#'so are you co-parenting your friend's daughter?' '...its a lot more complicated than that'

[valdrinors-writing]

DIRTY LITTLE SECRET - LEIA & MIKE AESTHETIC

Mike: You know, I think we're alike in a lot of ways

Leia: I always tell people you're like the not-cool version of me

[tothedarkdarkseas]

i'm so intrigued by the way you described the band's dynamic, because i completely agree and i don't think i've seen anyone else describe it so honestly lol. while i think they certainly care for each other in their own strange ways, i see a lot of fans portraying them as a found family that is very rigid in its roles (this character is the dad, this character is the brother, etc.) and i think that, while maybe at another time that was truer what with noodle being a child, now that they're all adults i feel like the complexity of their interpersonal relationships get lost in those strict definitions. and there's so much potential there!

Thank you, I'm glad you find the possibility intriguing! I do as well. I know I've talked about their dynamic as a band and individually with Russ and Noodle a few times on this blog, but there are... a lot of posts, aha, all of which are very scattered and not always the easiest to find again after, so I'm sorry to say I can't seem to pull up another!

I think you've touched on a really interesting and true part of this, which is the presumed rigidity of the roles and the development-- be that evolution or devolution-- over time into something different. I regret that I haven't written the most about it and am probably not the best source to, but there is something incredibly complicated about bringing Noodle into the fray as a child, making three adults who are not emotionally mature or competent enough to be parents into de-facto guardians who have to balance internal obligation versus an external fear, rejection, or mockery of their responsibility toward her. And that's not even considering that in truth, they are not especially secure or grounded in their relationship as friends or as colleagues, let alone a family unit. Stu and Murdoc have a unique dysfunctional codependence, and I think severing them from one another is more difficult than they would claim it to be (or in Stu's case, wish it to be; in Murdoc's case, I don't think he'd wish for a moment to have less of Stu.) Still, that knot tying them doesn't extend in exactly the same way to anyone else around them, including any shared grounds of respect for Russel or responsibility for Noodle, which I think they experience and express in different ways. And the same is true in reverse: what reason is there for Russel to view Murdoc or Stuart as a brother, or as a co-parent, when none of the three have chosen to inhabit that role on their own? Is living alongside a piece of your legacy the same as loving it? Where the more straightforward found family trope answers this question is in the innateness of it, the irrationality of it-- you don't feel because it makes sense to, you feel independently of that. I'm not knocking that in any one person's heart, you know, it's not that I mean to suggest they don't care at all and they'd watch each other rot if they could-- I think the grief of P3 comes alive all the more because there is such a bone-deep, irreplaceable guilt in failing a child, in fracturing the relationships that define your life and legacy, and in that, define you.

I think Noodle in particular does reshape the dynamic they would've had without her, but-- and here's me being unsentimental-- that doesn't mean they "did right by her" in childhood nor made that functional family narrative easier on each other, it doesn't mean their independent relationship dynamics haven't been strained and reformed over 20 years, and it doesn't mean that Noodle (as the "centre" of the familial tableau) is herself willing to fulfill the role she'd been placed in anymore. What she needed of them then may mirror what they need of her now, and though there is love of some form, to be sure, none fit seamlessly into a mold they were never cut out for. I think in her adulthood, playing the prodigal daughter as they drift apart between albums, travel, seek, discover and return in pursuit of creation and legacy (and I know I repeat the word, but it is really a key here, to me) it becomes clearer to the men what distinguishes their relationships, what they live with uniquely, not what blurs them together in warm candlelight and matching colours. And I think distinction in relationships can be an incredibly meaningful thing; I don't think it means less for a moment in time to be as it was, for a thought to be unsaid, for shapes not to be named. To know the art from an angle, to have seen every brushstroke that created this angle, and still to know there are angles you've never faced each other from. I think it's still special, and compelling. I think you can care without it consuming you (--I just think two of them do it anyway.) That's more of how I personally view their dynamic!

My friend Niamh (if you're reading this Niamh, hello, and I'm thinking of you) said something terribly profound of their dynamic once, regarding the lack of band intervention or support toward Stu or Murdoc's untidy private relationship and whether that implies an absence of care, which was "It would be better to hear 'I don't understand because we're not that close' than to hear 'I'm your friend, and I don't understand you at all.'" I loved that.

[fandom-imagines]

Thank you

Fandom: Death Note

Pairing: L X Reader

Warnings: Emotional and physical abuse.

Words: 3k

A/N: I’m in a death note phase again. I wrote this instead of doing my essay oops.

Being the girlfriend of a worldwide, secret detective was hard.

Relationships were hard enough as it is but having to make sure both the partners names were kept hidden made it even harder. Then there’s the constant travelling that takes place along with many other things.

Basically, the relationship between L Lawliet and Y/N Y/S/N was a complicated one. Don’t get me wrong, they were both madly in love with the other, but that didn’t make it any less hard.

“Y/N!” A high-pitched voice sounded from behind the aforementioned couple.

That’s Misa, Y/N’s best friend and often co-worker. The two met at a photoshoot where they became fast friends, the pair being able to work together due to their celebrity status.

“Hi, Misa.” A soft smile crawled onto the Y/H/C-haired girls’ lips.

She usually loved seeing Misa, but today all she wanted was to go back to her house and chill, maybe with Lawliet, maybe not. Who knows? Not her.

