#[SHIP] ~Different Tracks - Same Daddy Issues~

[xhelenaxleblancx]

@xcharmedxheirsx | TO SERAPHINA 

          “Yeah, she says she wants ta get back ta bein’ sissys like we used ta be. Says she wants ta say sorry ‘bout all the bullshit that happened on Thanksgivin’.” Seraphina’s tone was NOTICEABLY ACCUSATORY -- And it was absolutely justified. Delilah was a calculating psychopath & she very well could (and probably would) be using this as an opportunity to push herself BETWEEN THEM. Especially considering her near-slip of the tongue during the argument that night. Skeletal digits carded anxiously through fiery locks -- “Told her I had ta talk ta you an’ that I’d call her back. She was nice ‘bout it.” TOO NICE.

[virginburial]

.·:*¨༺    me and your mama.      ♱   adrian chase   ༻¨*:·.

SUMMARY: in which you hate your mom jokes or alternatively, in which you, a member of the 11th street kids, try to crack down on butterflies, but get distracted by Adrian, which pisses you off.

SHIP: fem reader!adrian chase WARNINGS: explicit content (minors stay out), p n v, mommy kink, angry/passionate sex, public? sex i think this counts, unprotected sex, explicit language, random storytelling/porn with a plot

WORD COUNT: 5K

SONG: https://open.spotify.com/track/31tf1qEai5o5f4r66Kd0pU?si=243fada4a6d3487c

A/N: i’m writing this right before i have to go to work so i was not able to proofread all of this, so i apologize for any repeated words, incorrect grammar, and redundancies! anything for my best boy Adrian. yes this is based off the childish gambino song, sue me. REBLOGS, NOTES, AND COMMENTS ARE ALWAYS APPRECIATED !!      

                                .·:*¨༺♱༻¨*:·.

It was painfully obvious Adrian had a crush on you.

You joined the gang right around the same time he did. You weren't a vigilante or a hero, just someone stuck in a very sticky situation, like your best friend being a butterfly and also being close to Goff and the other powerful butterflies. It pains you to have to stop your best friend's plan for world domination. You once joked around that the world was yours - ours, it was ours. But the person you recognized as your 'bestie for life' wasn't there anymore. All it was, was a body with a parasite. Peacemaker and the other 11th Street members had to break it hard. Maybe it was your resilience and rebellious nature towards authority really stepped up when you decided to skip the grieving process and help Peacemaker stop the butterflies.

Peacemaker was a class act, a douche if you will, but the more time you spent with him, the more you realized that the behavior he adopted was just that; adopted. It wasn't his own. You wondered how he could've turned out if he had at least one decent parent in his life. Or better yet, not raised around American propaganda. Dye-beard - sorry, Economos, was just as pathetic as Peacemaker but on the opposite side of the same spectrum. You can admit that the beard is dyed, Economos. It's not that big of a deal. Harcourt was a brick wall, but you two had your similarities, leading to you being close with her. the daddy issues can hit home for any woman as standoffish as Harcourt; she was the kind of friend you'd get drunk with a fuck, and then never talk about it again, but knowing it brought you two closer than before.

Now, Adebayo was your substitute best friend.

Your personalities seemed to clash together perfectly, and your sense of humor meshed well, despite being two different people. You'd whisper and gossip to each other. Even if Leota claims she isn't much of a gossiper, she was. something you hated her for was whispering producer tags to you while Murn was going over plans to take over the Butterfly factory. Nothing can break the ever-so heavy silence than Leota gently saying: "We got London on da track!" in your ear. this usually upsets Murn, but you, Leota, Adrian, and Chris find it hilarious. Murn hates it. But he doesn't hate you and trusts you with some of the intel that he would rather keep from Adrian and Chris.

Then, there's Adrian.

Psycho, idiot, psycho-idiot hybrid. Adrian was a lot of things, including in love with you. eugh. Apparently, he's had a crush on you longer than you had even known about his existence. It was something Chris drunkenly told you; before your best friend was a butterfly, and you were happy and not involved with government conspiracies, Adrian would watch you eat at Fennel Fields with your best friend. He would just be so captivated by you that his boss would have to get on his ass about getting back to work. At first, you were slightly flattered by how Adrian would stare you down; you weren't used to the attention. Then he would say something so obnoxious that it would turn you off, or better yet, you pushed his advances to the side because you felt like even if you had Adebayo and Harcourt and Peacemaker and Vigilante; it won't replace the giant hole your best friend and others left for you. Maybe you were doing that thing where you feel like since you don't deserve the love, you push others away - something you have done in the past - or you were doing that thing where you sabotage the chances of something ever happening because it was outside of your comfort zone - once again, something you were guilty of doing as well. Besides, Adrian might've been heads over heels, but it's not like if anything was going to sprout between you two, it would last. For crying out loud; Adrian was a psychotic vigilante whose mouth operated faster than his brain, and you were...well, you. There was no fixing that.

Regardless of Murns distaste for the sound of your laughter and Adrian's obsession with you, you liked being a part of the 11th street kids, and they liked you. Yet, the butterfly issue was the only thing occupying your mind as you skipped out on going to the bar with the gang and stayed in the office to finish up some work. Economos nearly gave you a talking to about how to look up information on the database and how to properly cite sources and what not - not like you aren't familiar with Amanda Waller and knew how to do most of this already. Harcourt and Chris did try to drag you out for a night off with them, but you knew that Harcourt just wanted you there to be a buffer between her and Chris. Meanwhile, Chris owed Adrian a favor and thought he could play wingman for him. You rather skip out on that dumpster fire knowing that Adrian would make foursome jokes.

The LED lighting showed how your makeup had worn out throughout the day, but you still managed to look fresh. You were typing away at the computer on Economos desk. There wasn't much to it besides maybe one framed photo and a mug full of pens. You were typing away, researching some lead you got from your best friend's new friend - loosely use the term 'friend.' Your best friend had recently picked up a job at a factory three towns over. You knew better from the last factory bust that these had to be butterflies - that, and your friend as a college degree in anthropology and had a stable job in your state's capital as a museum curator. The job was your friend's passion before becoming a butterfly. As you start to narrow down your search, you hear the door rattle. You look up to see Adrian: knocking on the glass and trying to peek through the tinted windows. you feel your chest tense up with severe annoyance as you got up and swung the door open. "you left something in here?"

Adrian takes a second to think. "no-"

"then what are you doing here?" you ask.

he points down the street to the bar. "Peacemaker gave me twenty bucks to fuck off so he could be alone with Harcourt. I was bummed until I remembered you were having a sleepover here." his lips curl into a goofy smile. "what makes you think I want you here?" you retort. But Adrian just leans against the frame of the entrance. He doesn't seem to care all that much whether or not you wanted him around. He was just there, and you were going to have to deal with it. "would you rather me sleep at your mom's house?" he cracks up. You sigh. Adrian recently has taken up the opportunity to make Your Mom jokes every time and any time he could. It makes him seem very middle school the same way Axe body spray does, which he wears. It burns your nose. the old you would've laughed at his jokes, but you were too preoccupied with work to do so. you reluctantly moved away from the door as he entered. "don't distract me, Adrian, this is serious."

"promise I won't sidetrack you!" he confidently spoke as he sat down in front of Economos's desk and put his feet up, like some delinquent in detention. Vigilante was a delinquent, though, you didn't expect more or less of him as you sat down at your desk and began typing at the laptop. You tried getting back into your mojo, the whole reason you joined in on this operation. But having vigilante around makes it hard for you to focus. Adrian is a distracting person, both in the sense that he can get easily distracted and in the intent that he could cause others to get distracted. You carefully watch Adrian pick up the mug with pens and mess around with the one pen capable of many colors, watching him try to press down on all of them at once. The clicking was driving you crazy as you tried to combat it by loudly typing on the keyboard.

Adrian moves on to the fidget spinner.

You told Economos that those things don't work unless you had severe ADHD, which he didn't have. Leota also told him to get rid of the fidget spinner because it wasn't "2017" anymore. Now, it was in Adrian's possession, the one thing that worried you more than him trying to talk to you. You were starting to wonder if he was trying to get your attention, like he's done in the past. You bite your lip in frustration as the endless spinning of the spinner starts to occupy the space, the noise filling the room to the brim with annoyance as you stop typing and look at Adrian, who was so engulfed by the fidget spinner as it lit up and sparkled. You stared at him for longer than ten seconds before he noticed, in between then, studying his features, the craters, and freckles on his skin and his glasses. Of course, he wore grandma's glasses, like any average eighties serial killer. You wonder if he wore those under his suit as well. You snap out of your thoughts of what Adrian looked like under his suit as he snaps his attention over to you. "shit, sorry, Y/N." he says as he places the fidget spinner down.

you just kept staring at him, deadpanned. "...why are you here, Adrian?"

"peacemaker wanted alone time with-" "-I didn't ask what peacemaker was doing, I dunno why you're so codependent on him," you called out as you began writing down notes on whatever was showing up the screen. it didn't matter what it was; you were more focused on Adrian's response. "I am not codependent on peacemaker, and he's my best friend. we fight crime together-that's the reason I'm here." he expresses. "I don't think it's a crime to want to spend time with you and get to know you, you know," he mumbles under his breath as his fingers run across the rim of the fidget spinner. You suddenly start to feel bad, considering how you see peacemaker push vigilante aside a lot of the time. You thought it was because Chris had other things he needed to worry about, but giving Adrian money so he could fuck off and try to bang Harcourt? Low blow, and not a best friend. you sigh and close the laptop. "thought you knew everything about me already? y'know, being a bit of a Joe Goldberg and all."

"what?! no, gross. I would watch you eat at fennel fields with your friend, then watch you get into your car and drive away. Just because I know your favorite thing on the menu, the model and make, your mom's number, and your license plate number, doesn't mean I'm a literal stalker. Stereotype much?" he calls you out, sliding in another your mom joke as you lean back in your chair. You hate that he has a point, and you hate it even more that he knows all that information when you can't even remember your license plate number. you sigh a little. "guess you have a point...okay, fine, doesn't match up with how you wanted no one to know your secret identity-"

"my secret identity is Adrian. My real identity is Vigilante-" "-that's concerning, don't you think it should be the other way around?" you ask, seeing the look on his face change when he realized. you stare at him. "besides, Adrian seems a lot more interesting than Vigilante."

Once he hears you say that, his cheeks turn red. he couldn't even make eye contact with you after that comment. "Okay, um...I love being Vigilante. It's fun to beat up and kill bad guys. I mean, they were going to die anyway, but I rather it be me killing them than Batman stealing my thunder. I've worked at fennel fields since I was a teenager. It's just an easy way to make money. It's better than going into debt. plus, my mom wanted me to go to Gotham for college, would rather chop my nuts off." he starts opening up a little. "oh! my favorite movie is Kickass!" he said with a goofy smile. "I like PC games, I used to play dead by daylight before deciding to become vigilante, and I always play as-or main-GhostFace. I wanted to be president of India when I was six, don't ask me how I thought it would work. I just thought it would...I like Jimi Hendrix, but I think the best song in the world is Bedrock by Young Money."

You raise an eyebrow.

he glances at you. "you know...okay, I get it. Lemme think I guess it's my turn, maybe it's time to put this pussy on your sideburns-"

"-Adrian, I knew what song you were talking about. I was just surprised that that's your favorite," you explained. "I guess it's not the most shocking thing about you, despite you suddenly going manic pixie on me..." he gives you a lazy grin. "it's your mom's favorite song, too." he cracks up a little. You don't know how to explain to Adrian that a joke as repetitive as 'your mom' can only be funny the first few times. You decide to play his game, though. "oh yeah? That's not what your mom told me last night." you smirked at him, but he stares at you; does he not get his own joke? you ponder this as he narrows his eyes at you. "wait, what did she tell you-?" "-no, Adrian, I was joking around with you. I don't know who your mom is," you clarified again.

He looks down, smiling a little at what you told him, but you can tell he had something else on his mind; you weren't entirely sure what it was, but it managed to shut him up. You figured that maybe Adrian does have a social battery and that it was running low, or perhaps he preoccupied his mind for once so you could go back to work. You open back up the laptop and began typing again as Adrian started fidgeting around with his fingers. It was back to silence until he spoke up again.

"do you think I'm codependent on peacemaker?"

There it is. You gaze down at the keyboard, unable to say anything until you finally force it out of you. "sometimes, yeah...look, man, I get it. I'm putting my life on the line for my best friend. But peacemaker has some issues of his own and treats you poorly. If you ask me, he's not really a good friend to you-" "-what, and you are?" his eyes fall to your lips. "you seem really annoyed every time I talk, you don't listen to me, you don't laugh at my jokes, you let Adebayo convince me to go kill peacemaker's dad, you told me not to use the chainsaw-" "-you're a grown-ass man, Adrian, you can make your own choices." you nearly scolded him. "besides, you say the same your mom joke at any given moment. You don't understand my sarcasm, which is my sense of humor. So of course, I'm not going to laugh. You don't try hard enough." you exposed, you thought you were being a bit harsh on him, but no one told Adrian to come and bother you. he did that on his own.

"...your mom doesn't try hard enough."

"that's it!" you grumbled in frustration, having it finally catch up to you as you slammed your hand on the desk. "you are officially getting on my fucking nerves! Do you not realize that the only person I have left in my life is my best friend? Was my best friend? this is important to me, literally. What will it take for you to shut up?!" you started to get angry. Adrian looks at you as you keep on angrily rambling. "I'm getting a weird feeling that you're stressed-" "-of course, I'm fucking stressed! Can you not follow directions or something, Adrian?!" you start to feel anger rise to your throat. "can you just stop being distracting? What do you want? My full undivided attention? My number? do you want a kiss?!" in a moment of impulse, you lean over the desk and plant a sweet kiss on his lips, feeling him hesitate before kissing you back, but you were too angry with him to enjoy the kiss, and pulled away once he started kissing you back. "there! you can leave now." you push him back to his chair, seeing his cheeks turn bright red as his eyes pleaded for you to kiss him again, having them wander down to your body as if he was mentally undressing you. the anger you had was slowly turning into sexual frustration as he finally speaks.

"your mom kisses better than you-"

at that moment, you leaned over the desk again and smashed your lips against his, shutting him up as he eagerly kisses back. the kiss was rough, teeth clashing with each other as your noses bumped. heavy breaths colliding as Adrian hungrily bites on your bottom lip, you let out a small groan at the pain before pulling away, a small a trail of saliva leaving your lips as you noticed how crooked Adrian's glasses were from the brief yet intense kiss. his cheeks were bright red as his eyes lazily fall back to your lips. "woah..." he hums out. "i knew you needed to blow off steam but i didn't think it was like that-" "-stop talking." you reprimanded as you crashed into him again. the kiss was heavier this time, your jaw unhinging as you allowed his tongue to slip inside, letting him explore your mouth as you felt your lower back get warm from all the tension. Adrian lets out a small whimper as you grab a hold of the collar of his shirt, realizing how sensitive his skin was around his neck.

you pull away from the kiss and began panting as your eyes glance down at the desk between the both of you. a huge part of you wanted to push the desk away and attack Adrian with your lips again, but Adrian had a better idea. in swift fashion, Adrian wipes everything off the desk as you climb over it, he catches you in his arms, his hands finding solitude on your hips as he attaches his lips onto your neck. you sat on the desk and wrapped your legs around his waist. you were almost glad the windows on the outside were tinted, so none of the drunk bystanders and pedestrians could peek in and see sinful ways you were letting Adrian touch you. even though you were the one on the desk, you wanted Adrian to be the one not doing all the work, you wanted to shut him up, not the other way around.

your hands found their way into his curls as he continues to kiss down your chest, taking off his glasses since they were digging into your tits and getting in his way. you look down at him as his hand slowly goes up your shirt, feeling you until his hands stopped on your tits. a small moan left your lips as he excitedly tries to pull your bra off, having a little problem with the hook before you stopped him. like previously mentioned, you know that once he sees your tits that he wont stop talking about how perfect they were. the last thing you wanted to hear was how much he loved your figure, even though you knew he had a crush on you. you pull him up to face and kissed his lips before whispering: "let me take over." you could feel his face get warm against your skin. he nods as your hand run down his chest, stopping at his belt.

you let your hands glide up his shirt, feeling scars he probably got from his vigilantism and his toned muscles. "off. now." you ordered as you lifted his shirt up, helping him take it off as you lean forward and start nipping at the skin around his neck. Adrian immediately lets out a moan. "o-oh..." he whines out in surprise as his hand grazes the inner working of your thighs. you knew his skin was sensitive there. your teeth lightly graze the sweet spot before sinking them down his skin, breaking the first barrier as you suck a bright red and purple hickey on his collarbone. "fuck, Y/N-" he mumbles out as you feel his cock hardening against your thigh. you let his hand crawl up to your clothed clit and let him rub you.

chills ran down your spine as a small amount of pleasure started to consume you. you were so busy with what was going on with the butterflies, that you haven't really had much time for yourself. you haven't been to the gym in weeks, you would sometimes skip meals, and you haven't had time to please yourself because you stay up all night researching butterflies. Adrian sees right through you, and probably knew how sexually frustrated you were. you squeeze your thighs around his hand as that small amount of pleasure starts to overwhelm you and cloud your judgement. you wanted Adrian out, and now all you could think about was letting him in. you buck your hips and gently hump his hand before he plays with the zipper of your jeans. annoying both horny and not horny.

you leave another giant hickey adjacent to the first one you made, marking your territory as he tries to get into your pants both literally and figuratively. you pull away and glance up at him as you noticed how much he was struggling to get your pants up. you hold onto his shoulders as you lift your ass up, letting him pull them down to your ankles and exposing your red lace panties. "holy fuck...would it be weird if i called you mommy?" he looks into your eyes, you could see how big his pupils got when he looked at you, almost like he wanted this to be a thing you two could do every night. you breathlessly laughed, your hand finds his hardened cock as you softly squeezed it, running your fingers along his shaft as the friction from his jeans and boxers rubbed his lip. you felt his breath hitch as you forced Adrian to look down at you. "i don't give a shit j-just fuck me~" you whined.

