#this one feels super niche but its funny to ME so who cares

[roots-system]

yeah haha fun fact abt me, I'm ambidextrous. no I can't show you it only happens when I'm sollux from homestuck, sorry

[cogbreath]

i waint to hea r your bbt things

sheldon is also not the only one whos autistic imo. im not certain of who i all headcanon as such, but i feel its a fitting one for amy and bernadette actually. i think a lot of the problems with the way sheldon's autism is written is the fact that other characters don't *respect* him about it. like his needs and behaviors are often belittled or treated as nonsensical. overall i think everyone should be much kinder and understanding about it towards him seeing as they are literally his friends and all.

also probably a nitpicky thing and a matter of my own autistic sensory preferences but i feel it makes more sense for sheldon to NOT wear his sleeves rolled up for sensory reasons. whatever though im allowed to project. also i think they missed an opportunity to explore his interest in vexillology more? like there was maybe 1 or 2 episodes i remember about it but if youve ever met a vexillology enjoyer you know its a common topic they gush about.

speaking of gushing i think the dynamic between sheldon and amy would be like. two autistic best friends who love to infodump at eachother and do parallel activities. at most maybe they have some sort of queerplatonic thing going on? but im not actually super versed in what that means despite being aromantic myself xP

oh anothet thing that bothers me is how the female characters are written as not getting any of the geeky stuff??? it's stupid. like, yeah penny isnt a nerd, but she's an aspiring actress i think she would know what a star trek is. -_- honestly like, all of them would understand a lot of those things and are probably into similar stuff. bbt seems to think that like, these are Guy interests that all women dont understand or get when in reality like, dc comics n shit like that, literally your average person can follow along so i hate that they make the women seem as if they don't understand star wars references.

obviously this is probably one of the most common complaints about the show but id love to have made a lot of the pop culture references controlled and niche. we dont need a reference every other 5 minutes, id like to define each character's interests in a more sensicle way outside of just "haha guys look theres nerd stuff on tv hahah did you guys get that reference"?

also another problem is the way howard behaves. like some episodes his behavior is like, sexual harassment at times, which is met with a laugh track every time. not cool, and unnecessary, should be written to be more respectful. and then of course id like to make him have a better view of his mother, the dynamic in the show is one based off of antisemitic stereotypes about jewish mothers, and thats shitty. i wont retcon it to be a perfect mother/son relationship, like they would definitely still bicker, but i want to potray his mother as more than nagging and obsessive, like perhaps she does care too much and doesn't always treat him as an adult at times, but i dont find a lot of the overall nastiness that happens in the show between them to be funny or interesting.

raj is a pretty okay character imho, but definitely needs to be written more respectfully. He is a major example of the trope of characters of colour being sidelined. like the fact he was the ONLY character to be single in the end of the series? its kinda fucked up lol. obviously as mentioned before i think raj x howard should be the canon outcome. howeber both of them are bisexual, they both are potrayed as having interest in women; but i also think their interest in eachother is serious, or at least should be written as such. its also probably likely that the way he's written in terms of his culture should be improved but i havent gotten around to that just yet. i also think his anxiety issues should have been written with more respect, like the fact he was physically unable to talk to girls i think shouldnt have been an issue he had with *just* women. it seems they were trying to potray him as having selective mutism? but obviously thats not a thing that ONLY happens when one is a around ppl they r attracted to.

bernadette im actually rlly excited to write better because she reminds me of myself at times. i will dial her mischievous nature and her interest in microbiology up to 10. i will make her infodump about prions just i do.

also imho leonard is transmasc. i dont have any like, "evidence" or theory for why i think that other than just he feels that way to me. not that we even need justifications for transgender headcanons around these parts though.

also wil wheaton will NOT be existing anymore as a character in the narrative due to the fact he blocked me on tumblr for some dumbass shit. LOL.

uh i didnt expect to actually have all that much to say about this show... LOL.. enjoy my rambling!

[scarletspider-lily]

5&6 for the ask game?

5. Who have you told about your deconversion/change in beliefs?

alright, i've told basically everyone of my friends outside of church about this, as i live in a pretty progressive area, so everyone understands and makes jokes about it with me!

well... and then i told my sibling, and it went better than i thought it would, though they did say they would pray for me and whatnot. rn its kinda an unspoken topic. definitely will have to bring it up later at some points but its all quite complicated :/ i also have told a handful of people in my church my age. it has gone okay because i specifically told people who would not care so much. mostly ive gotten woah, interesting, you pretend youre a christian very well, i never could have guessed! which is always funny to hear. i did tell someone who said they would pray for me, but still was respectful and empathized with my situation, saying it seemed hard to be in church not believing what everyone else does, so that went alright as it could've.

ofc the "ill pray for you" sentiment bothers me but if they want to waste energy on me that is their business, doesn't affect me much

6. Favorite piece(s) of media that speaks to your experiences?

okay number one is definitely ethel cain's "preachers daughter" album. it quelled some of the rage i had towards my family while also validating my experiences having complicated thoughts about religion. its a little more nuanced than being like "fuck religion" for sure, but i think its an artful album that is exactly what it needs to be. even if i have completely denounced religion more than the singer has, i can appreciate this perspective from her album because of all the nuanced, really niche experiences of being disillusioned by christianity. the other would probably be the virgin suicides by jeffery eugenides. the novel isnt super fixated on xtianity alone but i think it illustrates in a subtle way the feeling of being a girl trapped in a house and religion, being kept from doing certain things, and suffering mentally. you have to infer some things but the writing and atmosphere is smth i like and its an interesting read. the movie has less nuance but is still beautiful cinematography wise.

ill definitely have to make posts on these pieces of media. thanks for the ask!

[saturdaynightghostclub]

hi hello!! honestly so happy to see you on here, I came from tiktok and I’m obsessed with your writing and just your vibe in general??!

So I’m just knee deep into stalking your tumblr and I wanted to ask what you meant by the Ted Lasso-ification of media? It’s the first I’m hearing of it and would love to hear more of your thoughts. Take care 🫶🫶🫶

Oh bestie I am SO happy to talk about the Ted Lasso-ification of Media™

Disclaimer: I don’t mind Ted Lasso at all! I think it’s cute and funny and wholesome, and that’s a lot of folks’ niche so I am in no way shitting on the show or any of its fans—it’s just that I think it pretty much perfectly encapsulates the phenomenon I’m talking about w/r/t the larger entertainment-sphere at the moment. Also, this is super nuanced and there are obviously exceptions, there’s nothing wrong with engaging in entertainment media however you see fit, etc etc. All love to the wholesome media enjoyers, I promise!

Basically I think, in some way, we’ve grown into the mentality that we should never be uncomfortable, and therefore recent entertainment has trended extremely conflict-avoidant. That doesn’t mean there is no conflict, although it certainly can—really I mean that, when there is conflict, or when characters are flawed and make mistakes, or when uncomfortable topics are brought up, everyone seems to have a magical bag of buzzwords from which they can pull the perfect solution by the end of the episode. And while that’s great, it’s unrealistic and unsatisfying.

It’s baffling to me because part of the human experience is discomfort, and when characters enter into conflict it shows their humanity. How they deal with that conflict should, In My Opinion, reflect that humanity. While I don’t hate Ted Lasso or any of the other shows that are dealing with our current social climate in that way, they do get a ton of vitriol and frankly I can understand why. It feels like you’re being lectured at rather than entertained, like an After School Special instead of an adult TV show. Off the top of my head I can think of Ted Lasso, Grown-ish, Sex Education (which I LOVE by the way), Schitt’s Creek, and any other number of shows whose sole goal seems to be to state in very clear terms what is Right and what is Wrong so that we can pat ourselves on the back for agreeing with them. I understand the goal here, but I think there’s a huge discrepancy between the people who need to hear those messages and the people who don’t, and the latter group is the one watching those shows.

I think we need to let go of the idea that being Likable is the primary thing a cast of characters should be, and instead embrace likability in the face of human flaws. If a character screws up and can’t wave a magic wand to fix it in a tight 30 minutes, doesn’t that just make them more interesting? Doesn’t it make them feel real?

There are a ton of “wholesome” shows that I think do this really well:

Pushing Daisies

Northern Exposure

Ugly Betty

Malcolm in the Middle

And a couple of not-so-wholesome ones:

Twin Peaks

Hannibal

Succession

The Bear (could go either way tbh)

Barry

Fleabag

And many, many more!!

Basically my word isn’t law, but speaking as an individual: I want my entertainment to reflect the human experience, good, bad, and ugly, and there are ways to do that without being gross—just write like a human!

If you want to get more into this train of thought, Neil Gaiman’s talked about it a few times (ie “I wasn’t aware that I was making comfort content, I thought I was making thinking and feeling content too” or something along those lines) and there are countless essays and interviews with Ursula K. Le Guin where she makes a similar (albeit entirely more articulate) point!

Also thank you sweet anon, I appreciate your presence here and the fact that you’ve let me rant about my media frustrations haha

[moesartblog]

I'm still a sucker for fedvi all these years later. What's your AU about? It looks interesting

It's kinda funny to come across other people who liked fedvi bc it was already such a niche thing even at its height lol.

But also thank you for letting me open pandoras box on my silly au. The biggest departure from the source material is probably just that it was only Giovanni who was executed, and the focus for the "story" is how his death has rippling effects across the family, and how they learn to live beyond his death.

This is gonna be so fucking long so im sorry in advance. I'm supposed to be doing an exam right now lol

Maria who is grieving, and also having to take care of her 4 children on her own now, learning to lean on other people for help with this. I also had this idea for a convo between her, and vieri (after he killed his father) where she's trying to make sense of Giovanni's death, and vieri, while not on any good terms with the family, doesnt think Giovanni should have been killed in the way he was cus it just caused problems all across the board. I also wanted to let her old personality creep back in, cus she was so fun before the execution in the game. I'm also debating if I want an element of being worried about her kids getting so involved with the assassin stuff or not. I'm leaning towards not but idk.

Federico, who I feel like to some degree didn't want to feel a lot of responsibility as an oldest sibling, suddenly has to take up the mantle, his siblings are looking to him for some stability since he seemed so unbothered about things in the past (at least on the surface). Him and Ezio start to butt heads more, especially over rescuing vieri during a mission to kill francesco, only to find him already dead. Federico is trying to hold every string in the family together so they dont fall apart. His goal is to kinda re-find that relaxed feeling he had before. Still with responsibility, but with a balance of relaxation, and, again, leaning on other people to help.

Ezio was the one who did see his father killed first-hand. He becomes a lot more aggressive, and throws himself pretty immediately into the assassin stuff. I see his personality pretty similar to the game (AC2), where he's looking for revenge for his father, and it's taking a toll on his family relationships. He kinda grows the way he does in the games, but a little faster, where he learns the most important thing is appreciating who is here now.

Caludia i wanna develop more, but her thing is based on her situation in AC brotherhood, where she wants to be an assassin too. Federico, and Mario are on board, but Ezio is adamant about her not doing stuff like that. He's still viewing her as the sad little sister who had her heart broken, and doesn't want to see her hurt, but doesnt understand that she is as capable as any of them. She still needs training but she has all the potential the ezio or federico had at her age. She wants to establish herself more and help her family.

Petruccio is still somewhat young, and has a hard time trying to process all the sudden major life changes. His chronic illness keeps him doing any intense physical training, but he's not super interested in that aspect anyway. He's usually hanging out with his mother, but then he starts to observe Leonardo more and more, and leo starts mentoring him on various things like deciphering things and engineering. It works a lot better with managing his illness, and the topics are more engaging to him.

vieri i decided to do a kinda overhaul on his character (the original character is fun to hate and entertaining but I wanted to go a different direction with his character. also even back in the day, tangent, but I hated the brotherhood flashback with him where they made him basically a rapist in order to make ezios stalking seem less creepy than it was. I HATED the writing of that jesus christ.) He's still fairly arrogant when around his father, and still spends his dads money loosely. but he starts to question his fathers ideas for their family within the templars, and he gets retaliation from his father every time. after giovannis death, he has a deep moment of my father was wrong fer helping set it up that way. giovanni needed to die, but doing it so publicly made a lot of issues for the Pazzi house afterwards. So a fight starts and he kills francesco, and after is found by federico and ezio because of Viola, who were coming to kill francesco themselves. He's taken back and treated at the Villa Auditore, much to Ezio's chagrin. Vieri is kinda stuck in his enemies home and so he's irritable, and vulnerable, but it's an opportunity for better understanding between the two families. vieri is more contemplative now that his father isnt present to influence him. Eventually he decides to become an assassin. He has some chronic pain issues from his injuries.

Viola, i only have a bit at the moment, but she's always been kinda disobedient of her father. Their mother is not in the picture. She doesnt like her father, and butts heads with vieri because of that, but vieri and viola still love each other deep down. Vieri looked down on her for not trying to further the Pazzi house. She saved vieris life after he killed their father, and flagged down federico and ezio to take them back to the villa. beyond that ill have to think of stuff.

cristina i havent posted much but I have this whole thing. Her and ezio had a brief tryst, but i view her as a lesbian, and I think she just realized the sex and romance weren't doing anything for her. She still loves Ezio, just as a very close friend. She wanted to escape her fate of being married off, and so she asks ezio to help her become basically nobody, to pursue the life she wants. In an assassin trip to Venice, cristina comes along and meets Rosa and is almost immediately smitten.

Rosa I made into an intensely butch bisexual lol. She becomes friends with Ezio, and hooks up with him occasionally. He introduces her to cristina, and their energies match up really well and they become an item pretty quickly. I want to develop this relationship more bc this was something i was shipping while i was shipping fedvi but no one else really had any connection to it so i hardly posted it lol.

some last random notes:

-Ezio is still sleeping around, just also with men now. He's hooked up with cristina, leonardo, caterina, rosa, antonio, etc etc

-Rosa and federico become good friends and its a lot of teasing ezio

-Rosa flirts with Maria a lot, and it makes ezio panicky

-i definitely am going to revisit fedvi lol

-uhhh paola and maria occasionally sleep together, arguably in a relationship

That was so fucking long thank you for asking though! i needed to barf all this out

[bluebudgie]

Snatching this character ask game to answer it in its entirety bc I'm currently sick in bed and this sounds like good distraction.

Here's your chance to read some lab rat character snippets.

Answering for Lahpp bc the brainworms got me bad the last 2 years.

A. What nicknames do they get called?

None, really. Unless employee numbers count as nicknames. I've made a joking comment about how Petthri would start calling him Gecko for absolutely no logical reason other than me being amused that the man's voice claim actor played a character with that name in a super niche musical. This isn't canon. But it makes listening to relevant songs funny.

B. Describe their family dynamic.

Non-existant. Didn't even have an official legal guardian until Rata Sum authorities required related paperwork for school stuff. There was the subkrewe that handled surveillance of his 'progress' and the head of the project was sort of 'in charge' of him but whatever relationship they had was nothing remotely comparable to a family. I think to this day he's got the hardest time wrapping his head around the concept of family relationships, other than of course the purely biological explanation.

C. What’s their weirdest habit or quirk?

Does consuming more coffee than anyone feasibly should count? I'm not even sure this man drinks anything else. Probably, but seriously unsure. Just don't question it, it hasn't killed him yet.

D. What was their high school college experience like?

This is one of those "20k essay; 1000 different amv scenarios" topics. In short: difficult, exhausting, but not as bad as it could have been.

On a social level he always felt like the odd one out and didn't have much contact to the other students, but he was never actively disliked or anything of the sort. Him being generally rather distant and observant probably intimidated a few people, as well as him being Inquest. Group projects went smoothly though, and interactions were superficially friendly. Just comparatively rare.

Work-wise he had to put in so much more effort than many others because of his disabilities, all while trying to be as stealthy as possible about it so noone would notice. He excelled in many challenges, didn't manage to hide all of it however; some things he simply couldn't do. Uncomfortable for him.

He was a really good student overall.

Also as a side anecdote, he got the typical "can you speak up please" a lot even though he was a front row regular. Soft-spoken guy.

E. What is their love language?

He's the "invite someone to go out for dinner" type. Spend some good quality time. He might get invested in the relevant person's interests too. Ask about them, enable some rambling, or ideally an interesting discussion.

F. How do they handle conflict?

That depends entirely on the kind of coflict and who or what is involved. Can range from "take the lead and try to find the most efficient solution" to "remove himself from the situation and just not deal with it at all".

G. What’s their greatest talent?

Developed mad acting & pokerface skills. He can smile through the most annoying social situations and you wouldn't guess he hates every single second of it. If he actively wants to give you that impression, that is. Sometimes he just doesn't bother.

H. Where is their favourite place to be?

Not sure if he has a consciously picked favourite place but he's comfortable enough in the small studio room connected to his lab. Made it a decently livable place. It's tiny (very tiny) but that's fine, he doesn't need much space. It's a place of peace and quiet, and that's what matters.

I. What makes them feel safe?

Good question! Next question.

J. What is their greatest weakness?

He's a coward who resigned himself to a life in a corrupt, hateful, criminal system. He was target of that very same system's bigotry for ages but he turns a blind eye on it out of fear and a lack of willingness to change anything. He's content being a simple cog in the machine, not caring about what its greater purpose is. is this what Camus calls philosophical suicide

Maybe one day he'll overcome the cowardice to face some difficult truths. Probably not.

K. What is their greatest strength?

If he says he'll get shit done, he gets it done. He's got an incredible amount of perseverance.

Especially in his teenage years this often meant choosing the path of more resistance simply to spite the people who would assume he wouldn't manage certain things. Even if those people would never actually know. He had to at least prove it to himself under the guise of acting out of spite. Is that even a strength anymore or actually a flaw? A strength born from flawed thinking?

L. What is their secrets to happiness?

Don't have anything change, find comfort in living the convenient lie. The illusion of happiness is good enough.