“Hi, Ryuzaki.” Misa greeted her best friends’ boyfriend, albeit unknowingly, before grasping her small hand around Y/N’s arm. “Bye, Ryuzaki!” Were her final words as she dragged Y/N away, unaware that she was desperately mouthing “sorry” towards her boyfriend.

~

“Light won’t even take me on a date, Y/N/N!” Misa whined, still talking about her ‘boyfriend’, “Isn’t that so unfair?”

“Very.” Y/N mumbled, turning the page on her magazine which lay in front of her.

She was currently lying across Misa’s bed, the pink sheets creasing beneath her. The girl’s legs were crossed in the air, the entire weight of her body being placed solely on her stomach. The magazine she was reading was something she had bought on the way back to Misa’s, hoping to share opinions on outfits or gossip about latest celebrities, something that the pair had done since they met.

“Are you even listening, Y/N/N?” The blonde continued to whine upon realizing that her friend was no longer listening to her boy drama.

“Sorry, just deep in thought.” Y/N’s words weren’t necessarily a lie, she was deep in thought just not about something she wished to share.

Misa didn’t know about Lawliet and Y/N’s relationship, nobody did. That was how they liked it. No one could intervene, no drama or anything of the sort.  Just the two of them, happy, together.

Oh how she longed to be with him right now. The two of them together, even if they were just sitting in HQ together whilst working on the Kira case that they had been working on for months now. That was how they had met: the Kira case.

Y/N knew of his involvement, her father worked as a detective, similar to Lights. That was how she joined the investigation despite being a student. Both her father and close friend, Light, recommended her.

However, that friendship was slowly fading as she found out more and more evidence that made her suspect Light of being Kira. She’s smart, very smart, that’s why she got along with both geniuses. She fit in well with the two. But the more she investigated the case, the more she realized that Light could possibly be behind the mass murders that were causing terror across the world, especially Japan.

“Ooh! What about? Is it a boy?” Misa was now sat up on the ground, arms wrapped tightly around the yellow pillow that she was previously sitting on. Her loose blonde locks fell down her back as well as over the pillow. She looked absolutely beautiful.

How did Light not love her back?

“Shut up.” The other girl huffed, tossing a pillow from Misa’s bed into the face of the owner, giggling as Misa fell backwards onto the soft carpet before bursting into a fit of giggles herself.

“You have to tell me!” The words left Misa’s lips between giggles as she recomposed herself.

“No!”

“Yes~”

The two argued back and forth for around five minutes before giving up, and bursting into a giggle fit once again, something that was common between the pair.

“So, you like someone?” Misa wiggled her eyebrows in amusement at the fact that her best friend was finally interested in someone other than fictional characters. “Tell me everything.”

Without revealing who it was, Y/N began to tell her about her ‘crush’, despite said crush actually being her boyfriend of a few months now. Ensuring that no significant details were released which could identify the man, she told her everything. Blushing was something new to her, but neither Misa nor Y/N complained. It was a refreshing change for them both.

“Wow,” The model let out a breath she wasn’t aware that she was holding once Y/N had poured her heart out, slightly at least. “I never knew you were capable of such feelings, Y/N/N!”

“Stop teasing me~” Y/N’s hands covered her blushing face, words becoming muffled behind the skin. “This is embarrassing enough as it is,” a groan left her lips as she continued her sentence. “Besides, I doubt he even likes me back.” The final words were mumbled, self-doubt settling in as she realized that her boyfriend might not actually love her.

Logically, Y/N knew that L wouldn’t use her, or at least she hopes, and that he genuinely did value her and her opinion. He enjoyed her company and didn’t find her annoying. He really did love her, despite not having admitted it.

“Sure he does! You’re great, Y/N/N.” Misa grinned at her best friend, unknowingly providing her with a source of comfort.

“Thanks, Misa.” A sigh left the other girls lips, a sinking feeling of doubt looming over her. “I should probably get home, it’s getting late. Goodnight, Misa.”

“Goodnight, Y/N!”

~

Instead of heading home Y/N decided to take a late-night stroll.

The dark sky was littered with bright stars, a nice change from the usual plain nights sky in Japan. It gave an almost comforting feel to the stroller, reminding her of her childhood when she would stay up late to stare up at the midnight sky with a genuine belief that it was the world watching over her, much like the moon which was ‘following’ her everywhere she went to make sure she was safe.

It was childish, yes, but she was a child so what do you expect?

The Y/H/C-haired girl observed her breath as she exhaled. It was cold which wasn’t a huge surprise considering that it was nearing December now; winter time. Despite being extremely cold, she decided that it wasn’t time to head home just yet. Her mind wasn’t entirely clear and it wasn’t exactly in her best interest to go home with an overthinking mind, so he continued her walk.

The sound of her shoes hitting the ground was one of the only things she could hear other than the occasional passing car or truck. The streetlights lit up her view, being the only thing that did so and Y/N internally thanked whoever put them up considering she wouldn’t be able to use the torch on her phone as it had died long ago. The odd passing-by car provided her with some light also, although it wasn’t much.

It wasn’t until around 1am when she finally decided she should head home.

~

The house was deadly silent as she entered, but the lights were still alight, leaving the daughter of the local baker and detective confused.

“Mum?” The girls voice was slightly quiet in case she was asleep whilst still being loud enough for anyone seated downstairs to hear.

“Where have you been?!” Her mothers voice was incredibly loud, making Y/N cringe and wince. “I’ve been worried sick! How could you make your mom worry like this?”

