. Give them the education they need, and they can join the knowledge economy and rise into the upper-middle class. For lack of any better politically-palatable way to solve poverty, this has kind of become a totem: get better schools, and all those unemployed Appalachian coal miners can move to Silicon Valley and start tech companies. But you can't do that. Not everyone is intellectually capable of doing a high-paying knowledge economy job. Schools can change your intellectual potential a limited amount. Ending child hunger, removing lead from the environment, and similar humanitarian programs can do a little more, but only a little. In the end, a lot of people aren't going to make it.

So what can you do? DeBoer doesn't think there's an answer within the existing system. Instead, we need to dismantle meritocracy.

DeBoer is skeptical of "equality of opportunity". Even if you solve racism, sexism, poverty, and many other things that DeBoer repeatedly reminds us have not been solved, you'll just get people succeeding or failing based on natural talent. DeBoer agrees conservatives can be satisfied with this, but thinks leftists shouldn't be. Natural talent is just as unearned as class, race, or any other unfair advantage.

One one level, the titular Cult Of Smart is just the belief that enough education can solve any problem. But more fundamentally it's also the troubling belief that after we jettison unfair theories of superiority based on skin color, sex, and whatever else, we're finally left with what really determines your value as a human being - how smart you are. DeBoer recalls hearing an immigrant mother proudly describe her older kid's achievements in math, science, etc, "and then her younger son ran by, and she said, offhand, 'This one, he is maybe not so smart.'" DeBoer was originally shocked to hear someone describe her own son that way, then realized that he wouldn't have thought twice if she'd dismissed him as unathletic, or bad at music. Intelligence is considered such a basic measure of human worth that to dismiss someone as unintelligent seems like consigning them into the outer darkness. So DeBoer describes how early readers of his book were scandalized by the insistence on genetic differences in intelligence - isn't this denying the equality of Man, declaring some people inherently superior to others? Only if you conflate intelligence with worth, which DeBoer argues our society does constantly. It starts with parents buying Baby Einstein tapes and trying to send their kids to the best preschool, continues through the "meat grinder" of the college admissions process when everyone knows that whoever gets into Harvard is better than whoever gets into State U, and continues when the meritocracy rewards the straight-A Harvard student with a high-paying powerful job and the high school dropout with drudgery or unemployment. Even the phrase "high school dropout" has an aura of personal failure about it, in a way totally absent from "kid who always lost at Little League".

DeBoer isn't convinced this is an honest mistake. He draws attention to a sort of meta-class-war - a war among class warriors over whether the true enemy is the top 1% (this is the majority position) or the top 20% (this is DeBoer's position; if you've read Staying Classy, you'll immediately recognize this disagreement as the same one that divided the Church and UR models of class). The 1% are the Buffetts and Bezoses of the world; the 20% are the "managerial" class of well-off urban professionals, bureaucrats, creative types, and other mandarins. Opposition to the 20% is usually right-coded; describe them as "woke coastal elites who dominate academia and the media", and the Trump campaign ad almost writes itself. But some Marxists flirt with it too; the book references Elizabeth Currid-Halkett's Theory Of The Aspirational Class, and you can hear echoes of this every time Twitter socialists criticize "Vox liberals" or something. Access to the 20% is gated by college degree, and their legitimizing myth is that their education makes them more qualified and humane than the rest of us. DeBoer thinks the deification of school-achievement-compatible intelligence as highest good serves their class interest; "equality of opportunity" means we should ignore all other human distinctions in favor of the one that our ruling class happens to excel at.

So maybe equality of opportunity is a stupid goal. DeBoer argues for equality of results. This is a pretty extreme demand, but he's a Marxist and he means what he says. He wants a world where smart people and dull people have equally comfortable lives, and where intelligence can take its rightful place as one of many virtues which are nice to have but not the sole measure of your worth.

…

I'm Freddie's ideological enemy, which means I have to respect him. And there's a lot to like about this book. I think its two major theses - that intelligence is mostly innate, and that this is incompatible with equating it to human value - are true, important, and poorly appreciated by the general population. I tried to make a somewhat similar argument in my Parable Of The Talents, which DeBoer graciously quotes in his introduction. Some of the book's peripheral theses - that a lot of education science is based on fraud, that US schools are not declining in quality, etc - are also true, fascinating, and worth spreading. Overall, I think this book does more good than harm.

It's also rambling, self-contradictory in places, and contains a lot of arguments I think are misguided or bizarre.