M. How do they handle competition?

If it's the kind of "who wins the monthly nonfatal pool by putting the most life subjects in a vegetative state" small-ego-competition then he simply doesn't care. Not because he has any moral issues with it but because he think it's a waste of time and just distracts from the actual tasks at hand.

If it's "the events in Cantha have put you in a physical and mental state that prevents you from working; and staying away on sick leave for a prolongued amount of time will eventually get you replaced despite decades of dedication" sort of competition then he doesn't handle it well at all. And he doesn't even believe anyone else could do his job better than him. Somehow that actually makes it worse.

N. What are their hidden talents?

Music. Got curious about the general topic in college. And in true spiteful (big fat disclaimer: asshole statement) "Oh you're severely HoH so this is clearly not for you" fashion, he decided this is exactly for him to get invested in. He got really into the theory part especially but also picked up an instrument (undecided which one. the decision has been haunting me for months.) to play.

Later when he met Luqqah they found out it's an interest they have in common so they spent a lot of time just either discussing or analyzing theoretical concepts or actually making some music. Luqqah taught him how to sing over the years! It's something he had wanted to learn well before he met her but very much lacked the confidence to start on his own.

He hasn't lost that passion over all these years, even if he didn't get to share it with anyone in a while. Post-EoD music trio incoming?

O. What motivates them?

In the past: Mostly fear with a good portion of spite.

Now: Mostly habit. Some underlying fears.

P. What advice would they give to their younger self?

If he could look past his own facade he'd likely tell his younger self to keep kindling at least a bit of that spiteful fire he had.

He does sometimes feel like he's lacking more "bite" the older he gets.

Q. Do they have a signature look or fashion?

Always got that eye piece on covering his left eye. You'll not encounter him without it. If you do, something's either wrong or you've somehow invaded into private space.

He spends the majority of his time working which means the majority of the time you'll find him in a labcoat. He also keeps his hair tied up for practical reasons.

His "casual" outfits are still surprisingly formal looking. He wants to leave a decent impression, you know. I'm awful at describing clothes so I'll skip this one until I one day inevitable draw it, but he's big on waistcoats and likes different shades of brown.

R. How tall are they?

Listen friends I'm really bad at understanding the gw2 race heights and putting them in perspective, but I assigned him a confident 98 cm (3'2") which in my world view is somewhere in the average middle. Not super short, not tall.

S. What’s their relationship like with their parents?

Somewhat answered in the family dynamics question. As for his biological parents, he never knew them. His -on paper- legal guardian wasn't much of a parental figure. Did it fuck him up growing up without any real guiding figure to look up to? Sure. Did it take time for him to understand that this is not the normal experience every child has? Unsure if he actually ever fully understood. Rationally he does, but emotionally this is a different matter.

T. What are their favourite foods?

He's really gotten into wasabi.

U. What do they like to do in their spare time?

See the music answer. Also reading an interesting book in a quiet environment is always a good pastime.

V. What’s their biggest pet peeve?

So he's generally really good at keeping his cool but he's got absolutely zero (0) patience for several people talking over each other in the same time. There's a reason he demanded his own lab space when everyone moved over to the CoE.

W. What’s their favourite sport?

If dancing is considered a sport (I believe it is?) Petthri might eventually get him to be interested enough as a spectactor. Let that be a future arc.

Otherwise literally no interest in any at all.

X. What’s their biggest fear?

Death. And I don't mean it in a 'most people find thinking about their own mortality uncomfortable' way, I mean it in a seriously phobic way. It keeps him up at night. He's had numerous seriously bad panic attacks over it. Based important decisions on it.

There was a time of his life it got somewhat better but it's catching up to him again recently.

Y. What physical object do they value most?

Whatever omious instrument I'll decide on that he owns will probably be valuable to him. I have no idea otherwise.

Z. What’s their relationship status?

Officially single (and it will stay that way). Unofficially complicated.

For the really curious: I suppose their current relationship is best described as "friends with benefits". No they have not kissed yet. I'm gonna first have to figure out when and how and why and if at all and

That said I have this shitpost scene-that'll-never-happen in my head of Luqqah meeting Lahpp and Petthri during the whole EoD disaster and in a moment of quiet she and Lahpp sit together. And she looks him in the eyes and goes "So are you two boyfriends?" And before he can even try to defend himself she continues "You break up with me because you figure out you're gay. And then you're gay for that?" Poor Petthri.

[christmasintheloonybin]

thought about engaging in consumerism this black Friday because I have wanted to buy a pair of black jeans for a long time (sad, impoverished life where I have to think long and hard before buying one pair of jeans but oh well). something about a deal actually repulses me I don't know why. I feel manipulated or something. it makes me want to buy a pair of jeans less. maybe growing up poor and resenting it, I despise a handout, I know a handout and a bargain are not the same thing, but I feel as if I cannot go through with buying a pair of jeans DISCOUNTED with my dignity intact. I would rather pay full price just to avoid feeling manipulated.

being broke has been good for me though, I realize all I really need in life is enough money for cigarettes. as long as I have cigarette money I am happy. small pleasure that goes a long way. I am cheap as hell when I'm broke, when I have money I am actually quite generous, I genuinely enjoy taking people out to eat buying things for people I like etc. not just with women its not a chauvinist thing. just people I like. but in general some part of me does feel ashamed and emasculated when I'm with someone, especially a woman, at a restaurant and I don't pay for the bill. I understand the arguing thing because it's genuinely humiliating. being broke I have also learned an important skill - going into a store without buying anything. I hate to be "that guy" in book stores or record stores especially, who go in for the vibes or to be seen there without actually sort of paying your dues. its disgusting! especially because these are niche and honestly irrelevant markets, so if you want to have book stores to stroll through and feel cultured at in the future, you better pitch in to keep them alive. but this is an important skill I believe still, to say "I don't really need this." and I realize, again, that I really need very little. just cigarettes. and food ideally. I'd choose cigarettes over food, though.

all this being said, i have a promising lead at a bakery, I just need to sort some things out with the community college I plan on attending first, lol. I think it would be nice to work at a bakery, even though it involves getting up obscenely early, I can't sleep and I wake up at around 5:00 anyways, so 3:00 or 4:00 wouldn't be a severe adjustment. it would prohibit me from staying up late but I have no social life so it makes no difference to me.

community college, I am obviously not super stoked about. but I already did a year, right after I graduated high school, and they have a program in place for transfers to the local university that everyone goes to, it's informally called "grade 13" because just about everyone goes there after high school, like as a default. I don't particularly care where I go, maybe I could transfer to a college somewhere else in the country, this might be a good idea, but the local college town is relatively close to where I live, I am familiar with the area, it's just more comfortable than if I packed up and moved to California or Texas or something. lol. but maybe that would be good for me. community college, depressing but probably a good halfway point between the proletarian and bourgeois worlds. if I went straight into regular university, with all these fucking teenagers I think it would be a very alienating experience. if I can ease my way in, it will still be strange when I'm in classes with people four or five years younger than me, but at least I'll be slightly more acclimated and I can just do my own thing. also I look young, so it's not that weird. my problem is more idiot kids who think they know everything. it's funny seeing young people now, I mean even like 20 year olds. they think they know everything but they're just kids. because I can remember being like 15 and thinking I knew it all. like I had everything figured out. just a product of aging I guess. of course, I have always felt this way and disavow my former self as an idiot, but the pattern continues, I'm sure in a year I'll think about the things I thought now and be embarrassed. this is life!

[moth-in-the-moon]

so we state how we got there then ask our question/share an opinion...?

okay i came here because i was actively checking for tags, any tags, that mentioned Margali Szardos by name (it's a cycle : i get obsessed by this same niche character at the same period every year but it's my first try on tumblr). your blog was like a lighthouse in this ocean of indifference so here i am

now my ask is, have you read strange academy by any chance ? cuz i feel like Margali would have been a perfect fit for that universe and setting instead of Legion of X. they have every magic user from Wanda to Illyana teaching there and helping out all kinds of magical children so Margali would have been right at home with new students and colleagues. hell you could have a subplot of Margali mentoring another Winding Way user and actually give more lore on that kind of magic. they also had evil magic users from other dimensions show up as well as Dormammu. just lots of potential for fanon works and a personal favourite read of mine

now for an opinion, i hate nightcrawler's new backstory. i genuinely do. firstly because the writer acts like his origins matter way more than they actually do (Kurt is +35 rn not a young adult or teen and literally never cared about that aspect after he heard the first few versions) and secondly because this truth reads like a blatant lie and slap to the face after everything that's ever happened to him in a "he never had any free will in his life actually since this moment was gonna happen regardless of what he did since Mystique and Destiny wanted and predicted it since he was born otherwise they would have intervened". the outcome and interactions following the reveal makes me think Mystique isn't the only one here with memory issues from the way Nightcrawler acts in this situation (Krakoa's chronic brain damage i guess). i think these origins would have worked way better for Rogue (it makes perfect sense for her really) and felt less like a spit to everything Nightcrawler went through in his life and with Mystique... and now Destiny... and Azazel too because these two threw him into Kurt's life for lolz basically : Nightcrawler gave up his soul because he needed to keep Azazel out of heaven since red guy used their biological blood ties and soul properties to get there and play captain hook but now ? now you're stuck wondering how that thing even worked back then since it's still being brought up by Azazel in dark xmen now

Sir (genderneutral for the bit), this is a dennys.

I'm not a rant blog for opinions two people just saw me and agreed with my takes and that temporarily turned me into one today dsfgdfgdfg All I am is a dude who likes comics and specifically nightcrawler a Normal Human Amount (lying) But yes! I know strange academy and I actually quite like it. I still gotta get the series to read it fully but I love the concept and uh. Very funny of you to bring that up cause in the last little rant ask that I got, I noted in the tags that I think she would be an interesting teacher for the school. In general, I think margali should get a series for herself, she's super interesting with alot of lore behind her (being stronger than old comics stephen strange at one point, knowing wanda from when she was a child, possibly being a three time sorcerer supreme (earth, winding way, possibly limbo at one point), having powers that depend on a living dimension etc) Also I just want to know more about her past, she was supposetly born in france, so like, how did that effect her? did she grow up there for a while? How did she get into magic? (I am ignoring mother righteous i am ignoring mother righteous I AM IGNORING MOTHER RIGHTEO-)

I already talked about my takes on the whole. bio-parent thing in these Lovely Posts if you care for my opinion, but yeah no, its messy. Though, again there might be a. thing they did if I understood the comics wording right where Kurt is kinda the result of Raven using the Baron and Azazel as blue prints for having the kid?? So in theory, biologically he's christians, azazels, ravens and irenes kid (though raven also notes "countless others" so. infanite bioparents glitch kurt lets fucking gooo) But I might've missunderstood the panels and the idea that they made kurt just have. all the bio-parents was too much of a absolutely gorgeous idea to not take it like that.

Either way another one on the pile of "writers love pulling the stupitest shit with kurt specifically"

remember when he had a daughter in a new reality that he forcefully forgot because he didnt want to break the rules of the new reality because people loved him, and then he realized that he should care for his daughter and promised her to finally be there for her, only for that really to be deleted. that reality was like a bubble thing. that daughter was flesh and bone. they never talk about it but he lost a child he just got back. (age of x-man, 2019) I rember. I think of it alot.

[daedalusdavinci]

DirkJohn for the ask game?

I GOTCHU sorry i got wrapped up in something

send me a ship and ill tell you

who hogs the duvet

its dirk. he grew up in a post apocalyptic world where the ice caps melted in texas the man is used to heat. +++ hes autistic and needs the pressure there are so many blankets john is dying

who texts/rings to check how their day is going

"check how their day is going" might be a generous term for the way dirk spams john with stream of consciousness shit throughout the day. john is the one who actually calls to check in though

who’s the most creative when it comes to gifts

dirk. he gets deep in the shit and goes super over the top about it everything is handmade and Too Much. john is also very creative dont get me wrong its just hard to compete with the man who builds robots for people

who gets up first in the morning

dirk because hes an insomniac and johns got that good depression sleeping in

who suggests new things in bed

dirk lol hes fucking gross

who cries at movies

we all know its john the man cries at con air

who gives unprompted massages

john. hes fidgety and it gives his hands something to do and dirk really needs it and john loves doing things for him

who fusses over the other when they’re sick

john does the whole soup in bed sweet thing so its him dirk just gets stressed and uncomfortable with all the snotty tissues

who gets jealous easiest

its dirk. dirks so possessive its kind of bad but john also gets jealous so it just sort of works for them

who has the most embarrassing taste in music

dirk bc hes a hipster and only listens to the most niche indie shit ever but dirk would say its john bc john doesnt have a good ear for music and will listen to anything (read: crap pop junk, bad "indie" bands, etc)

who collects something unusual

dirk and his puppets ugh

who takes the longest to get ready

dirk. his hair. i hate it. but also he takes so much pride in his appearance he takes forever to pick out an outfit AND THEN IT LOOKS UGGO ANYWAY

who is the most tidy and organized

john, easy. john keeps things ship shape and dirk makes messes on top of messes bc he gets distracted

who gets most excited about the holidays

dirk feels disconnected from holidays bc he wasnt a part of society for so long and john feels disconnected from holidays bc of depression. but ultimately john wins out ig

who is the big spoon/little spoon

john likes to be the big spoon and crush dirk

who gets most competitive when playing games and/or sports

dirk has problems. (he also loses a lot.)

who starts the most arguments

dirk hes self destructive and gets hung up on dumb petty shit but also sometimes john says something and its like arguing with a brick wall where dirks not getting its a joke and feels like he hAS to correct john and theyre just not understanding what the other means

who suggests that they buy a pet

honestly? dirk. john doesnt trust himself enough to take care of a pet and dirk decides a cat would be a good idea (it is. john does better when hes taking care of other people)

what couple traditions they have

depression naps

what tv shows they watch together

dirk barely tolerates johns abominable taste and they dont make it through that many

what other couple they hang out with

i think vriska and terezi is funny. probably also whoever dave and roxy are with

how they spend time together as a couple

john likes spoiling dirk and going on dates bc dirk likes being pampered but dirk likes staying home with john and taking self care days because john needs the rest and company sometimes

who made the first move

dirk, probably. or at least tried to

who brings flowers home

john, definitely

who is the best cook

100% john

[slothgiirl]

percolating gently (noah x mc)

au in which jane marshall lives and mc and noah and jane run off to live happily ever after a family of three and also smut (if you don’t want to read that skip the section that goes “its christmas, technically”. 

title from a tennessee williams quote 

15k

It's the three of them in the end. Jane. Noah. And you. Just like it started. Just like it had been.

Always you caught up between the two Marshall twins; Jane’s hand in yours gripping tight and never backing down as she poured water into dirt to make mud. At nine, and never having shared Jane’s attention before, Noah had snubbed you on more than one occasion, shooting down watching Resident Evil just because you had suggested it.

It was funny how you'd befriended Noah first. Jane had a fever the week your parents moved to Westchester (to study some microbe that was super rare or some other incredibly niche nerdy thing). You'd been left to roam the neighborhood on your own as per usual, drawing trees and pets you wished for in chalk, and then Noah.

Noah.

Redfield- Jane’s let up at least a little. You're no longer stuck to that awful chair in terror but griping Noah's shoulders, your fingers clutching the fabric of his denim jacket because he can't, you won't let him take her place.

He's been through so much already.

They both had.

“Noah,” you stammer out, chilled to the bone from terror or the fact that you were in a damp and freezing underground chamber--probably both. “Noah, you can't!” You tighten your grip on him even as his frown deepens, anger clear on his features as he glares down at you.

You cut him off before he can snap at you. Looking over at Jane, no longer blazing, but hovering around, a shadow spilling into the corners of the room, eyes a cold blue without an ounce of friendliness or curiosity.

“I'm sorry,” you tell her, because this was all your fault. You should've never encouraged her. You should've saved her. You should've done more: anything but brush the memory of her away instead of dealing with the events of that summer. Denial had long been your method of choice but here Jane was. It had all been real.

You owe her this much.

And Noah-

“I promised I'd be there for you,” you think of the whistle, “I promised I'd protect you so that's what I'm going to do now,” you say even as your hands shake. “Let me take your place.”

You move to stand, but Noah doesn't budge, his head shaking as his agonized wide eyes meet yours. There's always been a sincere quality in the warmth of Noah's brown eyes that put you at ease and had you feeling like you two were the only people in the world and you could never say no to him; not now. He's a mess (just how you feel), beanie about to slide off his tangled hair, tear tracks down his cheeks. There's a pull in your chest, the painful need to throw your arms around him and hug him until the world stops being this shitty but you doubt you'd ever leave his side if you hug him now.

Noah shakes his head. “It should be me,” he utters into the eerie acoustics of the chamber, the horror of the situation audible in his voice. “It should have been me then. I can finally make things right.”

Your lip grumbles as you cry out, “don't say that,” your hand reaching up to cup his cheek, “don't you dare say that bullshit Noah-we were kids! None of this,” you look around, look at Jane, “this shouldn't have happened to anyone. And it wasn't anyone's fucking fault!”

If-when you got out of this, you were going to throw hands with Mrs. Marshall.

You used to wish she’d been your mother.

The shadow that is Jane inches closer.

Right.

It had to be you or him.

His skin was warm against your hand and you don't-you don’t think you can live in a world where Noah isn't there and he's had the shittiest time and you could've reached out but you didn't and he doesn't deserve this because he thinks he deserves this.

Noah thinks he should've died.

Fuck.

This was all so fucked up.

“It's okay,” Noah whispers softly, his hand covering yours before gently removing your hand from his cheek, removing your hold on him. “It's okay.”

“But-” you look at Jane.

You didn't know what was worse, a world without Noah in it or a world where Noah became some twisted monster the same way Jane had over the years of loneliness. No one started out a monster.

You shake your head, reaching for Noah's hand, “I promised I wasn't leaving you again.”