Ah, there comes the guilt tripping. Y/N’s thoughts were awfully loud, and she cursed herself internally.

“Sorry, mom.” A frown had made its way onto her lips as she apologized.

Sure, she probably should have warned her that she was going for a walk, but there was no need to guilt trip her.

“You should be. Now go to your room!”

She simply ran upstairs.

~

The bags under Y/Ns’ eyes almost matched Ryuzaki’s the following day.

She hadn’t gotten any sleep that night as she replayed every bad moment with her mother sine childhood and believe me, there was a lot of them.

Her mother hadn’t been the best parent to say the least. She was never physically abusive, but the mental scars from her words and actions had taken a toll on her daughter throughout the years.

“Are you okay?” Lights words were full of concern upon noticing the girls tired composure. The way she stood further proved that she was exhausted considering how she was slumped over. Hands shaking also, Light was genuinely concerned, despite his status as Kira, something he knew that she suspected. “You look terrible, no offence.”

“I’m fine.” Her words were quiet, almost silent, too wrapped up in her own thoughts to give a completely response but she figured those words would suffice and he would hopefully leave her alone.

Whilst concerned, Light knew not to push things when someone didn’t want to talk, so he didn’t push it further, favouring to ask if she was going to the HQ later which she was.

“Ryuzaki isn’t in today,” Lights words caught her attention, finally pulling her from her trance, “he’s working on the investigation.”

“Oh,” while her response was short, the criminal still cheered internally, glad that he had stopped her worrying, even if it was for a split second.

~

For the entire day she was completely ‘out of it’, unable to concentrate or even form a coherent sentence and she mentally kicked herself at her so-called failure. However she was slightly grateful that there was no exam today, knowing she would have most definitely failed. She probably wouldn’t have been able to write more than three words.

Y/N’s walk to HQ was lonely as she desperately craved some human contact.

She really needed a hug.

As though in a trance, the girl scanned herself into HQ and headed towards the main room where she knew everyone would be.

“Hi, Y/N,” Matsuda’s cheerful greeting caught Ryuzaki’s attention. Well, more like the name of the person he was greeting.

Nobody could have known however, unaware of the short-lived glance he had spared towards her. This short glance told him a lot: she hadn’t slept, she was deep in thought and she felt… crap.

This worried the detective immensely. He really did care for the girl; a lot more than he would admit. Not that he didn’t want to, he just didn’t know how she would react and didn’t want to risk facing rejection.

It would hurt.

“Hi.” The response she gave Matsuda was blunt, emotionless which L wasn’t happy to hear.

She never used that tone. She was usually cheerful. It must be bad.

“You guys can go for a break. You’ve been here most of today and it’s not nearing 5pm.” L’s words matched his girlfriends tone as usual, uncaring about the relief his words had just provided the others on the case. “Except you.” His gaze was now fixated on his love, making her internally curse at herself for being so obvious about her low mood.

The raven-haired detective waited for everyone to leave, stare unmoving as he observed Y/N’s every move and she walked towards the chair opposite him.

“What is it?” Y/N’s gaze was cast towards the ground, not wanting L to see her like this. “I’m sorry.” Her words were quick, worried that he was going to say something that would simply upset her more. “I-I didn’t mean too.”

L’s cold hand gently grasped her chin, lifting her face so that they could look at each other and he cringed slightly as he saw the tear threatening to fall from her eyes.

Okay, he is now really worried.

“What’s wrong?” His words were quiet but still laced with genuine concern, along with his eyes. “You can tell me.”

“It’s nothing, really.” The words stumbled from her lips, only worrying him more. “C-can I just go today? Please.”

L simply nodded, watching as she dashed from the HQ and out of his sight.

~

“Why do you keep disappearing?” Y/N’s mothers voice was the first thing she heard as she walked through the door.

“Please, leave me alone.” Y/N begged, simply wishing to be alone.

She made an attempt to dash upstairs, only to be stopped by her mothers tight grip around her wrist as she spun her around to face her. A hash slap hit the younger girls face with such a force that they both knew would leave a mark the following day.

“Y-Y/N…” Upon realisation of what she had just done, her tight grip around her daughters wrist loosened, hand dropping to her side.

“Never talk to me again.” YN’s words were quiet yet laced with venom before she finally dashed up to her room, one goal in mind:

Leave.

Her movements were quick as she packed her bag, tears leaking from her eyes in both pain and sadness,

Within minutes her bag was packed, tossed over her shoulder before she ran downstairs.

“Please don’t leave.” Her mother’s plead fell on deaf ears, the only response coming from the closing of the door as she watched her daughter leave, neither of them knowing if she would ever return.

~

It was cold. Very cold and Y/N cursed herself for not bringing a jacket, being in a skirt and t-shirt which was the same outfit she had worn to school today.

Shivering, she began her long walk towards HQ, something she knew would take a long time.

~

“What happened to you?” Detective Yagami’s voice was filled with panic upon seeing the tear stains on her cheeks as well as the bright red bruising hand-mark.

Lawliet payed no attention  to his remark, simply assuming that Matsuda had had a clumsy accident yet again.

“Please, can I just sit down?” Was what captured his attention, the soft and exhausted voice being one he recognised immediately.

“O-of course.” Soichiro’s words were rushed as he signalled towards the seat he had previously occupied which Y/N gratefully took.

L spun on his chair to look at the girl, breath hitching as he took in her appearance.

He caught her gaze and she had looked up after hearing the spinning of the chair and she thanked whatever gods there were that it was simply the three of them.