…

At the time, I noted that meritocracy has nothing to do with this. The intuition behind meritocracy is: if your life depends on a difficult surgery, would you prefer the hospital hire a surgeon who aced medical school, or a surgeon who had to complete remedial training to barely scrape by with a C-? If you prefer the former, you’re a meritocrat with respect to surgeons. Generalize a little, and you have the argument for being a meritocrat everywhere else.

The above does away with any notions of "desert", but I worry it's still accepting too many of DeBoer's assumptions. A better description might be: Your life depends on a difficult surgery. You can hire whatever surgeon you want to perform it. You are willing to pay more money for a surgeon who aced medical school than for a surgeon who failed it. So higher intelligence leads to more money.

This not only does away with "desert", but also with reified Society deciding who should prosper. More meritorious surgeons get richer not because "Society" has selected them to get rich as a reward for virtue, but because individuals pursuing their incentives prefer, all else equal, not to die of botched surgeries. Meritocracy isn't an -ocracy like democracy or autocracy, where people in wigs sit down to frame a constitution and decide how things should work. It's a dubious abstraction over the fact that people prefer to have jobs done well rather than poorly, and use their financial and social clout to make this happen.

…

I think DeBoer would argue he's not against improving schools. He just thinks all attempts to do it so far have been crooks and liars pillaging the commons, so much so that we need a moratorium on this kind of thing until we can figure out what's going on. But I'm worried that his arguments against existing school reform are in some cases kind of weak.

DeBoer does make things hard for himself by focusing on two of the most successful charter school experiments. If he'd been a little less honest, he could have passed over these and instead mentioned the many charter schools that fail, or just sort of plod onward doing about as well as public schools do. I think the closest thing to a consensus right now is that most charter schools do about the same as public schools for white/advantaged students, and slightly better than public schools for minority/disadvantaged students. But DeBoer very virtuously thinks it's important to confront his opponents' strongest cases, so these are the ones I'll focus on here.

…

These are good points, and I would accept them from anyone other than DeBoer, who will go on to say in a few chapters that the solution to our education issues is a Marxist revolution that overthrows capitalism and dispenses with the very concept of economic value. If he's willing to accept a massive overhaul of everything, that's failed every time it's tried, why not accept a much smaller overhaul-of-everything, that's succeeded at least once? There are plenty of billionaires willing to pour fortunes into reforming various cities - DeBoer will go on to criticize them as deluded do-gooders a few chapters later. If billions of dollars plus a serious commitment to ground-up reform are what we need, let's just spend billions of dollars and have a serious commitment to ground-up reform! If more hurricanes is what it takes to fix education, I'm willing to do my part by leaving my air conditioner on 'high' all the time.

…

DeBoer spends several impassioned sections explaining how opposed he is to scientific racism, and arguing that the belief that individual-level IQ differences are partly genetic doesn't imply a belief that group-level IQ differences are partly genetic. Some reviewers of this book are still suspicious, wondering if he might be hiding his real position. I can assure you he is not. Seriously, he talks about how much he hates belief in genetic group-level IQ differences about thirty times per page. Also, sometimes when I write posts about race, he sends me angry emails ranting about how much he hates that some people believe in genetic group-level IQ differences - totally private emails nobody else will ever see. I have no reason to doubt that his hatred of this is as deep as he claims.

But I understand why some reviewers aren't convinced. This book can't stop tripping over itself when it tries to discuss these topics. DeBoer grants X, he grants X -> Y, then goes on ten-page rants about how absolutely loathsome and abominable anyone who believes Y is.

Remember, one of the theses of this book is that individual differences in intelligence are mostly genetic. But DeBoer spends only a little time citing the studies that prove this is true. He (correctly) decides that most of his readers will object not on the scientific ground that they haven't seen enough studies, but on the moral ground that this seems to challenge the basic equality of humankind. He (correctly) points out that this is balderdash, that innate differences in intelligence don't imply differences in moral value, any more than innate differences in height or athletic ability or anything like that imply differences in moral value. His goal is not just to convince you about the science, but to convince you that you can believe the science and still be an okay person who respects everyone and wants them to be happy.

He could have written a chapter about race that reinforced this message. He could have reviewed studies about whether racial differences in intelligence are genetic or environmental, come to some conclusion or not, but emphasized that it doesn't matter, and even if it's 100% genetic it has no bearing at all on the need for racial equality and racial justice, that one race having a slightly higher IQ than another doesn't make them "superior" any more than Pygmies' genetic short stature makes them "inferior".