His eyes widen in shock, giving him that doe eyes look that sort of made you want to kiss him, as if he'd forgotten all about that moment, as if he thought he wasn't worth it but Noah deserved more than death. He should get to go to culinary school and deal with shitty customers at Baby Jane’s.

And it was too late to save the day.

If you were being honest, it was nine years too late. It was all about doing the best you could  in impossible circumstances because Jane didn't deserve to spend an eternity alone and scared and a monster either.

Intertwining your fingers with his, you swallow thickly before replying in a steady voice, having made your choice the moment Noah had been willing to go find Dan alone, when he'd opened up to you at the shop and you realized all this time it hadn't just been you dealing with the repercussions of Redfield, “Together.”

You weren't going to fail Noah again.

Noah is speechless.

But Jane was always able to go with the flow. A shadowy limb ghost over both your hands, in the vein of those cheesy moments in anime when a best friend speech got everyone through a big battle.

“Allll play too g etherR.”

“Yeah,” Noah says sadly, accepting that there was no version of this ending that didn't end in tragedy. “together.”

At least this way, you could be monsters together.

“It's okay Jane,” he tells his sister, his hand squeezing yours, “we’ll take over from here.”

*

*

*

You wake up cold, thinking that you'd left your bedroom window open (not that you were doing much sleeping in that room after the Dan night terror) again, but you're greeted with the sight of Jane curled up asleep between you and Noah looking the same as she had at the many sleepovers you'd have at their house. You don't know if she's real or if this is a dream or if you're dead and this is just a figment of your new reality, but you don't care.

Finally, you understand the ending of Inception.

You don't want to wake them up, still exhausted yourself, but Jane keeps shivering and you can only imagine how worried your friends were. Your phone’s dead.

You couldn't stay here.

“Noah,” you whisper, the sound echoing throughout the chamber. “Noah…”

He grumbles in his sleep, but doesn't wake up.

“Noah,” you hiss.

“What,” Noah slurs, shifting as he lifts his head, jostling Jane at his side but your friend who was dead, was previously dead, continues to sleep looking like a particularly angelic little girl.

You can tell when the situation dawns on him: the twitch of his lips as his mouth settles into a frown, brows becoming drawn in thought.

It's day outside.

You're not sure which day.

Noah's phone is also dead.

Both of you stumble through the woods half asleep, Noah carrying Jane as if she was the most precious thing in the world which she was because she had been dead but now she wasn't and you were beginning to hope this was real and not a trick and that Jane was getting a shot at a normal childhood.

“We should go to my house,” you offer, keeping your voice low as to not disturb Jane who continued to sleep, no wonder Andy and Ava had been able to draw so many mustaches on her back in the day. “It's closer.”

And also you had no way of explaining how Jane had suddenly come back to life. That was something to process later. First a warm bed and sleep and then you had to let your friends know you weren't dead and figure out the whole Jane being alive with Noah. But first, sleep.

“Yeah, okay,” Noah answer’s, clearly still in shock. “Sounds good.” He says as if you two were discussing the weather and not sudden resurrection.

Then again, was this really that big of a leap considering everything that happened in the last few months?

You kick off your shoes and curl up with the Marshall twins to sleep.

*

*

*

“Why are you so much taller,” Jane asks once you’ve all woken up and yes, Jane’s still there, flesh and blood and the idea begins to solidify that she’s alive and well, well maybe not, you don’t know how much she remembers if at all and you still don’t know what to do with her but for now Noah’s rifling around your sparse kitchen, sending you a judgemental look at the half empty pancake box mix that expired a month ago but there’s no gross mold or anything so he uses it anyway, unwilling to leave Jane alone for a second.

Noah smiles easily, which has you smiling, “I’m not tall,” he replies to his sister, “you just shrunk.”

She frowns, nose wrinkling and you had forgotten she did that when she was upset, her nose wrinkling up as her lips turn downward. It was adorable. Then in classic Jane fashion she decides, “that’s a lie.” And sticks her nose up in the air, her fingers continuing to do whatever in your hair. It feels nice, her small fingers weaving clumsily through your thick hair, but Jane had never actually learned to braid so you’re pretty sure she’s just tangling your hair up but you wouldn’t refuse Jane anything right now.

It’s been days since the dance.

You have countless missed calls from your friends, texts getting increasingly and increasingly panicked, and nothing from either of your parents.

“Turn around,” Jane squeaks, tapping your shoulder urgently.

“Alright, alright,” you say, shifting in your seat. She’s tiny. All red hair and freckles and she hasn’t left your side since waking you up, knees in your side as she’d yelled that she was bored and wanted to play so loud it had woken Noah up.

Jane looks at you with a frown. “You’re big too.” Then her lower lip wobbles.

Shit.

Hastily, you pull her onto your lap, wrapping your arms around her.

“Why am I still small,” she whispers, looking up at you with the same wide brown eyes you were so used to.

“Uh,” you swallow thickly, trying to figure something out because maybe she didn’t remember and wasn’t that for the best? Wouldn’t that be the best case scenario? The only problem is you’re barely eighteen and not at all prepared to handle a nine year old. Had you really been this small when your parents decided to fuck off? “It’s because. . .you’re special, like Peter Pan.”

She crunches up her nose for a second, thinking. Then in her child innocence, she nods, deciding she likes the explanation. “You should’ve come with me,” Jane pats your cheek sadly, “grown ups are so boring.”

Noah wheezes, a pancake slipping off the spatula as his shoulders shake with laughter.

You hadn’t had time to talk about what had happened, what he had done, and you certainly hadn’t had time to process your feelings on any of it, but you were always glad to see him laughing.

“Someone had to take care of your dumb brother,” you reply, legs kind of going numb with her weight.

Jane nods sagely, “Noah is dumb. Because he’s a changeling.”

When you were kids, you’d both been obsessed with goblins and trolls and fairy tales. You two would dig in the dirt looking for hag stones. Sticks would double as magic wands and swords. The old fur jacket Jane liked to play dress up with was her selkie skin and you would take turns hiding it around the house.

Noah rolls his eyes. He hadn’t liked your weirdo kid games the first time around, he liked them even less now and you can’t help but grin at his expense. “You’re the redhead in the family.”

Jane blows a raspberry.

What a way to win an argument.

It’s past midnight before Jane crashes.

You��re on your third watch of frozen which had seemed like a great way to keep Jane inside the first time when you’d suggested it (kids loved that movie) and had become the worst, as Jane made you watch the movie again and again, singing “do you want to build a snowman” at the top of her lungs. That hadn’t stopped you and Noah from helping her find all the pillows in your house to build a castle with. Your living room has become a pillow castle fort.

During the second watch, Jane had dug around through your closet, before finding a blue hoodie you didn’t even remember you had and tying it around her shoulders. “You’re Anna,” she’d told you, giving you pigtails when she gave up on braids.

Now, she was asleep on the couch, drooling on her pillow.

Noah immediately turns off the TV. “You couldn’t have put on Shrek?”

You’re sitting next to him on the floor, finally giving into the urge to look at the news on your phone. You hadn’t risked it while Jane was awake. She was a nosy child.

You frown, “we need to tell the others.” Because this was really happening. Jane was alive and you didn’t know what to do with that. She needed. . .fuck-she needed school and parents and probably therapy if she remembered any of it. You were just eighteen. You had no idea what to do.

Noah’s responding frown mirrors yours. “What? Why!”

“She just came back from the dead,” you reply quietly. “She needs-fuck what are we going to tell your mom?”

His expression turns angry, brows furrowing. “Fuck her. She doesn’t deserve to know.”

“Noah,” you sigh, not wanting to argue with him because what was there to argue. His mom was a shitty parent. “Dan, Andy. . .they think we’re dead. They deserve to know after what happened. They deserve an explanation.”

He flinches.

“And besides-we’re in high school! What are we-what the hell are we going to do with her,” you say gently because you couldn’t keep her cooped up in your house. You had things like high school and maybe college if you could salvage this quarter. You didn’t have a job. “She needs parents. And school. And. . .” You throw your hand sup in the air. You had no clue what she needed. You weren’t a functioning adult. You didn’t know what kids need.

“She has me.” Noah hisses back.

You roll your eyes. “I know that-fuck Noah,” becuase he was getting angry with you when all you were trying to do was help. God, he could be so freaking dense sometimes. “She deserves a normal childhood. How the hell are we supposed to do that for her? Does she remember any of it?” You cross your arms over your chest and stare at your feet. The garish pink nail polish was still intact.

Didn’t people need birth certificates and stuff?

Lucas would know.

Lily could probably do her computer thing and help with that.

He falls silent, glaring at the blank TV screen.

Noah’s breathing is harsh and you wait patiently.

“I can drop out,” Noah finally says quietly. “Get a job. . .”

“I’m going to call Lily,” you reply. “We need groceries anyway.” Like hell were you leaving Jane for even a second. This time, you mean to keep your promise.

*

*

*

Jane bursts into tears when she sees all her friends grew up without her, eyes turning red as tears streamed down her eyes and she buried her face in Noah’s chest, refusing to budge. He rubs his hand comfortingly against her back, carrying her upstairs.

Even from the living room, still a mess, you can hear her sob upstairs.

“What the absolute fuck,” Lucas utters, taking a seat, resting his head in his hands.

“Explain,” Stacy urges, already unpacking the groceries you’d requested into your kitchen.

You do.

You go over the last couple of days, most of which you spent sleeping.

“I think it says a lot about how fucked our lives are that this is only like the second craziest thing to happen to us,” Andy mutters, pacing around the room. “I mean,” he says stopping near the kitchen island, “the whole town got brainwashed!”

“Does-does she remember,” Lily asks.

You shrug, “I. . .I don’t think so. Clearly she doesn’t know why we’re all older. Maybe it’ll come back to her?” You hope it doesn’t.

“So what are we going to do,” Lily says, looking around at everyone.

Dan speaks up, “Jane could have blocked out those memories. My therapist said that can happen with traumatic events.”

“That makes sense,” you find yourself saying, slumping in your seat. You think you could just finish high school at home. It’s not like your parents would know, or care. They’re not here. That way Noah can finish high school and you can look after Jane. But then what?

“Just so we’re all on the same page,” Ava asks rhetorically, “we’re just going to ignore the fact Noah tried to kill us?”

You flinch.

“Jesus fucking christ Ava,” Andy snaps, looking just as agitated as you’ve all felt for months.

“One crisis at a time,” Stacy complains, closing the cupboard door with a hard thunk, “I can only handle one crisis at a time.” Then she looks over at you, “are you-is. . .you can stay at my house if you need to.” No one suggests Noah and Jane going to their own house.

You shake your head.

At some point, you were going to hash things out with Noah, but it wasn’t exactly anger at Noah that you felt. It was hurt and the raw heart crushing betrayal. You know you hadn't been there for him when he needed you--for years-- but you thought, you wish he had just told you about Jane being Redfield.You would have helped, you would have done anything to help Noah and Jane and maybe no one would’ve needed to play are you scared at all. Fuck.

But no. You don’t feel scared at being here with him which was what Stacy was asking about. It hadn’t even crossed your mind even once.

But it feels too private to tell them that the three of you have been inseparable since the ruins. You’d spent last night curled up on the living room floor with him. But that knowledge was yours. You weren’t about to share that.

“It’s fine. I’m fine.” You don’t feel fine. “She can’t stay in Westchester can she?” Because you’re tired and want someone else to tell you what to do for once.

“Probably not,” Lucas answers tightly, still looking freaked out, eye twitching.

“It’s not a trick or anything. . .” Andy glances around.

You shake your head. Slowly, a plan forms in your head. Your parents would pay for your college, you’d apply out of state and take the Marshall twins with you. Instead of a dorm, you’d get an apartment. It could work.

Somehow.

“Have your parents called,” Dan asks gently.

“No,” you wave off. They weren’t important. Jane was.

“Have you thought about how you’re going to explain this,” Andy asks.

You wince. “Sort of. . .I don’t know.” You put your hands in your head.

It's Ava who wraps her arm around your shoulders, “we’ll figure this out.”

“Thanks.”

*

*

*

It's a familiar type of awful that Noah’s mom doesn’t really care that he’s spent the last six months living at your house.

With a great deal of arguing at 2 in the morning while lying next to a sleeping Jane, you’d managed to convince Noah to finish high school. And you’d promptly switched to homeschooling.

Lily had come through with Jane’s paperwork, now in your bag as your friends drop you off at the nearest regional airport.

You hold Jane’s hand, the only thing keeping her from running off as she takes the sight of the airport in. She’s thrown countless fits about being cooped up. But it was too risky for her to be seen in Westchester, a small town where everyone knew she’d died. The most you could do was your backyard.

So of course you’d made up for it by letting her pick your college.

“Someplace warm and sunny,” Jane had shouted excitedly, mind going crazy with plans as your acceptance letters came in.

Months on, it’s way less awkward even if Ava and Lucas have settled on ignoring Noah.

Andy hugs you hard. “Call when you land!”

You snort, “duh.”

Lily smiles and adds, “I might visit for spring break.”

“That would be great,” you tell her, tightening your hold on Jane as something catches her attention.

She pivots to Noah, who had the backbone of a toothpick when it came to telling Jane no which is why she keeps getting to skip brushing her teeth in the morning which was gross and she hated you for trying to chase her down, “I want that stuffed animal. If you give me that narwhal, I’ll eat my veggies.”

“You’re eating your veggies anyway,” you reply back, dragging her along.

“You won’t have to watch frozen tomorrow.” She continues, targeting her brother ruthlessly.

Noah’s already fishing his wallet out.

“That’s what you said about the hair color,” you point out, opting to carry her when she goes limp. “Don’t you dare Noah.”

Ava grins at you, amused and unhelpful.

“It’s just a toy,” he replies.

You roll your eyes.

“You two are such parents,” Andy laughs.

“I hate you,” Jane huffs. “We’re not friends anymore.”

“She told you,” Ava snorts.

Jane beams. Then reaches for Noah, who takes her from your arms without complaint.

You hug Lily one last time, and then. . .you’re going through security.

“I get the window seat,” Jane declares once you get past TSA.

“Go for it,” you tell her, belatedly realizing it’s going to be hell if it turns out she doesn’t like planes.

She nods, satisfied.

*

*

*

Tampa is no less humid and hot and awful a month in then it was when you first got off the plane but Jane loves it and there’s a park next to the building your living in: a tiny cramped apartment with only one room which went to Jane obviously which you and Noah had originally planned for you and Jane to share but both of you had capitulated to Jane’s demands within the day. She deserved being spoiled.

The A/C in Ikea was a godsend.

Sleeping on the floor with the bare necessities was not it and with you starting school next week, it was time to take your meager savings and get some furniture.

“Remember,” Noah says, pulling up the list on his phone. It had started with him grocery shopping since he cooked and needing to make a grocery list to Noah just taking over figuring out how to make the money your parents sent and his own contribution from his new job work. “Sofa bed. Bed for Jane. Blankets. One lamp. And a mattress.”

“Weren't you complaining about only having one pan this morning,” you ask as Jane drags you along to the first showroom, practically bouncing with energy.

Noah shrugs. “I can make it work.”

“Buying an extra pan won't kill us,” you counter. “We can just use my credit card.” And not eat out for the rest of the month, you didn't add.

“Let's play hide and seek,” Jane says with excitement. “I'll seek.”

You exchange glances with Noah.

Tomorrow you had to go sign her up at school. You had to go over the story with her again. Just to make sure you didn't all get in trouble.

Jane covers her eyes. “One. Two. . .”

You look around the tiny space, thinking of where to hide. Between school and Jane you weren't sure when you could or even if you could get a part time job. Noah was working at a diner during the evenings. You had gotten your classes early in the morning so you could be home with Jane while he worked. The problem was finding the extra free time to work.

Ugh.

Being an adult was hard.

But how much of an adult could you be when your parents were paying your tuition?

You head for the tiny bathroom which has a neat looking toothbrush holder and isn’t that something you need to buy? There were so many little things like a bath mat and towels and a dish rack that were only just occurring to you that were sort of essentials and jeez you really had one foot in adulthood. You don’t even hide behind the curtain, worried that Jane won’t find you easily and freak out and there’s weirdos everywhere. It was your job to look after her now. Not that Noah had asked for your help, but it was a given.

“Eight. . .nine. . .” Jane’s little voice carries and you’re struck by a flood of emotions that has your eyes tearing up.

Noah steps into the bathroom next to you, “we need a cutting board,” he says so seriously you can’t help but snort.

“What,” he asks, shaking his head at you.

“Nothing.”

He tilts his head.

You shrug, “just thinking. I don’t know. I don’t feel very grown up. And I took all the dumb towels my parents stockpiled for granted.”

“We should’ve raided your house,” he agrees, the corner of his lips lifting, “purge style.”

“Yeah,” you nod, “I never get why everyone jumps straight to murder. What does Ava always say? Redistribute the wealth, rob a bank.” You roll your eyes, scoffing, “murder.”

Noah snorts. “Pretty sure that’s Lucas. Ava’s more of a go straight to cutting people’s heads off.”

“Robespierre style,” you grin.

“Robes who?”

“Robespierre. From the french revolution.”

“I think that’s the class I must’ve ditched,” Noah admits.

You frown. “You could do community college,” because you had to corner him at some point. Noah was very good at avoiding subjects he didn’t want to talk about. “We could make it work. Do your G.E.��s”

Noah shrugs.

“Noah-” Because he said he wanted to go to culinary school and you get the urge to drop everything and buy a ranch in utah and live with Jane for the rest of your lives except Jane would hate that and grow up and leave and how are you going to afford spoiling her if you can’t get a decent job? Noah deserved to go for his dreams too.

None of you had to be defined by your incredibly shitty childhood.

Jane pops in, “found you!” She giggles in her Baby Yoda t-shirt and leggings, “you two are bad at this game! My turn!” Jane grabs Noah’s hand and drags him along to the next showroom that catches her eye, “remember,” she lectures you both, “no peeking,” before shooting off.