“Detective Yagami would you mind if we have a moment?” L’s stare was unmoving as Yagami nodded, leaving the room.

“R-Ryu…” Her voice sounded broken, eyes filled with pain and he soon noticed the bag on the ground, quickly coming to the conclusion that something had happened at home, presumably with her mother, and she had ran away.

L quickly climbed onto his feet, opening his arms which Y/N gladly ran into, breaking down into sobs. His hand placed itself on her hair, burying itself into her hair as her face buried into his chest. L was uncaring as her tears soaked through his white tee; he only cared that she was okay. They stood like that for a long time, L providing comfort she didn’t know she needed.

“Come on,” L broke the silence as his girlfriend calmed down, her breath evening out, “lets get you to a room.” He offered her a hand as she pulled away, one she took with extreme gratitude, appreciating that it must have been hard for him to give her any affection.

Their hands never parted as they climbed the stairs of the HQ, heading towards Y/N’s new room. Ryuzaki had thrown her bag over his shoulder, the heavy weight of the bag not affecting him one bit.

The room was empty, and it was clear nobody was staying there.

The noise of the bag dropping to the ground was loud, startling Y/N whilst Lawliet remained unaffected, having been the one that had caused the noise; not that it would have scared him anyway.

Y/N was led towards the made bed by the detective, sitting herself down as he wordlessly instructed before taking a seat beside her.

“I’m sorry for being such a bother.” She apologised, making L shake his head in disagreement.

“You could never be a bother, Y/N. Not to me.” His words were less monotone than usual, less devoid of feeling. There was a genuine tone coming from him. “Matsuda’s a bother, not you.” He spoke which made the shorter girl chuckle, something she felt she hadn’t done in ages, despite it having only been a day, #

“Thanks, Ryu. For everything.”

“It’s my pleasure.” His arm wrapped around her shoulder, pulling her closely towards him until her warmth was felt by him. “I-“ He paused as he began to speak, extremely aware of what he was about to say.

“What’s wrong?” Y/N asked, confused at his sudden silence.

“I love you.” His words were quiet, almost unheard had it not been for the fact that the room was deadly silent.

The pair fell into an awkward silence for a moment before L got up to leave, apologising as he did so.

“Wait,” Y/N’s hand wrapped around his own, “I love you too.”

A small smile made its way onto both of their lips, L walking back over to the girl until he was stood directly in front of her. She watched closely as he bent down, unsure of what he was about to do. The second his lips touched her forehead a huge blush flowed across her cheeks.

“R-Ryu…?” Her embarrassed voice sounded, the only response she earned from him being a small smile before he gave her a pat on the head, turning to leave.

“Thank you.” She called, making him stop in the doorway.

“Anytime, Y/N/N.” The use of the nickname only made her blush harder.

[mightydragoon]

Darth Vader A+ Parenting.

While Darth Vader in canon ain’t exactly the nicest fellow, this is a Vader or Anakin who has no qualms getting what he wants and using any methods to do so. 

Or otherwise known as Darth Vader A+ Parenting. 

1.  to gain a son Russy

After falling into a trap laid by the Empire and being captured by two Inquisitors, Luke Skywalker wakes up in an unfamiliar room with an unfamiliar man watching over him.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/25019218/chapters/60586045

2. No Time Like The Present PinkEasterEggs

In a Galaxy where Princess Leia Organa and Luke Vader have always known they were twins, a deadly discovery by their biggest enemy throws their entire lives upside down. Yet again.

Now on the run from the Empire, the Skywalker twins find it their mission to bring peace back to the Galaxy once more. And with Darth Vader on their trail, that mission is far more complicated than they originally believed.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/24754825/chapters/59851300

(Note* Part  3 of the  Back To The Future series. Can be read as standalone) 

  3.  The Heir - SpellCleaver

Darth Vader just killed his master and learned a galaxy-changing truth: the child Palpatine adopted, the Imperial prince and heir, is actually Vader’s son, raised by Palpatine to torment him.

Meanwhile, Luke Palpatine just woke up from severe injuries he sustained in a Rebel attack to a galaxy where his father is dead, he is the Emperor, and the figure from all his childhood nightmares is acting suspiciously nice.

They figure it out from there.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/24024442/chapters/57801529

4. Eclipse - SpellCleaver

Luke and Leia, the twin children of Darth Vader and heirs to the Emperor himself, defect. When they do, it's naturally a dream come true for the Rebellion and the mother they never knew, one that's been a long time in the making.

But they have to get to that point first.

Or: Darth Vader unwittingly sends his children down the merry path of treason... and the ugly, painful fallout.

(Note* Obviously) 

https://archiveofourown.org/works/18221840/chapters/43109123

5. Walking the Line Between - aradian_nights

After an emotional confrontation on Bespin, Luke Organa has been captured, and his newfound twin Leia Skywalker will not stop until she has rescued him. Even if that means murdering their own father.