Instead he - well, I'm not really sure what he's doing. He starts by says racial differences must be environmental. Then he says that studies have shown that racial IQ gaps are not due to differences in income/poverty, because the gaps remain even after controlling for these. But, he says, there could be other environmental factors aside from poverty that cause racial IQ gaps. After tossing out some possibilities, he concludes that he doesn't really need to be able to identify a plausible mechanism, because "white supremacy touches on so many aspects of American life that it's irresponsible to believe we have adequately controlled for it", no matter how many studies we do or how many confounders we eliminate. His argument, as far as I can tell, is that it's always possible that racial IQ differences are environmental, therefore they must be environmental. Then he goes on to, at great length, denounce as loathsome and villainous anyone who might suspect these gaps of being genetic. Such people are "noxious", "bigoted", "ugly", "pseudoscientific" "bad people" who peddle "propaganda" to "advance their racist and sexist agenda". (But tell us what you really think!)

…

This is far enough from my field that I would usually defer to expert consensus, but all the studies I can find which try to assess expert consensus seem crazy. A while ago, I freaked out upon finding a study that seemed to show most expert scientists in the field agreed with Murray's thesis in 1987 - about three times as many said the gap was due to a combination of genetics and environment as said it was just environment. Then I freaked out again when I found another study (here is the most recent version, from 2020) showing basically the same thing (about four times as many say it’s a combination of genetics and environment compared to just environment). I can't find any expert surveys giving the expected result that they all agree this is dumb and definitely 100% environment and we can move on (I'd be very relieved if anybody could find those, or if they could explain why the ones I found were fake studies or fake experts or a biased sample, or explain how I'm misreading them or that they otherwise shouldn't be trusted. If you have thoughts on this, please send me an email). I've vacillated back and forth on how to think about this question so many times, and right now my personal probability estimate is "I am still freaking out about this, go away go away go away". And I understand I have at least two potentially irresolveable biases on this question: one, I'm a white person in a country with a long history of promoting white supremacy; and two, if I lean in favor then everyone will hate me, and use it as a bludgeon against anyone I have ever associated with, and I will die alone in a ditch and maybe deserve it. So the best I can do is try to route around this issue when considering important questions. This is sometimes hard, but the basic principle is that I'm far less sure of any of it than I am sure that all human beings are morally equal and deserve to have a good life and get treated with respect regardless of academic achievement.

…

That last sentence about the basic principle is the thesis of The Cult Of Smart, so it would have been a reasonable position for DeBoer to take too. DeBoer doesn't take it. He acknowledges the existence of expert scientists who believe the differences are genetic (he names Linda Gottfredson in particular), but only to condemn them as morally flawed for asserting this.

But this is exactly the worldview he is, at this very moment, trying to write a book arguing against! His thesis is that mainstream voices say there can't be genetic differences in intelligence among individuals, because that would make some people fundamentally inferior to others, which is morally repugnant - but those voices are wrong, because differences in intelligence don't affect moral equality. Then he adds that mainstream voices say there can't be genetic differences in intelligence among ethnic groups, because that would make some groups fundamentally inferior to others, which is morally repugnant - and those voices are right; we must deny the differences lest we accept the morally repugnant thing.

Normally I would cut DeBoer some slack and assume this was some kind of Straussian manuever he needed to do to get the book published, or to prevent giving ammunition to bad people. But no, he has definitely believed this for years, consistently, even while being willing to offend basically anybody about basically anything else at any time. So I'm convinced this is his true belief. I'm just not sure how he squares it with the rest of his book.

…

"Smart" equivocates over two concepts - high-IQ and successful-at-formal-education. These concepts are related; in general, high-IQ people get better grades, graduate from better colleges, etc. But they're not exactly the same.

There is a cult of successful-at-formal-education. Society obsesses over how important formal education is, how it can do anything, how it's going to save the world. If you get gold stars on your homework, become the teacher's pet, earn good grades in high school, and get into an Ivy League, the world will love you for it.

But the opposite is true of high-IQ. Society obsessively denies that IQ can possibly matter. Admit to being a member of Mensa, and you'll get a fusillade of "IQ is just a number!" and "people who care about their IQ are just overcompensating for never succeeding at anything real!" and "IQ doesn't matter, what about emotional IQ or grit or whatever else, huh? Bet you didn't think of that!" Science writers and Psychology Today columnists vomit out a steady stream of bizarre attempts to deny the statistical validity of IQ.

These are two sides of the same phenomenon. Some people are smarter than others as adults, and the more you deny innate ability, the more weight you have to put on education. Society wants to put a lot of weight on formal education, and compensates by denying innate ability a lot. DeBoer is aware of this and his book argues against it adeptly.

Still, I worry that the title - The Cult Of Smart - might lead people to think there is a cult surrounding intelligence, when exactly the opposite is true. But I guess The Cult Of Successful At Formal Education sounds less snappy, so whatever.