“What did you end up choosing for your major,” Noah asks, as you both fail to keep your eyes closed, looking over at the sofa section. It would be so freaking nice not to sleep on the carpet anymore.

“History,” you admit, “though I’m not sure it’ll stay like that. I don’t know exactly what I want to do after college. Or if I even like history enough to major in it. . .it just sounded fine at the time.” You had done well in APUSH. That had to mean something. But you had also liked your economics class. . .maybe you should do economics? “I really have no clue. Has it been ten seconds?”

“Probably,” Noah says with a smile, “nine, ten, coming to find you,” he calls out.

It’s a living room showroom, and yet Jane had managed to squeeze herself right behind a floor lamp and the TV stand. She’s a slip of a girl, but her red hair makes her easier to spot. Thank god.

“Let’s go pick out things for your room,” you offer, because you still have to go downstairs and find all the different pieces and then still go home and put them together. Thank god for uber. Oh shit, did this mean you had to get a car at some point? How do people buy cars?

“Okay,” Jane nods, immediately taking off, and she has you and Noah speed walking after her, on the border of a full out run. It was hard to be annoyed when you were still so happy to wake up in a world where Jane was alive and here and who cares that it took three hours to get her to stand still long enough to comb her hair and putting her to bed was a long drawn out affair of a bedtime story and a snack and needing to be tucked in and checking on all her toys and deciding she needed a glass of water next to her just in case she woke up thirsty.

It was worth it.

You liked not living alone.

You liked not being alone.

*

*

*

You weren't sure who was more exhausted as you finished washing the dishes. Jane was sleeping, thank god. The nice thing about Florida was it was fall and it was still warm enough to spend the evening at the park so Jane could tire herself out while you read fifty pages of your history and sociology textbook. It was what all the other moms did and you winced when Jane asked to join the soccer team that practiced at the park by your building because you didn't have the money and you could only hope she didn't ask Noah because he came home tired enough but for Jane he'd take more shifts.

There was laundry you didn't want to do and a quiz in english which was a nice class even if everyone was half asleep at 7:30 in the morning because your professor was somehow awake enough to engage and rant about short stories that thankfully weren't the same ten dead old white men you'd read in high school but actual people alive today whose english you could understand. It's night, so you don't bother drying the dishes before turning off the light. Noah had brought food which showed how tired he was. Yesterday's leftovers had saved you from attempting anything because you sucked in the kitchen as your poor microwave could attest: aluminum foil and microwaves don't mix.

Noah’s already asleep when you slide into bed next to him. You can still smell the scent of oil and grease on his skin even as you stay decidedly on your side of the bed.

It's mid september in Tampa and it's still warm and it doesn't stop you at all from curling up with a blanket.

The window panes are cracked open letting in the soft moonlight and you lay in bed, brain melted from class and reading, and look at Noah's profile and how much lighter he looked compared to a year ago. The lines around his mouth from frowning had eased; Jane teasing out a side of him that had previously shriveled up.

It's done him good to get away from his mom. To have his sister. You just wish you could do more for him.

Like he was doing for you and Jane.

You drift off to sleep. . .

“Move over,” a small voice asks, and your eyes crack open to the dark of the room and Jane a hair's breadth away with wide scared eyes, a pillow hugged to her chest. Her voice is raw, as if she'd been crying.

You move over, brain sleep addled, to make room for her.

She slips in besides you, immediately curling up in your chest the way she does when she decides she's done walking for the day: the way she runs up to Noah when he gets home from work.

“Did you have a bad dream,” you mumble, not wanting to wake up her brother.

“I don't know.” Jane admits, “I just don't want to sleep alone.”

“I thought you wanted your own room,” you tease, a little more awake now.

“I do,” she cries out loudly in the dark of the night.

You can just imagine her pouting even if you can't see her, your eyes falling shut again. “Okay. You can sleep over tonight.”

“Yay,” she whispers back. “We should draw a mustache on Noah.”

You snort, “too late. He hasn't bothered shaving in like two days.” It was a good look on him: stubble. You'd teased him ruthlessly, almost choking on your water when he'd gone pink.

Jane giggles.

“Go to sleep,” you tell her. “You have school.”

“So do you.”

“Sleep.”

“Tell me a bedtime story.”

“Jane,” you whine, rolling over away from her, because she sure wasn't going to stop. “Sleep.”

*

*

*

“Where the fuck are my shoes,” Noah says, as he stumbles around trying to find his things.

You should've folded the laundry last night. Instead, it was a pile on the floor, clean, but a mess. You had parent teacher conferences today, and of course you were rushing at the last minute. Between finishing a paper for sociology and ditching class because of the conference and it's not like your statistics professor took roll call, you were still in a towel, freshly showered.

“Check the hall closet. I told Jane to clean last night and I'm like one hundred percent sure she just stuffs everything in that closet. Dan's right, we're fucking her up by spoiling her too much.” You search the pile of clothes for a nice dress. Was that right for a parent teacher conference? You were 18, what did you know? Besides, you were like guardian adjacent. Not a parent.

“Okay,” Noah replies when you hear the door open and why can't you find any clean underwear, you just did laundry this is insane and you have like five minutes to leave or you will be late, “but why'd she only put away one shoe?”

“Don't goblins only steal left shoes or something,” you reply, finding clean underwear but giving up on the bra. You'd go with a blue and white plaid dress. It wasn't too revealing for school even if it was one of those back of the closet dresses you never actually wore.

You slip your underwear on under the towel as Noah reappears in jeans and a t- shirt, freshly shaved. “What if they ask too many questions?”

“They won't,” you wave off. “And if they do we can just lie.”

“You're a bad liar,” Noah teases, rifling around in the kitchen.

You toss the towel aside, trying incredibly hard to act cool and calm when you weren't anything but, as you go to pull the dress over your head. It's not like you were flashing him. You sleep next to Noah every night.

But then why did you feel so flustered right then. “Am not!” You squawk indignantly, turning over to look at him as your dress goes over your head and your boobs are no longer hanging out for the world to see (there was a point to curtains after all).

Noah goes bright pink when he realizes your half naked in the living room, as if he hasn't slept next to you for close to a year now but then again, you used to sleep in an old shirt and underwear and now you've got matching pjs because Noah and yeah you should probably do something about that like you had wanted to since the party ages ago now but there had been Redfield and Noah admitting he was in a terrible headspace and it wasn't the time and now. . .you brush the thought aside for now. You roll your eyes (because your cool and calm even if your heart’s beating erratically) and grab your purse, before joking, “so are you going to get a haircut or are you going to do the man bun thing.”

Noah groans, “Jane told me I looked like homeless dog.”

“Ouch,” You laugh, “when she say that?”

“She woke me up again last night but I got her to go to her bed this time.” He admits as you walk to Jane’s school.

“Again?” Fuck maybe she was having nightmares after all. “It has to be nightmares, but. . .” you trail off.

“I don't know,” Noah shrugs, “she says she doesn't remember. Just wakes up. But like why else would she keep waking up if it's not nightmares,” he frowns.

“Do you think they could be,” you purse your lips before continuing not wanting to be the one to bring it up but you sort of had too, “you think it's redfield related.”

“I really don't know,” he says, looking over at you with a sad smile.

Smiling softly, you squeeze his hand as you wait for the white pedestrian sign, “hey, she's got us. She'll be fine.”

Which makes you think about how Andy was right. You were such a mom. Had you mom-zoned yourself? That was good, you'd have to text that to Andy later.

Then you sigh, realizing that if you had a nightmare back then, your parents wouldn't have even been home for you to wake up. There had been weeks spent at Pine Springs and driving over to some niche science conference in Rochester or over to New Haven for a lecture.

“What,” Noah asks, intertwining your fingers with his as you cross the street.

“Just realizing how shitty my parents were,” you offer with a sad smile. What could you do about it now? You'd grown up.

“Just now,” Noah quips with a smirk.

You roll your eyes, “shut up.”

Jane’s teacher, an older black woman who's style leans close to Lily's own preppy academic choices, looks at you both skeptically. “You’re here for Jane Marshall's conference?”

Both you and Noah nod.

She doesn't look reassured.

You bump Noah's knee with yours, hoping he'll say something to clear things up. Neither of you looked old enough to be her parents. You had a serious case of baby face.

“Uh,” he says, still an eighteen year old who's spent most of his life bowing down to teachers authority. You understood, still feeling strange going to the bathroom during lecture without asking for permission. “I'm Jane’s brother.”

You nudge him again when it's clear he's done taking.

“Noah,” he manages.

You roll your eyes. “We’re her guardians,” you had gone over the story hundreds of times, “their parents passed,” you look down at you lap trying to look sad, “a few months ago.”

“Oh,” Jane’s teacher, Miss Sanders, says sympathetically. “I'm sorry to hear that.”

“Yeah well,” Noah trails off.

“Well Jane is a very outgoing girl,” Miss Sanders says, launching into her talk, “she's made lots of friends though sometimes getting her to be quiet during class time can be a challenge. She's at her grade level for reading and math. She does need more practice with writing longer sentences and,” she shuffles papers around, flipping through a red folder, before taking out some childish drawings. “These had me worried but in light of the loss she is going through, I think it's understandable.”

Each drawing is a variation of a theme: huge black blobs make up most of the page, with occasional stick drawings differentiated by hair color. Jane is obviously the girl with the red hair and triangle body. Redfield, she remembered something then.

Could it be subconscious?

You feel the blood leave your face as you look over at Noah. He looks just as shaken as you.

“It's normal for children going through the loss of a loved one, especially parents,” Miss Sanders tries, “to work through it in drawing and writing. But we could always let her talk to the school psychologist. Mrs. Hernandez is a wonderful child therapist.”

“Do you think it would help,” you ask, wondering if it was a good idea when Jane’s actual problem was of the supernatural variety. Maybe they would just assume that was her imagination, or her way of explaining away a loss.

“It couldn't hurt.”

You look over at Noah, slipping your hand into his, giving him an encouraging squeeze in his palm. It was his sister. It should be his call.

He pulls his hand out of yours, straightening up in the chair. “Yeah. That could be good.”

“Okay. I'll let Mrs. Hernandez know. That and make sure Jane’s reading books for AR. Her goal this year should 40 points if she wants to be part of the end of the year celebration.”

“I'll figure out where the library is,” you nod, “I'm sure she can find books while I study.”

“Sounds perfect. Any other questions.”

You look at Noah who shakes his head. He was starting to need a haircut. Even if you did like the way he looked with his hair loose.

“Alright then. It was lovely to meet you Mr. and Mrs. Marshall.”

“Oh,” heat builds up in your cheeks.

“We're not-”

“I'm not-,” you stammer, “I'm just a family friend.”

“Oh,” Miss Sander says, “I'm-sorry for assuming.”

“It's fine,” you manage, starting to leave. “Thank you. It was good to meet you.” You shake her hand, wanting to die inside.

“Nice to meet you as well,” she shakes Noah's hand and then you can finally leave.

You both hurry out the classroom, out the school.

“So that was,” Noah says, raising a brow.

“awful,” you finish. “But there were no red flags and we got free therapy out of it.”

Noah laughs, “I think we probably all need some therapy.”

“Rewatching arrested development isn't cutting it anymore,” you grin.

“I do feel like Gob most days.”

“Good,” you laugh.

“Really?”

“I don't trust people who identify with Michael. No self awareness.”

Noah laughs, “they are all horrible people.” His face becomes drawn, as he tucks loose strands of hair behind his ears. “How much do you think she remembers?”

You shrug, placing your hand on his arm. “I think it's probably bits and pieces. She did spend years and...she doesn't have nightmares? That's a good sign right? It's been months, she's not some creepy horror movie child?”

“Of course not,” he nods, looking down at you, with a frown. “She's fine. Jane's good.”

You smile shakily. “We're doing amazing. And she's happy if she hasn't stopped watching disney vlogs. No clue how we're going to swing that one if she asks.”

Noah matches you’re unsure smile, “take her to those rich people parks and call it disney.”

You snort. “It's Jane. That won't fool her.”

“It's Florida. We can just go to the beach.” He says with a shrug. “It'll be just as good.”

“Aren't there alligators though?”

Noah laughs at your expense. “Those are in the lakes and rivers.”

“Shut up. Want to go for pizza before you go to work?”

“Let's go get Indian food actually. There's this place I've been meaning to try but Jane’s-”

“Picky as fuck,” you say pointedly. “Like you used to be.”

Noah blushes. “Okay so my mom just cooked like kraft mac and cheese. That wasn't my fault.”

“And those pizza bites! I loved those,” you add, thinking back on all the sleepovers at their house as a kid. “I think when Jane came over was the only time I'd get to use peanut butter.” Your parents weren't around, but your nanny was philippina, you ate spice before kids discovered hot cheetos were delicious.

He snorts, running a hand through his hair. “We should probably get a car at some point.”

“Face it bro, we're broke. I keep wanting to tell you to get a haircut but we're broke.”

Noah raises a brow. “Fuck off. I look like post-Beatles George Harrison.”

“You wish you looked like George Harrison,” you tease.

The food was amazing. Lunch indian buffets were where it was at. And since you don't have a class right after, you offer to walk Noah to work, “I've got to walk off the food baby,” you tell him, before you head back to pick Jane up.

Noah laughs, “The malai kofta was just too good.”

“I should've stopped at three plates but buffets always make me think it's a food contest,” you admit. “My nanny would take me to this seafood buffet with her family around lunar new year and we’d spend all day there to try and eat our money's worth.” It had been your favorite holiday as a child, after your parents had decided you were old enough to be left behind, only a handful of years after they decided you were old enough to bring along with them, and you hadn't seen them even at christmas.

“Damn,” Noah says with an easy smile, “at least I had good times with my parents.” His smile is so fragile. That just means it hurt him more when things fell apart.

“I had nice times too. . .with your family.”

Noah cackles.

You cross the street to the diner he works at next to a retirement complex with what you think are the best waterfront views next to the hotels you can't afford.

It's strange.

Your entire life, Noah has been this huge part of it and you've always lived in a tiny town so you knew everyone he did and knew what he got up to just by living near him in a town of like 500 people or what felt like such a small amount, your elementary school only had one class for each grade but now you hug Noah goodbye even though he always tenses against you, as though he's unused to the physical affection and that just makes you hold him tighter, then he's heading inside and greeting people you probably will never know and he's having this whole part of his life your not a part of and one day he's going to go on and live his life without you and it hurts: watching him laugh with some waitress that's tall blonde and beautiful in a way you've never been.

It hurts but you suck it up and go pick Jane up from school.

“Don’t worry,” your friend says, holding your hand once she realizes you've been standing at the water's edge. It's warmer than you'd imagined as it laps at your bare feet.

Jane has not stopped smiling since you'd bought her a bathing suit at Target: a pink one piece with sloths. You'd been more nervous, not knowing how to swim. You also felt every single bite of pasta you'd had last night in your black bikini.

Damn Noah for being so good at cooking.

“I've got you,” Jane says, leading you out further into the water, over to where Noah's out, up to his waist and you're pretty see it's deeper than Jane is taller, but if Jane can do it-a wave, a massive looking wave comes crashing towards you both.

You don't hesitate to run away.

Noah points and laughs.

You flip him off once the wave passes, leaving your hair wet.

Jane grins. “It's okay. I won't let you drown.” She pulls you back out again, a perfectly happy water baby. She always had been fearless. And unlike you, as the water deepens, she starts to swim alongside you.

“See,” she laughs, “it's easy.” Then she pops down under.

You make it to Noah, figuring the water wasn't that crazy. No tsunami like waves to pull you out to sea and drown you.

Jane comes up for air, “I'm Jaws,” she yells at Noah, tackling his side.

“Ooof,” he says, exaggerating, “oh no, a shark, I'm. . .dead dying. . .”

Jane giggles.

“Do not,” you warn her. “I'm barely here as is.”

Noah rolls his eyes and you have a feeling there about to roast you: both of them.

“It's just a little water,” he teases.

“It's not even that deep,” Jane adds. “It's the beach!” She pops back down under the water as another wave rolls towards you.

“Fuck,” you mutter, tensing, as the wave soaks what's left of your dry hair, splashing salty water into your mouth.

Jane pops her head back up, strawberry hair plastered to her head, smiling so wide. It's November and it's still warm enough to go to the beach. Even the rain here isn't cold that way it was back home.

The world was so much bigger than Westchester.

Noah reaches his hand out to yours. You take it easily, stepping closer to him, pushing your wet hair out of your face.

He had the right idea, now looking more like the fifth beatle than a shaggy haired hippie. Less to deal with at the beach.

“You okay,” he smirks.

“Shut up. I can't swim. You know that.” You'd complained about it a hundred times as they both forced you off the pile of towels where you had planned to read through your notes. Studying, it was gross.

“You're,” Noah rolls his eyes, “it's like three feet. You're not going to drown.”

“What if,” you counter, “I trip and swallow water and drown.”

“That's not going to happen. What you can't stand up?”

“Don't,” you warn.

He smirks, “it's because you're short.”

“Asshole,” you say, smacking his bare chest. Nothing you haven't seen, you tell yourself. Act normal, you reminded yourself.

“It is!” Noah crouches down a couple inches to your height.

You roll your eyes-

-and laugh when Jane launches herself onto her brother's back.

“I'm an orca!”

Noah lets go of your hand to regain his balance. “Wow there shamu.”

Jane frowns. “Sea world is evil. Ava and I watched Blackfish.”

You vaguely remember some orca documentary that you had mostly slept through. Taking care of Jane was hard and you had fallen asleep in those early weeks whenever you got the chance.

“No seaworld then,” you shrug.

“But I do wanna go to Disneyworld. I wanna go on the star wars ride!”

“You don't even watch Star Wars,” Noah points out.

“I would if we went to Disneyworld. My birthday is coming up.”

“No it's not,” you frown. They were April babies.

“I think you mean my birthday,” Noah says playfully.”