"o-okay but i don't have a condom-" he stutters, sounding like a car struggling to turn on. but you didn't care. "i-i don't care." you told him. now it was your turn to mess with his zipper, unzipping it and sticking your hand in his boxers, trying to find the sleeve so he could just fuck you and get on with it. "fuck, mommy-" he whines out as his lips attached themselves back onto your neck, your hand trails along his boxers, caressing his cock through his boxers before eventually finding the sleeve and sticking your hand inside, causing Adrian to let out a loud groan. he was big, and no, not big in the way peacemaker is big (don't ask how you know, you just happen to know by accident) it was big both in length and width. you could feel it twitch in your hand as you spread your legs for him like it was a reflex. Adrian knew that you wanted him now, he wanted you just as badly. he pulls away from your neck and glances down at your panties, how wet they were getting as his middle finger slides through your clothed folds. you gasped. "fucking shit Adrian just fuck me already-"

without hesitation, he moves your panties to the side and gently slides into you. moans escaped both of your lips as Adrian rests his head on your shoulder, your hand going to the back of his neck as you hold onto the bottom of the desk, your fingers curling around the wood as Adrian's wood starts sliding in and out of your slowly. he was going too slow. and it was starting to bother you. you shake your head. "no no no, pull out." he does. "did i d-do something-?" he asks, but instead of answering, you just push him back to the chair. Adrian carefully watched you as you climb onto his lap and sit down on his cock, taking it all in and hearing another desperate 'mommy' leave his lips as he stares up at you, almost like he worships you. "you're so tight..." he whines out as you squeeze your walls around his cock.

it's almost like he belongs inside of you, how perfect it all felt that he was inside of you. without caring, you start to quickly bounce on his dick, picking up the pace every time he gave you a loom that told you he couldn't take it anymore. you knew that Adrian was sensitive sensory wise, so this was going to be easy. groans escaped him as his hands quickly go to your hips, trying to steady you and slow you down when you deliberately speed up. both of your cheeks turning a deep crimson as his tip starts to hit your G-spot. you let out a loud moan. "Adrian..." you cry out for him as he watches your tits bounce with each thrust. he was completely enamored with you.

"good fuckin' boy-" you moan out as he harshly holds onto you, creating bruises on your hips as the sound of your skin hitting his jeans echoed throughout the small red room. your clit hitting the button of his jeans with each hop was driving you over the edge as you felt adrian's thighs tense up. your stomach started to feel warm as you closely approach your high, but you stop yourself; seeing Adrian finally catch his breath. he begins to grab your ass, squeezing it as he stares up at you. you cockwarmed him, squeezing your walls but not moving an inch as Adrian groans. "don't tease me like that mommy-" he begs, before you raise your hand and slap him. you don't how what came over you to slap him the way you did, and you were almost sure that Adrian wasn't okay with it. you covered your mouth, your eyes widening. "holy shit Adrian i'm sorry i dunno what overcame me-" you try to apologize.

that was, before Adrian's eyes started to grow dark, you could feel his cock twitching around inside of you; he liked that. what a fucking sleaze. your mind started racing, wondering what else to do before Adrian decides for you. before you could say anything, Adrian quickly becomes dominant and picks you up, a small gasped left your mouth before he slams you onto the desk, hurting your back a little as he holds down your hips and starts thrusting into you furiously. his eyes glazed with lust as he grabs a hold of the red laced undies, he pulls them, marking your skin before completely ripping them off.

"oh fuck!" you moan out as Adrian hits every single spot you could think of. he was magic, because you were completely enchanted by how rough and amazing he felt. you should've slapped him a long time ago. your body begins to jolt with each thrust as Adrian's hands squeeze your shaking thighs. you don't know what over came you, but you wanted more of him, grabbing his hand and squeezing it as you started to cry out. his heavy breathing started to become apparent as sweat glistened his forehead. "i'm so close-" he mumbles. you didn't want to say it out loud, but it was obvious that you were close to. you squeeze your walls around his fast cock, hoping he'd cum in you because it was hot; also, you were going to go to the drug store later anyways, now you had a definite reason to go. your back arched as you felt your rolling orgasm hit you, your wetness leaked out onto the desk and onto Adrian's jeans, staining them as you let his hand rest on your stomach.

Adrian kept sliding in and out of you for a whole minute after you came, causing you to get turned on again, but you were exhausted, you suddenly felt your hole get warm as he let out a raspy moan. he came inside you, heavy breathes and all as he slowly smiled down at you, slowly pulling out and watching as cum slid out of your hole. he doesn't hesitate to scoop up the cum around your folds and stuff it back in you, his fingers curling and hitting the spongy part of your hole, causing you to arch your back. you were already so sensitive, that when he did it one last time, you felt your inner thighs tense up as you squirted a small amount on his hand. you couldn't help but helplessly stare up at him as you were sprawled all over the desk, both of you in complete shock at how quickly you guys went from being annoyed with each other to fucking each other. maybe your pent up rage for Adrian really was sexual attraction you refused to acknowledge.

Adrian props you up on the desk as you finally came down from your high, you watched as he got dressed, staring at him as you found yourself suddenly having feelings for him. you raise an eyebrow. "leaving already?" you ask. but Adrian shakes his head. "it feels weird to have my dick out and cuming in you with my pants on." he clarifies. "you're way better at sex than your mom is." he says with a lazy smirk. the you before you fucked Adrian would've begged him to shut up, but instead, you managed to crack a smile.

"fuck off."

                                               .·:*¨༺♱༻¨*:·.

buy me a coffee ૮⸝⸝> ̫ <⸝⸝ ა

[astoldbygingersnaps]

Harper’s 2021 Fic Wrap-Up

[sighs]

in some ways i’ve been Dreading making this post because my output this year is just

so much less than the previous year, and it’s lowkey depressing to see that reflected in words and numbers.

for all that 2020 was weird and messy and horrible, 2021 was easily a much worse year for me, and frankly one of the worst years of my life thus far. i’ve made references both on here and on twitter to why the year sucked so much ass and why i spent so much time away from social media and writing, but suffice to say a lot of factors contributed to me being The Ghost of Fanfiction past this year.

still! even though writing was hella difficult for me, i at least managed to turn a few things out this year, so let’s talk about them!

projects i worked on/completed in 2021:

lovers alone wear sunlight (shiita; 70,450 words; in progress):

on the one hand, it’s a fucking tragedy that after all the work i did last year i only produced one (1) chapter of star trek au, on the other hand, if i had to produce a single chapter of this fic in twelve months, i’m glad it was this one.

overall, i’m a lot less happy with LAWS than i was with the first two parts of star trek au, but i think that’s because this section of the story is so crucial and everything i’ve been building up to since day one so i feel like i’m kinda choking under the pressure. 

THAT SAID, i AM happy about how 3.3 came out and i’m glad that (almost) all of the cats are out of the bag. the truth is i’ve been waiting to write the confession scene between shisui and itachi for AGES, and it was both freeing and terrifying to rip that bandage off because i knew after this chapter things would never be the same. after danzogate we’re never going back to the comfortable mission of the week formula filled with wacky interactions with the crew and flirty, will-they won’t-they? banter between itachi and shisui that peaked in parts one and two. and, i’m sad to say it, but in the backend of part three things are only going to get Worse, my loves. whoops! 

HOWEVER, i also feel Incredibly satisfied comparing this chapter to the very first chapter of SBTTS, and seeing a) how much these characters have changed and b) how believable i feel like that journey has been. we’ve watched itachi go from an overly logical, pissy, stick-in-the mud fighting with his own nature to someone who, while conflicted, has found a way to make the two very different halves of himself far more cohesive. (whether this mindset will stick around after the events of the next few chapters of LAWS, well.. we’ll see!) 

meanwhile, shisui has gone from someone who, while a genuinely good person and a good leader, has let his flaws and fears take the wheel and has made some... um... interesting! choices! as a result! and said choices have pushed that deeply buried darker side to him that we first saw in the confrontation scene with kabuto in part two closer and closer to the surface. with that in mind, maybe don’t be too surprised if our boy goes just a liiiittle off the rails post-danzonapping... 

wow that was stupid long, but hey. i’ll always find a million and one words to say about my beloved star trek au. more than anything, i’m excited to get this story back on track and bring part three to its very explosive close, so stay tuned!

lazarus taxon (shiita; alternate universe; 22,315 words; in progress):

oh how i love this silly little fic. the funny thing is i originally came up with this idea for an entirely different ship and fandom YEARS ago, but i was never able to use it because said fandom went completely nuclear and was unfuckingtouchable (no, i won’t name names.) still, i loved it so much i was determined to find a way to reuse it, and considering i could find a way to turn a paper bag into a shiita au it was only inevitable we’d end up here.

more than anything, i love how fun this fic is. i love itachi as a cold, cynical businessman with a very deeply hidden heart of gold and enough daddy issues to fill a mosasaurus’ stomach and shisui as his manic pixie dream paleontologist one night stand. and, it was also a great opportunity to show off two of my biggest passions: dinosaurs and animal behavior. frankly, the levels of self-indulgent content in this fic are Unreal. 

as always, it’s a delight to write a less depressed, less traumatized version of itachi and see what kind of person he could be if he was just a weird little man with a dad who’s mean to him instead of y’know. a child soldier manipulated into committing genocide. meanwhile, it’s been a blast to peel back the layers of shisui as a character, and go from presenting him as this handsome, morally righteous man of mystery who shows up in itachi’s life to challenge his beliefs and push him to be a better version of himself to seeing the person he actually is.

the last chapter of this fic is like. halfway finished, but to be honest i’m not super happy about the plot beats and the pacing, so i might end up scrapping a good chunk of it. either way, i’m excited to bring this story to its conclusion and my goal is to have it finished by the end of the year, so we shall see what happens. 

take my hand, wreck my plans (shiita; canon divergence; 19,517 words; completed):

confession: in some ways, i kind of hate this fic. 

don’t get me wrong: i think it’s one of the better things i’ve written technically as the character/relationship progression is solid, the dialogue is solid, and i feel like it flowed really well. but also, there’s a not nice part of me that resents the fact that of all the things i’ve written, THIS is the fic that’s blown up when there are other projects i’ve put more work into that have gotten a lot less attention. and i hate to say that because i don’t want to be ungrateful, because i truly do cherish the comments and feedback, but it’s hard not to be a little bitter seeing other works of mine that i feel are more deserving flop. 

ON A MORE POSITIVE NOTE, i do love the way itachi and shisui’s relationship came through in this fic. it was a nice change of pace to take things back to canon and imagine the better future they could have had (and deserved!). and by working in a canon setting, it made the transition of a friends-with-benefits situation more believable to me because i think their friendship is genuinely one of the most compelling aspects of them as a ship. 

i also really like the potential of this setting and how in the moment where this story takes place both itachi and shisui are in a transitional period. they’re both growing up in a world where neither one of them really expected to live that long and dealing with what that means for them. for itachi, that’s moving towards a goal that previously seemed impossible (i.e., becoming the hokage), and for shisui that’s realizing he needs to get his shit together and stop hiding from the things he really wants (i.e., the cagey settling down conversation he had with itachi). 

also... the sex. i’ve said before i’m not a person that writes a lot of sex, but this fic definitely helped me get more comfortable working it into my writing. 

i’ve gone back and forth about whether or not i’d want to add anything else to this ‘verse. while i’d certainly be interested in exploring what a hokage itachi would look like in this au and how that would affect shisui and itachi’s relationship, there’s also something deeply appealing in having a project that’s actually finished. so, i’ll never say no to a sequel, but maybe don’t hold your breath waiting for one.

pack up (don’t stray) (shiita; alternate universe; 4,967 words; in progress):

seguing into what may be my favorite thing i wrote this year! i have to say i am sad that band au hasn’t gotten a lot of attention, especially because it was born from a period where i was really creatively struggling and really excited to share something i was genuinely inspired by, but what can you do.

in a lot of ways, this fic came to life because i was experiencing a lot of super intense and negative emotions and a bunch of stresses were piling up at once and i needed a place to put all the ugliness. but! it also came, like most of my fic ideas, from a shitpost alexa and i exchanged via text message that rapidly spiraled out of control.

mostly i was feeling like i was in a rut and like i was writing a lot of the same interactions and dynamics, so i wanted to take two characters i’ve worked with a lot and use them in a very different fashion than i usually do. in some ways it was weirdly nerve-wracking to intentionally write itachi and shisui, characters i genuinely love, in a way that was so unflattering and at times deeply ugly, but it was a good challenge. 

birk put it best by saying the tragedy of band au is that it’s just the story of two adults growing up and growing away from each other. the most important thing for me was that even though this was a story in itachi’s pov, i never wanted things to be one-sided or for there to be a villain, because i do feel like at the end of the day they’re both responsible for the demolition of this relationship (and, if you’ve read the previews for chapter two you’ll know that itachi is handling their breakup, um. poorly) 

(if you ask alexa tho she’s Team Itachi and shisui can die in a fire in this fic) 

(lowkey i’m Team Shisui but we don’t need to talk about it!)

anyway, i really deeply love this fic. i think it has some of the best writing i’ve ever produced and there are lines that to this day still kind of suckerpunch me in the heart if i think about them too hard. i won’t lie, the reception has dimmed some of my original interest in this fic, but it’s definitely still an active wip.

goals i have for 2022:

to be frank, i’m in a not cute place with a lot of things in my life and with writing in particular, so i don’t want to make a lot of huge goals and then feel crappy about not accomplishing them

that said, since the second chapter of atonement au is a scene and a half away from being finished, i think it’s a safe bet it’ll be done soon-ish.

the second chapter of band au is about 40-50% finished, so you should expect that by the end of the year.

jurassic world au is... well, we’ll get there.

to save the best for last, my love and light, star trek au. so help me god, if i don’t publish a chapter for her this year, it’s all over.

and that’s it! i wish i could feel as proud of this wrap-up as i did last year’s, but really all i can do is hope that 2022 will be a better, and kinder, year. as always, thank you to everyone who left comments and kudos and bookmarks, it really does mean the world even if i’ve been super MIA and haven’t been great about saying so. 

until next time!

[toujoursmiraculous]

Thoughts and Reactions to Truth!

Just going to go straight into it because this episode is huge! I really like how at the end of a season and the beginning of another, we see the same scene that leads us out of one and into another. Gabriel fixes the Miraculous and ohhh poor Dusuu thought it was all a dream, being in evil hands. So in a way, the Miraculous being damaged may have been a blessing for her. Dx Too bad it couldn't have been fixed after Marinette got it back :/ But at least Nooroo isn't alone right? Legit only positive I can get from this. ;-; Tikki and her little hats omg it's so cuuuute! I wonder if she makes her little clothes, too awww But the other Kwami's are almost like siblings to Tikki if you think about it. Now Tikki has to share things with them all as they cause chaos all around when she's so used to her quiet life alone with Marinette. Even for a Kwami, that must be hard to adjust to.

Okay so it's almost Prince Ali's birthday that Paris is going to celebrate. Interesting! I'd really like to see him back and a storyline with that. :O Marinette holding something, clearly, that the girls can't see over video chat. Talking to what appears to be herself, reacting to what someone's saying from different sides of her room. Camera flashes going off. And then her phone getting yeeted at her all on a video call with her friends when she's supposed to be alone...considering they're all going to have Kwami's and learn some things later as they become heroes, I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if they think back to this scene someday! OH WAIT spoiler for the upcoming episode Gang of Secrets!!! Fair warning. What if this episode with the plushies she said she's going to make, is one of if not the reason they go over and are looking around her room? Because she's been acting sus and they want to know what's going on. Especially after what happens later in the episode with Luka. Okay, back to the episode itself. Her friends observation: You're acting way weirder than normal.... IS ADRIEN AT YOUR PLACE?! I mean, fair point. xD But the thing is, whenever Marinette tends to act weirder or say/do things that Alya and the girls don't understand, it's almost always connected to her being Ladybug/Guardian. Even Lila. If she wasn't Ladybug and dealt with her so much as her, she wouldn't know a lot of things that made her not trust Lila to begin with. So Marinette has to overcompensate to try to hide everything or can't explain her thoughts or feelings about certain situations, so Alya always just assumes her behavior has something to do with Adrien. It really sucks but at the same time, what else is she going to think?

These Kwami are a lot of trouble. xD Now she's even more frazzled, so she calls Luka Adrien. More than once. I've done this where I call my siblings the wrong name more of than I'd like so I can't fault her for it. Her mind's probably a mess, poor girl. Dx "I'm sorry it's just that I cheated on you!" BIG OOF. But this gives me Kim Possible vibes when Ron assumed Kim didn't want him anymore and told her he was cheating on her when he meant to say he was cheating to be on the football team so he could be more worthy of her when he thought she wanted to "trade up" her boyfriend. Our poor Marinette! So frazzled she can't remember when her dates are, when they've been rescheduled. She can't remember her patrols with Chat Noir which are really important. She's getting to the point where it's going to be a wonder she can even function. Dx "But Marinette and I are such a big fan of his" wow this sure hits different. The way they kept quizzing each other to finish the sentence with Jagged Stone trivia was pretty cute. Luka having her finish the line with "Kiss me" that she screamed to the entire theater made me choke on my cake. "Well, if that's what you want." Smooth. "I think, yes. I want to." But you know, it gets interrupted by an akuma attack of course because that's just the way things work! :D And wouldn't you know it, it's Mr. Pigeon. AGAIN. Totally worth interrupting the moment lol Ladybug can't pick and choose, however, so here comes the sequence where she's constantly running off and he starts doubting her. Notice the parallel when Marinette started to like Luka after Adrien could never show up to things? Now Marinette's having trouble showing up and Luka's having issues with it. The second Chat Noir started to sneak up on Ladybug, we all knew he was going to get flipped. But it's so adorable and funny at the same time I love it x333 And that whole scene there of Ladynoir. Obviously it's a Lukanette-centered episode but the Ladynoir in this episode! So good! And you know, it's interesting. First time we see Adrien this episode is for FIVE whole seconds! And the way it abruptly cut off as he opened the car door... yeah you know what, Lies is going to be Adrien's POV or something of this same day. It has to be. He has 2 total scenes one of them is 5 seconds and the other one is 2 seconds. Crazy. We got about 7 seconds of Adrien's face today woo! But ugh here's where we get hurt Luka ;-; "A girl, who as always, isn't here." Ouch. The fact that if Marinette said she loved Adrien still, he'd understand and he'd get it is so sweet, and so sad that it's not even because of that, it's because she's Ladybug and the Guardian and she can't say a thing about it to him at all, that he can't accept. It's the one thing he couldn't deal with that's the issue and that really sucks. AND THIS MOMENT RIGHT HERE HAD ME GASPING AND HURTING FOR LUKA. IT'S THE MOMENT HIS HEART BROKE

But also really guys, did you notice his eyes are different now? Almost like a blue diamond look or something.