…

I try to review books in an unbiased way, without letting myself succumb to fits of emotion. So be warned: I'm going to fail with this one. I am going to get angry and write whole sentences in capital letters. This is one of the most enraging passages I've ever read.

School is child prison. It's forcing kids to spend their childhood - a happy time! a time of natural curiosity and exploration and wonder - sitting in un-air-conditioned blocky buildings, cramped into identical desks, listening to someone drone on about the difference between alliteration and assonance, desperate to even be able to fidget but knowing that if they do their teacher will yell at them, and maybe they'll get a detention that extends their sentence even longer without parole. The anti-psychiatric-abuse community has invented the "Burrito Test" - if a place won't let you microwave a burrito without asking permission, it's an institution. Doesn't matter if the name is "Center For Flourishing" or whatever and the aides are social workers in street clothes instead of nurses in scrubs - if it doesn't pass the Burrito Test, it's an institution. There is no way school will let you microwave a burrito without permission. THEY WILL NOT EVEN LET YOU GO TO THE BATHROOM WITHOUT PERMISSION. YOU HAVE TO RAISE YOUR HAND AND ASK YOUR TEACHER FOR SOMETHING CALLED "THE BATHROOM PASS" IN FRONT OF YOUR ENTIRE CLASS, AND IF SHE DOESN'T LIKE YOU, SHE CAN JUST SAY NO.

I don't like actual prisons, the ones for criminals, but I will say this for them - people keep them around because they honestly believe they prevent crime. If someone found proof-positive that prisons didn't prevent any crimes at all, but still suggested that we should keep sending people there, because it means we'd have "fewer middle-aged people on the streets" and "fewer adults forced to go home to empty apartments and houses", then MAYBE YOU WOULD START TO UNDERSTAND HOW I FEEL ABOUT SENDING PEOPLE TO SCHOOL FOR THE SAME REASON.

I sometimes sit in on child psychiatrists' case conferences, and I want to scream at them. There's the kid who locks herself in the bathroom every morning so her parents can't drag her to child prison, and her parents stand outside the bathroom door to yell at her for hours until she finally gives in and goes, and everyone is trying to medicate her or figure out how to remove the bathroom locks, and THEY ARE SOLVING THE WRONG PROBLEM. There are all the kids who had bedwetting or awful depression or constant panic attacks, and then as soon as the coronavirus caused the child prisons to shut down the kids mysteriously became instantly better. I have heard stories of kids bullied to the point where it would be unfair not to call it torture, and the child prisons respond according to Procedures which look very good on paper and hit all the right We-Are-Taking-This-Seriously buzzwords but somehow never result in the kids not being tortured every day, and if the kids' parents were to stop bringing them to child prison every day to get tortured anew the cops would haul those parents to jail, and sometimes the only solution is the parents to switch them to the charter schools THAT FREDDIE DEBOER WANTS TO SHUT DOWN.

I see people on Twitter and Reddit post their stories from child prison, all of which they treat like it's perfectly normal. The district that wanted to save money, so it banned teachers from turning the heat above 50 degrees in the depths of winter. The district that decided running was an unsafe activity, and so any child who ran or jumped or played other-than-sedately during recess would get sent to detention - yeah, that's fine, let's just make all our children spent the first 18 years of their life somewhere they're not allowed to run, that'll be totally normal child development. You might object that they can run at home, but of course teachers assign three hours of homework a day despite ample evidence that homework does not help learning. Preventing children from having any free time, or the ability to do any of the things they want to do seems to just be an end in itself. Every single doctor and psychologist in the world has pointed out that children and teens naturally follow a different sleep pattern than adults, probably closer to 12 PM to 9 AM than the average adult's 10 - 7. Child prisons usually start around 7 or 8 AM, meaning any child who shows up on time is necessarily sleep-deprived in ways that probably harm their health and development.

School forces children to be confined in an uninhabitable environment, restrained from moving, and psychologically tortured in a state of profound sleep deprivation, under pain of imprisoning their parents if they refuse. The only possible justification for this is that it achieves some kind of vital social benefit like eliminating poverty. If it doesn't, you might as well replace it with something less traumatizing, like child labor. The kid will still have to spend eight hours of their day toiling in a terrible environment, but at least they’ll get some pocket money! At least their boss can't tell them to keep working off the clock under the guise of "homework"! I have worked as a medical resident, widely considered one of the most horrifying and abusive jobs it is possible to take in a First World country. I can say with absolute confidence that I would gladly do another four years of residency if the only alternative was another four years of high school.