“I was born first,” Jane yells.

“So, I'm taller.”

You roll your eyes, sinking down to your neck. The water was nice. “You better throw yourself into the water if I start drowning,” you warn Noah.

“Yeah yeah,” he says with a soft smile, “I'm not going to let you drown.”

Jane nods in agreement, “I'll kick him if he does.”

You laugh, happy to spend the days with the Marshall twins.

Bells don't ring, but the whole class knows when class is over, shoving their papers away into bags as soon as there's a minute left.

You leave English happily enough. It was a fun class, with plenty of movies and conversation that you were able to make friends in, unlike other lecture heavy classes where you had five minutes before class to talk during.

Sasha and Kevin both walk with you out of the lecture hall. “Have you started studying for the midterm,” Sasha asks, “I really don't want to write two in class essays. Multiple choice is where it's at.”

“I'd rather have an in class essay,” Kevin says, “and Professor Laux said it's just one. But he'd give us two prompts.”

You wrinkle your nose. “I love english I just hate the writing part. Or rather the long essays.”

“At least your not a computer science major,” Sasha counters, “physics is so much worse.”

“Not as bad as o chem.”

“O chem is not that bad,” Sasha counters.

You shrug, “art history major,” you grin smugly.

Kevin shakes his head, “just wait until you have to find a job.”

“Grad school. Both my parents love that shit. They'd help me pay for it.” They both had Ph.Ds.

“I wish my parents helped me pay for school,” Sasha complains again, “they are such hard asses about school but they want me to pay for everything, and live at home-can you imagine how many house parties I've missed to work at the movie theater.”

“Speaking of house parties,” Kevin pushes his glasses up his broad nose, “we're throwing this pre thanksgiving bash at my place. Beer. Snacks. Weed.”

“Shouldn't you be studying for midterms,” you ask, shaking your head. You also hadn't figured out what you were doing for the holiday. You had Jane and Noah now. It had to be special.

“Pfft. I will,” Kevin says. “You're only twenty once am I right?”

Sasha shakes her head. “Okay. But I'm stealing some weed.”

“You in?” They both look at you.

Noah's off Monday and Wednesday, when you get out too late to go pick up Jane. You can't leave her by herself, not that you would want to. You were looking forward to going to waste time at the mall and buy snacks at target: your usual Friday night.

You shake your head, “Can't. I've got Jane on the weekends. Babysitters are expensive.”

“Just tell your parents to look after your sister,” Kevin says petulantly.

You hadn't really explained things. It was complicated. Redfield had really messed up your life. Jane should be your age and going to house parties with you. But you'd have her alive in any shape or form so long as you got to see her. “Umm, actually,” you decide to explain a little, the practiced version, “her parents died a few months ago. They were-they were really close family friends and practically raised me so,” you trail off, thinking about how exactly to explain Noah. He was your best friend, a childhood friend, and. . .that was it.

“Oh shit, I'm sorry.”

“Yeah-”

“Well, if you're even able to figure it out,” Kevin says, “hit me up.”

You wave them goodbye and rush to your next class.

*

*

*

Noah's hair is still damp as he lays down on his side of the bed.

You were still going over your art history notes, wanting to go over the dates of the list of paintings you'd have to identify on tomorrow's quiz. The names were easy since styles even within art movements varied so much. It was a little harder in regulated art worlds: the buddhists of southeast asia didn't go outside their geometric ratios.

“You've been studying all day,” Noah says with a yawn. He no longer smelled like burnt oil.

“Yeah, I have a quiz.” You're sitting cross legged on your side of the bed. “It's on art identification.”

“That's what googles for,” he snarks back.

It was past midnight. Jane had been asleep for three hours.

“Smart ass.” You shut your notebook. The numbers had started swimming in your eyes a while ago. Nothing more was going to stick in your brain.

You turn off the light on your side.

“You're the smart one,” Noah laughs, “I'm just an asshole.”

“Oh,” you smile in the dark, highly aware of his body laying next to you, carefully keeping your leg from brushing against his skin. “You're self aware too!”

“Dick.”

“Takes one to know one.”

You lay in silence, listening to the sounds outside your windows, the cars passing by even at this hour, Noah breathing next to you. It was soothing, having people you loved with you. It wasn't lonely being home all the time.

Noah shifts onto his side: facing you.

You stare up at the ceiling, black from the curtains pulled right even as the window let the breeze in. It had been raining the past few days, but the cold days don't hold a candle to Westchester this time of year.

“Thank you.”

“For what,” you ask, smiling freely.

“What do you mean,” he pitches his voice higher, “for what? For everything.”

You giggle. “I haven't done much.”

Noah's tone is dead serious the next time he speaks. “You didn't have to help . . .with Jane. I don't know how I would've made it work without you, so yeah. Thank you. I didn't even ask-I wouldn't have asked you to give up college and partying-”

You have to stop him right there. “I didn't give shit up Noah.” He could be so dumb sometimes. If he had just told you Jane was Redfield, you would've helped him from day one to save her. But there was no point in bringing that up: just more salt in the wound. “And you didn't have to ask me: I wasn't just going to let you flounder alone. I wanted to-I wanted to be with you and Jane. That was never a question.” Heat flares up in the skin of your cheeks and nose as you smile, before you turn onto your side, looking over at Noah in the dark.

You can't really see him at all.

Thank fuck.

It's bad enough that you feel so flustered you might explode from the emotions swirling about in your chest. You don't know what to do about Noah, about your feelings for him.

Months ago, you would've just bitten the bullet and kissed him, but he'd also opened up about not feeling ready at all about relationships and you will not fuck things up for either of you. It had been easy with Connor when all the lights were green as he was clearly into you and responded right back.

It had been light and a way to not think about the terror of your day to day life for a few moments.

But it wasn't Connor you thought about so much your skin got all hot as you looked out the window during lecture.

You swallow thickly, squashing those feelings into some back corner of your mind.

“Thank you though, I don't know what I would have done without you.”

“Don't be dumb. It's getting rid of me that'll be hard.” You could admit now, “Now that I know what it's like to have people in the house to kill spiders, I'm never leaving,” you felt lonely in your childhood house all through high school.

“I don't think Jane would let you leave.” Noah laughs.

“True,” you sigh. “it's nice not to come home to an empty house.”

“Our childhoods were so messed up,” he replies softly.

“It's like the gift that never stops giving. But hey, who cares. I have you two and my parents monthly deposits-and FAFSA!” You laugh, because what else could you do, wallow in self deprecating angst like Noah? You weren't sure you could beat him at his own game. “As far as I'm concerned, you're my family now. . .both of you.”

“When did you become a walking talking greeting card?”

“Asshole.”

Noah laughs.

It's a sound you love. For so long, it had been so rare. It warms you up, blots out all the horrible shit you've gone through and makes everything okay.

You fall asleep smiling.

*

*

*

Sasha settles in your ikea bland table with her bag full of notebooks and textbooks. “I wish I had my own place.”

Next week was finals.

Next week was going to kick your ass.

Matthew looks up from his calculus solutions manual for the first time in an hour, “it really depends on the roommates, mine eat all my snacks.”

“Hide them in your room,” you suggest, opening your computer up to the study guide the TA had sent out last week. “With your underwear or something.”

Jane giggles as she watches spongebob on the TV. Fourth graders had it easy. The upcoming winter break meant Jane was practically doing arts and crafts all week.

You open up a notebook to a fresh page as you write down all the key items from the study guide, underlining key items. You wanted to knock the art essays out of the park. It wasn't as easy to bullshit those as it was to make up themes for an english paper.

Fuck, you were already pretty much done with a semester at college.

Jane had almost been back for over a year.

“Can I see your midterm,” Sasha asks, “I want to see what comments you got.”

You fish it out from your binder. “Go for it.”

Matthew looks up from his pages worth of calculus, “I hate math. I should've just done an anthropology major.”

“Sucks to be an overachiever,” you snark, annotating your notes with a pink gel pen. You had never cared to study much in high school, but a major you actually cared for made all the difference in the world. You wanted museums and van goghs and the asmr of cleaning paintings like in youtube videos.

“I didn't think double majoring would be like this,” Matthew sighs. “I haven't slept in three years.”

Sasha shakes her head, “just go for the one you like the most.”

“So I can be unemployed with tons of student debt?”

“Or get that grant money,” you wiggle your eyebrows. It was what your parents were up to.

“That would mean a PhD,” he complains, but doesn't look completely turned off by the idea. “And I could put off figuring my life out for another four years. . .”

Sasha laughs, flipping through flash cards with a bunch of arrows and equations written on them. Physics.

Intro to Biology was so much easier. You practically only had to remember high school biology and read through the study guide a few times. You could remember the difference between eukaryotic cells and prokaryotic cells.

Sasha suggests ordering Pizza hut as Jane starts asking for food and you feel like yeah, a study break sounds good.

“Four hours is the max people can concentrate for,” Matthew says, as he eats a third slice of pizza.

“So we're done for the day,” Sasha asks, getting up to stretch, and joining Jane on the couch. She'd been an angel, sort of, content to just watch tv all afternoon as you studied. Sure, she'd raised the volumes to movie theater standards every half an hour, but other than that-an angel.

“If you're good for the day.” You were nervous. You didn't want to be a C student anymore. You wanted to try. Surely you had inherited some of your parents brain cells.

“I am,” Sasha admits. “I've been studying every day for four hours. My brain has melted.”

“Honestly,” Matthew says, “I just started studying. The semester seemed so long.”

“Same though bro,” You grin. “All the tests and quizzes went right out of my mind as soon as I was done.”

Sasha shakes her head. “Well, I'm taking a slice for the road. See you around.” She leaves.

Jane joins you and Matthew at the table, licking the pizza grease off her fingers. “I like Noah's pizza better.”

You wince. A cook you were not. “Well, he's working.”

“I know.”

“Noah?” Matthew says, clearly a question.

“My brother,” Jane says flippantly. “They sleep together.”

You're face burns; you want the earth to swallow you whole right then and there. “We live together,” you explain to Matthew who looks more confused. “Jane go watch TV.”

She sends an annoyed look at you, before running off.

“Noah's her brother. They're family friends-” you explain lamely.

“You don't have to explain anything to me,” Matthew says sweetly. “It's your business.”

“Yeah,” you push your hair behind your ears, feeling out of whack. Matthew was cute, but it wasn't like you wanted to jump his bones. He made sociology bearable. “Can you look over my paper? I'm still not sure I got the sources incorporated right-”

“Yeah. Sure. I didn't know sociology 101 would include writing research papers.”

“Everything was going good until I remembered we had that paper due,” Matthew agrees.

You study for another hour, mostly giving each other feedback on your research paper. “It would've helped if he'd given us examples,” you mutter.

“Right.”

Jane tugs on your arm. “Come play with me,” ignoring your classmate entirely.

“Yeah. Sure,” you smile tiredly. You were at your study limit. “Want to call it a night,” you ask Matthew who nods and grabs his things.

Jane scrutinizes him the entire time. She puts her hands on top of the empty pizza box.

“I don't like him,” she pouts, “He's boring. Who studies?”

“Boring college students,” you laugh. “He's fine. We have sociology together. We're also taking english literature pre 1800s together next semester. It was that or latin literature which sounds really pretentious.”

Jane giggles. “Let's play uno!”

“Okay, but just one game. You still have to take a shower before bed.”

“I don't want to take a shower,” Jane protests, “I want to be a horrible reeking troll! Rawr!” She chases you around the living room.

You burst out laughing, letting her tackle you to the floor. It was easy to forget how stressed out you were about finals when you had Jane.

*

*

*

You take deep breaths as you scramble to find your sneakers. It got cold in lecture halls.

Noah makes coffee, “you're going to do fine.”

“I'm going to fail and flunk out of university and my parents are going to hate me forever and i'll never get a job and take Jane to disney world,” you groan, slumping at the counter with a hand on your forehead. You should've studied all night. Why had you bothered going to sleep?

Noah pours you a tumbler full of coffee, with the hazelnut creamer that basically turned the coffee into a hot chocolate, “you've been studying all week. You might not be Lucas levels of 110% on a rest but you're going to do great. I know it,” he says with a genuine smile.

You blush. “I hope all the studying has worked. I've never tried this hard in school.”

“Yeah,” Noah nods with a soft smile. “High school sucked.”

“It did.” You take a sip of your coffee, hoping to steady your nerves.

He looks good in the morning light, before it's too hot to exist. Winter in florida meant temperatures in the low 70s, laughably temperate. Noah's wearing the same boxers he'd gone to sleep in, with a soft worn in grey t-shirt, and a serious case of bed head as his hair curls around his ears in the most adorable mop top.

If you didn't have finals to head to, this would be the perfect morning.

“You're going to do amazing sweetie,” Noah chuckles in the dickish way of his.

You snort, shaking your head. “Fuck yeah I will.”

“That's the spirit.”

You shove your feet into your beat up vans, grab your backpack. “See you later,” you smile at Noah.

“Yeah, good luck,” he says, putting his mug of coffee down on the counter and leaning down. One second he's smiling down at you, and in the next one he's pressing his lips against yours.

Holy fuck.

Your eyes widen.

Was this really happening, or were you just that tired.

“Shit,” Noah stammers, pulling away quickly. “I-”

You raise a brow, “What-”

“It was an accident. Sorry.” Noah steps back, running a hand through his hair, pink up to the tips of his ears.

You feel a bit like a deflated balloon. “What even was that?” Because what it seemed like was like he'd kissed you but-how do you accidentally kiss someone. No-this was way too much for you to dea with at the moment.

“I just-nothing. Just forget it,” Noah says. “I'm going back to sleep.”

“See you later,” you try, feeling all messed up. Had he wanted to kiss you? Was this you messing up for the both of you?

You wish you could call Lily right now, but you had a final to get to.

*

*

*

It's Christmas day, technically.

Jane's been asleep for hours and Noah's taking a bite out of the cookies laid out for Santa as you watch it's a wonderful life trying to puzzle out how this was a Christmas classic. It was boring.

Things had been so awkward with Noah as of late, as you both danced around the kiss, that you had let Jane talk you into a sleepover in her room almost every night. There was no way you could lay there next to Noah and not think yourself to death. Absolutely no way.

You had wrapped up her gifts in baby yoda christmas themed wrapping paper: an assortment of more clothes because Jane really didn't have much considering she had basically popped into life a year ago, random books you remembered liking in elementary and middle school, and toys that you had definitely splurged on including a two hundred dollar set of legos that you looked forward to building with her. It had been hard to keep it secret from her when you all spent the majority of your time together. Stacey had sent a big care package for all of you. Lily had sent gifts through the post office. Lucas’ contribution was a few amazon packages.

All your friends had sent something.

It was touching, considering the distance. You couldn't wait to see them again-Ava wanted to visit in the summer.

You flip the channel, deciding Full House reruns were better.

“Not Full House,” Noah groans, turning the kitchen light off.

“Let me guess. You're a Die Hard fan?”

“Best christmas movie,” he grins.

You shake your head. He could be such a guy. And just like that, the tension between you two dissipates. “No way. The Grinch is the best. The 2001 one anyway.”

You click the side table lamp off.

Noah sits down next to you as you flick through the channels, trying to find something to watch. “Bob's burgers?”

“Sounds good.”

It's dark. The volume’s on low. You're all curled up in bed, and Noah's not being weird-it helps that you're trying to be chill about it.

“How did your finals go?”

“Well I didn't flunk out,” you shrug. “I got a C in sociology but a B in everything else.” It was fine. It's not like you were a sociology major.

“I told you you'd do good.”

“Yeah,” you sigh, laying down entirely, ignoring the tv. “I just figured all the studying would...I don't know, mean I'd get straight As?”

“It's college-isn't it supposed to be like super hard or whatever,” Noah says with a shrug.

“I guess.” You just wished you were that kind of student. Even seeing how hard the effort was on Lucas’ mental health, maybe your parents might visit if you did get straight As. It was dumb. “I just figured my parents might pay attention if I did get all As.”

“Fuck your parents,” he says easily.

You snort. “Shut up. They pay like half the rent.”

“The least they could do.”

“Yeah,” you sigh. “Did you ever want to go to college? You know like when we had to write colleges letters in fifth grade, or was it sixth?”

“Naw. School was never my thing,” Noah says in the quiet of the night.

You smile softly, tilting your head so you're looking at him, the moonlight illuminating the angles of his jaw as it poured in through the windows. “Then it was always culinary school for you?”

He shrugs. “Yeah-I mean,” he closes his eyes, thinking silently. “I'm a little too dumb for school. I could never get the whole trig thing or what Shakespeare was saying let alone the subtext.”

You sit up. “Shut up,” you state, slapping his bicep lightly. “Don't say that shit.”

“It's true.”

You shift, closer to his side of the bed, closer to him still lying there staring up at the ceiling, not meeting your searching gaze. “You're not dumb. Noah-you are not dumb. You're so fucking smart-who remembered to buy toilet paper and figured out how to rent an apartment?”

“You can google that shit,” he says, covering his face with his hand, embarrassed.

“And cooking takes skill. Maybe it's not mensa harvard type smarts, but it's not nothing!” You just wanted him to see himself the way you did. You're sitting up on your knees now, as his expressive wide eyes meet yours, a dark romantic brown you could drown in, staring down at him. “Say it! Say you're smart and clever and amazing!”

“I'm not saying that,” he laughs off.

“Say, I'm fucking smart and I can do anything,” you repeat, nudging his chest.

Noah smiles and it does all sorts of things to you, makes your pulse race as heat winds its way all hot under your skin, all hot and bothered and feeling giddy like a dumbass and you never meet someone who felt like home the way it is with Noah. “I'm fucking smart,” he says quietly, rolling his eyes, “and I can do anything.”

“We're going to have to work on that,” you laugh, belatedly realizing you're almost on top of him. Well, you are on top of him, you're knees are by his waist, but you're leaning over him and fuck you want him. The way he's laying there under you, looking like the sun shines out of your ass, it's thrilling.