Luka trying to fight it, trying to tell Hawk Moth that the truth needs to be willingly told, not forced. But stupid Hawk Moth's able to get him to hold on anyway and gets akumatized. But not before he told Marinette to run. Which was such an awwww moment. x33 I mean, this is definitely getting a bit close to Chat Blanc territory if you ask me. New transformation music is pretty good! I like it. Also can we just appreciate that instead of trying to track down Marinette to get the truth from her, he's instead asking all her friends and family, pretty much any source besides her? AND ROSE'S RESPONSE "Marinette has no secrets because she's the most honest girl in the world!" She thinks so highly of her and it's just so beautiful. Nobody would blame her for these secrets if they only knew either. But awwwwww I love this scene!! And here's the big reveal! (no not that one) Jagged Stone is Luka and Juleka's father. 😮

Thomas today tweeted that Luka and Juleka are twins. Which would have to be fairly obvious after this reveal. There's no way that Jagged, who says he'd be a lame dad and left because he wasn't cut out for it, would have Luka with Anarka, then stay long enough to also have Juleka. I also totally forgot that in the French version, Jagged has an American accent when he speaks. XDD Just the fact that even WITH his truth powers, he asked his mother TWICE who his father was. Both times she said Jagged Stone. He still didn't believe it until he went to Jagged himself omg. This poor poor boy. Luka: 😱*gasp* Marinette: 😲 *gasp* Adrien: 😮 WHY IS THIS SO FUNNY OMG. LIKE I'M WATCHING A TELENOVELA OR SOMETHING. THEY EVEN ZOOMED IN ON THEIR REACTIONS I CAN'T And then Luka just yeets his dad because he wasn't ever there for him. I honestly did not expect Luka having dad issues to ever be a thing in this show, even though I knew he wasn't around. So like... when everything's worked out with Marinette and Adrien in the end, will Luka and Adrien end up becoming friends and bonding over things, like the whole daddy issues thing...? Are we really supposed to believe she has no feelings for Chat Noir? I mean really, look at this.

"I can't imagine what your daily life must look like" ... is she really actually being the one to bring up something about his secret identity? With that face? 😲

Their flirty banter that at this point I don't even think they realize it is, and those soft looks I just... My top ship is Ladynoir and I was not expecting any significant moments of theirs but I got it anyway. Just watching their scenes, I kept going "See, this is why they're meant for each other." My heart is happy despite all the Luka pain! It's helping me cope with it, okay? "When you're ready, I'll be here for you, Marinette." Awww so they're telling us Lukanette is on hold here. Not a guarantee, but at least on hold. He's an option for her later. So now the Adrienette vs. Lukanette for S4 we heard about awhile back makes sense now. Later on this season, probably when things calm down and she gets the hang of things, she'll be in a better position to be with someone. And by then, Adrien will probably realize and understand his feelings for Marinette. So then she'll be in a position to choose between them. Now we know where Luka gets his ability to turn emotions into great songs. That's adorable! Father-son bonding! Gabriel needs to take notes when a man who was never in his son's life as more than his idol has the ability to try to be there, but Gabriel can't. Ugh our poor Marinette, probably thinking she's going to be alone for a very long time just because of a supervillain. That's so wrong she has to feel like this. If you notice, Hawk Moth's akumatizations help people patch up relationships so much of the time as a weird unexpected result of an akuma attack. And yet, he does nothing but hurt Marinette and at times Adrien, the most when he akumatizes people. He makes me so angry! But I'm too tired for a rant about that. At least the Kwami hugs at the end helped a teeny bit anyway! c:

[chickensarentcheap]

Never Gonna Be Alone- Chapter 43

Title: Revelations

Warnings: profanity, angst

Tagging: @c-a-v-a-l-r-y, @alievans007, @innerpaperexpertcloud, @miss-smutty, @tragiclyhip​

He’s out the door by five thirty in the morning; leaving behind the warmth and the comfort of his home and making the five block trek to the Hudson River. With no fresh snowfall, the sidewalks and streets are remarkably clear; milder than normal temperatures slowly melting the waist high banks and turning patches of ice into puddles of muck and slush. His strides are long and purposeful. Soles of his runners crunching as they pass over neatly and tightly packed snow; following the foot tracks that earlier pedestrians have left behind. Chin tucked into his chest and his hands shoved in the pockets of his hoodie; anxious to get to his destination and start the day off in the right frame of mind. The headphones worn over a black beanie render him oblivious to sounds of life taking place around him ; the pounding of the music blocking out the sounds of traffic and the rattles and bangs that accompany the city garbage trucks. While he doesn’t make eye contact with those he passes, he notices the nods of greeting; meeting them with the brief turning up of the corner of the mouth and a slight head nod of acknowledgment. It’s what he enjoys most about the area and what eventually sold him on the idea of buying the brownstone; people are friendly enough to smile or offer a quick ‘good morning’, but don't possess enough curiosity to actually stop and speak.

He’s never been a social butterfly. Popular in high school, he’d blended in easily with the ‘jocks’ simply because of his athletic prowess and fairly good looks; girls wanted to date him, guys wanted to befriend him and hang out and attend beach parties. And while he’d followed the mantra ‘fake it until you make it’ and managed to stay quietly on the sidelines, he’d never been entirely comfortable with his status as one of the ‘cool kids’. The guy who’d get irritated when his buddies would make fun of the less popular kids; easily flying off the handle and calling them out on their shit if they said anything degrading towards the special needs students or dared to lob sexual comments towards females. He’d felt more in tune with the ‘loners’; the ones who’d hang out in the back of the cafeteria with their noses shoved in books or who’d eat their lunch sitting in front of their lockers.

It’s how he’d met his ex wife; a newly arrived grade nine student whose family had just moved Port Douglas from Perth. Taller than most females he’d ever encountered, she’d had a thicker build that both guys and girls consistently made fun of; broad shoulders and muscular legs and well defined arms. Shy and soft spoken and never making eye contact with anyone in the hall; thick, wavy blond hair falling over her face as she ignored the whispers and the stares and kept her books and binders clutched tightly to her chest. He’d been the first student to approach her; the last football player to leave practice and finding her sitting on a curb outside of school, waiting for a ride that was running late. And she’d seemed both stunned and terrified when he actually spoke to her; standing above her still clad in his now muddy and sweat soaked practice gear, helmet tucked under one arm and his backpack slung over a shoulder. Introducing himself and offering both a hand in greeting and a ride home; quickly discovering that she had a beautiful smile and the most stunning green eyes he’d ever seen. And she’d made him feel things that none of the other girls ever had; never experiencing that immediate and intriguing spark with any of the prom queens or the cheerleaders that he’d attempted relationships with in the past.

“I know who you are,” she’d said, nervously tucking her hair behind her ears. It had shimmered in the sunlight; the lightest and most beautiful shade of blond that he’d ever laid eyes on. “Everyone talks about you. You’re like the most popular guy in school. Yet you don’t act like that. You’re not a total ass to people. You’re different.”

It had been the first time that anyone had ever told him that. Truly believing that the company he’d kept had painted him in a far different light. Guilty by association because those he hung around were boisterous and crude; convinced that being good at sports meant they ran the school and didn’t have to show respect to anyone. And it had made him feel good; being seen as kind and compassionate doing wonders for his ego in a way no touchdown or goal scored ever could.

She’d accepted his ride home that night. And the request for a date before she slipped out of the car. Two weeks later they were inseparable and considered themselves ‘exclusive’; holding hands in the hall and having lunch together every day and spending nearly every waking hours outside of school with one another. He was convinced that he met the love of his life and that she’d be the one he’d marry and have a family with. Grow old with.

It had started out well; a brief engagement and married only a week after graduation. She’d been certain she could handle the life of a soldier's wife; he was new to the military but extremely committed and determined to make a lifelong career out of it. And for the most part they’d been happy; a little house not far from his home base, a tight circle of both military and civilian friends, the honeymoon stage lasting well into the second year. Everything changed once he received his first deployment; eight weeks in Afghanistan that quickly turned into six months. When he’d returned home, he’d begun hearing the rumours; she was angry at his absence and his inability to call home on a regular basis and sought solace in the arms of not just one man, but many. He hadn’t wanted to believe it, and she’d been convincing when he’d confronted her about it; pledging her undying love for him and assuring him -with both words and her body- that he was the only man that she’d wanted.

He’d been an idiot. For years. So smitten that he hadn’t wanted to accept the truth and refused to walk away; seeing her as his ‘be all and end all’ and not wanting things to come to an end. He DID love her. Probably a lot more than she had ever loved him. He’d been so terrified of abandonment, that he’d held on even tighter; he’d lost the only other woman he’d ever loved at a very early age and couldn’t stand the thought of losing Sarah too. So he put up with it; sticking by her side no matter how many notches on the bedposts she lodged and no matter how rampant the rumours and the gossip became. Soon that love turned into resentment and sheer tolerance. Letting her live her ‘double life’; pretending to be a happy and adoring couple in public yet knowing she was off running around behind his back the second he was shipped off for a tour. His drinking became a problem; booze numbing the heartache and the loneliness and giving him an escape from the miserable reality of his life. And he’d been a week removed from filing for divorce when the pregnancy test came back; she was expecting a baby and she was adamant it was his despite all the evidence that told him there was no way he could possibly be the father. He couldn’t leave her like THAT. He’d be viewed as the bad guy; the asshole that had ended his marriage WHILE his wife was pregnant. So he’d changed his plans; vowing that he’d stay by her side no matter what and that he’d be the best father and family man he could possibly be.

He’d been in Iraq when Austin was born; informed of his son’s arrival while in Mosul and immediately sent home. And he’d known right away that the kid wasn’t his the second he’d looked at him; not a single feature that could be attributed to either father OR mother. But it hadn’t mattered. The second he’d held Austin in his arms and all of those tiny fingers had curled around just one of his, Tyler had made his decision; he’d stick around and be the boy’s daddy and love him a way he never thought it was possible to love another human being. He’d be the kind of father his kid could one day brag about; attentive and patient and compassionate. Never would he be like his old man. He would cut back on his drinking and get help with his anger management issues and his wife would never have to worry if he’d wander and find someone else; throwing himself one hundred percent into their marriage and in raising a family together. Even if it meant that he’d never be truly happy and that she’d continue her dalliances whenever he was stationed overseas. He’d stay committed to her no matter what; his son never having to grow up without both parents under the same roof or suffer from the trauma of being from a broken home.

The cancer had changed everything. The stress behind caring for a terminally ill child had brought out both his and Sarah’s true sides; they didn’t love each other and could barely stand being in the same room together and all of the pretending and the faking was just wearing them down and making things even worse. But he’d admired her; her commitment to caring for their rapidly deteriorating son, the steadfast determination to beat it ‘no matter what’, and the rock solid courage she displayed when it was evident Austin’s time on earth was coming to an end. And despite her mistakes and her failures as a wife, she HAD deserved better. She had needed a man that would support her; someone that would hold her while she cried and lift her up during the especially dark and trying times and would be by her side during funeral preparations. He’d failed her; running away when things became too painful to witness. And in the end, he’d failed his son as well. Leaving him alone and scared; his final moments on earth spent wondering what he’d ever done to make his father hate him THAT much.

It’s been seventeen years and sometimes it hurts just as much as it did the moment he got the news. The loss still painful and immense; a part of his heart forever torn out of his chest and never able to be put back into place. And it isn’t just the unexplainable and often unbearable sorrow that comes with losing a child; so powerful and pronounced it can bring even the toughest of men to their knees. It’s the guilt and the regret that continue to haunt and eat away at him; silent and waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike. It comes when he’s at his lowest; when the combined mental illnesses are rearing their ugly heads and threatening to drag him down. That’s when the voices come out to play; the cruel and the degrading whispers in his ears that insist he’s EXACTLY the monster that he’s made himself out to be. The kind that abandons those he loves when the going gets tough; physically brave, but an emotional coward. They remind him not only of the mistake he’d made with Austin but those he’d committed within the last twelve and a half years; the lies he told and the promises he broke and the times he raised his voice or put a fist through a wall. The moments he’d slipped and given in to his addictions; the fear of being a failure as a husband and father pushing him to not only the job, but the bottle and the pain meds as a form of coping and a means of escape.

Normally he’s able to fight those voices off; years of therapy -and an extremely patient and attentive wife- helping him develop healthy coping mechanisms. The water remains his favourite and most successful form of escape; the familiar scent of salt that hangs heavily in the air, the sounds of the waves as they roll up onto the shore, the sun's powerful and often punishing rays glistening on the rippling surface of the ocean. Sometimes it’s a couple hours spent surfing; the feel of the wind against his face and crispness of the water that seems to cleanse his very soul. There’s days where it’s as simple as a walk along the ocean line; the water lapping at his ankles, wet sand cushioning and moulding around his feet. Or a hike through the forest across from their home. Taking a well beaten path that snakes and winds through the dense gathering of trees and leads to a small clearing; a small wooden staircase he’d erected shortly after they’d moved into the house giving access to a patch of pristine, white beach. It’s a tiny piece of solitude; tucked away and unseen from even the edge of their main property. And they’ve ventured there together many times; taking along that faded and tattered plaid blanket and a picnic lunch and taking advantage of every minute of quality time granted to them. Reconnecting in many ways; playful bantering and light hearted teasing, deep and emotional chats revolving their respective childhoods and the shared loss of the only parent that had loved either of them. Even after twelve and half years there’s never a lull in conversation; always something new and long buried that’s brought to the surface and finally shared after decades of locking it away. It’s never boring when they’re together; a strong friendship and a unique and powerful bond -cemented during that difficult and terrifying time nearly thirteen years ago- serving as a stable foundation for everything else built upon it.

The riverfront is quiet. A half a dozen dog walkers and one lone jogger. The latter a middle aged woman in top of the line athletic gear that he’s encountered a handful of times over the past three years and always offers him a warm smile and a nod in greeting. He pauses at the railing; checking for any missed calls or text messages and taking his time to stretch and warm up. The body feels good today; the stiffness and the pain minimal, the warmer than usual temperatures keeping any arthritis flare ups at bay. There’s a distinct connection between his physical condition and his mental one. When his body feels healthy and he’s able to skip the daily cocktail of pain meds and exercises learned during physio, his mental condition isn’t as fragile. The burden of stress and torment that normally sits upon his shoulders suddenly seeming so much lighter; the usually bottomless and fermented wound in a long ago broken heart not seeming so gaping or festering. He feels energized and renewed; a deep and peaceful sleep and a pain free morning making him feel as if he’s prepared -mentally and physically- to take on the world. It’s still there; the black cloud of depression that hangs over him. But it doesn’t seem so ominous or menacing; those slivers of hope and positivity managing to sneak through.

He takes a moment to relish the view. The peek of the sun on the horizon, the glistening of the snow and the chunks ice that have taken up inhabitance on the surface of the Hudson, the faint glimmer that plays off the windows of the skyscrapers in the distance. There’s moments where he’s truly content here; enjoying the change of pace and admiring the vast differences between New York City and home. Today is one of those days; he feels secure in both where he is and WHO he is. A welcomed outsider as opposed to a strange and mysterious interloper. It’s a reminder that home is wherever his heart lies. His wife and his children sound asleep; warm and safe in their beds only blocks away.

SHE’S his heart; the person that came into his life and turned his world upside down and reminded him that he was still very much alive and had so much more living left to do. Showing him -for the first time in thirty five years- what it was like to be TRULY loved; wholly and completely and unconditionally. Someone so bright eyed and light in heart and spirit; managing to love life and everyone in it despite all of the pain and the suffering that they’d been put through. Giving him what he’d hadn’t even realized he needed; a normal life with everything familiar and mundane and domestic that came with it. Someone to wake up to in the morning; a sleepy smile and soft lips against his own, hands reaching for him and a warm body pressing against his. Going to bed with them every night; those remaining conversations that take place in a darkened, quiet room and the intimacy shared and the love and appreciation expressed.

Once more removing his phone from his pocket, he selects a different playlist and jacks the volume up on his headphones; drowning out the world around him and concentrating on nothing but breaking a sweat and pushing his body to its limits.

*****

It’s shortly after seven when he returns to Gramercy Park. Layers of clothing sticking to sweat soaked skin, beanie long discarded and shoved in his pocket; hair damp and sticking up in several different directions. The tips of his ears and his cheeks flushed from both the chill in the air and the effort and energy he’d put into his run; slow and steady at first, then legs and arms pumping as hard and powerfully as they possibly could. He feels invigorated; a level of energy and exuberance that he hasn’t encountered in weeks. Maybe even months. And it’s a welcome change. Feeling healthy AND content at the same time.

Before returning home he stops at the bodega at the end of the street; filling a basket with the various items Tanner had scrawled onto a post-it note he’d found attached to the fridge. The kid never fails to both surprise and amaze him; constantly finding recipes or ‘science experiments’ on the internet and always insisting on trying his hand at them. Forever curious; holding onto that innocence and that joy and wonder for far longer than any of his older siblings ever had. Phenomenally intelligent and talented; teaching himself how to play the guitar and the piano by ear, his paintings and drawings always appearing as if they’re done by someone so much older and possessing an experienced eye. Emotionally mature and wise, but socially lagging; unable to form friendships and constantly feeling awkward surrounded by groups of people and easily overwhelmed by too much activity and noise. Yet so empathetic and compassionate; easily and powerfully feeling other peoples’ emotions and his moods and behaviour dictated by the mere energies people give off when around him.

The bodega owner greets him with a broad smile and a friendly nod when he approaches the counter. A first name and very few details kind of friendship; Frank the sole proprietor and only full time employee since the store’s opening forty years ago. Short and stocky; a headful of curly salt and pepper hair and a thick moustache and a heavy Bronx accent. Both know very little about the other; talk mostly revolving around the weather and current events and Frank’s never ending curiosity about life in Australia and his overwhelming desire to visit and one day retire there.

“Alone today,” Frank comments, and moves to the small coffee bar -nothing more than a handful of machines and containers for milk and cream- behind the register. It’s an understanding between them; Tyler never needing to ask and Frank knowing his standing order. “That doesn’t happen often. Normally you’ve got at least one or two rug rats hanging off ya.”

“Gotta sneak out when I can.” He empties the contents of the basket onto the counter; the latter he stores in the rack at the end of the counter. “How’s business?”

“Quiet. Same thing every Christmas. The elite like to get away. They’re going to where you’re from, and your kind are coming here. Must be quite the culture shock, huh? Going from the sand and the sun to this crap?” It’s a typical conversation starter; the same opening question Tyler’s been asked every single visit for three years running.

“It’s a change, that’s for sure. Can’t say I wouldn’t rather be back in the sand and the sun. But…”

“But the kiddos and the sweetheart like it. I get it. When my daughter moved to Phoenix with her husband about ten years back, she insisted on coming back here every Christmas. Missed the cold and the white shit too much. Who the hell is crazy enough to miss THAT?”

“Wife says it’s the magic of the season. Wants the kids to experience it. White Christmas and all that. And they enjoy it; skating, sledding, snowball fights, all of that crap. If they’re happy, I’m happy.”

“I hear ya there. Makes a man’s life much more easy and relaxed, that’s for sure. If the littles and the wife are happy, things are a lot more pleasant, know what I’m saying?. They all doing well?”

“No complaints. Got spoiled at Christmas, Aunt’s coming to visit today, big brother’s getting married in three days…”

“Busy, busy. Not rest for the weary. How’s that cute little wife of yours?”

“Still little. Still cute.”

“How you holding up? Must be hard being away from home. From what you’re used to.”

“I miss it,” Tyler admits, and nods his appreciation for the coffee that’s set down in front of him; black, no sugar. “It’ll be nice to get back. It’s quieter there. No one really around. Just our own slice of paradise. Private. Just the way I like it.”