If I have children, I hope to be able to homeschool them. But if I can't homeschool them, I am incredibly grateful that the option exists to send them to a charter school that might not have all of these problems. I'm not as impressed with Montessori schools as some of my friends are, but at least as far as I can tell they let kids wander around free-range, and don't make them use bathroom passes. DeBoer not only wants to keep the whole prison-cum-meat-grinder alive and running, even after having proven it has no utility, he also wants to shut the only possible escape my future children will ever get unless I'm rich enough to quit work and care for them full time.

When I try to keep a cooler head about all of this, I understand that Freddie DeBoer doesn't want this. He is not a fan of freezing-cold classrooms or sleep deprivation or bullying or bathroom passes. In fact, he will probably blame all of these on the "neoliberal reformers" (although I went to school before most of the neoliberal reforms started, and I saw it all). He will say that his own utopian schooling system has none of this stuff. In fact, he does say that. He sketches what a future Marxist school system might look like, and it looks pretty much like a Montessori school looks now. That just makes it really weird that he wants to shut down all the schools that resemble his ideal today (or make them only available to the wealthy) in favor of forcing kids into schools about as different from it as it's possible for anything to be.

I am so, so tired of socialists who admit that the current system is a helltopian torturescape, then argue that we must prevent anyone from ever being able to escape it. Who promise that once the last alternative is closed off, once the last nice green place where a few people manage to hold off the miseries of the world is crushed, why then the helltopian torturescape will become a lovely utopia full of rainbows and unicorns. If you can make your system less miserable, make your system less miserable! Do it before forcing everyone else to participate in it under pain of imprisonment if they refuse! Forcing everyone to participate in your system and then making your system something other than a meat-grinder that takes in happy children and spits out dead-eyed traumatized eighteen-year-olds who have written 10,000 pages on symbolism in To Kill A Mockingbird and had zero normal happy experiences - is doing things super, super backwards!

[ploppythespaceship]

So I watched the Artemis Fowl movie...

Usually I make a list of good things and bad things in my reviews, but in this I literally do not have one good thing to say. Artemis Fowl fails as an adaptation, and it fails as a movie. It’s almost incomprehensible how terrible this film is -- Percy Jackson looks competent by comparison. So instead of my list, I’m gonna just talk about why it sucked.

The Plot

The movie combines the plots of the first two books in the series, with a few elements from later books tossed in for good measure. In the first book, Artemis learns of the existence of fairies and takes one hostage -- Captain Holly Short -- in order to extort them. In the second book, Artemis’s father has been captured, prompting Artemis to team up with Holly to rescue him.

The problem with combining these two is that they are fundamentally different stories. The latter relies greatly on the former to be well set up. Additionally, both are rather busy stories that need time and focus to do them well. The tension of Artemis holding Holly captive works because it lasts for a significant portion of the book. The development of Artemis teaming up with Holly works because they have hated each other for over a book now. This does not happen in the film. Everything is rushed, leading to a jumbled mess that barely makes any sense.

Artemis’s father is captured by Opal Koboi (a villain from the later books who does little to nothing in this film), who demands that Artemis give her something called the Aculos (a mcguffin that the movie made up). Artemis then captures Holly, and demands the Aculos as ransom. But when the fairies have no interest in giving him this ransom, Artemis teams up with Holly. Because it turns out her father, Beechwood, stole the Aculos years ago, and Artemis’s father knew Beechwood. The fairies send in a dwarf named Mulch to break in, and he locates the Aculos in the Fowl Manor. Mulch then teams up with Artemis, and there’s a long sequence where everyone fights a troll. Once that’s done, Holly uses the Aculos to rescue Artemis’s father. The end.

If you’re thinking that this plot makes no sense, that’s because it doesn’t. Information is presented at the strangest times, making things impossible to follow. Not to mention that character allegiances are constantly shifting for no discernible reason. There is no reason for Holly to trust Artemis, or vice versa -- yet they declare themselves “forever friends” before the end of the film. I can’t even tell you why Mulch sticks around, he just does.

The movie is also terribly paced. Despite only being ninety minutes long, it feels like it drags on for an eternity. Alternating between Artemis and Holly in the opening creates a distinct lack of tension, making it impossible to stay invested in any one thing for too long. Topping the whole thing off is the movie’s framing device -- the story is narrated by Mulch, as part of an interrogation that’s never properly explained. This setup feels so unnecessary, and it’s actually jarring every time we cut back to Mulch growling his exposition at the camera.

The Characters & Actors

I cannot think of one character that has not been butchered by the writing, the acting, or both. All of them are terrible. And across the board, the acting isn’t terribly good.