( How the Other Half Lives  -   aradian_nights) 

(Note* the entire series is this but more in particular the recent additions, I’ve already discussed this story multiple times before so you know the drill )

6.  The kidnappings of a Sith Lord - maedre13

How a certain Sith Lord may or may not kidnap his rebel son. One-shots. Strongly inspired by sparklight´s “Where Our Intrepid Hero Doesn´t Get Away”.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/10606992/chapters/23453241

(Note* not all these chapters are Vader at his worst but he isn’t exactly a top notch parent in them either) 

7. How to Save the World from its Heroes - stardustgirl

Being the Avatar’s—and Fire Lord’s—non-bending heir isn’t what Luke signed up for. He also didn’t sign up for an Agni Kai he can’t possibly win, or for getting dragged into a search for someone who can kill his own dad. Then again, someone has to bring the world back into balance, and if his dad won’t, then Luke might as well give it his best shot. After all, how much worse can things get?

https://archiveofourown.org/works/24948487/chapters/60386875

(Note* Only started and already you can see Vader A+ Parenting in all its glory) 

8. your heart is full of stars and your hands full of shattered glass -victoriousscarf

Nineteen years ago, Vader took his children off Mustafar, and Palpatine raised them to be Sith, the perfect weapons he had been looking for.

Except the very eve of his greatest victory, the fully functional Death Star, Luke Skywalker defects to the floundering but growing Rebel Alliance. His sister follows because someone needs to watch out for that fool.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/13242183/chapters/30290415

9.  Love of a daughter. - youngjusticewriter

"and yet, so far at least we have yet to figure out what you gain from this." It's a question as well as statement. A chance to explain, to come clean on why she - a unknown Sith- had assassinated they're precious, beloved Chancellor (what fools). But how could you come clean when there is so much blood on her hands? Never-mind the sins and blood on Vader and Luke's when her family had been alive.

When she answers it's not because she's announcing her transgressions in hope that her heavy, dirty soul might be saved. One couldn't repent when they didn't feel guilt in their sin.

"For the love of a daughter." Leia pauses and looks back at Anakin and thinks: I did this to avenge you. After thinking that Leia says one more thing - the last thing actually because she nothing else to say after this.

"And you should have been more careful electing your Chancellor. You never know who is Sith." This has double meaning but she's the only person who knows it.

And she's fine with that (no, she isn't).

Leia wonders if her younger self and Luke will ever become the monsters like her Luke had been and the monster she is.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/10924239/chapters/24297558

10.  Literal Hell - TreeOfTime

Luke Lars is content as a Moisture Farmer with his father and mother... until two people come to find what was lost to them...

Then all hell broke lose

https://archiveofourown.org/works/22579066/chapters/53957833

(Note* oh dear lord Vader A+ Parenting in its full glory, a Sith Leia for flavour and a non force sensitive Luke. ) 

11.  Dynasty - Valerie_Vancollie: Co-authored by Rebecca Thomson aka Zekkers.

Hit in the leg by a stormtrooper's blaster bolt, Luke falls in the Death Star hanger bay and is unable to escape on the Falcon along with Han and Leia. During the subsequent interrogation, his true heritage is revealed and Vader instantly takes him to Coruscant, determined to reclaim the son the Jedi stole from him. But the glory of the Imperial capital belies its true nature, where politics and power are everything and anything is fair game in the never ending game to reach the top. Not lying, not betrayal, assassination, sabotage, blackmail, nor seduction. As he commences his Sith training, Luke must also learn the rules and etiquette of the Imperial Court if he is to survive as most of his enemies fight their battles with words and political maneuverings rather than military force. Yet, even as he struggles to gain his place within the Empire, Luke learns that his best friend has joined the Alliance...

https://archiveofourown.org/works/13111908/chapters/29997507

12. Fractured twists - Annessarose

Timelines are fickle things.

Every line is balanced precariously on the precipice. One shift, one twitch of a finger, one step in the wrong direction, and entire stories change. Lives flicker out, galaxies rise and fall, but the Force is always a constant.

Each moment is carefully balanced. We know how the Siege of Mandalore happened - how the former Jedi padawan Ahsoka Tano led her men into victory. How she defeated Maul in single combat and earned the loyalty of Lady Bo-Katan Kyrze. How she rode her ship too late to meet with Anakin Skywalker, and how the galaxy fell and burned under the hand of the Sith.

This is the way it could have gone if Obi-Wan had followed Ahsoka to Mandalore.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/24158608

13. Runaway- Valerie_Vancollie

Co-authored by Rebecca Thomson aka Zekkers & a contest winner.

What if Luke had runaway from Tatooine and joined the Imperial Academy?

https://archiveofourown.org/works/12976095

14. A Mother's Decision - Valerie_Vancollie

What if Padmé had brought Luke to Vader when Luke was only nine months old?

https://archiveofourown.org/works/12915687

15. Descent into Darkness - Valerie_Vancollie

What if instead of waiting for Luke to come to him on Endor, Vader had gone for Luke and the others, capturing them while with the Ewoks?

https://archiveofourown.org/works/12908223

16. Avenge and Conquer - arikylo

The Alliance has fallen into a very well laid trap and now Luke has no choice but to hand himself over to Vader. But what does the father have in store for the son? Can Luke handle the torture and the ruthless tactics of the Empire or will he be forced to surrender and embrace the dark side?

The struggle between the light and the dark is strenuous, relationships crumble and all is looking bleak for the Alliance.

Dark!AU set after ESB.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/3058115/chapters/6639581

17. The Terrorist - Seasider

High above Bespin in Cloud City, Vader chooses not reveal his identity and instead uses deceit to trick Luke into surrendering. The Dark Lord has a lot on his agenda, so he entrusts the breaking of his son to an Imperial interrogator, unaware that the man has an agenda of his own: revenge.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/24810643/chapters/60006952

(Note* Dead Dove do not eat. Contains some reall fucked up shit) 

18. Consequences - treenahasthaal

An intense burst of light and a vicious blow to his left shoulder sent him spinning violently backward and he fell...