“You definitely are a stickler for your privacy, aren’t ya.”

“I’ve got my reasons. For keeping to myself.”

“Just not a people person, huh?”

“I like people. Some don’t like me. It’s better if they keep away. Especially from my family.”

Frank nods in understanding, then begins ringing up and bagging the purchases. “Gotta like a man that will defend and protect his own, no matter what.”

“You do what you gotta do,” Tyler reasons, reaching into the pocket of his hoodie when he feels his cellphone vibrate against him. Eyes narrowing and a frown playing on his lips when he reads the text sent by his wife; complaining about being woken up from a dead sleep by the ‘new nuisance in town’ repeatedly ringing the doorbell.

He was confident they’d seen and heard the last of Natalie. While he’d been grateful for her assistance in the American Girl store during Addie’s disappearance, he’d made it perfectly clear that he wanted nothing more to do with her. His already agitated and guilt stricken mood made even worse but yet another attempt on her part to proposition him; boldly stating in front of other customers and his children and granddaughter that while playing hard to get only made him sexier, it was time to put an end to the games. It was obvious -in her mind- that he was attracted to her and was only holding back out of a sense of loyalty and obligation to the woman who’d given him seven offspring.

The sex would be off the charts, Natalie had whispered in his ear, and brazenly attempted a crotch grab while waiting in line at the register. Not caring about the still sobbing Addie in his arms and tightly clinging to him, or the furious glares that Brookie was shooting in her direction. He hadn’t been kind in his rejection; angrily yanking her hand away with enough force to cause her to wince in pain and for his fingers to bruise the skin around her wrist. And he’d kept his tone low yet forceful when he’d told her to back off; he wouldn’t tolerate blatant disrespect towards his wife, especially in front of two of the children she’d not only hand in creating, but had carried inside of her.

“Bad news?” Frank inquires, and pushes the plastic bags across the counter.

“Something I’d rather NOT be dealing with.” He tucks his phone back into his pocket and checks the total on the register; pulling forty from his wallet and waving off the change when Frank begins to hand it over. “But it’s probably better in my hands that my wife’s.”

“Feisty little thing, ain’t she,” Frank chuckles. “I still remember when she told that one kid off for checking out your one girl. Your oldest. She was over there looking at the magazines, minding her own business, and some fucking high school joker was checking her out and making comments to his buddies. Your wife certainly isn’t afraid to mix things up, is she.”

“You don’t mess with a mumma bear. She’s tiny, but she’ll rip you apart,”

Frank grins, “Bet that makes you toe the line, huh?”

“I long ago learned what buttons NOT to push. She looks all cute and sweet and innocent, but trust me, that girl can fuck someone up. I’ll probably see you later.” He gathers up the bags in one hand, cup of coffee in the other. “TJ and Declan will want to come by. They also do when you get the new Archie comics.”

“Already put two aside from them. Gotta treat my best customers right. And speaking of that privacy you like so much…”

Tyler pauses in the doorway.

“You ain’t gonna like what I have to tell you.”

“Not when you put it like that I won’t.” He once more approaches the register. “What’s going on?”

“Someone’s been in here a few times asking about you. And your family. I meant to tell you yesterday, but you had the girls with you and I didn’t want to bring something up that might spook them or upset them.”

“Someone from the neighbourhood?”

“A newcomer. Some woman. Tall, blond, need a power washer to get all that crap off her face. Why do women do that? Why do they feel the need to smear on the war paint? Looking like damn clowns is what they look like. I don’t want to be stuck in the rain with a girl and turn around and look at her and find damn eyebrows washed away, know what I’m saying? Wake up next to them and all the makeup is gone and you no longer recognize them and you think some strange woman snuck into bed with ya in the middle of the night.”

“What did she want, Frank? What did she want to know?”

“Little questions, mostly. Mostly about you and your wife. How you met, what her name was before she met you, where she’s from originally, family life. That kind of thing. Wanted to know your last name but I told her I had no clue. First names only. That’s the way it’s always been.”

“Ask anything about my kids?”

“Just wanted to know their ages, school grades, stuff like that. I didn't have any info to give her and I told her that much. Also said even if I DID know, I wouldn’t cough it up to her or anyone else. Awful nosey, don’t you think? Trying to get up in a man’s business like that?”

“She’s definitely treading on thin ice. I appreciate it. That you wouldn’t tell her even if you did know that stuff.”

“Ain’t nobody's business what you do with your life. And it especially ain’t none of their concern when it comes to children. That’s just creepy as hell, if you ask me. Think she’s up to no good? Trying to cause trouble? With you and the missus?”

“I don’t know what she’s up to.” He moves towards the door. “I’ll find out though. One way or another. Thanks for letting me know. And for having our backs.”

“You and your family have been nothing but good to me, figure I should return the favour. Let me know how it turns out, would ya? Once you find out just what she’s up to. Inquiring minds want to know, and all.”

“I’ll let you know,” Tyler promises, and uses a forearm to push open the door.

“Hey!” Frank calls to him, and he pauses on the threshold. “What IS your last name?”

“Drummond.” The lie rolls easily off the tongue. Almost TOO easily.

“Tyler Drummond,” Frank nods as he considers it. “Got a nice ring to it. You know, you don’t look like a Tyler.”

“Yeah,” he grins, and steps out the door. “So I’ve been told.”

*****

He finds her in the kitchen. Back turned towards the doorway as she waits for the toaster to finish its cycle; repetitively tapping the end of a butter knife against the granite countertop as her body repeatedly shifts weight from one side to the other. Well known evidence of agitation and simmering anger; body always needing to be in motion, anxiety propelled nervous ‘tics’. She’s been fighting her own battle against mental illness for longer than he’s known her; the years of psychological torment inflicted by her mother -and eventually an emotionally, physically, and sexually abusive husband- leaving wounds far deeper and more punishing than anything his body has ever experienced. Medication and therapy have helped, as has finding her own ‘niche’ in the world beyond just being a wife and a mother; running her own business, a once weekly yoga and meditation class, her own strenuous workout plan that he’d helped her create. She’s always managed well considering; panic and anxiety attacks fairly uncommon and periods of deep and crippling depression far and few between.

While he always admonishes her for taking on too much and throwing herself into caring for others instead of herself, she swears that it helps; keeping her mind and her body occupied and not giving her a chance to sit still for too long and dwell on things. He’s sure there’s some PTSD in there. The incident on the Sultana Kamal Bridge still weighs heavily on her; unable to sit down and talk about it without having an emotional meltdown and suffering from the occasional night terror. But she always shrugs off the idea of additional help and supports; insisting she’s fine and just needs to keep busy and that things will pass. They always do. And even though she’s infamous for calling him the most stubborn human on the planet, he’s pretty sure that it’s HER that actually holds that title.

Per Tanner’s written instructions, he leaves the bodega purchases in their bags; carrying them into the pantry and placing them in a plastic tote box marked with his son’s name. The ten year old very particular and detail oriented; extremely neat and tidy and having his own anxiety attacks if anyone dares to upset his ebb and flow. For his seventh birthday, the only gifts he’d requested were a label maker and over two dozen food storage containers; adamant that those were the only things he wanted and didn’t care about the idea of a new bike or surfboard or the latest gaming system. Less than twenty four hours after receiving what he so desperately coveted, he’d used them to reorganize the pantry at home; everything stored in plastic containers and labelled appropriately and throwing a fit if anyone didn’t alphabetical order when putting things back on the shelves. THAT had prompted them to finally seek out a diagnosis for him. They had suspected it for years; Tanner sitting some place on the Autism spectrum. Yet it had still been hard to hear the words come out of the specialist’s mouth; fear and worry and concerns for his future flooding through them as they saw the words neatly printed out in their son’s medical chart.

“Everyone still asleep?” he inquires, as he finally approaches. Standing behind her with his hands on her hips; lips meeting the top of her head as his fingers gently knead the supple flesh. Even when -uncharacteristically- grumpy first thing in the morning, she is always at her most adorable; hair messy and face still puffy from sleep, petite frame clad in her infamous mismatched pyjamas. Today it’s a pair of scrubs with the word Columbia printed across the ass and a faded and tattered t-shirt from his side of the closet; miles too big on her yet somehow sexy at the same time.

“Thankfully. Takota woke up in a panic; the doorbell scared the ever loving shit out of him. You know how it is; things always seem a thousand times louder when you’re asleep. I cuddled with him for a bit; he’s passed out in the middle of our bed now.”

Draping an arm across her collarbone, he presses a kiss to her temple, then watches in amusement as she tends to the toasted bagel now sitting on the plate in front of her; putting enough force behind buttering it that the knife pierces the toast.

“You know…” his lips rest against the side of her head. “...you’re not supposed to stab the damn thing.”

“Better to stab this than walk down the street and stab that bitch in the fucking face,” she reasons. “I don’t think I’m in the position in my life where it would be a good idea to go to prison.”

“Definitely wouldn’t be ideal at this point and time. Not to mention you always complain about how shitty you look in orange. So how about we NOT stab anyone and try to rein in our homicidal tendencies?” Reaching around her, he wrenches the knife out of her shockingly tight and strong grip; completing the preparation of the bagel for her.

She tips her head back to look at him, smiling in appreciation. “I’m mad.”

“I can see that.”

“What is that woman’s major malfunction? Why is she so goddamn insistent on seeing you? I mean, I know you’re hot and the walking and breathing definition of masculinity and you’re enough to make even the old ladies all weak in the knees, but fuck…” she turns around to face him; plate in her hand as she leans back against the counter. “...she is WAY worse than any thirsty females on the playground or at the soccer park.”

“She’s something else alright.” He moves to the kettle boiling on the stove; snagging a clean mug from the drainboard by the sink and a tea bag from a canister on the counter.

“To show up here at all is a dumb ass thing to do. But at seven in the morning? Knowing there’s a house full of littles here? She has a kid of her own. I doubt she’d like if someone popped up on her doorstep and woke her crotch fruit up.”

“I don’t think she gives a shit, Me. About our kids OR her own.”

“She treats that kid like a goddamn accessory. Have you seen the way she dresses that little girl? Fur coats and Gucci and Chanel, a freaking bracelet and earrings from Tiffany’s. The kid even carries a bloody Birkin bag! She’s six! What the hell kind of parent buys stuff like that for ANY kid? Never mind a six year old.”

“A person with money to burn apparently.”

“WE have money to burn. And then some. Our kids wear clothes from Target. The occasional UnderArmour or Nike swag here or there. Most expensive thing on them is their shoes. And not even THOSE are over a hundred bucks.”

“Millie does have that expensive purse,” he points out, as he stands in front of the open fridge door and snags a carton of milk; dumping the preferred and required amount into the steaming mug of tea. “The pink one.”

“The Chanel. Yes, she does have that. And you know why she does? Because when Millie says ‘daddy, I really like that’, daddy goes ahead and buys it for her and doesn’t even bother to check the make or the price tag. That is SOLELY on you.”

“Daddy likes to spoil his girls,” he reasons, offering the mug as he rejoins her. “Especially the oldest one.”

“Millie always HAS been your favourite.”

“I meant YOU,” he presses a chaste peck to her lips when she turns her face up towards him. “Not Millie. I spoil you way more than I spoil any of those kids.”

“And how many times have you been told NOT to?”

“Way too many to count. How many times have I told you that I don’t give a shit what you say and that I’m going to keep on doing it?”

Smirking, she rips a piece of bagel off with her teeth. “Touche.”

“What did she want?” He stands next to her, palms resting on the edge of the counter. “The nuisance?”

“To be just that. A nuisance. I kept telling her you weren’t home. That you’d gone out for a bit. She wasn’t having any of it. Insisted that I was lying and accused me of being jealous and possessive and told me that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t keep you away from her. Something about 'you can’t stop what the heart AND the body want'.”

He gives a derisive snort.

“I don’t know. By that point I had already tuned out and was fantasizing about how I was going to kill her and dispose of her body. What the hell is her issue? I get that she has a raging female boner for you and in all fairness, I don’t blame her. But that woman is coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs. And I don’t use that term lightly. I save that for the REALLY crazy ones.”

“Did she say what she wanted? Why she even came over here?”

“You mean other than to jump on your dick? Or to convince me that you and her have some undeniable sexual chemistry and that you’re reluctant to leave me because I’m clingy and needy and have trapped you with half a dozen kids? Plus one.”

“She said that?”

“Every last word. Apparently you and her have really hit it off. There’s some kind of powerful and potent sexual and emotional connection between the two of you. News to me.”

“She’s fucking delusional. You realize that, yeah?”

“Big time delusional. I know what you’re like. I know how much you love me and your kids; how you’re unwaveringly faithful and loyal. I’ve never doubted any of that. I’ve never had a reason to. If you wanted out, you would have left a long time ago. You’ve had your chances.”

“I don’t want out. I’m all in. I’ve been all in for twelve and half years. I’m all in for the rest of my life. So sorry, Me. You’re stuck with me. Until the bitter end.”

“I can think of worse fates. But what the hell is her problem? Who does shit like this? Calling on another woman’s husband? Making up bullshit like that? Trying to cause problems between people?”

“A crazy person, that’s who. That’s all she wanted? To see me?”

“To give you Addie’s mitts back. I guess she left them at the American Girl store and crazy lady picked them up. Couldn’t she just leave them in the mailbox instead of showing up and ringing the doorbell at seven in the morning? Is that NOT what a normal person would do?”

“I think we’ve already established that she’s NOT normal.”

“You didn’t tell me she was there yesterday,” Esme sips at her tea. “At the American Girl place.”

“I thought I did.”

“That’s my sworn enemy. I would definitely remember if you told me something like that.”

Tyler shrugs. “Guess it just slipped my mind with everything else that was going. With Addie flipping out and me feeling like shit for losing it on her, telling you about the neighbour wasn’t the first thing on my agenda. I probably should have, but…”

“So she just happened to be there? At the American Girl lunch?”

“Yup. Showed up with her kid.”

“Kind of a coincidence, don’t you think? That she’d be there on the EXACT same day? I don’t mean to go all paranoid and possessive and jealous wife, but…”

“You’re not paranoid. And aren’t we all a little possessive? And jealous? When we love someone? I’m that way with you. I don’t like guys checking you out and making comments towards you and all that. And if that makes me possessive and jealous…” shrugging, he reaches for her tea and takes a sip.

“This woman has serious issues, Tyler. She’s nuts. Certifiably, I think. Didn’t you already tell her to leave you alone? That you’re married? Happily?”

“More than once.”

“Does she not realize some men actually DO value the sanctity of marriage? Mind you, it doesn’t seem like many these days, but still.”

“I don’t think that’s the kind of married men she’s used to, Me. I don’t think I fit HER definition of a married man. And it’s not for the lack of trying to scare her off. I’ve tried. Several times. Doesn’t seem to be getting through.”

“She’s persistent, I’ll give her that. Still, I don’t like someone pissing in my front yard. Continuously. Seems awful weird; her somehow showing up nearly everywhere you go. I can see the park being a one off; she was new to the community, saw a parent there and took it upon herself to try and make friends. But everything else? When you took the kids for lunch, when you and I were on our date; we SAW her watching us from her living room window. She didn’t hide it.”

“That was a little...odd,” Tyler admits.

“And how many times has she suddenly popped into the bodega when you’ve been there with the boys?”

“I’d say nine times out of ten.”

“That’s way too much of a coincidence to be a coincidence, don’t you think?”

“I do think that. I also think we need to talk about it. About all of this.”

“Oh God…” she grimaces. “...you ARE leaving me for her.”

“What?” He can’t help but laugh. “No, baby. NO. I am definitely NOT leaving you for her. For ANYONE. I already told you; I’m in this right to the end. Whenever that may be. There’s no one else, Me.” Draping an arm across her shoulders, he pulls her into him; lips meeting her temple and lingering for several seconds. “There’s just you. There’s always just been just you. Always will be.”

“And we need to talk about her because…”

“Because there’s more going on than you realize. More than just her showing up places.”

Esme frowns, mug poised at her lips. “Uh oh. I don’t think I like the sound of that.”

“Believe me, I don’t like it either. What’s going. But you’re right; that woman definitely DOES have issues.”

“Other than being a stalker you mean?”

“I don’t know EXACTLY what’s going on. Or how serious it is. But I don’t like it. What she’s up to.”

“And coming from someone with your instincts and your background? That’s saying something. Do I need to worry about it? Is it something we need to really watch out for and take seriously and…?”

"I honestly don't know, babe. But she knows stuff. About us. She somehow knows our name. Called me by first AND last yesterday. I've never told her what it is. And I highly doubt you did."

“I want to stab the woman in the face with a butter knife, so I think it's safe to say I’m NOT going to be out there telling her personal things. How WOULD she find that out? It’s not like it’s advertised anywhere. Frank doesn’t know it, Desi wouldn’t say anything.”

“She tried to blame TJ. Said she talked to him when he was out shovelling snow and that he coughed up the info. I confronted him and he denied it. Said that she DID stop to talk to him and all he told her was his first name. That’s it. Told me he knows better than that; not to tell strangers much about us.”

“TJ doesn’t lie. Not since he got caught...on camera...denting your truck and trying to tell me that it wasn’t him. He learned his lesson, believe me. And out of all the kids who would be a blabber mouth? He’s the last one. He idolizes you. The last thing he wants to do is piss you off or disappoint you. So when you tell him what to do or what NOT to do, he listens.”

“So how did she know? If neither of us told her and Desi didn’t say anything and we know it’s not TJ…”

“I don’t know. She hasn’t been around any of the other kids. They’d all say something. They’d tell us if she was asking questions.”

“She had to find out from somewhere. Someone had to tell her. It’s not like that info is just out there for anyone to look up. You don’t even use a real last name on the internet. We’ve been careful. We locked everything down five years ago. Made sure people couldn’t find shit out. But somehow…”

Sighing heavily, she carries her empty mug and dirty plate to the sink, then rejoins him; standing between his legs with her hands on his hips. “Do you think it's something serious? Something we need to worry about?”

“Are you asking me if I think she’s a threat?”

Esme nods.

“I don’t get that feeling from her. I don’t think she’s the type that gets her hands dirty. More the type that aids the person that does.”

“That sounds familiar. I distinctly remember someone else who used to do exactly that.”

“Let’s not compare the two of you. You’re nothing alike.”

“I used to help people get their hands dirty. I used to ask all the questions and find out all the info and then pass it along to guys like you. Sounds like she might be into the same kind of thing. Have you looked into her? Find out anything about her?”

“Not much to find out. Couple things here and there but nothing serious. I know she used to be in a relationship with the District Attorney in Chicago. There was a write up about it; the two of them at some charity event a few years back.”

“Is he the ex husband?”

“If he is…” he tucks her hair behind her ears, then cradles her face in his palms; thumbs repeatedly brushing against her cheeks. “...she’s never gone by his last name. I checked into that, too.”