Artemis Fowl

The titular character gets it the worst of everyone. In the book, he’s a criminal mastermind. He’s cold, calculating, and eerie. He behaves so much like an adult that it unsettles people. He isn’t at all interested in typical child things, instead focusing on his own lofty goals. He’s an utter genius, learning the existence of fairies all on his own and coming up with the plan to capture one himself. Though he’s sympathetic in his own way, he’s also not presented as a terribly good person. As a protagonist, he’s almost unlikable -- it’s not until later books that he learns to have friends and become a better person.

But in the movie, Artemis is about as generic a fantasy film protagonist as you can get. He’s a more or less happy child who adores his father. He likes surfing and skateboarding. He doesn’t learn about fairies on his own -- his father tells him about them. And while he’s shown to be intelligent, it’s nowhere near the genius level he should be at. He’s so watered down and uninteresting that he’s unrecognizable as the same character. Even accepting that this isn’t the book character, he’s just boring to watch. There’s nothing interesting or compelling about this random kid. Ferdia Shaw’s performance doesn’t help -- while I’ve certainly seen worse child actors, I’ve also seen far, far better.

It’s worth mentioning that some of the best moments in the books are when something rattles Artemis so badly that the walls come down and he acts like a scared little kid. These moments work because they’re rare. This movie tosses them at you left and right. I don’t know who this kid is, but it ain’t Artemis Fowl.

Holly Short

In the books, Holly is an adult woman working an adult job -- she’s a police officer. She’s also described as having medium dark skin, with the phrases “olive” and “nut brown” being used most often. So the decision to cast a fourteen year old white actress... it boggles the mind. In fairness, Lara McDonnell did a decently good job in the role. But there wasn’t much role to do a good job with. Holly is a very bland character, with all of her drive and fire from the book simply gone. There’s also a backstory tossed in about her father, Beechwood Short, which is implemented in the strangest way and only comes up when it’s strictly relevant.

Domovoi Butler

Oh, Butler. Artemis’s bodyguard slash best friend slash pseudo father figure. A tremendously important character in the books who is barely in the movie at all. His role is so cut down that it’s absurd. I guess Nonso Anonzie was doing a fine job, but he was hardly there enough for me to tell. All indication that this man is a tremendously important figure in Artemis’s life is simply gone.

Edited to add: I didn’t initially think of anything wrong with Butler being a black man for the movie, but after seeing some complaints from others... yeah I think making a character from a family that’s been servants to a rich white family for generations now into a black man is uhhhhhhhhhh. It’s questionable.

Juliet Butler

Butler’s niece, Juliet, is in the movie so little that I kept forgetting she was there. Which is a damn shame, because I actually really liked Tamara Smart from The Worst Witch already and thought she was an excellent choice for Juliet. In the book, Juliet is the only other child around, and about the only kid that Artemis will remotely consider an equal. She’s great to balance him out and keep him more grounded. In the movie? Eh. She has a handful of lines.

Mulch Diggums

As far as being accurate to the book, Mulch is probably the closest. Though the decision to make a dwarf character not actually short boggles the mind... my main complaint is that Josh Gad likes to improvise his way through scenes, and his style of comedy is pretty grating. It gets old, fast. Throw in the fact that he’s also growling all of his lines to sound different, and you have a character that’s nearly unwatchable.

Julius Root

Speaking of growling all your lines! Commander Root is played by Dame Judi Dench in this movie, changing the character’s gender. I really don’t mind that, and the characterization is largely unchanged. What I do mind is Dench’s delivery. All of her lines are growled in such a low rumble that it sounds like she’s been smoking for eighty years. It becomes impossible to take anything she says or does seriously when she’s speaking like that. Josh Gad even pokes fun at it in a scene with the two of them, saying that they sound like “hippos with a throat infection” -- the only line to get a chuckle out of me.

Artemis Fowl, Sr.

To round it off, we have Colin Farrell as Artemis’s father. And... he’s here, I guess. Farrell mostly sounds bored in all of his scenes and it’s incredibly easy to forget about him.

Angeline Fowl

But wait! A fan of the book may ask. What about Artemis’s mother? How did the movie do her? Surely they didn’t forget Artemis’s mother! And my friends, I regret to inform you that the movie did, in fact, forget Artemis’s mother. She isn’t present, nor is she even mentioned. A major part of the books, a major force to drive Artemis’s character, just... gone. Lovely.

The Production Design

The best word I can think of is uninspired. Most things are serviceable, but unimpressive, leading to the film looking very generic. I was especially disappointed with the look of the fairy underground. A combination of magic and technology has a lot of potential to look visually interesting. Instead, the fairy police just look like the E.L.F.S. from The Santa Clause. And once you’ve seen it, you’ll never unsee it. So you’re welcome.