What if Luke hadn't made it off the Death Star immediately following Kenobi's death?

https://archiveofourown.org/works/809144/chapters/1527145

(Note* It’s also a boba fett/ luke) 

19. Instinct - treenahasthaal

There was something about the blond boy in the crowd of detainees that caught Commander Yarryn's attention. Something that pulled at his gut and told him there was more about this captive than met the eye. It was his duty to find out what it was the boy was hiding - and find it he would, for Yarryn was very good at his job.

12 weeks after the destruction of the Death Star.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/2185854/chapters/4785594

( Part 1 of the Invictus series) 

20. Child of Mine - Oneshotshipper

AU. Darth Vader discovers Leia at a young age. Barely managing to escape her father's clutches the first time, young Leia goes into hiding and becomes the Empire's most-wanted fugitive. If the second time comes, fate will not be as kind. Meanwhile, Darth Vader would tear apart the galaxy itself to possess and keep his child. The Dark Side seems to inevitably be the fate of the Skywalkers.

21. To Catch a Daughter, One must... - ftbprotocol

A variety of AU one-shots where in canon Leia stayed a secret, but in these stories did not. Because there needs to be more Leia and Vader fic!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/12173637/chapters/27632673

22.  Daughter Over The Son - Keetajet

Work is inspired by ftbprotocol's work "To Catch a Daughter, One must..."

The moment where Darth Vader did not save his son. Instead, he will have his daughter.

Leia's future went downhill the moment she felt her brother die on the second Death Star, leading to their capture on Endor. Only she, Han, and Chewie survived the failed ground assault and they were restrained and being held at gun point.

She has a bad feeling about this.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/25354183/chapters/61476130

23. Before the Emperor - SilverDaye

Luke is defeated and captured at Cloud City by Vader. He is then dragged before the Emperor. However Palpatine is dead. Luke's father is alive. And someone else holds the reigns to Vader and the Empire.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/15950198/chapters/37196351

Tags- to help search for more

Darth Vader's A+ parenting

Dark Anakin Skywalker

Sith Luke Skywalker

Imperial Luke Skywalker

Luke Skywalker & Darth Vader

Leia Organa & Darth Vader

Bad Parent Darth Vader

[storytime-with-moth]

Writing modern teen Dad Sokka (zukka uni)

I wrote this a few months ago, but I ran out of steam and inspiration, so anyone is welcome to take this on and finish it as their own or take it as a prompt and try there own story.

Summer of grade 11, Sokka and Yue spend the whole summer as lifeguards, soaking up the sun, making each other laugh and dreaming of the future.

One night it’s just the two of them in the pool after it’s closed, you can see the full moon through the windows above, Sokka and Yue lay on floaties driving around the pool.

“Hey Sokka?”

“Hmm?”

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

Sokka laughs “Haven’t heard that since I was a kid and I wanted to be and otter penguin - and no I have no idea where that came from.”

Yue turns over so she can look Sokka in the eyes. “Seriously though, what do you want to do when you can leave this small town and its small ideas.

Sokka could tell that there was more behind the question but tired answering it honestly “I dunno exactly “What” I want to be, but I think I would like to build things, useful things too. And I’m not really a car guy or a building guy.”

Yue snorts “Ya not a car guy, says the guy who failed to get his license twice!”

“Hey!” Sokka splashes yue playfully. “Okay okay, I have been looking the some of the research into mixing prosthetics with robotics and focusing more on make prosthetics one with the body, I don’t know much about it yet. But I guess I started reading all about them and I kinda became obsessed.”

“what about hockey?”

“I love hockey, and the coaches at school think I’m good enough to get scholarships, so if hockey helps support an actual career for me I’m all for it, but I know I want to do more than catch pucks my whole life, I want to really use my brain and solve puzzles.”

“hmm” Yue turned over and looked back at the moon thoughtful.

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Well as you so gracefully put it, what do you want to do when you can leave this place that’s too small for you and your big ideas and dreams?”

“Well when you put it like that… I want to travel, see places, important places. I want to fall in love, out of love, I want to have enough friends that my house is always filled with good food and loud laughter. I want to be a Mom someday, I think maybe I want to go to school and study philosophy, not sure what kind of job that leads to but I want to ask questions, the big questions like why are we here, what is a life well spent?”

“Whoa”

“Ya… Whoa”

“and have you talked to your dad about that?

“Sort of, and it sort of didn’t go well.”

“he’s still set on you making the Canadian swim team? Duty to country and family stuff?”

“YeP” she said as she popped the P

“That sucks”

“indeed it does”

They floated around in silence for a bit longer.

“Hey Sokka?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you want to have sex?”

Sokka promptly fell into the water, Yue’s laugh echoing around the empty pool.

They did indeed tumble into bed together that night, an awkward interaction for both of them that ended with the laughing covered in sweat. That morning when Sokka woke up Yue was already sitting on his bed looking at his doodles on the walls.

“Sokka I love you, I do, and I honestly thought maybe I loved you like a girl loves a guy, but I think I just love you because you're my best friend.”

“Ookaaay. I think I should add in you’re my best friend too? Because you’re being weird”

Yue looked to her hands in her lap and a tear fell to her hand. “Sokka, think I might like girls.”

She said it so quietly that it took a second for Sokka to understand what she had just told him.