“Maybe try Nik. She’s got a real knack of finding things about people. Things they’ve long kept buried. I’m sure she’d look into it. Probably have better luck than you.”

“If it comes to that, I’ll go in that direction. But I was thinking…”

She smirks. “I don’t think I like the way you said that...”

“...that if you still had any of your old contacts….”

“My old contacts? I haven’t spoken to any of them in years. Not since the whole fuck up with Nathan and the fake papers from the Marines. I haven’t talked to any of those people since.”

“What about people in the game? That you worked for BEFORE Nik? You ever talk to any of them?”

“There’s a couple I interact once in a while but mostly about non job related stuff. Just random checking in on each other and seeing how our lives are going. You’re not serious about this, are you? About wanting ME to try and find things out? I haven’t had a finger on that particular pulse in a long time.”

“The circle’s pretty tight,” Tyler reasons. “Once you’re in it, you’re never really out of it. There’s guys I haven’t talked to in years but I know I could call if I needed a favour. Maybe you’ve got a couple of those too. People that would do you a solid if you needed them to.”

“I thought we agreed that I’d put that part of my life behind me? We talked about this. After I royally messed things up by not realizing those papers sent to me were fake. I mean, it’s practically my fault that Nathan managed to get a hold of you in the first place.”

“Okay, we’re NOT going to go there. Because none of that is true. It happened. There’s no one to blame. He knew he couldn’t take me in a fair fight. Knew he had to get me from behind. Take me down.”

“And he wouldn’t have been able to had I NOT called you. Had I realized those papers weren’t the real deal, you never would have gone there and confronted him. We would have waited for the legit documents and you would have known how unstable he was. Instead, I just sent you in there and…”

“Let’s get one thing straight. You didn’t do anything. I went in there on my own. It was my choice. I had the chance; to walk away and leave him there. And I didn’t. I went back in. You had nothing to do with it.”

“If I’d known about the papers…”

“YOU had nothing to do with it,” he repeats. “There was no way you could have known what we were dealing with. Same way I couldn’t have known. It happened. Nathan did what he did.”

“Yeah, and you almost died. Because I was careless and…”

“Stop,” he presses a kiss to her lips in order to silence. “We are NOT going to talk about him. Nothing good ever comes out of talking about that asshole. So can we not? Bring him up? Can we let this go?”

“I just…”

“Drop it,” he orders, and then pecks the tip of her nose. “Please.”

“All I’m saying is…”

“Oh my god, woman. Stop.” Placing a kiss to her forehead, he gathers her into his arms; pulling her tightly into him, hands locking together at the small of her back. “We’re not going to talk about this. Five years ago. It never leads to anything good. And I really do not feel like fighting with you. Not after the night we had last night.”

Smiling, she wraps both arms around his waist. “It was a good night.”

“A very good night.” He drops a kiss on the top of her head. “You were fucking incredible.”

“I was, was I?” She looks up at him, bottom of her chin resting on his chest. “You weren’t too shabby either. You know how to raise the bar impossibly high, I’ll tell you that much. And that whole thing in the tub? We need to do that again. ASAP.”

“Thought you didn’t enjoy it. You were practically having a temper tantrum.”

“I was frustrated. Do you know that aggravating it is? Getting that close and having someone just yank the carpet out from under you? Do you have any idea how maddening that is?”

“Actually, I do. You’ve done it to me. Many times. But if you want to do it again…”

“I do. There’s a lot of things I want to do again. And again. And again. With you.”

“Baby, I aim to please.”

“And you do. Very well, as a matter of fact. Even though I am still slightly embarrassed by my reaction. You know, when I…in the tub...when you…”

“When I made you squirt?” He chuckles when she gives an embarrassed groan and buries her face in his shirt. “Why does that make you all shy and shit? I’m the last person you should be embarrassed around. We’ve been doing some dirty shit since day one. You think you would have stopped getting embarrassed a long time ago. I’ve only been your husband for twelve and a half years.”

“It’s just so...I don’t know...gross.”

“Gross? It’s fucking hot. It’s a turn on. Knowing I can make you do THAT? It doesn’t happen often; you getting THAT worked up.”

“Well I guess you need to try harder,” she teases, and gives a yelp when he brings both palms down onto her ass in ringing slaps and then squeezes tightly. “I have to say, husband. You really are a man among men. I definitely hit the jackpot when I landed you. Smartest thing I ever did; letting you put a ring on it.”

“Even though you didn’t want to marry me at first?”

“For the record…” her hands move to his sides, softly and repeatedly moving over his ribs. “...I never said I didn’t want to marry you. I said I was scared to get married again. That I was worried we were going to fuck things up. And I loved you and I didn’t want us to fuck them up. We both had pretty bad track records when it came to marriage.”

“That’s because we both married the wrong people the first time around.”

“I was just scared. I didn’t want things to go bad between us. Not when they already seemed so good. And if that meant staying the happily unmarried couple…”

“But I wasn’t okay with that. I wanted to get married. To you. And before you ask? No. Not because you were having Millie. She had nothing to do with it. I would have wanted to marry you even if there hadn’t been a baby. But I’m glad there was. She’s pretty awesome. They all are.”

“Yeah,” she smiles up at him. “They are. We’ve done good work, Tae. We definitely make some pretty damn beautiful babies. And it’s kind of sad; that there won’t be anymore. Kind of bittersweet. But I think it’s time for us, don’t you? Time for you and I to concentrate on each other for a change. I don’t want that to be all there is to us. Two people raising kids together.”

“There’s way too much between us for it to ever be just that,” he assures her. Laying a hand on the small of her back, he once more pulls her tightly into him; fingers of his other hand biting into the cheek of her ass when he covers her mouth with his.

The kiss is long and soft and slow; her arms wrapping around his waist as she stands on the top of his feet in order to give her that little bit of extra height. Her lips moving against his in perfect unison; moulding and fitting together in ways he’d never experienced with anyone else before. Bodies so in sync with each other; always so responsive and eager.

“I have another favour to ask,” he says when he pulls away, hands settling on her hips.

“You keep kissing me like that?” Her eyes are still closed as she sighs heavily and dreamily. “ For the rest of my life? You can ask as many favours as you want.”

“I don’t want you causing issues with Riley. Over the fentanyl.”

Her eyes snap open; a frown curving her lips as she looks up at him.

“She didn’t give it to me with bad intentions. It wasn’t like she was hooking me up with a fix. That’s not what I wanted it for. It had nothing to do with being an addict and everything to do with the pain I was in. I had screwed that knee up and it was going to be months before they could do another reconstruction and I couldn’t take much more. That’s how bad it was. How bad I was suffering. And I knew the doctor wouldn’t give me anything else. That he’d think I was just drug seeking; in it to get a high.”

“So you asked her.”

“I couldn’t ask Ovi. I knew he’d tell you. And I didn’t want him getting caught and his whole career going down the toilet before it even started. So when Riley came up here that summer, I asked her for something stronger. To hook me up with something that could help. And she put up a good fight; she wasn’t going to go give in. I’m the one who convinced her to. Promised I’d only use it when necessary.”

“And did you? Use it just when necessary?”

“Only when the pain got to be too much. She gave me enough pills to last a couple months. I only took eight. In the two weeks we were here. That’s it. When we were ready to go back home, I put them in the medicine cabinet and never thought about them again.”

“Until the other night.”

Tyler nods. “It scared the fuck out of me, Esme. How easy it was to take to them. To remember they were even there. I didn’t even give it a second thought. I just grabbed them and took them. No hesitation.”

“You realize how badly that could have gone, right? You don’t play around with that stuff, Tyler. That is some heavy duty shit and you just went ahead and took six of them and…”

“Not one of my finer moments.”

“It could have killed you. That many. You know that, right? It could have killed you. Did you even stop to think about that? About what would happen? How I’d find you dead? On Christmas morning? Did that even occur to you?”

“No,” he admits. “And that’s what scared me. The fact I didn’t think of any of that. That I just took the stuff. Like I’d done it a million times before.”

“Did you WANT something bad to happen?”

“No, babe. I didn’t. I just needed to shut my brain up. I just needed to get away from it. I needed peace and fucking quiet. An escape. From what goes on in my head.”

“I’m going to ask you something and I want you to be one hundred percent honest with me. No matter how hard it will be for me to hear or how bad you think it will hurt me. I need you to tell me the truth. Can you do that? Be honest with me?”

“I can.”

“Do you want to die? Right now. Right this second. Is that what your brain is telling you? Is that what it’s BEEN telling you? That it would be better if you weren’t here? That my life and the kids’ lives would somehow be better if you weren’t around anymore? Has it been telling you that?”

“How did we get onto this? I was just asking you not to go off on Riley. That she was only trying to help and…”

“Please don’t do that. Deflect. I’m scared too. It frightens me that you found it so easy to take those pills. That you didn’t even stop to think of what could happen. How it could have killed you and what that would have done to me. And the kids. That isn’t like you; you weigh options and you analyze every scenario and you consider every possible consequence. So I need to know. Did you take those pills because your brain is telling you that you’re better off dead?”

“Esme…”

“Tyler…” her voice cracks with emotion and she valiantly fights back against a flood of threatening tears. “...I need you to tell me the truth. I need to know exactly what we’re dealing with here. I need to know just how serious this is. I need you to tell me what’s REALLY going on in your head. So we can get past this and figure shit out and work on how to help you.

“I don’t…”

“I know you’re just trying to protect me. And believe me, I love you so much for that. The fact you’ve always protected me. No matter what. But right now I need to know the truth. Or we won’t get past this. Do you want to die?”

He swallows heavily. “Sometimes.”

“When was the last time you thought of it? When you felt that way?”

“Couple days ago.”

She briefly looks away in an attempt to control her emotions. “That night you took the fentanyl? Did you want to die then?”

He nods.

“Jesus….” she rakes a hand through her hair, then places it over her mouth; tears managing to escape. “...I mean, I was pretty sure you were going to say yes. We’ve been in this place before. I’ve taken a loaded gun out of your hand, for crying out loud. But to actually hear it…”

“I’m sorry, Me. I’m sorry that my brain is the way it is. I am so fucking sorry.”

“I know you can’t help it. I know it’s an illness and I know first hand how bad it can get. But I just…” she takes a deep, quivering breath and slowly releases it. “....I need to go and get some air or something. I need to just get out and get my shit together. I need…”

“Baby….” he attempts to move his hands to her shoulders, but is foiled when she takes a step backwards.

“I need to get out of here. Just for an hour. Just to clear my head and accept this and figure out a way to deal with it. It’s not you, Tyler. You realize that, right? Please tell me you realize that.”

“I do. I do realize that.”

“I just don’t know how much more I can take,” she admits. “I am so close to breaking and if that happens, I won’t be of any use to you. Or the kids. I just need some fresh air and a chance to get myself together and come to terms with this. With just how bad it actually is. Can you give me that? Just that little bit of time?”

“Of course I can.”

“It’s not you,” she repeats, and moves closer to him. Once more perching herself on top of his feet; both arms reaching up to circle his neck. “I need you to know it’s not you.”

“I know that, Me.” He cradles her face in his palms; fingers gently brushing away the tears that glisten on her face. “Just tell me you’re coming back. That you’re not just going to walk out of here and leave me and our kids. Tell me…”

“I’m not leaving you. Or them. I just need some time. An hour, even. Just to get my shit together. Just to sort through all of this stuff in my head. I’m not going anywhere, Tyler. I’m not walking away from you. From our family. From US. That isn’t even an option.”

“I’m just worried you’re going to walk out and realize it’s just too much. That I’M too much.”

“That’s not going to happen,” she assures him. “I love you. My whole world begins and ends with you. I need to be able to help you. And right now? I don’t think I can. I feel like I'm drowning. Or like I’m walking on really thin ice and one bad step is just going to pull me under. And I need to be okay. I need to be strong. For you.”

“I need you to be strong for YOURSELF. Why haven’t you told me any of this? About how you’re feeling? Being this close to the edge? Why…?”

“Not right now, okay? I’m going to go and get dressed and get some air. And when I come back, we’ll talk. We’ll get TJ and Millie and Alannah to watch everyone and we’ll sit down and talk. Get it all out in the open. BEFORE Riley gets here. I’m coming home, you know. It’s not like I’m disappearing off the face of the earth. I WILL be back.”

“And I’ll be here. No matter long how it takes.”

“An hour,” she promises, and turns her face up to his when he leans down to kiss her. “I didn’t lose you to Dhaka,” she says, and places her hands over his; eyes closing as his lips press against her forehead. “And I sure as hell won’t lose you to your own mind.”

[pip-n-flinx]

yup, it all goes below the cut

So I’ve been seeing a resurgence of ME content following the trailers for ME4 and MELE, which makes sense. But I’m a salty m-fer and I honestly am sick and tired of Mass Effect getting shit on for things that other game studies (looking at you fromsoftware) get praised for. So we’re going to unload a little.

The underpinnings of the mass effect universe is this huge extinction cycle, designed and perpetuated by the Reapers. As sufficiently advanced civilizations reach a tipping point, not unlike the great filter theory of space travel, these AI come in and wipe anyone out. This sort of cyclical storytelling, with pieces of the previous cycles being dribbled in throughout the trilogy, seems pretty similar to progression of Dark Souls. At the end of the Mass Effect Trilogy, many fans were upset by the ending choices: Destroy, Control, and Synthesis.

What are your choices in Dark Souls? At the end of the first game, the cycle ends and you, the player, get to choose how the world enters the next era. Does they cycle of undeath continue, or do you shatter the world and hope something new rises from the ashes?

How, pray tell, is that really any different a decision? And why is it when fromsoftware does this its groundbreaking storytelling, but when bioware does it we decide collectively its ‘just a shitty recolor of the same ending?’

I agree, there are some flaws in how they chose to animate the climactic moments of ME3. For one, the fleet assembly and space combat with the reapers above Earth doesn’t change much no matter how many/which allies you bring to the final fight. And of course, the ‘garbage recolor’ ending. And I agree with the premise that more than the color should have changed. We should not have had to wait for the still flawed Extended Cut ending to be released to see how Shepard’s final choice changes the end of the game.

We can also comment on what the crucible actually does. If it is some incredible power-source in need of direction - the citadel - it is a strange choice of weapon to design for your battle against the reapers. We could speculate endlessly on why the writing team chose this, but the real issue here is that there is very little in game context for how this comes about. We get a few lines from Hackett and Liara explaining the Crucible, but that’s about it. Surely there could have been more discoverable codex entries about it, perhaps on Eden Prime with Javik?

To be clear, I don’t actually have a problem with the end of the Trilogy. Sure, it has its plot holes, but I’m not actually too fussed about it. It felt like a fitting end to the series to me. Graphically a little disappointing, to be fair, but otherwise a fine capstone to the story.

I’ve actually read some comments and posts explaining that they ‘won’t buy the legendary edition because they won’t fix the ending’ and I.... Do you even know what a remaster is? I’m not buying the remaster because I think many of the new lighting choices detract from the story, and a reskin won’t ensure the graphics stand the test of time any better than the old ones. I’m perfectly happy replaying the original trilogy without a fancy graphics package that adds nothing to the artistic vision nor sets out any distinctive art style. A few years will see even these HD 4k graphics obsolete/dated, and I’ve spent enough money on Mass Effect as it is.

Moreover, I really hate what speculation and rumor I’ve heard about Mass Effect 4. First, I hate that it will be a ME4 and not an MEA2. This will take some explaining so bear with me.

I’ve seen videos of the original graphics and animations that caught so much flak for Mass Effect Andromea. Unpopular opinion: I don’t think they were bad, and I certainly don’t think they were bad in the context of Mass Effect. None of the games prior had flawless rotoscoping or anchoring. Even watching stock sheploo in the original trilogy is painful if you’re hoping for realism. If y’all want to play this game we can start sharing clips but suffice to say I’m personally convinced we can go tit-for-tat on awkward animations.

Moreover, I think Mass Effect Andromeda is the best Mass Effect game. Best gameplay, by far. It has all the hallmarks of a great sci-fi: new aliens, new planets, new villains. And while I understand some people felt the switch from overcompetent supersoldier Shepard to young-kid-with-daddy-issues-and-more-than-a-few-bad-bosses Ryder was jarring, I absolutely loved playing a plucky hero who lost their mentor before they’d even properly started training. It gave the game an urgency I loved, and to me Ryder felt like a much more relatable protagonist than Shepard.

The story itself is a fucking masterstroke. Hear me out:

So in Mass Effect, the twin plot drivers are infighting with council/alliance/cerberus ‘allies’ while facing down the threat of and advanced AI wiping out all organic life to preserve diversity and make way for the next ascendant race. In Andromeda, we’re met by the same bickering and infighting amongst our own faction, and the Kett. The Kett, for whom nothing is cyclical. Everyone must assimilate. Who shun technology and seek to eliminate biodiversity by ensuring all civilizations end with Kett. And instead of a well trained military commander and a ship of soldiers, mercenaries, and specialists in the sciences who grow to be respected players on the galactic stage, we get Ryder. Ryder and their crew of misfit nostalgia-driven rock-licking rule-breaking cereal-smuggling culture-vulture heart-broken multiple-amputee nervous-doctor neophiles who meet one alien and have to save all their races from genocide by a rogue Kett Archon. And the Jaardan? the long gone artificial life-forms who had the technological capability to be reaper analogs? They’re the life-givers, the gods of the Andromeda galaxy, seeding species and hope into the galaxy for the player to find.

It’s such a perfect inversion of the original trilogy while still preserving the genre and the universe they had already built. It’s fucking brilliant. And I’ll never forgive them for abandoning it, nor will I forgive the fans whose vitriol stopped the project in its tracks, and killed any hope of a second trilogy.

Honestly, I don’t care if you agree about MEA, or the ME3 ending. I know this isn’t a common take among bioware fans. I just... I’m so fucking done with this franchise and this fandom. I’d like to think my mutuals and the other blogs I follow have level headed positions on this stuff (possibly more level headed than my own salty takes these days) but I honestly wonder why I’m even on this platform some days. It doesn’t spark much joy anymore. I hope no one takes this personally, I certainly don’t mean this as an attack or criticism of any of my followers but damn, I’ve got a lot of feelings tonight and almost all of them are negative...

[redwhiteandbruised]

mobile-friendly rules

BASIC INFO

❔ tracking #redwhiteandbruised

❔ semi-private:  aka mostly mutuals only; very happy to meet new folks to rp with.

❔ exclusivity:  not happening, don’t ask for it.

❔ multi-muse, side & personal journals:  i will usually not follow you back if you run a multi-muse blog/rp from a personal; i need to limit dash clutter in order to be able to focus (thanks, ADD + autism). i’m happy to rp with multiple & side blogs, but I will not RP with personals.

❔ crossovers:  limited to what i know; please check with me first. if we’ve written together a lot and have a rapport, i’m way more likely to jump into things i’m not as familiar with for you.

❔ cut your replies:  please cut your replies & repost asks as new posts when replying. (cuts aren’t the same as readmores; happy to explain if needed.)