“We will,” Noah says, wiggling his brows in a way that has you laughing into his chest.

Then you're looking up at him, unable to catch your breath, because you can't stop laughing and it's not like you're particularly comedic but-fuck it, you lean up and kiss him. It's what you've been itching to do since the party at-fuck, you don't even remember, but you remember finding him there and realizing he's what you had been missing, the reason you didn't feel like being there until you sat by the pool with him.

He's Noah and you're you and there's not a version of you that doesn't love him to bits; there's not a version of you that doesn't go with him to face the monster and rescue Dan and would give your life for him and Jane. Always. Because he's Noah-

You lean down and kiss him, trying to communicate the depth of this feeling.

It wasn't some crush.

Or some drunken affair at a house party.

You kiss his lips with a dizzying fever that burns hot under your skin as desire builds in the pit of your stomach: a bundle of nerves sparking to life. And he kisses you back, his hand cupping your cheek. His thumb rubbing circles into your skin.

You tremble under his gentle touch, afraid that this too would disappear in your hands. You were so used to losing: to getting nothing.

Noah stares up wide eyed at you when you pull away.

You bite your bottom lip.

“I-,” he stutters.

“I've really been wanting to do that for a long time,” you confess.

“Me too.”

You swallow thickly at his confession. “Then it wasn't...it wasn't an accident,” you ask carefully.

Noah shakes his head once. “No. That-I just, I didn't want to mess up something good just because I wanted something more.” He looks so heartbroken in that second-

“Noah,” you sigh gently. “I was surprised and thinking about school but I've-I would've kissed you then if my head hadn't been so far up my own ass.”

He snorts, the line of his shoulders relaxing under your hands. “After what happened- I was lucky that you even wanted to talk to me at all. I didn't think you'd want anything to do with me and then I thought it was just for Jane,” Noah admits painfully.

“I've always loved you.” You tell him. “And I'm going to keep telling you until it gets through that thick skull of yours.”

Noah chuckles.

“So are we on the same page?”

He rakishly raises a brow with a shit eating grin on his lips, “I don't know, are you gonna kiss me again?”

You vow to wipe that look off his face as you do more than press your lips hungrily against his, your hands against his chest as you shift once more, situating yourself and getting comfortable straddling his waist with your legs. You press hard kisses to his mouth as Noah kisses you back with the same fervor; you nibble on his bottom lip, bringing it between your teeth.

It's an exercise in breathlessness, a mexican stand-off in which both sides are ready and happy to pull the trigger because of the rush of blood to your head as you taste him on your lips. It's intoxicating the way in which he kisses your mouth and you forget the need to breathe.

But you, smiling against the skin of his jaw as you catch your breath. His chest rises and falls under your hands as he laughs giddily, feeling as crazy as you do.

It's not that epic romeo and juliet love that burns and destroys, but the fullness in your heart as you lay there with him.

You plant kisses down his jaw, savoring the hitches in his breath as you nip on the skin at the crook of his neck. “Is this okay,” you ask wickedly.

“Fuck,” Noah utters, voice breaking as he sucks in air. “Yeah-”

He cups your cheek with his hand and leads you up, brings you back where he can kiss you again. Noah kisses you-he lets himself kiss you. His tongue experimentally whetting against your all too willing lips before your mouth opens up to him and it's clear in the clumsy way he's eager to explore your mouth--the boy has no idea what he's doing.

It's fine.

You smile against his mouth, taking charge and running your tongue against his. Reaching for his free hand and guiding it, inviting him to explore the shape of your body in an oversized t-shirt and tiny booty shorts that you wouldn't even take the trash out in.

Noah does, clasping your hips with his hand as you binch up the fabric of his shirt in your hands as you lose yourself in kissing him, in drinking him in like a comfort series you could endlessly rewatch.

You're both breathless, as you lay your head down on his chest, content.

“That was,” Noah says all out of sorts, “wow.”

“Guess you're going to be the next great american writer,” you tease.

He rolls his eyes, running his hand up your side.

“Hey,” you continue, relaxing into his touch, “Hemingway was a man of few words.”

“Was he the alcoholic one?”

“I think a lot of writers were,” you admit. “I tried to read his whale book but it was boring as fuck.”

“Moby Dick,” Noah says thoughtfully, “did Hemingway write Moby Dick?”

“Who cares,” you reply, pressing a kiss against the edge of his lips, fine with spending the wee hours of the morning making out with Noah.

“Well now I want to know.”

“Really,” you tease, bringing your hand up, running your fingers through his soft hair.

His eyes close. Noah leans into your touch. “I'll google it later.”

You giggle.

Then he’s kissing you again and you could care less about books and long dead writers. Noah captures your lips with his and you intertwine your fingers in his hair, a hand on his chest, wondering what it would feel like to have his bare skin against yours and caught between the enormity of your want and letting things happen naturally. It was Noah. You didn’t want to rush him.

You were still amazed he’d kissed you back,that he wanted you the same way you wanted him. The love had never been the point of contention between you two. You loved him at nine and you loved him at nineteen.

Noah losses some of his hesitation, his hands sliding down your side until they reach the swell of your hips straddling his waist. Then his hand slips under the fabric of your shirt and you moan into his mouth at the sensation of his fingers splayed against to taunt muscles of your abdomen.

It’s just flaring want consuming you whole.

“Is that,” Noah manages between bated breaths, “okay?”

You kind of want to shake his shoulders and say shut up and keep going, because you might just combust in the next few minutes if he keeps going like this, this clumsy tenderness mixed with the assault of his body discovering yours. “Yeah,” you stammer out, more feeling than young woman. “Great actually.”

Noah chuckles, trailing kisses down your neck as you lean back a little, before pulling away. . .before pulling your shirt over your head.

He sucks in a breath at the sight of your naked torso.

You can’t help the headyness in your chest at his reaction, at the way you were affecting him. “Like what you see,” you grin, all brash confidence that threatened to topple over like a house of cards at every turn, at the shift of his body under yours.

For once, Noah doesn’t have some smartass comment, just reaches his hands to your cheeks and pulls you down flush against him.

Fuck.

You kiss him feverishly, your hands finding the hem of his shirt as running yours fingers against the sliver of skin.

Noah moans into your mouth and you swear you can’t even function at the sound. The entire world is boiled down to you and him, him and you, and building pressure in your belly that threatens to explode.

“The shirt-,” you stutter out, half out of your mind.

“Yeah,” he obliges, sitting up and tugging it off.

And then you’re melting against him, the warmth of his skin against yours. Your breasts flush against his bare chest. Your toes curl up as you sigh, hands clutching at his neck, at his cheek, at the ends of his hair.

You kiss his jaw, you suck on the skin of his jaw and none of it is enough. Fuck, you want him so bad. You’re so fucking horny. It’s not like you’d been with a lot of people. But it had been over a year since your last sexual encounter.

And that might explain part of it-

Noah cups one of your breast with the palm of his hand, and fuck-

Your mind blanks as you moan his name. “Noah,” you whimper.

He kisses your collarbone, smiling against your skin.

“Do you want to-,” he asks, sounding more self assured by the word.

“Yes, yes,” you eagerly answer, kissing him hungrily. “I thought you’d never ask.”

Noah laughs breathlessly.

Then he’s whimpering as you run your fingers under the waistband of his boxers.

His hand closes around your wrist before you can get further, “condom?”

“Fuck,” you swear. This was so unsexy of you both. But it wasn’t like you had a reason to buy condoms along with pads and fruit snacks. “I think I have one,” you vaguely remember there being one in your wallet.

“I really hope you do.”

“Jerk.”

With great reluctance, you crawl off him to go look for your purse. You had to stop throwing it wherever and hang it up. It would've made it easier to find right now.

You don’t look back at Noah, even though you can feel his heavy gaze on you. The airs filled with static electricity as you rifle around and find the slim black bag.

It’s another few minutes of fishing through its contents before you find the thin small envelope that you were pretty sure you’d gotten in health or at planned parenthood at some point. Ava had definitely been there.

When you turn around, Noah’s sat up in bed, in your bed, in the bed you two share, have shared for months. It’s too dark to make out the expression on his features from this distance, but it’s under his dark eyes that you make your way back to him.

You push your shorts and underwear down in one go, discarding them by the side of the bed, taking care not to lose the condom (you were going on another target run asap) before you’re once again straddling his waist, feeling Noah already hard under your thigh.

“I’ve,” he starts as you sit up on your knees, feeling incredibly vulnerable. “I’ve never done this before.”

“Oh.” You’re off kilter. Does he not want to? It’s fine. You’re just surprised. It’s Noah. He’s tall and funny even if you want to strangle him half the time --he can cook-- and he’s so fucking hot when he’s not being adorkable. You’re surprised. “We don’t. . .have to.”

He sits up under you. “No. It’s,” Noah blushes, “I want to, it’s just-you should know?”

“Oh. Okay,” you lean in, kissing him with a tenderness he deserves in spades, “if you’re sure.”

Noah grasps your hips in his hands, pulling you in, “I’m sure.”

He kisses you.

You push him down onto the bed by his shoulders. His eyes are full of trust as he looks up at you, full of love like the moon on a clear night. You carefully open the condom up.

Noah shimmies his boxers off.

And because you’re you, you reach down and stroke his cock with your hand.

He shuts his eyes, moaning your name as he throws his head back into the bed, his back arching.

You wait a moment for him to still underneath you, before you roll the condom onto his cock, letting your desire carry your through as you fumble a bit. Again, you didn’t exactly have much experience on Noah. You just had some experience.

You lean down flush against him, kissing his lips, as you guide his cock to the apex of your thighs and part your legs, moaning into his mouth as he enters your soaked entrance. Noah stretches you out, leaving you a trembling mess, faring no better than he currently was under you, as his hips thrust against you and you-fuck!

It’s a tangle of limbs as you wrap your arms around him, lacing your fingers behind his neck, wanting more, and more as your hips more erratically against his.

Noah is all kisses and moans and his fingers bruising the skin of your hips as he presses you closer against him.

You don’t really know or care about anything but the feel of his cock inside you, as he thrusts with fervor, and clutches you near. You just want and want and stars dance across your eyelids as your skin catches fire, the heat in your belly finally boiling over as you fuck him, grinding your hips against his.

You splutter, reaching your climax while topping the boy you’ve been in love with for what might as well be your whole life. It’s just your strained voice, repeating his name, “Noah,” like it’s an answer to the whole meaning of life bullshit.

Good.

Bad.

It always comes back to him.

Noah.

He comes against you a second later, your name a sharp breath on his lips, before he goes as boneless as you feel. You’re on cloud fucking nine.

It’s a feeling no amount of weed can come close to.

Exhausted, you get off of him, slumping into a puddle on the bed. Fucking Florida. You were too hot and sweaty to curl under the blankets now.

“I fucking love you.”

“Oh,” you snipe back, feeling all warm and fuzzy inside, “now that I’ve fucked you you tell me.”

“Shut up,” Noah manages. “You know what I mean.”

“Yeah, yeah. Go toss the condom.”

He sits up slowly, “oh this episode’s my favorite.”

You’d completely forgotten about Bob’s Burgers reruns playing on the TV.

*

*

*

It’s New Year’s Eve and the three of you are eating ice cream on the beach. Only in Florida.

“And why can’t I go in the water?”

“Because you don’t have your bathing suit,” Noah tells Jane for the hundredth time.

“I promise I’ll just stick my feet in.”

“I’ve heard that one before,” you shake your head.

She frowns. “I promise!”

What the heck. It’s not like you were going anywhere else after this. “Okay. But you have to finish your ice cream first.”

“Wow,” Noah says, throwing his arm around your shoulder and leaning his weight against you, making you stumble in the sand. “What a pushover.”

“Me!” You reply, offended. “You let her stay home for no reason.”

The twins exchange glances. “She had chickenpox,” Noah shrugs shamelessly.

“And I’m the Queen of England.”

“Korean skincare does miracles.”

You roll your eyes at him, “shut up.”

Jane giggles easily as she decides this patch of sand is the one, and sits down, licking her rocky road ice cream happily.

“Jane,” you ask gently.

“Yeah?”

“Do you remember why you’re ten and we’re not?” It had been bugging you, ever since the parent teacher conference. There had been no more nightmares since September, but it bothered you, that she might remember anything. That Jane might not want to tell you. You couldn’t help her if she didn’t tell you.

She shrugs. “Not really,” with a child’s ability to shrug things off.

Noah asks the question you’ve been dreading. “Do you remember Redfield?”

Jane looks at you both, frowning. “Who?”

Your shoulders sag with relief. You hide it with a bite of your ice cream cone. Jane had a habit of picking up on things.

“No one important,” Noah brushes off, running a hand through his hair.

“You guys are being weird,” Jane complains. “Is this about you two being gross together? I saw you holding hands.” She narrows her eyes at you accusingly. “Don’t you remember boys have cooties.” She shakes her head. “Grown ups.”

“Jane,” Noah squeaks.

You laugh, covering your mouth with the back of your hand. “Yeah. We thought you should know.” It was better to leave the whole Redfield business behind. She didn’t need that shit weighing her down. “I don’t know. I like your brother a lot for some reason. Ava says it’s trauma induced codependency but she’s Ava so. . .”

Jane frowns again, letting the ice cream drip onto the sand as she thinks. “Does that mean I’m getting a sister?”

It’s your turn to be flabbergasted, as your skin reddens into a ripe tomato. “What!”

“It’s only fair,” she explains. “If you get my brother then I should get a new sister.”

“How about a stuffed animal,” you barter.

“You let me play five Nights at Freddies?”

“No way Jane,” Noah says, shaking his head. “It’ll give you nightmares.”

“What about minecraft,” you try. “Just on Fridays though.”

“Okay. i don’t want my ice cream anymore. I want to go play in the water.”

You nod, kicking your shoes off. “Okay yeah. Let’s go throw it away. I’m sick of mine too.”

You toss the ice cream and race Jane into the waves.

[simnastyy]

so that post i made last night? ok yeah im gunna elaberate on that. In my eyes Puck Summerdream has autistic traits. source: me, who also has autism. HERE WE GO.

- so, looking at his personality and aspiration, we see thats he’s a popularity sim, but hes pretty shy and serious but also really nice. I see this as while he has a fair few friends (like, all the main teens in Veronaville) he might struggle to like talk to people. or at least meaningful coversations. I relate to this as while i definatly enjoy company with friends, i find it super hard to talk sometimes and even keep in touch as socialising aludes me alot. I think Puck is the same and it can come across as him being shy. 

-Linking to that, he most likely stands in the corner zoning out with an empty cup in his hand during one of his own parties. dont worry hes ok! just vibing.I relate to this too. (Could be a pun on “being away with the fairies” as I daydream/zone out ALOT.)

-In his Bio it reads that while hes blessed with a loving family he still gets lonely. This is another thing i can relate to, while i have friends and family who care about me and i enjoy having them around (Puck having parties) i cant help but feel lonley or isolated, due to my poor social skills. His could be the same for Puck and him coming across as shy. He knows he has company and people to hang out with and their in return value him as a friend, he cant help but feel like hes on the outside of things, even at his own events.

-Puck being serious? Its funny as hes named after a mischievious fairy in the Play of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. So i take it as, he doesnt get humour like neurotypical people do (a common trait autisic people have) so jokes and sarcasm probably goes right over his head. (Sorry Mercutio) and probably comes off as serious.  (This is more of a headcanon but i can see Puck having a really.. odd sense of humour in contrast. Like he wont get normal jokes but something really obscure and niche could be the funniest thing to HIM and people wouldnt get that)

-His main interests according to the wiki are Paranormal, Travel, Sci-Fi and Toys. Special interests BABEY.

- We know he doesnt get along with his sister Bottom sometimes, often thinking of her as bratty and constantly getting Titanias and Oberon’s attention. I think hes still struggling to adjust to the massive change of now having a younger sister as we can guess that it was probably just him and his parents for a long while, and change is a big thing us autistic people really struggle to grasp. He doesnt dislike Bottom at all but, shits hard when it was just you being an only child for ages.

SO yeah, thats my TED Talk. Puck might be popular but hes still awkward as hell and i see him as autistic. This is mostly a massive headcanon but thought id share anyways and if u wanna discuss more headcanons, hmu. yeah.

[lettersfromn0where]

ZFAW: Self-Love Saturday

For the last day of @zkfanworkweek!

It’s no secret that I love writing more than almost anything in existence, or that I’m somewhat absurdly passionate about my work. I’m well aware that a handful of people probably think this is annoying (how many people who have had the misfortune to be in any kind of chat with me never want to hear the name “Hina Oyama” again? Probably most of them), and I was hesitant to do this at all because I know I can be self-centered and I’m trying to work on that. But I realized that I’m not doing this for feedback or because I want people to read my work - if I were to talk about my fic like this, it would be coming from a place of excitement about sharing something I love with others, not about finding new readers. (Have I done a little too much networking of that kind? Yes. Am I proud of it? Not at all. That’s why I had to make sure that that wasn’t why I was doing this.) 

So I’m going to go for it, and give you guys the background behind a few of my favorite things I’ve written. Stories below the cut. 

Story #1: The One That Taught Me That It’s Okay to Fail As a Writer

and I'll write you a tragedy (June 2020)

I wrote this back in June, when I was first getting into AtLA - I think it was my third or fourth published Zutara fanfic. I didn’t have many friends yet; most of the ones I talked to at the time, I've since lost touch with. So my participation in the fandom was largely isolated. I’d just write things and yeet them into the void without a care in the world - that’s what I did with “And I’ll Write You a Tragedy.” I had this grand idea that it would be ~the angstiest thing ever written~ and I was SO excited to get home (I was at the beach when I got the idea) so I could work on it...

Only to find that I simply wasn’t ready for the story I was trying to tell.