“Whoa, no I mean, Cool! That’s fine. I support you, wait was I really bad last night?”

Yue’s tears quickly turn into laughs “No you idiot! You ere great, it just wasn’t right”

“Okay well cool then…..”

“Cool then”

“promise you won’t tell?”

“Yue, I promise I won’t tell! I can even pretend to be your boyfriend so your dad can’t freak out, and we can totally go to the girls soccer games this year if you want?”

“Sokka I love you, you big dummy”

“Well I love you to, to the moon and back dreamer”

___________________________________

So Sokka and Yue were still best friends and they spent the fall attached at the hip, and when Yue found out she was expecting a baby and her parents kicked her out, Sokka just grabbed her hand and her backpack and walked into his house stating that Yue lived here now.

Hakoda and Bato nodded and welcomed her home, Katara squealed and fawned over becoming an auntie.

And for a while things were good, they were complicated as they prepared to become teen parents, co parenting as best friends, both of them aiming for scholarships and working part-time gigs whenever they could to save up. But life was happy, they were going to have a baby.

But then things went wrong, Yue went into labour 6 weeks early, her pressure dropped, the baby’s dropped, there was blood, there were doctors everywhere, then there was a small shrill cry, more moving and running and yelling. Then there was a lot of quiet.

Yue died in labour, their baby was in the NICU for three weeks to improve her lungs and even then doctors were worried about how premature she was. Finally after weeks camped out in a hospital next to his baby in a box or in his bed in the dark or the shower staring at the wall, he could bring his daughter home. She was going to be okay.

Her name was Juno Kya Last name, and she was perfect, wide hazel eyes like her Mom, and the sharp cupids bow like Kya, it looked like she would have Sokka’s dark hair and complexion. She watched everything with curious eyes, and didn’t cry unless she was hungry or tired which was often the first few months. But Bato and Hakkoda loved their granddaughter to bits and helped with everything. The diapers, the late feedings, the tummy time, the grieving.

The grieving was the hardest. Mostly because he was to busy trying to be there as a Dad and as a student and as a team player. He spent so long being there for everyone else that one night once hockey season was over and Katara took Juno to a girls sleepover he was all alone, for the first time since he was a little boy after his Mom died.

The dam burst and he sat on the floor and cried, he cried until his Dads came home and they wrapped him up in a hug and he cried some more. Then they made hot chocolate and sat on the couch in thick chewy blankets. They talked and talked, Hakkoda speaking about loosing the love of his life with two young children, being a dad by himself, Bato spoke about loosing his best friend Kya so unfairly and traumatically. The spoke about the unfairness of life and the peace in death, and how he will never move on but he will move forward, with one hand holding his daughter and the other pointing him forward to his own future.

When Katara came home the next day, Sokka was already awake and making blueberry pancakes poorly singing ice ice baby. When he saw his sister holding Juno he scooped her up and gave her a million kisses.

They were going to be okay, because they were loved, because Sokka was smart, because Sokka was going to be driven just like his best friend was, he was going to ask the big questions whenever he could, and love and laugh, so much his home was filled with it.

For Juno and for Yue, and for himself too.

_________________________

So Sokka worked his ass off, he won a full ride scholarship to university for hockey to study bio engineering, he was even able to work on family residence on campus, which took a load off his shoulders of trying to figure out travel to and from school with a baby, now he skates, lives and attends school on campus (which even had a daycare)

During the summer leading up leaving for school Bato revealed that ever since Sokka got into school he has been trying to transfer his job to the same city so they could be closer and he had not only done that but he had gotten a promotion out of it too. So Katara was starting at a new high school for senior year and Bato and Hakkoda were moving to be 20 minutes away from Sokka’s school.

He knew he would have to get used to being more independent, as he knew his dads thought he would be annoyed by them following him, or his sister would be upset about changing schools. But no, katara had high hopes for her new adventure and sokka was just relived to not be alone, and that Juno had more than one badly an adult person in her life.

_________________

Little hands grabbed at Sokka’s hair as he hoisted 9 month old Juno up on his hip. “Well June-Bug this is it our home for the next four or so years”

Juno looked up at her dad with wide hazel eyes and replied in noisy baby babble.

From behind Sokka Bato came up and rested a hand on on his shoulder “Deep breaths kid, you’re going to be great.”

Sokka smiled ruefully at Bato as Katara ran up with a stroller full of baby things and his dad struggled with his hockey bags as he tried to lock the car with one hand.

Sokka looked at Juno again and whispered to her and himself “Deep breaths kid”

Later after they had gotten the crib set up in the attached office to Sokka’s room Bato and Katara took Juno for a walk in her stroller to grab some food. While Sokka and his dad finished unpacking.

“Son are you sure you want to stay on campus, are you sure you want Juno to stay with you? We could take her for the weeks mostly and you could come stay with us at the new place on weekends. I know you expected to do this more by yourself, but Bato would move oceans for you kid and got the new position in town, so we’re here, we can help.”

“Dad… Ya I’m going to need help, so thank you, I will take you up on looking after Juno when I need it, but you and Bato are going to be looking after her as her grandparents and not as her guardians. I promised Yue - Juno and I are family, and I’m not going to pass her off whenever I feel like not being a Dad anymore, she’s my kid and I want to be here for all the stuff, the walking the talking everything, and that’s not going to happen if she’s only my kid on weekends.