❔  you must have rules or, at the very least, your age stated somewhere on your blog. i will always read your rules before interacting, and i ask that you please do the same.

ABOUT THIS BLOG

❕  est 31 March 2016

❕  strictly 21+. non-mature themes only if you are 18 or over; i will not rp with anyone under 18 years old, no exceptions, regardless of content & your geographical location’s ‘legal age.’ please have your age somewhere on your blog; ‘mun is 18+’ is fine; ‘mun is of legal age’ means nada (fun fact: legal age can be anything from 12-25 depending on your country).

❕ safe space:  staunchly inclusive. i make a point of avoiding ableist or bigoted language and terminology. please come talk to me in chat or send an ask and tell me if i screw up.

❕ triggers:  i will tag genuine triggers when asked (please don’t conflate squicks with triggers). triggers will be tagged ‘triggerything tw’ or ‘triggerything cw’.

❕ formatting:  usually small text +/- 100x100 icon, sometimes with light formatting; will try to match your style. if you need any special formatting to make it easier for you to read (ie unformatted large font etc), lemme know.

❕ pre-established relationships:  sure, once discussed.

❕ readmores:  used for explicit dubcon/noncon content, common triggers, & graphic nsfw.

❕ memes:  love ‘em! send me as many as you like, as often as you like, and as many prompts as you want from a multi-prompt meme. i do my best to observe reblog karma but don’t expect you to; it’s all good.

❕ open posts:  for mutuals new & old; i don’t mind how many people have already replied or how ancient the open is. i’ll generally repost your reply in a new post with my reply to make it easier to track. let me know if you’d like something different.

❕ shipping:  multiship; not ship exclusive. shipping is dependent wholly on muse interaction and never guaranteed. james has a complex, traumatic past & is not going to have an easy time with his sexuality in canon verses. he may not always be aware of his own sexuality; in verses that he is, he will generally identify as bisexual. he may or may not be open to poly setups depending on verse. nsfw threads aren’t going to be that common and will generally, though not always, fade to black. happy to discuss. note: 616-verse stucky is not going to happen. mcu stucky is great.

YES PLEASE

✅  duplicates, multiple ‘canon’ realities, AUs, cross-fandom, What Ifs

✅  crossovers, especially within Marvel & DC

✅  AUs: love, love, love. give me your tropey coffee shop au; better yet, give me your research-worthy ww1 au, time-travel au, etc. i’m utter trash for sentinel!verse (and if you don’t know what that is, come at me).

✅  plot-development, complex characterization

✅  conscious, intentional, creative abuse of grammar/syntax

✅  any gender identity/lack thereof; sexual orientation/lack thereof; neurodivergent characters; disabled characters

✅  LGBT+, non-cis/het, POC, or other minority versions of canonically white cis straight Christian etc characters

✅  female versions of canonically (cis)male characters

✅  dark, edgy, angsty themes up to and including psychological & physical torture, abuse, & character death

✅  complex & conscientious portrayals of trauma and mental health issues

NO THANKS

❎  self-insertion &/or only looking for nsfw

❎  pages of ooc

❎  pages of graphic porn

❎  you rp nothing but smut of a variety that squicks me, such as (below) and don’t put it behind readmores:

1) A/B/O, especially if it involves ‘mating’/'breeding’, pregnancy

2) BDSM that uses an abundance of misogynistic language like 'slut/whore’; 'daddy/mommy’ themes; pet play; romanticizing unhealthy abusive relationships ('50 Shades of Nope’ comes to mind) by framing them as consensual BDSM. (note: mun is active in the BDSM scene, so please do bring on your consensual kinks)

❎  consistent grammar/spelling errors (happy to help)

❎  lots of family/baby/child content

❎  'child of’/'sibling of’ & non-canon family member/friend characters

❎  anthropomorphic, furry, or 'real people’ characters

❎  Supernatural, Dr Who, or anime crossovers

❎  gatekeeping, canon-snobbery, constant negativity

❎ erasure of any minority group (ie male versions of canonically female characters; suspiciously white FCs for canonically POC characters, etc)

If you feel like it, send me your favourite trope as a way of letting me know you’ve read these. I’m not going to ask for any sort of specific symbol, codeword, etc to prove it, but I will presume you have and act accordingly. If you feel compelled to acknowledge any specific parts that jump out at you or query something that doesn’t sit right with you, we’ll probably be bffs.

[plutoisaplanet16]

21 Reasons to Love Someone

(Damien Haas x reader)

#1. Their Smile 

Word count: 1,644

Warnings: none (SFW)

Buy me a coffee

Two words: Defy Media.

     At first excitement coursed Damien’s being as he thought about the prospect of having a job where he could sit around and play games all day. However, it did not take him long to feel the same way everybody else in the office did. You knew the pressure took a toll on him when the first thing he did after work was sleep. Damien’s personality shined through on camera, but being the entertaining ball of sunshine for so many videos each day overwhelmed him. When he came home he would say a mindless “hello y/n” and perhaps jokingly say “hello my baby geese” to Freyja and Zelda, but after that he would close the door to the bedroom and plop down on the bed. Sometimes he wouldn’t even bother to take his shoes off. Usually you would just leave him alone for a couple hours until you finished making dinner or the postmate had arrived.

“How was work?” you would ask as you handed him his meal.

He would always tell you, “It was good, but I won’t go into detail. Too much happened today; I’ll probably miss something if I try to tell you.”

     Damien would always laugh it off and pretend like it was nothing, but you knew better than to buy into his nightly act. After nearly a year and half of dating, you knew what Damien did when something bothered him. Comedy was his coping mechanism, but after the bright laughter ceased, his face fell into a blank expression: the sparkle in his eyes dulled, his normally rosy complexion seemingly drained in an instant, and lastly, silence filled the room. It was quite frankly the most bizarre phenomenon to behold. All you wanted to do was grab his soft face and kiss his forehead to try and convince him that everything would work out, but this wasn’t a fanfiction or a cheesy romantic comedy. People are more complicated than that.

     So that’s how you ended up awake at 3:17 a.m. scouring the internet for Harry Potter house robe cat costumes. Your dry eyes and blurry vision did not deter you from finding that one Esty shop that would grant you wish. Was each costume going to be $45 plus shipping? Yes. But did that stop you? No. This was a mission of love, and for Damien, you would go any distance to see that adorable goober genuinely smile.You were just about to place the order when Damien’s arm pulled you closer into his chest as he looked over your shoulder. Without thinking, you stupidly threw your phone across the room. Luckily it landed in a soft, plushy chair in the corner of the room. 

“Y/n, what was that about?” Damien shook his head. 

You struggled to find an answer, “Um...uh...”

“Do I even want to know?” he chuckled, “As long as it’s not Tinder I don’t care enough to lose any more sleep.”

“I would never cheat on you!” you exclaimed.

He sleepily mumbled, “I know. I’m too sexy.”

     You laughed to yourself as you left the bed to go retrieve your hopefully-not-cracked-phone. You quickly placed the order and crawled back into bed. It was rare that Damien ever complimented himself like that. It reminded you of the Damien you knew before Defy... the Damien who ruffled his hair and smoldered at the camera for a selfie. It was so nice to hear Damien still have his moments of confidence. It gave you hope that your plan would actually work.

5:15 pm. It was almost time.

     You had just finished making dinner, and you rushed to set the table neatly. To be honest, what you made shouldn’t even really be considered dinner because it was more or less a buffet of different movie food such as: M&Ms, twizzlers, chips and homemade dip, tiny sandwiches, and of course popcorn. You arranged them into a deliciously looking spread in the finest plastic bowls the dollar store had to offer. (Neither one of you would really want to do dishes anyway.) Once it looked perfect you turned towards the living room to hunt down Freyja and Zelda. You had the costumes neatly folded on the top of the  grey, cloth couch. Luckily Freyja was napping on the cushion below them; you petted her gently and unfolded her Ravenclaw house robes. She yawned and stretched right as you were about to wake her. Her eyes fluttered open, and she sniffed the robe. Freyja backed away and her big, glossy eyes moved back and forth between you and the costume.

“It’s for Daddy, okay? Work with me here, please Freyja.”

     She meowed back like she understood, and from then on she was compliant. Next, you had to hunt down Zelda. It honestly amazed you how well that chonky cat could hide. You called out her name for what felt like forever until you yelled that Damien would be home soon. A small meow came from underneath the couch.

“Just what am I to you guys?”

Zelda came out and before she even knew what was happening, you squeezed her into her Hufflepuff robes, “Finally.” 

      Everything was almost perfect; the last thing you had to do was put on your own house robes and get all eight Harry Potter movies out of storage. Sure you would never be able to finish them all in one night, but both of you would give it a valiant attempt. Digging the movies out of the bin would prove to be a challenge because both of you were giant nerds that for some reason decided to just throw all your nerdiness into several boxes and NOT label them. In the fourth of six boxes is where you found the first three movies, and the rest were at the bottom of the fifth box. You decided that after all this was over you and Damien were sure to be doing some serious decluttering for the next week or so. Meanwhile, you had to go light some spooky looking candles, somehow avoid going ahead and digging into the scrumptious food, and put the first DVD in the console. 

     As the first movie finally loaded, Damien unlocked the door and walked in, “It smells like a theatre in here. What happ-”

     He stopped dead in his tracks when saw you with the Sorting Hat on your head and your Harry Potter robes. His face was full of wonder and confusion as he took a couple seconds to slowly look around and examine his surroundings. He giggled at the spooky yet romantic lighting as well as Hedwig’s Theme rattling the walls of the apartment. You hoped you two wouldn’t get noise complaints...again. Damien walked closer towards you, but soon Freyja and Zelda ambushed him by rubbing themselves up against his legs.

He looked down in disbelief, “Freyja...Zelda? Y/n?”

“I’m glad you know all our names,” you teased.

“What is all this? Their costumes? The candles? The food? Harry Potter?” he sat down on the floor next to you.

“Listen Damien, I know something has been up with you these past couple of weeks. I know you love Smosh and your job, and it doesn’t make sense to me why you would be hiding how you really feel from me,” you said.

“Y/n,” he sighed, “It’s complicated, okay? Half the time I don’t even know what’s going through my head when it comes to talking about my day. You are right. I love my job, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. However, I’m having a tough time right now. There are a lot of videos we film in one day, and for someone like me it can easily become too much. The biggest issue is our parent company itself never listening to us; it is so frustrating. I don’t like spreading that kind of negativity so I shove it away, but it seems it has still affected you. It’s hard for me to talk about, and honestly, I just want to figure it out on my own. I don't want to bring you down with me.”

You were kind of hurt that he didn’t feel comfortable telling you everything but you had to respect him, “It’s okay Damien. I won’t push you, but please let me in on some things. I hate sitting here watching you be miserable not being able do a single thing about it. I want to help you, and that’s why I did all this. Sometimes you walk in here, and it’s like I don’t even know who I am looking at. I believe you will find your footing at Smosh, and everyone will soon adore you. I know it didn’t take me long to fall in love with you.”

Damien blushed, “Oh really?”

     He smiled. He actually smiled. It was a complete 100% authentic goofy Damien smile that spread from ear to ear. He felt happiness deep down inside because of you, and that is all you could ever ask for. Being the ooey-gooey romantic person you are, you threw yourself onto him and gave him a big kiss on the forehead. No, that kiss wouldn’t really fix much, but it made both of your hearts melt. When you pulled away you looked at his face again; he was still smiling, but it wasn’t the same as it was a moment ago. Instead of bright and bubbly, it was a small adoring grin. His eyes bore into yours, and it was like everything else around you two disappeared. 

“Y/n?” he asked.

You answered, “Yes?”

He pulled you into his chest and tightly wrapped his arms around you. His soft heartbeat became like white nose to you, “How come you fell in love with me so fast?”

You pulled away from him and kissed his lips, “How could I not with that smile of yours?”

---------------

Hello! This is my first Smosh fanfiction I have ever wrote. I’m not new to the fanfiction writing world. I’ve had two wattpad accounts and even wrote on a BTS fan app for a while. I dropped this hobby of mine to focus on my senior year of high school. Recently though I have come back to writing due to being stuck in the house and my school year being pretty much over. I decided to start this prompt series because I was bored and itching to write something again. I hope you all have enjoyed this short imagine. It is part one of a twenty-one part prompt list that I have made up myself.

This specific list will, for now, only include past and present Smosh members, but if you would like to see any of these prompts for other fictional characters or  real people please let me know in my inbox! I have no requests, and I would certainly love some. Thank you all for reading this! 

[sparkmender]

Could Starscream reach the level of a top sexyman like Onceler and Sans of shipping multiple versions of the same character with aus since Starscream has his clones and that seekers tend to look like him if his fandom were slightly more hectic in shipping his clones and various seekers together?

...What do you mean, slightly more hectic.

In regards to Starscream, he’s kind of an interesting case because older TF fandom members, mostly women, have been lusting after him/pairing him with other TFs since at least the mid-80s, before this post-Homestuck era of fandom culture.

In fact even post-Harry Potter fandom culture is very markedly different; where with the advent of HP fanfic and fan materials proliferated wildly and with acknowledgement and consent from the author. Didn’t used to happen! Many authors, like Anne Rice in specific, would issue out takedown claims or CnD orders! Whereas with Homestuck culture fandom didn’t just receive acknowledgement but often open communication and personal access to the creator, causing a sort of feedback loop.

...Which led to complications with fans not knowing boundaries between them and content creators coughvoltroncough but that’s something to talk about later...

I’m sure you guys don’t really want a history lesson but the fascination with Starscream + other TF characters actually has a lot of similarities to Star Trek/Spirk shippers, in regards to most fan-content was in zines/letters/email chains, NOT publicly available, and not archived particularly well— the TFwiki is an incredible resource, but they only track canon shenanigans (of which there is a great depth and span, because Transformers).

Basically you had to be in the loop to even know this stuff existed! And that loop was pretty much entirely women and queer people! It’s kind of cool, I think.

With the rise of Fanfic.Net and then the creation of Archive of Our Own, as well as other fan-content platforms and even, yes, livejournal and dreamwidth and deviantart and tumblr, it’s easier than ever to just kind of... search for Starscream and ogle pictures and fanfic and other transformative works of this loud bird if that’s what you really want to do, and tbh I don’t think there’s a lot of TF fans out there who don’t, like, in some small way, genuinely find something interesting about Starscream, which is really kind of funny but also I guess all grounders do have a wing thing.

The Onceler never really had any other appealing characters to pair him with, so somehow the fandom there sort of looped around itself and tied into multiple knots which was both horrifyingly eldritch and... kind of completely natural for the state of fandom in 2012 (for reference I had been performing stunts at comic conventions for two years by then, primarily doing fencing displays or running panels as Prussia from Hetalia from 2010 to 2016! Occasionally also doing parkour/tumbling/baton nonsense as Jack Frost, too.)

Sans, uh. I still don’t really know what went down with Undertale. The game is quite lovely, from what I’ve been told, but. Man. That was a... rare storm... of monsterfuckery and general what the fuck. Still, I can’t really talk seeing as my two biggest crushes in Transformers are the weird spider scientist and a big purple tank with daddy issues...

[xhelenaxleblancx]

@xcharmedxheirsx | TO SERAPHINA & ARTIE? lol

          It wasn’t until Seraphina’s DOUCHEBAG OF A HUSBAND was standing directly in front of her, towering over her tiny form & glaring her down, that Helena dragged her LEWD GAZE away from exposed flesh. Was she meant to feel bad for checking out his woman? Was she meant to CARE about her “reputation”? “Chh. Tha’s gotta be the first fuckin’ time y’ever called her pretty an’ it ain’t for the right reasons, buddy.” Words were spat sarcastically -- Dark empty holes traveling up to meet his -- No signs of doubt or hesitation. Spoken with the confidence only a TRUE NARCISSIST could possess. “Gal with my reputation, it’d be a disservice not ta check her out. Y’should know by now I’ll fuck anythin’ with a pair a’ legs. Don’t mean nothin’.” That was said ENTIRELY for Seraphina’s sake. 

[hufflepuff-ravenclaw-reviews]

Proven Innocent Season 1 Episode 8

Trigger warning: This issue deals with trans issues, transphobia, and homophobia, as well as historical GLBT+ issues.

We kick this episode off with Madeline and Bodie walking down a street in the gay district. Bodie calls out to tell a couple of drag queens that they look fabulous, and they instantly recognize Madeline. She's apparently some sort of GLBT+ icon in the community, and when she was released from jail, they all had a party in her honor.

Madeline asks for directions from them, and Madeline and Bodie continue on to their destination... after Madeline stops to take a selfie with them.

They go to a law firm, where a man tells them about his trans client who was convicted of having killed another trans woman in the 80's. The jail doesn't want to provide her with hormone treatments anymore, and during the fight to get that back for her, the lawyer discovered that the amount of hormones in the blood found at the crime scene (that had originally put her in jail) didn't match from somebody who'd been on treatments for the past decade.

Easy and Madeline go talk to the lady in prison, but she doesn't exactly want to get out. She says that all of her friends and family are dead now. She then states a statistic that 40% of the trans community ends up dead by either violence or suicide, which is the highest out of any community out there. (And nobody would sit back and let this happen if it was literally any other group.) She only just wants her medications.

Meanwhile, Violet has her own subplot this episode. She brings over some podcast host from some other podcast, and they talk about making podcasts. He's actually a big fan of her podcast. After doing the recording, he invites her to dinner.

She goes thinking that it's a date, but it turns out that it's a job offer instead. He wants her to do this big new podcast... but it would be a full-time job, and she'd need to move to New York. He urges her to think about it.

He comes back to her at the end of the episode, but she says that she's already living her dream working for the law firm in Chicago. She might not actually be a laywer, but she's one of the people who helps find the important information that brings the actual criminals to justice and frees the wrongfully convicted. He kind of implies that she's making a mistake and leaves. Bodie then comes in to cheer her up, and says that she wouldn't have Bodie in New York. (And I'm not sure if I ship this or not?)

And now for the Bellow's/Levi/Isabel subplot: Bellows contemplates the new campaign signs that were printed up. The one with him standing before Lady Liberty gets him and his new campaign manager talking about Madeline Scott. And oh my god, why is everybody so fucking obsessed with Madeline? The manager implies that Bellows should look for new evidence in the Scott case that would put Madeline away for good, so that she'd stop being a thorn in his side.

He later calls Isabel into his office and asks what she's learned about Levi. She admits that Levi kind of keeps to himself in meetings, but she'll see what she can do about getting more information from him.

Later, she's crying in the empty meeting room when Levi comes in. He obviously asks her what's wrong, and she spins some sob story about how everything just feels so... sad. He offers to make her less sad. Which ends up with them at a bar. Isabel goes out of her way to get him drunk, and he eventually tells her something that he probably shouldn't have: that before Rosemary's body was found, but everybody was looking for her, Madeline just kind of stood there and did nothing. He described her as acting “stoned”.