Oh, I wrote it, and it was...decently well-reviewed for something that caused me so much existential angst. But it fell so short of the concept that I had for it that, the moment I hit “post,” I was so frustrated that burst into tears. (Like a kindergartner. One can never say I deserve to be called an adult.) I wanted to establish myself in this new fandom so badly that anything I perceived as substandard was a crushing failure. And it was the process of talking myself through that frustration that taught me something I’ve tried to hold close ever since: every writer writes a dud every once in a while. No one is at the top of their game 100% of the time; those who appear to be probably don’t post the duds. Should I have posted this, then? Well, the jury is out on that. I still hate it. But it deserves a spot here just for the lesson it taught me. 

Story #2: the One That Broke the Angst Ceiling 

who lives, who dies, who tells your story (July 2020)

I have no idea how this took my angst from the coltish awkwardness of “sort of sad, but not very well-done” to genuinely depressing, but it did. Maybe I should blame quarantine and all of the difficulties that brought with it, or just the additional writing experience I had gained by that time. Whatever the reason, I remember this - even though it never got very popular - as an absolute triumph for me as a writer, because this is when I FINALLY learned how to write effective angst. For *years* I had thought I was simply incapable of writing anything sad, but this showed me that I wasn’t. I’ll never understood what flipped the switch (maybe it was @hiniwalay, whose help in forming this idea was invaluable...I love and miss you so much <3), but it’s a very important part of my writing journey even so. 

Story #3: The One That Got Inexplicably Popular

Tethered (Zutara Week - written in June 2020, posted in late July 2020)

Zutara Week 2020 was sort of the point at which I established myself in this fandom and I have super fond memories of the warm reception I received at the time. It was such a positive, encouraging experience - and perhaps the one and only time that people have actually wanted to indulge my somewhat ridiculous obsession with fluff. And this was sort of the peak of my entrance into the ZK fandom. 

And I am...not sure how I feel about that. 

Soulmate AUs are obviously super popular, so I knew that “Tethered” was going to be one of my better-recieved ZKW fics if I did it even marginally well. What I did NOT expect was that, by the time of this post, it would be exactly tied with The Waiting Game for my most kudos’d work. It’s almost insane to me that that is a thing, because, while I don’t hate how “Tethered” came out, I definitely don’t feel like it deserved the hype it got. It’s...just another soulmate AU, but seeing that I was capable of writing something that people would gobble up did wonders for my confidence - and, I think, for my reputation in the fandom as well. It was definitely a mile-marker on my journey, even if I would rather it have been a different ZKW oneshot (this one was my favorite).

Story #4: The Twitter Favorite

Four Days and Three Nights (written August 2020)

I will never, ever forget the day I posted this. 

I joined a Zutara group chat on Twitter just before Zutara Week 2020 began, and I quickly became...a little bit desperate for their attention. “The Waiting Game” (much more on that later) sprung from that desperation, but this was the one that actually did something about it. Which is funny, because it was actually a complete accident! 4D3N, as it is affectionately called on Twitter, was the result of my dumb butt reading “Five,” thinking “I want to write something that depressing!”, and just...going for it. I told myself not to overthink things as I desperately banged out the 3166 words of this story in two hours (because I needed to go for a run before it got dark and didn’t start writing until 3), and that is probably the one and only time in my entire life that telling myself something like that actually worked. Writing 4D3N was just sort of this rush that I barely even had time to recognize while I was caught up in it and the result was something I genuinely felt that I could be proud of - that’s pretty rare. My Twitter friends went slightly insane, half of them wanted to stab me (in a good way), and I finally felt like I actually belonged in this fandom - like I had done something to earn a place there. [Caveat: fandom is for everyone and you never need to “earn the right” to be in one, but my brain latched onto the idea that I didn’t deserve to be creating things for a fandom that didn’t want me and would not let it go. Figures.] Lately, I’ve been struggling with this one a little bit because it’s getting a lot of comparisons to “Five” in which it never fares favorably, for obvious reasons, and it was never actually my favorite fic to begin with, but it still means a lot to me. This is the one I recommend to people who are curious about my work and probably always will be. 

Story #5: The Sleeper Favorite

Lean On (written August 2020)

I have no earthly idea why I like this one so much, but it has to be my favorite oneshot I have up. It’s hurt-comfort and dives into the implications of the Agni Kai for Zuko’s health, both physical and mental - maybe it’s the uniqueness of that premise that endeared it to me, or maybe the personal-ness...is that a word?...of the narrative. The bare-bones summary: Zuko’s health is declining a year after the Agni Kai, Katara shows up to do something about that, and what follows is a year of Pain and Heartache for both of them as they try to navigate their conflicting feelings for each other. But really, it’s a story about healing: physically, yes, but also mentally and emotionally. I certainly relate a lot to Katara in “Lean On,” as I’ve been the friend caught in the crossfire of others’ battles with their mental health many times and I wanted to try to write from both sides of that conflict. But I think I probably wrote more of myself into Zuko than I originally anticipated, as well. Quarantine has not been good for my mental health...at all...and I’ve found myself lashing out at my family far more than I should without even knowing why, isolating myself and growing thorns so that no one would come near me. I hate seeing myself like that, and I hate that I can't seem to make myself do anything about it. So really, I was hashing out my own feelings both past and present, and what I ended up with, whatever you might think of its quality, came from the heart. I also, for whatever reason, really liked my writing here, so I have a special place in my heart for “Lean On.” 

Story #6: The Fluff I Didn’t Hate

Waffleosophy (written September 2020)

Look, there's not a lot to say about this, but it’s definitely my favorite fluff that I’ve ever written. I felt like I finally managed to hit the right note with this so that it came off as sweet without being saccharine, and it feels...I don’t know, wittier than what I usually write? I write a lot of fluff but something about “Waffleosophy” made it feel more polished and coherent than most of my other fluff. This was one that, as ridiculous as its premise was, I felt like I could truly be proud of; since I’m often a bit ashamed of how much of my work is fluff (it feels like “cheating” sometimes, as if I write this way because I lack the skill for real emotional beats), that’s saying a lot. 

Story #7: the Insanely Niche AU

Once In a Lifetime (ongoing)

This one gets updated at the speed of snail, but. ZK ice dance AU. It just makes me so HAPPY. 

Story #8: The One That Actually Did What It Was Meant To Do

Hanabi (written October/November 2020)

This heading is ironic because this was originally supposed to be an angsty slow-burn about surviving on an uninhabited island. Instead, it became as unerringly Sarah S---- as any fic ever has. Oops. 

Hanabi sprung from a desire to write something incredibly soft and wholesome. Seriously. That’s it. I had just finished writing a story that got a lot more violent and dark than I had expected it to, and I wasn’t comfortable with that; I wanted to return to my roots, if you will, and write something ~soft~. I wanted to write about good people, doing good things, being good to each other, with as much tender pining as I could cram in on the side. I wanted unique worldbuilding and a relationship that had to be built rather than handed over under the guise of Soulmateism (because this was the period in which I hated The Waiting Game and everything it stood for, aka...that. It was a weird time). And I actually? Did all of that? There’s this F. Scott Fitzgerald quote about how writers have to “sell their hearts” that I think about often, and I did that here. This has as much of my heart in it as anything ever will, I think, and if I had to pick a favorite thing that I have ever written, it would be “Hanabi.” I love it a lot. 

Story #9: The One You Knew Was Coming

The Waiting Game series (written July-October 2020)

I have so many feelings about this that I can’t even really articulate them all. Where would I even start? 

There was the fact that the first installment was written in two weeks (thirteen days, 94,832 words) to try to get the attention of a Twitter chat. There was the matter of Hina Oyama, my blog’s namesake, an OC who took on an absolutely massive life of her own to the point where she was quite literally my coping mechanism over the summer and I annoy everyone I know by constantly banging on pots and pans and screaming about her. There was the way this universe spiraled outwards from its original installment and now has three generations, two sequels, and a prequel in progress (Hina’s origin story, which I am writing for a friend but will most likely never post). There were the friends I made because of this series and all of the inside jokes and headcanons we’ve developed while discussing it. There were all of the existential crises I had (over negative comments, over whether or not this career-defining series is even decent, over the moral implications of writing about people getting stabbed in the sequel...please don’t ask). There is the fact that everyone I come into contact with now knows what Haang is, and that by a close-reading of any passage about Hina or Kya, you could probably learn a lot about me. 

But all I can say, in the end, is that I don’t know if I’ve ever written something that I fell in love with so quickly as I did “The Waiting Game,” or that had as much lasting impact upon me. (It has been five months, and I’m STILL writing in this universe, still talking about it constantly.) I know my TWG obsession is a little annoying, and I know that this universe isn’t really anything special - but it’s special to me, and it always will be. Will I shut up? Abso-freaking-lutely not. Do I care if no one knows what my username means because it refers to an OC in a fic not a lot of people actually like? Not in the slightest! I won’t pretend that TWG is a perfect story, or even that it deserves to be thought of as particularly good, but I will absolutely defy anyone who tells me that I need to “get over it.” (No one has, but my brain likes to tell me that everyone is thinking it.) 

I will never be over stories that move me, especially not ones I created.

And especially not Yangchen Oyama. 

~finis~ 

[childofhelios]

NCT AS DIMENSION 20

okay so firstly, this is very niche but its been on my mind for literally ages now. im mostly gonna be focusing on fantasy high characters because that’s the one im most familiar with(d20 release free episodes of crown of candy already ;-; ya girl is suffering) i think i might write a fic or a couple more posts based off this concept but im not sure yet lvfksdvsk let’s get startedddddddd:

so i believe that 2000 line would be the most accurate for fantasy high main characters. i WAS gonna have dream at first but there are 7 members and there are only 6 mcs. so 2000 liners are pretty much perfect for this.  

okay idk if it’s me or renjun gives off the extremely polite vibes at first? like thinking of early dream era where he seemed really quiet and chill. buuuuut then i also flashback to him putting chenle in a chokehold in like mfal era which makes me think of the cafeteria scene. i dont think renjun is as anxious as adaine. hes def more confident and more forceful but i think he has that ethereal factor adaine has. renjun would absolutely be a high elf because he would be NOTHING less and he deserves it. i think wizard class fits him really well! also his tiny little elf ear may have convinced me to make him adaine....

so jeno is literally the most like gorgug and it makes me wanna cry kjfnvlsdkl they’re both such loveable sweethearts that are too good for this world but then sometimes???? they just get super intense and fucking insane and it scares me sometimes holy shit. gorgug deals massive damage in battle and can fucking wreck people and jeno,,,,,,lets not talk about it. ALSO i do think jeno would absolutely act like gorgug does with zelda(probably more likely when he was gorgug’s age but oh well) gorgug can be very ditzy(himboish if that’s a better word) but he gives really good advice.and i feel like even though jeno is so foolish, he is supportive and is a wonderful friend. i just fucking love them so much

HAECAHN IS LITERALLY FIG I FUCKING SHIT YOU NOT: in this essay i will explain why lee haechan is actually fig in disguise. not ONLY does he give a lot of affection/flirt with basically everyone, he’s literally the perfect definition o f bard. like come onnnnnnn. also he’s VERY mischievous and gets the gang into 90% of the trouble and somehow gets them out of it. the “makes problems on purpose but solves them by accident” type. it’s not just because i wanna see him play a bass and jeno on drums bc that would be sexy of them noooooo absolutely not. if you ever see haechan in an outfit similar to fig’s, just know i’ll be literally laying in a grave just know this. STYLISTS PUT THIS MAN IN FISHNETS IMMEDIATELY FOR SCIENCE PURPOSES. bitches be emotional and then say theyre closed off,,,,, literally haechan at both the last dream show with mark and the dream show before they would have graduated

HES A JOCK DWEEB DO I NEED TO GO FURTHER?? okay so i know that jaemin is pretty introverted and quiet at times bc he likes to chill and im the same way, but when he’s out of his shell or with people who share his energy HES LEGIT LIKE FABIAN. my man’s was a SPEED SKATER, which is so fucking surprising but not the point. im saying that he’s also pretty lean and quick when he wants to be and that makes him good for the type of fighter fabian is. not to mention the weird relationship both fabian and gorgug have and also jaemin and jeno’s relationship. a l s o fabian straight up punched gorgug and then started becoming his friend after being spending time in detention and stuff. jeno and jaemin legit joined at the same time and were seatmates in school and stuff like that.... but this aint about those two. also jaemin’s intonation is fucking funny sometimes but other times i AM willing to fight him bc he wont talk normally (this is a joke vksjdkjs) but the same goes for fabian. the confidence they both have is literally unmatched, its actually kinda scary

first of all look at how spiffy they look, its actually adorable. second, look at my gremlin childrennnnnnnn i love themmmm(yes i know riz is a goblin no i dont care) okay shotaro is literally a child and he’s kinda still new so he’s a bit shy. but he ACTUALLY terrifies me with how talented he is. like in the recent relay when he learned the dance in like an hour. my guy is so quick at picking things up, he’s the perfect riz. also his korean has gotten so good in just like 3 and a half months so that just showssssss how hardworking he is. i dont know, i feel like shotaro is hiding some feral energy and we just need to wait it out and he’ll be foaming at the mouth or smth. shotaro is a liiiiiiitle too cool for the Ball but they both kinda have that dorky feeling to them. like the kid brother whose hair you ruffle all the time. but all in all i just think he’s neat :]

okay the photos dont match that well but thats because i was trying to find him in the pink takeoff outfit and i couldnt find a good screenshot but that’s not the point. now you’re probably thinking “helios, yangyang cant be kristen. make him the Ball or fig or anybody else.” ohoho quite the opposite my friend. i think  yangyang is the most like kristen purely bc of the untapped chaotic energy these two have. i literally remember both my first impression of kristen and yy were that they were mostly harmless and then somehow they started speaking and holy shit im terrified of them now. it also makes yangyang being a healer very interesting. they’re both really caring and outgoing, but some of the shit they say literally makes me head fucking spin bc it’s so ridiculous. 

Honorable mentions: 

Taeyong is Prinicpal Aguefort bc he is one of the only ones who has that chaotic yet majestic energy he has. 

Johnny is either Johnny Spells or Jawbone. Johnny Spells because he hangs out with the kiddos a lot and i just think of the “johnny spells fucks” bit and it makes me laugh so hard. but also Jawbone because he’s our emotional support werewolf basically. he also gives great advice. 

Doyoung is Sandra Lynn because of how much of fig/haechan’s shit they have to put up with. also i think the dynamic’s are really funny and similar

Chenle as Torek,,,,,do i need to explain any further

[tillman]

hello 1nce again , valentine, tis i, gaywainn, but liek, i wuz jsut comin in again 2 ask, like, my friend wnts 2 strt reading Arthurian stuff but she specifically jsut wnts to focus on lancelot n stuff? do u hve recs or anything for her, im liek rly new to it n yanked book of galehaut retold so i dunno where itd b gud for her to start 😳😔

o345uyr hell yea :-) this is my evolutionary niche ........ 

uhmm i mean yea the book of galehaut was my real investment into arthuriana i really love that book... its good. if u need a scan dm me this goes for anyone !

uhhh i think the next best place to start would be Lancelot and the hart with the white foot. its a dutch text and short but its so good... i adore this text maybe just cus i spent months hunting it down but i do love it to bits. it takes one of the most commonly used root stories and makes it about lancelot <3 so like poggers (heres a link to my scan of that) 

from there ...... i bully him a lot but chretien de troyes Knight of the Cart is one of his good works and honestly really fun (tw for suicide tho like please be careful of this bit. i feel like trigger warnings arent talked about a lot in regards to arthuriana but they are needed here. no one actually dies but its good to know). 

i have a link to the doc with all of his works, but i personally have a version on google docs to fix the main issue i have with that pdf (very low visibility, SUPER long paragraphs with no spaces) also i changed a few words i think . dont remember exactly. (heres my easier to read version) (heres the source) 

its a bit longer and more dense but i also really like lanzelet :-) itsss the german version of some of the older lancelot tales and its just kinda funney. lancelot gets married a bunch and then at the end just lives out his life with sebile . wlw/mlm solidarity u think . dm me for that one i dont have the source of the pdf on hand whoops

uhhhm from there there are the longer two works that include him (the vulgate cycle+its additions which arent worth it, and le morte d’arthur) 

the vulgate is hard to get but pm me i have the first bit scanned if youre interested. its long and goes into more depth about lancelot as a person than any of these. 

le morte is le morte. its kinda the most well known text and while on one hand i love it, you shouldnt read the full text first. i say this as someone whos read both versions, but keith baines has a shorter and more succinct rendition and makes it way more fun. if you do wanna read the original text go for it but its like 900 pages and most of it is a slog to get to the fun bits. 

we have. half a scan of baines but honestly ill sit down and do that this week and get teh full thing up if anyones interested. u can aslo find the full text on project gutenberg here. 

uhmmm other than that lancelot just kinda appears in other shit mostly without much involvement. i like him in Morien which is a short and sweet dutch tale, i like him in most the dutch tales really. the dutch are sooo good ill grab reys post on how to read those too. uhmmmmm hes in some renditions of the prose tristan which i think is funny, and hes in my personal favorite of those(/the only one ive read) the povest in which he and tristan r dumb homos. wait threes also Lancelot of the Laik but im ashamed to admit i havent read that one. i do have it on hand tho so hmu.  

for something more modern uhm the only modern author i trust is Richard Hovey (modern is being used loosely here). his short verses and his longer verse project on arthuriana are both just so beautiful. The last love of sir gawain i think is especially killer (:-)) but also Lancelot and Guenevere, a poem in dramas is literally maybe one of my favorite works ever. its nice. ill hunt down a copy if anyone asks. if not hovey, robinson’s Lancelot from 1921 is so beautiful it made me cry a lot. its longer but so . SO good. ive made a comic of a bit of that one too OIET$PWGJYH. 

anwaysy uhh i hope this helped i missed a few cys im about to head right back to bed but uhhmmmmmm yeas <3 always feel free toa sk for specific links some i have on hand just dont want to share in public fr whatever reason 

[ordinaryoddness]

“OH, DROKK THIS!”