Additionally, the action scenes tend to be poorly shot and edited. Everything is extremely fast paced with a freely floating camera -- this makes things nearly impossible to follow. Several times I said out loud “what just happened?” because I legitimately could not tell where things were in relation to each other, and who was attacking, who was being attacked, etc. Thankfully there aren’t a lot of action scenes, but the few that do exist are pretty bad.

There are also several sequences of Mulch unhinging his jaw to burrow through the ground. In the book, it’s mildly amusing, but it doesn’t at all translate to film. It’s horrifying in every sense. The CG looks rubbery and fake, and Josh Gad’s performance doesn’t at all sell it. If there were any change from the books I would actually welcome, it’s this one. There are plenty of other ways he could dig. But nope. They stuck to that one. For some reason.

In Conclusion

This is easily the worst book to film adaptation I have ever seen. Please don’t watch it unless you’re a fan of the book and want a laugh.

[artpoint420]

Melvin and the Silent Diagnosis for a Brilliantly Broken Psyche

Hypothetical Diagnosis Insecurity masked with narcissistic tendencies characterized with compulsive obsessions driven by blatant autism, and no that is not an immature insult I test extremely highly for Asperger's myself Here's the Evidence: (I will state before hand that Melvin-borg is a completely separate character in my mind, and thus will not be included in this particular theory.  Melvin decided not to turn out like him, so they are canonically separate characters) He is obviously and frequently inspired by George and Harold, but his deeply embedded fear of rejection makes him dangerously bitter, and it doesn't help that everytime he breaks out of this protective shell, he is rejected or betrayed once again. It’s important to note that while he may be high-functioning (aka: Aspergers) he is still Autistic. That’s because Asperger’s is not a form of autism- it is autism. Period. And any kind of autism or mental attypicality left untreated can develop in to many, many other severe mental disorders, or, in general, make life a metric heck ton harder and complicated than it already is. I also need to confess that I test highly positively for autism myself as well as being an INTP female (Myers-Briggs Personality Test). Not to brag, but all that combined with my naturally creative nature makes me rare af, but it also means I can't communicate or handle stress #liketheothergirls, so that has lead me to being/feeling bullied and ostracized.  I also have anxiety and depression issue which run in my family, and mild insomnia, and may or may not be relapsing into an eating disorder. Paired with psychical problems like acid reflux and severe neck tension, health, whether psychical or mental is of uttermost importance to me.  It suffices to say, autism is not easy to deal with and if not taken care for properly a person, especially if not made at least aware of what autism truly is, it can truly ruin their life. Combined with the neglectful nature of his parents (at least in the books) I and many others in this fandom truly believe Melvin is at least autistically coded. Not only does this fit the archetype of his character but it also fits the theme of the books to a TEE. At its core, CU, of all things, is a children's book series, about living your best life despite not being “normal.” Even characters like the teachers or Mr Krupp who strive for “normality” are shown to actually have deeply repressed creativity, or, in some cases, deep trauma from their own childhoods. It suffices to say that I resonate deeply with Melvin. Say what you want about him or me, I was able to relate to him the second he spoke his first line in the second book. Sorry to turn this into a long vent, but I feel it is best to use myself to support this theory as well as harder evidence, even if it is mostly a means of self-therapy. To start, we both are obsessed with school even to a detrimental degree. Ever since head-start (Pre-K but a million times better), these "book-smarts" were the first thing I ever truly excelled at. When the other kids bullied (or as I now know as teasing) me, I would lose myself in a stack of homework or a book 2-3 grades past my grade level (this is before I drew or wrote as a main hobby). Similarly, Melvin is rarely seen without a book or gadget, just like me. We both over analyze things and hide our feelings. We both have intense crushes on others but are terrified to dare express them, or do but to nothing but awkwardness. We were both science kids, and fascinated by words and/or numbers alone (I still am just in a more artistic way). We both struggle to communicate and relate to others. We both have a unusual sense of humor and are highly observant of surroundings all the while missing what’s in front of our noses. We both have interests that quickly spiral into obsessions and dropping the obsession only when sick of it. We both practice similar forms of stimming. We both not only thrive but crave control and structure with the world around us, even to the point of being "control freaks" and creating odd habits, routines, and rituals regardless of whether they are necessary or make sense. We both have an intense fear of intimacy and rejection to the point of practicing self-isolation and in some cases self harm or other unhealthy coping methods (seen with Melvin over eating sweets or over working himself. For me it’s disordered eating or self flagellation, something I have all but completely dropped but still) We also both tend to see ourselves as inferior to others and attempt to mask those feelings