Isabel obviously reports this to Bellows. Bellows is pleased with this information, because it implies that Madeline might have been the one to actually have killed Rosemary. (The previous theory was that Levi had killed Rosemary while Madeline helped her brother during or after the fact.) Although, at the same time... just because he has a new theory doesn't mean that this is enough evidence to reopen the actual case. Furthermore, Madeline's complete lack of action does not make her guilty. (This is going back to a previous episode about 911 tapes; you sound too hysterical and the jury hates you. You don't sound emotional enough and the jury hates you.)

This'll probably be relevant in future episodes, but this is the Bellow's subplot for now.

Anyway, back to the main case. Easy and Madeline talk about their latest client, and the fact that she's refusing their legal help. And it's not that they think that she's innocent... it's just that they can't do anything unless she gives them the okay. Madeline eventually says that they need to give their client hope. But they need to do a bit more digging into this, too.

They go to a gay bar that was open back when the murder took place, and the bar tender happened to have known both ladies. He talks briefly about the exclusion from safe places that the GLBT+ crowd faced from the 80s and earlier, and insists that the bar was inclusive towards everybody, even trans people. (It wasn't usually the case back then, unfortunately.) He goes on to say that a lot of openly trans/cross-dressing people would be picked up by the police simply because they looked like they were prostitutes. As you might imagine, this happened a lot to the victim. However, he also mentions that the victim was attacked on a couple different times by various closeted men who wanted to be with her. So there's another possible story of what happened right there.

They go back to speak with their client. Madeline gives her usual grand speech about wanting to help people like she herself was helped out of jail. The client agrees that she'd like to be out of jail.

They go to court to have the verdict put aside because of the new evidence about the client's blood. However, since the blood sample is long gone by now, the judge denies this, but lets them have the records from the original case. Which the judge points out was likely Madeline's plan all along.

However, rather than to just give them their client's case work, they give like all of the case work. From like that year. But this leads them to discover that another trans woman was arrested at the same time and place and by the same officer as their client.

Bodie is able to track this woman down to being the current owner of a drag queen bar. So they all go there, where we're subjected to a queen putting on a show for an ungodly amount of time. (And I'm not saying that she wasn't great, but let's get back to the actual plot now, shall we? Time and place, man. Time and place.)

They find the owner, and the lady who was also arrested at the same time. She says that a lot of “non-passing” trans folk couldn't get jobs in the clubs, so they often had to turn to the streets to make a living. The victim had a lot of sugar daddies, and had just broken up with one a short time before her murder. She gives them the guy's name.

As they're leaving the area, Bodie is wearing a rainbow feather boa and loudly singing with Violet. (And to be fair, some of the things he does kind of makes him a little bit odd to begin with.) Some guys drive by, and attack Bodie. The police show up, but it's painfully obvious that they don't give a flying shit about anything that happens in this neighborhood... if you catch my drift. Easy is angry because the police are refusing to do literally anything, and then they get angry with HIM just for trying to stand up for Bodie.

Madeline first tries calling the guy at his work, but he quickly tells her not to contact him again about that, and hangs up. She and Easy then go down to his office to talk to him. He's angry and upset over the entire thing, and is also worried about being outed. Especially to his children and grandchildren. He tells them that his wife died of cancer two years earlier. (This is mildly important for later.) He eventually tells them that he was in New York the night of her murder, and that he was the one who'd done the breaking up with, not the other way around. Easy seems to think that he's lying.

However, the guy sends his credit card statements from nearly 40 years ago, and it proves that he did buy a plane ticket. But there's a window of opportunity where he could have killed the victim and still gotten onto the plane. But then they also notice a hospital bill from two days after the murder... he could have hurt himself when he'd killed the victim, and then went to the hospital when his wound didn't heal.

And finally... Bodie then provides old newspaper articles from the gay bartender which directly contradicts his earlier statements about his bar being 100% inclusive to EVERYBODY in the GLBT+ community. So he's also now a suspect.

When the judge refuses to give them a warrant to look at the medical records, they instead go talk to the bar owner instead. He gives some awfully shitty excuse of “that's just how things were back then. We didn't want to be under the suspicion from the police.” Although he did have a friendly relationship with the victim, (the kids these days would call them “Frenemies”), but said that she was his “sister in arms”, and that he would never kill her. Easy believes the guy, which puts them back at needing to look at the sugar daddy's medical records. Violet then offers up an idea, but refuses to tell them since it's less than legal. Madeline and Easy pretend like they didn't hear her say that and leave.

Violet then goes to the hospital in question with a warrant, but says that it's for John Smith, but the warrant is actually for Jane Doe. She then bribes the clerk with coffee and a doughnut in exchange for him getting the records. But by mistake, he brings out the guy's wife's medical records, since they had the same first initial. Buuuuttt...

They all go back to court, where Madeline questions the sugar daddy. He refuses to talk about his relationship with the victim. Madeline asks what blood type he is, but it's not the same that's found at the scene. However, Madeline asks what blood type his wife had, but he honestly didn't know. It's the same as that found at the scene.

Madeline prompts him if his wife killed the victim. He eventually answers that he came back from New York to find his wife covered in the victim's blood. She'd found out about her husband's affair, somehow or another tracked the poor lady down, and attacked her.

With this new information, the judge instantly says that the client is free to go, because she's innocent.

Sometime later, Madeline visits her former flame in prison. They make out for a while, which is only possible because the girlfriend does things to keep the guards off her back. However, she mentions that there's a good chance she could be paroled soon. Madeline is obviously happy for her, but the girlfriend, not so much. She asks Madeline if Madeline could really see them being together on the outside, doing normal couple stuff like going home for family dinners and hanging out with Madeline's friends. Madeline says yes, but the girlfriend is still apprehensive.

Later, everybody gathers at the gay bar to celebrate the client's freedom. However, she mainly just sits at the bar and looks at the wall of historical GLBT+ photos... especially the one of the victim, her friend. The bartender tells her that everything is going to be okay.

Madeline steps outside to call her mom. She then says that she's bisexual and that she's dating a girl. The mother hesitates for a  moment, before asking when Madeline is going to bring her around to meet the family. Madeline then drops an even bigger bombshell and says that her girlfriend is in prison. Which is way more upsetting, for some reason. (Ah yes, the shitty parents who like to desperate pretend like their children weren't in jail for 10 years...)

The episode ends with a short montage of footage of GLBT+ protests, both past and present.

[timeisacephalopod]

Nebula & Tony

I saw your post about ficlets and I don’t know if you accept non-slash requests. But I think it’d be cute to see Nebula and Tony bonding together about daddy issues and mutual lost post-IW.

**

I’m perfectly happy to take platonic pairings! This is a personal fav of mine too :) Also thanks for the happy birthday yesterday!

**

Nebula tries to reach out to him but Tony smacks her hand away. “I’m fine,” he all but growls at her. He’s not fine but there’s nothing she can do to help him either. What’s an alien know about human biology? Besides that he’d be happy to die about now, after Peter...

“You’re dying, you idiot. Are all humans this ignorant to their own biology?” Nebula snaps at him, angry. He hasn’t seen her look anything but angry in the short time they’ve known each other. 

“No. But there’s nothing here for me but death.” That’s fucking cruel after the snap. He lives just long enough to watch everyone he loves die, then he’s left to wonder about Pepper, Rhodey, the rest of the Avengers. And Strange just... how the hell could he just give up the stone? Whatever, what’s done is done. And now he dies and all for fucking nothing. Its not that he expected his death to be meaningful, loss rarely is, but he thought he’d at least die doing something good for the world. Instead he dies after failing to save half the fucking universe. Raw deal.

Nebula rolls her eyes, “you’re as dramatic as Quill. Lie back, I know the basics of human anatomy,” she tells him and he frowns.

“How and why would you even know that?” And how do aliens seem to know so much about humans when humans only just found out about them? That makes no sense and Tony refuses to believe all those bunk alien stories of the past. He’s sure a few have validity but most of them are obvious horse shit that all follow the same pattern. 

“It was part of my training, lie back or I’ll push you back and you won’t like that,” Nebula tells him, sounding like a bad villain out of an even shittier movie.

He rolls his eyes and carefully lowers his body onto a piece of ship, staring up at the orange, barren sky. The plants, when there used to be some, must have absorbed light differently than the plants on earth. Flora probably looked a lot like earth in the fall all year round. That would have looked cool. He also wonders what that’s doing to his system if anything and figures maybe Nebula will know the answer to that. “We should get off this planet soon. I don’t really want to know what a lack of a moon will do to it.”

Nebula makes a noncommittal noise as she returns to his side. “We’ll get off this hellplanet when I’ve fixed you,” she tells him.

Tony frowns, looking back up to the sky. “Why do you even care?” he asks. “You could fuck off and leave me to die, I probably wouldn’t even be that mad about it.” Truthfully if he wanted to he could probably get off this planet too. What was it Obie said once... that it wasn’t the suit that made him dangerous, it was his brain. That he could be dumped in the middle of the desert with nothing but cactus needles and sand and he’d still manage to fly out of there. There’s tech all over the place around him. He’d be able to leave no problem if Nebula left him to die.

His words bring a slight pause to Nebula’s actions- mostly her feeling around his wound and shit it hurts but he’s had worse. Finally she looks up. “I’m sorry about your son,” she says softly, blinking rapidly and it takes Tony a moment to realize she’s close to tears.

“He wasn’t my son, technically,” Tony murmurs.

“I was adopted too,” Nebula says. “Thanos was an awful father. I... I didn’t know a parent could care that much about their child. I watched Thanos throw a moon at you and you got back up seconds later but your son... I didn’t know people could make noises of pain like that and I’ve tortured my fair share of all sorts of species. You didn’t deserve any of this,” she murmurs softly. “This nanotech is impressive,” she adds.

Didn’t deserve- Nebula doesn’t even know the half of it. And May, fuck, if she survived this she’s going to lose her shit worse than he did. First her husband, then her nephew? And Peter’s parents when he was a kid- that woman has suffered more than anyone should. “I didn’t make for a very good father figure,” Tony tells her. “Not that I had a great role model myself. And thanks- took me time to figure out but a suit that responds to my thoughts and is instinctual means faster response times. Not that it helped,” he notes more to himself than her.

For a long while Nebula ignores his words, instead focusing on medicine that she does, in fact, seem to know a lot about. Including how to dose a human with foreign anesthetics. When she speaks again its as she’s stitching his wound, warning him that the nanobots are still in there because, for the moment, they can’t be removed from his system. Tony knew that already though, and Nebula is running low on resources. He’ll need more than the average post mission workup. He probably needs hours of surgery, which is a fucking shame since the damn doctor died. Not that this was his specialty but still.

“I don’t know a lot about good parents, but I know a lot about bad ones. Thanos shed a few tears for Gamora after he killed her. You sounded like you were dying after Peter faded away. At first I thought it was your wound, not emotional distress. When you show more pain at the loss of a child than you do at a stab wound that went clear through your body I know you care too much to be an awful parent. His suit was like yours, too. You made it,” she says and he nods. “Lots of defense strategies too- his first course of action is always to retreat, if I made a good analysis of his use of the tactical gear. And I know I did. You didn’t want him in a fight unless he needed to be there.”

Doesn’t matter if that’s all true, he still got the kid killed. He should have gotten Stephen himself, damnit. But that would have left Peter dealing with whatever the hell kind of alien that was and- there’s no easy way out of that and it doesn’t matter anyways. The past is the past unless you’re Thanos.

“So what’s the deal with Thanos and his ‘children’ anyways? Seems more like you were all his pawns more than anything,” he says to change the subject.

Nebula sits on the small piece of ship beside him. “That’s exactly what we were- mercenaries to do his bidding. He trained us, ‘loved’ us, sent us to do whatever he felt was necessary to do.” She pauses in her words for a moment before sighing. “I’ve done some... unspeakable things.”

“Because you were put in a position where you didn’t have much choice,” he tells her softly, resting a hand on her most-definitely-some-kind-of-metal arm.

She stares at it for a moment, confused, before shaking her head. “No. I wanted to do those things. Took pride in them. Something like that is unforgivable. I don’t know how Gamora lived with it- she had to do worse things than any of the rest of us. She was his favorite.”

Tony half smiles, “I know a thing or two about that. My father was a weapons developer- taught me to be one too and that’s no excuse for what I did, all the damage I caused with my bombs, guns, whatever. But I wasn’t really left with much of a choice either.” Howard would have killed him, and that being literal isn’t out of the question, had he not taken on the family business. He used to think it was a bad thing, when he was a kid, until Howard literally beat that out of him. Its an honor to serve your country, and all that. Never seemed to consider what happened when your country is wrong, or when the wrong people get ahold of the right weapons, or who got caught in the crossfire of a war they never wanted to be in and can’t move away from without money, luck, and a country willing to take them in.

“You seem to do okay. Like Gamora,” Nebula says and Tony can hear the sadness in her voice.

He shakes his head. “I’ve made too many mistakes to be anything like your sister. She sounds brave.”

Nebula blinks rapidly and nods. “When we were kids, all I wanted her to do was save me. She was always better than me, better than all of us, and I thought for some stupid reason she could help me with that skill. Stupid and childish, I know, but I guess children will think childish thoughts. Of course she chose to save me the one time I wished she wouldn’t have.” She describes Gamora, how she saved Nebula when she wished she hadn’t for the fate of the universe. How Nebula tracked them down to try and kill Thanos and save Gamora herself. How only Thanos left Vormir.

Tony listens because she needs someone to talk to, and because he needs the distraction from the look on Peter’s face when the fucking kid apologized like he was wrong somehow for dying. God, that hurts his heart more than the shrapnel and reactor ever had. “You did everything you could,” Tony tells her, giving her arm a gentle squeeze he isn’t sure she’ll feel. She does because she looks down at his hand in confusion for a moment before looking away, obviously still not clear on what that was.

Fuck, she must have lived a life that was some awful if she can’t even recognize comfort. At least Tony had Jarvis, Anna, and Peggy. Jarvis was always soft and sweet, Anna too. Peggy was a hard ass, always on him to do better but when he needed her she was always there. Once, when Howard got really bad, aunt Peggy beat the living hell out of him. Told him next time she’d kill him and make it look like an accident if he ever put his hands on his wife or kid again. He didn’t do that again either, but it left him to figure out ways of psychological torment that didn’t leave bruises and left Tony a lot more damaged than a slap.

“I didn’t do nearly enough,” she murmurs. “I should have done more.”

God, does Tony ever feel the same way. Carefully he lifts himself into a sitting position, conscious of his wound and the nanobots are conscious of it too, and he wraps his arms around a confused Nebula. “What’s this?” she asks, confused.

It’d be funny if not for the circumstances. “Its a hug. Humans do it for comfort.”

“Do you... need comfort?” she asks and Tony lets out a half a laugh before his stomach and the nanobots remind him that’s a bad idea.

“No, you do,” he says, leaning into her mostly because he’s tired, he’s only just feeling it now. HIs eyelids droop a little and Nebula sighs.

“You made a good point about the affects of the missing moon on this planet. That’s the fifth time I’ve seen that star in the last two hours and I know the planet doesn’t normally spin this fast. We need to go,” she says, extracting herself gently from Tony. He props himself up for a moment before Nebula picks him up and he lets out an indignant squawk. “This is called ‘carrying’ we do it when people are injured,” Nebula tells him and Tony lets out a small laugh that’s as bad an idea as the first one was.

“Usually humans give a little warning first. Just for future reference,” he says and Nebula shakes her head, walking towards a ship with him. 

[mejomonster]

Playing yakuza like a dragon

1. Inexplicably I ship nanda and saeko but idk if the writing will go that way

2. Lol ichibans plan for every bad guy is "do this OR ELSE I'll go tell ur boss u broke the rules!" First lmao I love that he thinks tatting is the worst threat ever, second you can tell to him disappointing HIS boss was the biggest deal ever so naturally he thinks for some reason other gang dudes will be the same

3 I love Nancy chan

4 idk how the romancing works yet (do NOT tell me I don't wanna spoil) but I find it funny ur locked in to only bond with Adachi first. The games like so. So you know who'd be a PERFECT match for the ex yakuza? A guy who could be his daddy who's an ex cop. Target the Arakawa daddy issues disappointment and make it dudes from totally opposite tracks who both failed out of those tracks. I just think it's really funny the game makes me get close to him first.

4 inexplicably ichiban reminds me of wu xie and adachi reminds me of pangzi. I think it's partly age difference, some wisdom/desire to not jump into dumb shit but also to jump in to placate ichiban who Needs to jump in, and partly their color schemes/costume design to me seem a bit like it. I'd say nanda therefore is xiaoge (sorry xiaoge) at least silhouette design wise he Is with the longer hair and hoodie and very different opinion compared to the others. But he's not as "mysterious unknown" feeling as xiaoge so not as directly similar. (Also saeko I guess would be??? A ning??Ning??? Which kinda works. I love saeko by the way).

[truthbeetoldmedia]

Wynonna Earp 3x03 "Colder Weather" Review

Hello friends, my TV shows have been trying to kill me with sadness this last week or so (if any of you dear readers also watch The 100, you know what I’m talking about). Episode 3x02 of Wynonna Earp left us all reeling with the shocking and VERY unexpected death of our beloved Deputy Marshal Xavier Dolls.

We were not prepared, but I dare say the showrunner and writers were; this episode, aptly named “Colder Weather”, is a beautiful bleeding love letter to a character that sadly we didn’t know well enough before his demise, but we still loved without measure. I wish all TV shows that killed off beloved or lead characters were this good at finding ways to explore our characters as they navigate a very fresh wound while also giving the newly passed on character closure and a final bow.

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted" - Matthew 5:4

We open to a close up of Wynonna's eye with a giant tear sliding down her lashes, swigging a bottle of whiskey drunkenly in the snowy woods, yelling at a demon to literally come out and fight her...grief is not going well in Purgatory for our hero(es). Of course, a concerned Waverly and Nicole are nearby with guns, letting Wynonna purge her pain the only way she seems to know how.

A demon does show up to fight, but not the one she wants, not Bulshar. She exchanges some barbs with the revenant before dispatching him, but Wynonna is far too numb to even enjoy his demise. This is the cold open to a somber episode.

Next thing you know, Waverly and Nicole are picking out Dolls’ casket. We actually get a light moment here with Nicole telling Waves of her desire at death, to be eaten by the birds of the air and then “dispatched” over the land she loves vs being buried. Someone needs to give Nicole the 411 on what is and ISN’T bittersweet romantic topics.

Wynonna, unable to even accept that Dolls is truly gone forever, removes herself from the house for some nice healthy target practice whilst imagining Bulshar’s head in the place of the tin cans, I would assume.