Anyone that knows me will be aware of my love for 2000AD, a sci-fi anthology comic that’s been going for longer than I have been on this earth. Since its inception in 1977, 2000AD has featured thousands of stories, giving birth to some of the greatest comic characters of all time. 

One of which is, Judge Joseph Dredd, a hard-hearted, law enforcement officer in a far flung American future. Judge Dredd featured a cynical new world, where cops (Judges) could execute on the spot and throw people in the slammer for the pettiest of crimes. 

Mega City One, is a mass of ‘Blocs’, entire towns condensed into gigantic, rocket-shaped apartment buildings, usually named after minor British celebrities (There is a ‘Sue Perkins Bloc’ for example) or politicians. This world saw humans, mutants and droids live side-by-side, mostly at odds with each other, or the various (sometimes surreal) criminal elements that threatened an already shaky and paranoid city.

 Judge Dredd is not a hero, not in the conventional sense. He is a mostly cold, blank slate of a man whose sole purpose is to uphold the law and literally nothing else.

 Dredd has killed MILLIONS of people in the years he has been active. In one story, Dredd dropped a nuclear weapon on Russia, ending a war but killing millions of innocent people in the process. He is a machine of little sympathy and patience. Dredd is so infused with the law, and the upholding thereof, that he NEVER TAKES HIS HELMET OFF (Please, remember this) and he literally has no time for friendships or human things like emotion. Judges are sworn to not have romantic relationships and Dredd is above all of that. He doesn’t even think about it. Love is for creeps. 

In the comics, Dredd may as well be a robot, or a Robocop. (Dredd inspired that classic film) but, unlike Alex Murphy, Joe Dredd has no family (Well, not in the conventional sense but we’ll get to that in a wee while)

 Basically, Judge Dredd is awesome. I advise you to dig out the books and throw yourself into a world I’ve been enjoying since I was 8. Also, check out the 2012 film adaption called ‘Dredd’ because it NAILS the comic, the world and the character (with loads of cool references for longtime fans). It also features Judge Anderson, my absolute favourite female comic book character. 2000AD has, for the most part, featured strong female characters and the Dredd universe is no exception. 

1995 then. ‘Stallone IS Dredd’

Sly Stallone. Is. Dredd. Judge Dredd. A unfeeling, facially unknown, killer for the law. A character to be booed as well as cheered.

I was 15 when Judge Dredd came out. I was pretty excited. Didn’t last.

In less than ten minutes in, Judge Dredd takes his helmet off and by the end, he’s smooching Judge Hershey.

I get why fans get annoyed when films mess up their characters. Sometimes, it’s a little off kilter. I care not for changing the race of a character. Who cares as long as they embody that person? I would have taken a non-white Dredd. All the actor had to do was live by the code of the character, to be best representation of the man on the big screen. (Yes, Dredd has to be male. It kind of doesn’t work if he isn’t)

Stallone was not that man. The only thing that made him remotely qualified to be Dredd was that they both have distinguishable chins. 

Judge Dredd: The Movie was a cynical cash grab for a character that was kind of niche. Dredd wasn’t huge in America, even when he fought Batman. He was cult, through and through. It was a film that needed to be made by people that KNEW the material, that honoured the little/big things. Karl Urban, who played ‘The One True Dredd’ was a fan of the character and you can tell he was having a blast bringing him to life. When you watch Sly, you can see that one eye is on the scene, and the other is on the sack of money in the corner. 

The film, to delve into the travesty, is mostly harmless to those that just want to watch Sly wobble about like he does. For fans (I’d go as far to say that I’m a ‘super fan’, I’ve paid my dues) it’s like watching a shit cover of a great song on ‘X-Factor’. It’s soulless, lifeless and so lazy. No one wins in this, even 2000AD who, after it came out, could barely hide their dislike for it. 

It takes an old story and adds a few things to it. To give the film one single positive point, it looks the business. Chris Cunningham did a great job of the special effects, The Angel Gang and Hammerstein look awesome. THERE was the love and passion, all around people that couldn’t care less.

Judge Dredd: 1995 Edition worst crime is that it’s boring. It’s really, really boring. It tries to be funny, even drafting in Deuce Bigelow in as ‘comic relief’, again playing a character that’s completely different to the original material. Judge Anderson isn’t in it, which is a blessing. They would have probably re-imagined this cool, smart and female hero into a ditzy, blonde bimbo who keeps going all ga-ga over Rambo. 

They would have cast  Pamela Anderson, wouldn’t they? 

Diane Lane is in there, playing an equally iconic female character, Judge Hershey. She does, indeed, go ga-ga over Rambo and they have a kiss at the end. No real reason why. It doesn’t even make sense in the film and in the comic, they would never do that for about a million reasons. 

While they do use the famous ‘I AM THE LAW’ catchphrase, they also give the helmet-free, happy-go-lucky Dredd a new motto. In the film, he keeps saying “I knew you’d say that”, which is like something a sales manager would say, not an action hero. They really try to ram it home during the film. I bet Sly thought it was great, probably because when he says “Law” it sounds like he’s about to shit himself. 

When Armand Assante (playing Dredd’s ‘brother’ Rico) says ‘LAAAAAAAAAAAW’ to mock Dredd, it sounds like he’s reached a climax. Maybe he was channelling hopeless directer Danny Cannon who was hoping that this shit show would be that years ‘The Fifth Element’ (The film seems to take more cues from that movie than it does the comics)

Films are just fluff though, aren’t they? It’s kind of pointless to get all wound up about what is ultimately fleeting. I feel bad for feeling anything towards it. It’s probably the last time I was ‘angry’ at a film. Although, that being said, I saw ‘Batman Forever’ not long after and watched another favourite character be reduced to a dancing bear. Embarrassingly, I came out and, annoyed about a two-punch combo of crappy comic movies, I booted a cardboard cutout of ‘Batman Forever’ and declared, overly loudly, that I would never go to the cinema again. I did, about a year later but by then I was getting into indie-films and just wanted to watch people talking for 90 minutes.

Judge Dredd is a bad film, whether you love the source material or not. I’m more annoyed at it for tarnishing the later, superior Dredd film. A sequel and a series is so long overdue and it bothers me that the best representation of Judge Dredd and his universe is ‘I knew you’d say that’

As a little caveat, I did manage to get a measure of ‘revenge’ (probably too strong a word but there you go) with regards to JD 1995, In 2006, I ended up working on a film (didn’t come out) with a producer that knew Danny ‘Judge Dredd’ Cannon. He had actually tried to get his friend involved, giving him a copy of the film I wrote. In one of my many, many phone calls from sunny L.A to shady Quarry Bank, I was picked up on an exchange within in the film, where the two main characters, briefly take about Judge Dredd being terrible. There was a line (I won’t repeat it here) that, apparently, Danny Cannon was very offended by and I was asked to remove it. I was 26 at the time, sat on the stairs of my shared house, and it felt like a one in the eye for Hollywood. I am the law, thank you very much.

[benisasoftboi]

So on Friday night I made this post:

Which I expected that maybe ten, twenty people would see? I didn’t think anyone would really care about a joke about something so old and obscure, and it would just get lost in all the Detective Pikachu stuff. Instead, within five hours, it had become my most popular post. 

I know it’s still not a huge number, but it’s still way more attention than I’ve ever received for anything... ever, so I’ve been thinking about Pokemon Live a lot since. Which has been bad, because this morning I had to take a very important political economy exam, and instead of thinking about Bretton Woods or Marx, I was thinking about Pokemon. I nearly referred to my country’s former Prime Minister as ‘David Camerupt’. It wasn’t good. 

I need to expunge my thoughts. Specifically, my thoughts on one topic in particular - the way this show treats, or rather mistreats, the character of James. Because I truly, truly love Pokemon Live. I do. It’s one of the most glorious dumpster fires I’ve ever had the pleasure of watching a poor quality recording of. But this is the one thing I definitely don’t love.

I don’t expect anyone to read this. I mean, I said that last time, but this time I really don’t. It’s a long essay on a niche topic, and it isn’t even funny. But on the off chance it’ll get you to stick with me, I promise that there will be pictures of Andrew Rannells cuddling puppies at the end. 

So,

How Pokemon Live Mistreats James, and Why It Matters:

The Mandatory Mentioning of The Actor

I’m guessing anyone who knows anything about Pokemon Live also knows that now highly successful, Tony-nominated Broadway and television actor Andrew Rannells was in it playing James. And if you didn’t, now you know why I’ve mentioned him twice now. I’m a big fan of this guy.

He hated this role. Absolutely despised it. Apparently the show was a miserable environment to work in for everyone. The costumes were uncomfortable. The audiences were unbearable. There’s a making of for this show, which can be viewed on YouTube in its entirety - I’ve watched the whole thing more than once and you can see in every cast member’s eyes - there’s no light there. They’re all dead inside. It’s almost heartbreaking.  

To be clear - he’s the only one of these people I, or anyone else I’ve seen, ever makes fun of for this show. And that’s because he’s fine. He’s fine! He’s done very well for himself and talking about it won’t hurt his career, and there’s just always something really hilarious about seeing very successful people in terrible things, isn’t there? Chris Hemsworth in Saddle Club, Zach Braff in Babysitter’s Club, literally everyone in Foodfight. It’s not malicious or in any way intended to be punching down - just poking fun at a really good actor’s really bad early work. It’s not even really making fun of him, more that he was in this.

But there is one reason he hated the role that I don’t find so funny, and that’s that he felt the people that wrote the thing had made James a grossly over-the-top, borderline-to-over-the-line (depending on your tolerance) homophobic stereotype. And... yeah. They undeniably did that.  

Rannells understandably dislikes the character, and to be honest - that makes me a little sad. Knowing that musical!James is probably the only version of the character he (and likely a lot of parents who saw the show, and other cast members) ever really encountered, that’s a huge shame. Because if we go back to the anime the musical’s based on, the one I, and many others, grew up on, James is quite different. In fact, I personally consider anime!James to be the best character in the entire Pokemon franchise.

Why We Love Team Rocket 

Just want to quickly note that I can only discuss the anime up to about halfway through the Sinnoh seasons - I’ve seen basically nothing after that. My childhood was some original series, a lot of Hoenn, and a fair bit of early Sinnoh (somehow skipped over Johto almost entirely, don’t really know how that happened). If any of this is now not accurate, well - it’s not really relevant for this discussion anyway, but I still apologise. 

The Team Rocket trio, James especially, is, pretty queer-coded. This is not unusual for villainous characters in children’s media before the 2010s, so much so that I would guess that a lot of the time it wasn’t even being done deliberately - it was just that common a trope that it was all but expected your show would have at least one flamboyantly effeminate, villainous bloke. And James - especially early James - has no qualms about showing his feminine side:

Notice that Jessie adopts masculine attire to match - she doesn’t always do this, but I like that they have her at least do it sometimes. 

Team Rocket’s disguises became less and less likely to involve cross dressing as the show went on, but it’s one of the things best remembered about them. James also has a strong association with roses, and possesses several other feminine mannerisms. Arguably he’s far more downplayed than most other villains of the type (even more so than others present in Pokemon - Harley’s a great example, who was also, coincidentally, played by Andrew Rannells), but it’s present. And while yes, obviously in real life none of those things should be taken as definitive indication of a person’s orientation, and straight men are perfectly capable of twirling around in pretty dresses - in fact, I fully endorse it - this is fiction. Specifically fiction from the early 2000s. And in fiction, certain things are intended as visual cues and shorthand.

So I really, really doubt we were supposed to think James is entirely straight (I personally have always thought that he’s actually bi, but I’m not opposed to alternatives). You could make the case, but like. Come on.

But how is this different from musical!James? And how is this different than any other villain like him? Very simple. Anime!James has depth.

Not a tremendous amount. It’s a children’s cartoon made to cash in on a popular video game. But he, and Jessie and Meowth, are among the most well-rounded characters in the show’s cast, in a way that’s actually very relatable. It helps that they aren’t actually very villainous people most of the time. I know so many people who grew up with the show that loved, rooted for, and identified with them over the actual protagonists, by a mile. Myself included - I can remember two separate James-centered episodes that made me cry as a kid.

And these three are particularly beloved by young LGBT adults. We know from their backstories that they all came from rough circumstances - Jessie desperately poor and struggling to get anywhere or be recognised, Meowth having changed a fundamental part of himself in attempt to gain love and instead being ostracised for it, and James running away from an abusive household. They’re three people (/Pokemon) who felt alone in the world, that have now found each other. And whether you view Jessie and James’s relationship as romantic, friendship, or found family, it’s far more compelling than any other relationship in the show, at least to me. They may be criminals, but it’s not hard to see why some kids - especially the kids who might already feel like they’re just a bit different - would latch on to them. 

Even if you didn’t know James’s backstory, he still has a character. He’s frequently shown to be the most moral of the trio, he has a stronger bond with Pokemon than honestly even Ash - even more of a running gag than his flamboyance is the fact that his pets love him so much that they just wanna hug him all the time, with inevitable slapstick consequences - he has dorky hobbies like bottle cap collecting, and he’s even occasionally shown to be a bit of an environmentalist. Yes he is in many ways a stereotypical camp villain - but he’s also more. And that’s why we love him. 

And I’d bet anything there probably were some little boys who watched the show and saw James and thought ‘that guy’s like me!’. And yeah, that guy is a villain, because god forbid a maybe-gay character also be a good guy. But more than any other character like him that I’ve seen, he’s also always been a person. And considering how most of the other options kids like that had at the time were either one-note villains or nothing (and even now it’s sparse pickings) - that’s valuable.

And then there’s Pokemon Live.

*long, long sigh*

Oh, Pokemon Live. You beautiful disaster. 

What did you do to my boy?

Is there nothing that better encapsulates it than the bit where James asks Giovanni where Mecha MewTwo (...I know) “stands on campaign finance reform, social security and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”?

First off, I like that James is politically engaged! Good for him! Completely out of character, but still!

And I do find this line incredibly funny, but I want to be very clear about why I find it funny. The line is funny because referencing a real world American discriminatory military policy in a Pokemon musical is just... so completely absurd. It’s super jarring and when I first watched it, I had to pause it so I could stop laughing about the possible implications of Pokemon Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Is there a Pokemon American military then? Pokemon Democrats and Pokemon Republicans? Pokemon Bill Clinton? POKEMONICA LEWINSKY???

It just raises so many questions.

Also Rannells’s delivery is incredible.

But the thing is, that’s not the joke here, is it? The actual ‘joke’ is ‘HA HA HE’S GAY! HE SAID THAT BECAUSE HE’S GAY!’. Which gets even worse when you think about it and realise that this situation is really just a gay man (I don’t think there’s any doubt about it in this particular incarnation, is there) asking his boss whether or not he thinks people like him should be discriminated against. How is that a joke? (The answer is that it isn’t.)

Which makes it that much more inappropriate for a children’s Pokemon musical, which is sort of, in a dark way, almost funnier. It’s that juxtaposition of something kiddy and cute with something that definitely isn’t. 

But hilarious as I find it, given the chance to I would go back and get rid of that line. I dislike what it implies - that being a gay man is nothing more than a punchline - more than I like the absurdist humour. 

And that’s the whole problem with how they chose to write James for this whole thing. They took a really good example of how you can have this type of villain while also making him a good character, and they turned him into nothing more than a stereotype.

You could say ‘but it’s a much shorter story than a TV show! They wouldn’t have time to make him nuanced!’, to which I would say 1. He doesn’t have to be nuanced, he just has to be slightly more than I’M GAY and 2. There have been 21 Pokemon movies at time of writing, two of which came out before Pokemon Live did. None of them, at least of the ones I’ve seen, committed any character assassinations like this. The first one even had another baffling reference to real world America:

That’s so out of nowhere and silly that I laugh every time I think about it (the Minnesota Vikings are an American football team, if you didn’t know). See, Pokemon Live! It’s possible to do jokes like that which aren’t at the expense of a minority group! Wow!

The anime even has examples of how you can do the gay jokes and make them funny. They are very rare in the show (beyond the humour of James’s personality), but remember the whole Flaming Moltres joke? It’s actually great. It’s a couple of good puns, it’s possibly Rachael Lillis’s best delivery in the whole show, and, just for confirmation, I’ve shown the clip to a few actual gay men in my life, who all said that they think that it’s very funny, and totally non-offensive. The joke is still ‘lol he gay’, but it’s also a neat play on words, it feels very in character for both of them, and it doesn’t have the same malicious, taunt-y feel of the Pokemon Live ‘joke’.

Look, the Pokemon anime is far from perfect. There are lots of moments where you have to grit your teeth and remember when it came out. But it still gave us a really, really wonderful character, and he absolutely deserved better than this.

Do I Still Love Pokemon Live?

Yes.

Even with all of this, it’s still an absolute masterpiece of unintentional hilarity. In some ways, this makes it funnier. Of course, of course, it couldn’t just have terrible costumes and a nonsense plot and really, really bad rapping - of course it’s also kind of offensive. Of course it is. Why wouldn’t it be.

And I would love to talk about all the things I genuinely love about it, and maybe I will one day.

But the thing is, it’s also representative of everything that was wrong with gay-coded characters at the time, something that the show it’s based on came way closer to handling well than most other stuff of its time, no less. And that, as a whole, isn’t funny at all.

So I want to be clear. I love laughing at this show because it’s a weirdly earnest cash-in musical for something that definitely shouldn’t be a musical, with endless bizarre, quotable moments - not because the way it warped this character is actually funny. I love laughing at the character’s lines because they’re absurd choices for a Pokemon musical - not because they’re in any way funny on their own. And I love laughing at the fact that Andrew Rannells was in it because he is so much better than this - not because this is what I think he should be reduced to.

And speaking of, here’s those pictures I promised:

I love one man.