with a superiority complex (I feel bad for my siblings but I didn’t know what I was doing, and no it was not abusive just sibling rivalry and I’m the oldest anyway, and we are country kids and understand “rough-housing” =/= using each other as a punching bag, but accidents happen I'm sorry) We both seem to become easily overstimulated and have explosive mental and emotional breakdowns when things just . . . become too much However the harsh divide between male and female and fictional and nonfictional means we both present certain traits differently. Whereas he presents a more linear line of thinking my mind is overwhelmingly sporadic. Also, I have over sensitivities to touch and light (and sometimes certain noises, but not anything not normal? Wfk.) But maybe he does have oversensitivity but I can't think of an example off the top of my head. Enough about me however. I know Melvin and autism has been done to death.  Hell, I just did it to death.  My actual theory is more on the inner mechanisms of his mind and predicting how he will develop should the series allow for full character development. Also, similar to my Krupp theory, I will be listing his crimes out and give him a proper sentence for his age and maturity level (which will be light as I am sympathetic to his plight).   This is already getting too long, so Imma try to finally get to the point.  Characters with autism are honestly a mixed bag, sometimes there as standardized as my mystery Daddy Sherlock Holmes and other times they are as subtle as Pearl or Peridot from Steven Universe (has Rebbaca Sugar confirmed this? sorry). Honestly, it does distress me that autism is almost always used to have an evil genius character or some weird side character for brownie/ diversity points. (this makes me a bit hypocritical I guess, considering my own stories. I guess tropes are tropes for a reason) And while Dav Pilky May not be subtle with his scholastic politics or humor his one spectacular tool in his writing books has always been, when it comes to his characters, showing instead of telling. This is something I latched on to even as a kid, and I was already thinking up theories on the characters before I even knew character theories were a thing.  Like what happened to Harold's Dad (hint, hint).  Why was Harold's sister rarely used?  Does Mr Krupp actually like their comics (a now accepted theory, but not just min? And many many others I'm probably never gonna write.  It took until how long in the books to reveal George and Harold have ADHD? Before that they were simply described as being as smart as Melvin but just in different ways. Personally I feel that autism is inverted ADHD. This is an opinion I’ve recently formed so if I’m wrong bloody attack me in the comments. Anyway, Melvin presenting autism makes him the perfect foil to George and Harolds’ more sporadic antics. The only true difference between autistic folks and ADHD folks is that those with autism tend to crave a structured environment full of rules, and set goals to achieve, while such an environment is HELL to children with ADHD (aka:George and Harold). (Even though if with adults they can trust, children with ADHD thrive in structured environments if they are surrounded by adults or authority figures they can trust.)  I know some will tell me ADHD is on the spectrum, but I just learned this like actually the other day and don’t fully understand it.  My prediction is that Melvin will eventually and naturally mellow out if just because staying so high strung all the time is a huge waste of mental energy.  I know good as hell I had to.  Also, he mellowed our in the books and went from a screeching revenge exacting lil narcissistic white boi prick to a person who simply wants to pursue his interests and even helping George and Harold (selfishly, but help nonetheless). He even went from enjoying the fame and attention of hero-ing to realizing it did not fufill him. Indeed quite the opposite.  His true passion lay in solving world problems through science, and I don't think the ending for him in the books could have been any more perfect considering his character.   In the Netflix show, similar to how I think Krupp's personalities are merging, I believe that Melvin will eventually become more like his Broski alter ego (which I calmly demand more of).  Overall, given that this show needs to go back to the status quo more often than not, I don't think his core character will ever change, and it doesn't need to.  Multiple times throughout the series he's been shown to crave friendship from George and Harold, despite audibly hating him . Textbook Tsundere, I know.  He will form a friendly rivalry with George and Harold, I have almost no doubt about that, taking the season 1 finale, season 2 finale, season 3 first episode, and halloween special into consideration. (Yeah, if someone will send me clips I will give them my eternal gratefulness) To conclude, because by god this is long, Melvin is, SHOCKER, just a little kid.  A little kid who likes muffins and dolls and has big hopes and dreams.  A little kid whose love for science and unrecognized creativity is channeled into making inventions that are even more impressive than those of Professor P (sorry P).  But he is a little kid with his own needs and stuggles which at this point remain unmet.  His parents are canonically neglectful, I cannot repeat that enough times.  The effects of neglect are a hell-hole of its own regardless of growing up with undiagnosed autism.  But that's just a theory- Alright, that was a banger, I guess next up is Melvin-borg since writing this has given me some interesting ideas for him.  Let’s see how long this hyperfocus train will go!