This leads to one of my favorite moments of the episode: Wynonna and Doc having a heart to heart in the cold, gloomy snow. This moment isn’t a shipping moment (although I do LOVE these two together in any form), it’s just Wynonna taking a moment to be vulnerable, to bury her face into the shoulder of a friend. “I’ve been through all of this before, with Daddy, and Shorty and WIlla” and I’m sure in a way she and Doc were also thinking about Baby Alice; even though she is very alive it must still feel like a death to them. Doc just offers her deep love and comfort with no strings attached, telling her Dolls died a hero saving them all, just trying to squeeze all the pain out of her and himself, his last words to Dolls still haunting him.

They talk about what Dolls would want; Doc tells the story of how back in his day a man that “died with his boots on” got buried in a special location (Boot Hill, HA! super original name) and was buried with a bottle of the finest whiskey money could buy (which he then confessed he would steal). Wynonna gives us a detail we didn’t know before: Dolls was from Arizona! But she states that they were his chosen family and he would want to be buried and mourned by them.

"When the tears come streaming down your face, when you lose something you can’t replace" - Coldplay

Speaking of mourning, I love how this episode gives each character a “grief arc” and all their reactions just feel so, so real.

Wynonna is still denying she won’t talk to him again, saying things like “He’s not cutting him up, no way!” when she finds out Jeremy is doing the autopsy on Dolls’ body. Her rage at Bulshar, her inability to accept what she knows is TRUE and very much real. It’s truly heartbreaking and Melanie Scrofano destroys your heart with palpable grief in every scene; every season she just sets the performance bar higher.

Waverly reminds me of myself in grief or sadness, she must do all the things! Pick the casket! Go to Dolls’ place for his funeral clothes! Make 15 different types of sandwiches! Take care of Wynonna! It also makes her think about her own mortality, and how finite her young life is. She is even more bubbly than usual and it’s even bothering her because she keeps giggling. (Fact: I am like this, the more uncomfortable or upset I am the more I fight to be the opposite.)

Doc is the opposite, sullen, angry (mostly at himself), his last words to Dolls’ haunting him. He lashes out in a way that feels all too real when Waverly accuses him of having “no feelings”; he, without flinching, sends his entire glass of whiskey shattering against the wall, saying, “Is that feeling enough for you?!” Wynonna, Waverly and Nicole look shocked, and Waverly looks a little scared; no doubt it triggered old memories of her dad's explosive and abusive ways. You can tell as Doc exits the Earp home he feels terrible about it; he is not in a place to deal with it yet (thankfully he and Waverly do get to talk later), but in the moment the tension is thick.

Nicole, as it turns out, had a very strong and “professional” friendship with Dolls — she even had a key to his apartment! Which they use to find him funeral clothes, and they also find a letter to Wynonna he left amongst his things. Nicole fills Waverly in on how he was tracking down old files on the cult of Bulshar massacre she survived as a kid for her! They both checked in on each other because they were both “officers in the line of duty.” They just got each other. Dolls confided in her; “He had a traumatic past, so he thought he could help me with mine” she tells a rather taken aback Waverly, who is still processing that her normal girlfriend is not as normal as she thought. Nicole breaks down, “but I couldn’t save Dolls, he was trying to help me and now he’s dead,” her grief mingled with guilt much like Doc’s.

The moment is interrupted by a shadow outside of Dolls window, which is three floors up. It’s vampire Kate, who steals Waverly’s bag and is gone in a flash. What is her exact motive? It remains to be unseen. Waverly had of course put the letter from Dolls in her bag.

Jeremy may have the shortest end of the grief stick as he knew Dolls was going to die — but Dolls had made him swear not to tell anyone, leaving him with a huge burden. The drugs killed Dolls but a grief-stricken Wynonna sees Jeremy as the thing to blame in the moment. “I will never forgive you for this” she whispers through hot tears. Jeremy retorts, “I get it, it’s easier to blame me than the dead dragon.” His angry reply hits Wynonna in the face like ice water, and she informs Jeremy to pack up his stuff and get out of Purgatory.

Everyone is just so raw and sad and angry; it gives such realness to these fictional people that you feel all the barbs and tears.

Lastly, the griever no one was expecting or asked for is Dolls’ former Black Badge colleague Ramon Quinn — who shows up in Shorty's bar looking for a drink and info on Dolls, startling an irate Doc who’s just discovered the bar has been broken into and trashed, but all that seems to be missing is the “banana liqueur.” (Revenants actually stole all of Dolls’ drugs Jeremy had made and stored in the fridge, but we will get to that.)

Quinn fills her in on some backstory: he and Dolls were part of the same Black Badge squad and Quinn explains that Dolls’ squad would place coded messages in ads in magazines to signal to each other so they could attend each other’s funerals without Black Badge knowing.

He also fills Wynonna in on some of Dolls’ past, most of it sad — making me feel even worse about him losing his life so young. Quinn wears the dog tags of all his fallen Black Badge squad who are all dead besides him, as a result of the experiments, because the injections always fail eventually. Quinn didn’t have the right blood type to be experimented on, so instead he was the one tasked with having to catch escapees from the Black Badge facility, a place Dolls escaped seven times. (I have issues with the idea of writing this particular storyline, where a white officer of sorts chased and captured a black man being held against his will over and over again, even though he was also technically a prisoner of sorts, but I digress.)

"They can have a terrible power over you...the power of grief, and loss, and of regret." - Babylon 5, Episode 3x11

All of the character moments and plot threads of this episode seem to lead up to the wake Waverly has planned at Shorty’s — the very thing Wynonna seems hellbent on avoiding. She instead gets drunk with Quinn, which probably didn’t pan out the way she was hoping. He asks her “who had Dolls’ back?”, insinuating that she and the gang dropped the ball. He also sets off her internal alarm when he says he doesn’t think Black Badge is really gone and they might come for Dolls’ body, since all the other “BB experiments” were buried in unmarked graves to prevent theft of their bodies. Something he wants Wynonna to think about. She of course goes to the morgue to check on Dolls’ body, where ever faithful Sheriff Nedley sits guarding it. Even he gets a small moment of reflection on Dolls some of the losses he has also recently experienced.

Wynonna heads back to Shorty’s to honor her friend, where she finds everyone is toasting Dolls and eating Waverly’s many sandwiches. Doc finally approaches Waverly to apologize for his behaviour and confides in her his last words to Dolls and his fear of going back to hell one day. She is of course ready and willing to forgive him, but she needs him to help her get her purse and Wynonna’s letter back from Kate, the mention of her name painting Doc’s face with annoyance. But he will do anything for the Earp girls, so they sneak out of the wake to confront Kate.

Nicole finds Jeremy hanging out in the cellar of the bar; he feels like his presence would not be welcome. They finally discover that all of Dolls’ drugs are missing! (I told ya I’d get back to this.) And just like any perfectly timed TV show, the revenants — jacked up on Dolls’ drugs — come barreling in, crashing Dolls’ wake. Wynonna, Nicole, Ramon, and Jeremy fight them all with all the rage you would expect. Wynonna calls Doc’s phone for backup only to have Waverly answer; they are still on a mission to save the letter from vampire Kate.

Waverly finally asks Doc the question we’ve all been wanting to know: “Who is she?”

Doc is to the point and honest: “She’s my wife.” Dun dun dun! I am sure if you’re like me you already had your sneaking suspicions, but Waverlys response is pure GOLD. “Does anyone around here NOT have a secret wife?” Only time will tell, Waves. Kate seems to just be jealous and wanting attention from Doc, usings the Earp sisters to lure him. She sure does seem to know what makes Doc tick.

Waverly confronting her with all her riled up feelings is priceless; she goes to flip Kate’s tarot table “Jesus in the temple style”, but when that doesn’t work she threatens to get a stake. Do not get on this little bb’s bad side, guys!

Kate seems to think Doc is so loyal because “the fiery little Earp reminds you of Wyatt” to which he gives the best side eye while responding “Waverly ain’t even an Earp” and exits smoothly like the southern gentleman he is. Kate picks up her fallen tarot cards and must see “something” spooky, stating, “She’s SOMETHING alright.” I think we all know that we are gonna find that out this season, and I hope it happens soon.

Back at the bar Nicole busts out some tough love for Wynonna after trying to cut her off from drinking. Wynonna’s response of “a man I l….someone I love is dead” may have made my heart crack right down the middle.

“You’re not the only one who lost him. You don’t get the monopoly on the grief we all feel.” That line drives home the theme of this whole episode. They all hurt and the pain is different for each of them, but you can’t tell someone your pain is more important than theirs.

Wynonna is on her way to apologize to Jeremy when she discovers Quinn torturing him for Dolls drugs. He wants to use them and storm Black Badge and get revenge. Here is when he confesses to being a “good soldier” to Black Badge and bringing Dolls and the other squad members back to captivity when they escaped. “Even when he begged me not to.” This realization bookends Dolls life with a tragic start and a tragic end — but he did have a hopeful middle, filled with people that loved him and he whom he loved back.

Of course Wynonna talks him down and asks him to do some digging see if Black Badge is still really out there. She also gives Quinn Dolls’ dog tags that she had been holding onto.

"He was footprints in the snow. Not all loves are meant to last, some are meant to grace you briefly." - Jacqueline Simon Gunn

The burial is a bittersweet and moving scene in the snowy shadows of the Earp homestead. (They decided to cremate him so “his body could never be used as currency again.” What a profound statement, if you think about it.)

Each of our heroes get to say their goodbyes, Waverly kissing the stylish scarf Dolls seemed to be fond of (I will miss style icon Dolls!) and lays it to rest with his ashes.

Nicole adds his badge, and salutes her fallen brother in arms. Doc adds a bottle of his finest whiskey and kneels, making the sign of the cross — a moving gesture since his last words to Dolls were those of condemnation.

Jeremy adds Dolls’ beloved “X” coffee mug.

Wynonna doesn’t add anything of Dolls’ but instead removes her keepsake necklace from Greece, the first thing Dolls found in the woods in Episode 1x01. His comment that “we might be looking for a Greek goddess” is now a nice bit of foreshadowing, since the word on the key is Greek for Athena, fittingly the goddess of wisdom and war. He returned the necklace to her as well, so she is essentially leaving a piece of her with him which just makes me tear up all over again.

The Earp sisters chat around a bonfire, Waverly finally delivering the envelope Dolls left to Wynonna. Its contents: a group picture of the gang looking happy around a dinner table, taken by Dolls (she whispers “I remember this day!’); “Keep going, keep fighting,” a reminder of the words he spoke to her that day giving her a sense of hope, and maybe even peace; and a single snapshot taken of her, unaware. A final way for him to say “I always look out for you, Wynonna.” A silent way of saying I love you, without expectations. His final sacrifice was for her and their friends and he wouldn’t have it any other way.   

The final scene of the episode was a bit odd to me, Doc going back to confront Kate (Contessa, as he calls her). She tells him Wyatt never stopped looking for him. And that for years she believed him dead and when she heard he had “risen”, she came looking for him. Her hard work of trying to get him involved with her again pays off as the last scene is of them kissing.

I get the feeling that it will be a short lived happy reunion for this marriage, as I do not trust her motives of coming to Purgatory just to get back with Doc, but we shall see!

Final thoughts:

I loved the mournful acoustic version of the theme song they used for the episode

Will Quinn be back as a recurring character? I kinda hope not, but I guess as long as they don’t try and replace Dolls with him I’m okay with seeing him again

What the heck is Waverly, guys? I’m concerned

I think Kate (Contessa) is an interesting character but I don’t trust her motives with Doc

Jeremy’s mustache still needs to go

The way Doc says “banana liqueur” had me rolling

Doc hogtying Quinn with a strand of  Christmas lights is some high quality resourcefulness

Thank you all for going through this emotional roller coaster of an episode with me, until next time Earpers!

Wynonna Earp airs Fridays at 9/8c on Syfy.

Gina’s episode rating: 🐝🐝🐝🐝

[violentendsrp]

FRANCESCA “CHESSIE” ABERNATHY   —   

twenty-five, model, face of haus of FREYA, socialite 

THESE VIOLENT DELIGHTS   --- 

Unlike her Manhattan peers, the Abernathy’s aren’t natives. The name and the accent serve as an indicator, making it abundantly clear. Francesca, known more commonly as just Chessie, comes from a family of wealth, hailing from Birmingham, Alabama. She grew up with an easy life, with no struggle or worry; A Debutante and the cross around her neck bought her the popularity of her peers. The money didn’t hurt, either. The Abernathy family deals in the business of energy, AberCorp has been powering the majority of Atlanta for decades. Southern charm and a campaign on being ‘home grown American’s’ led the company to the top, until they were edged out by dirty politics, being replaced by something new and shiny. Instead of facing loss, they migrated to somewhere bigger and better --- New York City. With the help of ‘business connections’, as well as blackmail (though, they would never admit to it), the Abernathy’s took over the energy business in the city that never sleeps. 

Needless to say, swapping Catholic school in Atlanta for prestigious private school in Manhattan was a culture shock for Chessie. She stuck out without even trying -- Quickly branded a ‘goody two shoes’ by her classmates, for her devotion to her religion, and her family’s traditional views. But then along came Sebastian O’Riley, and the world shifted. Teenagers and love have continuously prove to be a catastrophic concept, and these two were no exception. Toss hormones into the mix, and you end up with a seventeen year old Chessie with a positive pregnancy test. By the next morning, she was sent to a convent in Sweden, leaving her life and Sebastian behind with only a note with a brief explanation. Fast forward nine months, and the baby is passed off to a kind Swedish couple, signing away any parental rights and access to her new son’s life, until he was eighteen. 

The return to Manhattan just before her senior year was rocky, to say the least. The baby was a secret --- The only people to know the truth were the Abernathy and O’Riley families, with an insistence that Chessie had spent a year abroad, studying at a boarding school in Italy. Chessie returned as a different woman, that much was clear -- The once quiet, kind Christian girl was swapped out for someone loud, rebellious, and a staple on Page Six. Nights were spent wondering why the Lord would lead her down this path, why God would let this happen to her. The church didn’t bring her the same comfort anymore -- Her mother’s religious views were what put her in that convent, and what pulled her baby from her arms. If this happened to her, what was the point? Chessie quickly became a staple for ‘good girls gone bad’, trading the city for the beach the moment she graduated. She found a home between Los Angeles and Paris, remaining a staple for tabloids wherever she went. 

ACT I   —   

Despite personal demons, Chessie reluctantly returned to Manhattan on a favor, and a tragedy  --- The death of Freya Atanas was unfortunate, but unsurprising, event, pulling Chessie back into a world she left behind. Consoling a dear friend turned into moving in, and within a three month period, she signed the papers and made it official: Chessie Abernathy was now the face of Haus of FREYA, a company lead by her long time friend, O. She’s managed to keep a low profile -- for both personal reasons, and to increase the impact of the FREYA relaunch -- but her days are numbered. Tabloids are slowly trickling in, creating their own narrative for her absence and return to the city. Soon enough, she’ll be back in the spotlight, bruises and scars on full display. 

INSPIRATION  —

NICO & THE NINERS  /  twenty one pilots.  BEGGING FOR THREAD  /  banks.  HARDEST OF HEARTS  /  florence + the machine.

CONNECTIONS    ---

WREN ABERNATHY — older brother. The Abernathy twins have always had a close bond, despite their parent’s unspoken efforts to pit the two against one another. It’s been apparent from day one -- Wren was the Golden Child, and Chessie was doomed to play catch up for the rest of her life. In their childhood, the two would fall in line with their parents charades, but after Chessie’s return from her stint in Sweden, and Wren’s entrusting of his twin with the secret of his sexuality, the two became close despite all odds. Severed ties with their parents brought a breath of relief (At least, on Chessie’s end), and a new trust between the two. An unintentional competition still lies between them, one fostered without even realizing --- Who can be the loudest, who can be the most successful, who can cause the biggest scene.

SEBASTIAN O’RILEY — fatal attraction, baby daddy. Proof that opposites attract comes in the form of Chessie and Sebastian. Both coming from deeply rooted right-wing families, it didn’t take long for the two to meet once the Abernathy’s arrived in the city. The two couldn’t have been more different: A southern belle and the rebel, a cliche at it’s best. Their relationship was encouraged by their parents, before things quickly got out of hand --- A seventeen year old Chessie holding a positive pregnancy test quickly resulted in the two family’s distaste for one another, and Chessie shipped off to a convent in Sweden the next morning. Distance destroyed their relationship, two teenagers unable to cope with a life changing event. They remain cordial, even ending up in bed with one another when they cross paths in other cities, unable to voice true feelings. But now that she’s back in the city, Chessie knows she’s going to have to own up to the past, and create a new beginning.

OPHELIA ATANAS — long time friend, business partner, roommate. The two have known one another since their days in prep school, but friendship didn’t find them until after graduation. They began as pure opposites -- Chessie being the Debutante with the southern drawl, Ophelia being the stoic and conniving Upper East Sider. But as the former’s facade faded and the tabloid princess emerged, the two forged a friendship. The two became closer as time went on, finding more similarities than differences between them. Freya’s death brought them closer, Chessie holding O’s hand the entire time. As the time came for O to take over FREYA, an idea formed --- Chessie became the new face of the company, becoming the perfect PR move: The fashion forward brand relaunching in the right light, led by the two roommates. 

QUINN ARCHIBALD --- tense friendship.  From their arrival to the city, Chessie has been told time and time again: Don’t trust the Archibald’s. With her parent’s political loyalty lying with the O’Rileys, and the Archibald’s having  the “wrong” views of things, it was something never questioned. Needless to say, it caused friction between the two, glares and distrust created out of thin air. When distance wedged itself between Chessie and her parents, along with her brother’s scandalous confession, she began to see him in a new light. He has ties to her brother, as well as her best friend. Even if she wants to, Quinn Archibald is not going anywhere. Now that she’s back in Manhattan, Chessie has made an attempt to be cordial with Quinn, but wary regardless, even if her issues with him no longer concern parental opinions. Family loyalty runs deep with the Abernathy twins, fears of her brother’s heart breaking being enough to keep Quinn at arms distance.

BEAU BUCHANAN -- old friend, publicist. Beau may be an old friend, but it’s clear to Chessie the other girl is her glorified baby sitter. And truthfully, she can’t help but feel it’s for the best -- Given Chessie’s track record, going with her gut, or on impulse has seemed to lead her in plenty of wrong directions. With the FREYA empire being represented through her, she’s grateful to have Beau on her side. The two forged a friendship soon into Chessie’s new California life, and have been close since. She trusts the other woman, especially given that Beau has the upper hand, compared to her old publicist: She lives in Chessie’s world, been in her position, and thankfully -- Knows her as more than a tabloid article about some Christian girl gone rogue. She’s happy to have her around, even if her presence makes her slightly nervous, worried she’ll misstep.

chessie abernathy’s face claim is pheobe tonkin & is taken by admin m.

[xhelenaxleblancx]

@xcharmedxheirsx | TO SERAPHINA

          “Y’know, Lilah said yer new look makes y'look fake an’ disposable.”