“Sokka you’re doing just fine son, more than fine really. Okay okay well when Juno wants to see her Great Papa and GB (Grand Bato) you give us a call, or if you need to pull an all nighter for an assignment you call, anything you call and we can be here. And when you get your game schedule, email us so we can make sure one of us can take her to the games, Bato is very excited about the baby headphones he bought her.”

“Okay Dad Okay, Now get out of here ya old man, and Dad Thanks for being here.”

“Of course Sokka”

________________________

Sokka was pretty pleased with his new place, sure it was small, but it was clean and had more room than he expected to get so he was grateful. The suite was in the family/accessible living accommodations which was a small building with elevators to every floor. This suite had two rooms on opposite sides of the small common area which had a worn in couch and a coffee table. There was also a small kitchen and an even smaller dinner table. Sokka’s room had a small attached office space that he turned into Juno’s room, even though she still co-slept with him most nights, it was good to have a crib for naps and a place to put her never ending supply of diapers, blankets and clothes.

Sokka's roommate was a paraplegic kid named Teo who happened to have basically the same schedule as Sokka so they quickly bonded over advancements in the medical and mechanical fields. Teo also seemed pretty chill and took a liking to Juno right away. Which made Sokka endlessly happy because, well they were now living together and babies cry and poop so he was worried about tiptoeing around his new home.

Day care still didn’t open for the next two weeks while sokka would be attending training camp so his Dad would be taking most of the days with Juno, but it happened to shake out where the first day of meet and greet and skate Hakkoda was attending a support group meeting for retired field medics in a new city and Sokka didn’t want his Dad to miss it, plus it gave Sokka an opportunity to introduce everyone to his best girl.

Katara came to hold Juno while he was on the ice excited to get a sneak peek at university life before her high school year started.

“Da da da” Juno babbled as she mushed her fist into Sokka’s mouth, sokka smiled and pretended to gobble up her hand, the baby shrieked and laughed and Sokka adjusted her baby sweater around her neck.

“Sokka she’s fine, I have diapers, formula, and the big blanket you packet in the stroller, if she gets fussy I can take her for a walk to see the birds, and she won’t get cold because you packed a million layers and she will be held by every limbo there so again, she will be fine.”

Sokka checked the stroller again nodding to what his sister was saying. She was right, he was prepared, he had already emailed with the coaches so they knew what was up and he had coffee with the captain yesterday, who looked like a giant holding his baby, but overall seemed like a good guy. Eric “Wooly Mammoth/ Wooly” Woolner seemed like a solid guy, like physically solid and also like the type of guy Sokka could lean on as a leader while figuring out classes, fatherhood and being on a university level hockey team.

Everyone met in a blank sort of room with lots of chairs facing a projector, Sokka thought it was probably to review game footage and make new plays. He settled in with Juno on his lap as the other guys in the room took notice that there was a baby in their midst.

“Sokka you brilliant man!” Shouted a familiar face from across the room as he stood up and ran over.

Haru was taller and broader than Sokka, much bigger at least than when they last saw each other when they played on the same club team when they were 15.

“Haru, dude! You’re here! Awesome!”

Haru took a look at Juno and sized her up, then he stuck out his tongue and did a silly dance, Juno hid her face in Sokka’s shoulder and Haru ran around so she could see him and did it again. This time he managed to get a small smile before she hid her face again, grabbing Sokka’s collar with her hands.

“She’s cute Socks, she yours?”

“Yep, this is Juno.”

“Nice, is she gonna be at the games and shit?”

“Easy up on the potty mouth there dude, and ya I hope so, my dads moved into town so they hope to be there and bring her to them and stuff.”

“Wicked, is the uh - mom in the picture?”

“Nah, she passed when Juno was born so it’s just us.”

“Sorry bro”

“Thanks, anyways we should totally catch up properly later. Let’s introduce the team to our new good luck charm shall we?”

Katara was right, Juno has passed from bro to dude to himbo, once she realized that everyone one here was as big and cuddly as her dad she seemed to warm up and enjoy the attention. Then it was time for everyone to get on the ice to pass around the puck and do some laps getting a feel for the other players on the ice.

Juno sat with Katara smearing her messy hands all over the glass looking at the people on the rink until she fell asleep in her stroller tucked under a whole blanket.

Sokka enjoyed the team, Haru was a great comfort of home, Wooly was a level headed captain that set a tone for the rest of the guys, then there was Lucas “Longshot” Cho, Dennis “The Duke” Cunningham, Sam “Rooke” Chesterfield, Finn “Pipsqueak” Biggs, and the team manager Suki and the assistant captain Zuko.

All of the guys were loud and boisterous, including Suki, but Zuko seemed reserved and maybe a little prickly.

Then there were coaches Piandao and Bumi. Piandao seemed more serious, the man with a plan. He had coached a lot of different teams and was sought after for his reputation of the coach who turns coal into diamonds, Bumi on the other hand had coached here forever it seemed. He gave Sokka Manic genius vibes that had him thinking that maybe he should let Piandao hold Juno for the occasional practise instead of the ripped crazy old guy who ran around the ice in uggs.

——————

Later when Sokka was packing up and talking to the coaches about potentially bringing Juno with him in case he couldn’t find a sitter last minute working out how that would work, Katara pulled up with a fussy Juno in her stroller.

“Sorry Sokka I have to run, Dad is outside waiting for me and I have to finish unpacking my room tonight”

“All good Kat, thanks again for coming tonight!”

Katara leaned down and kissed her fingers and pressed them to Juno’s head “Love you little bug”

The coaches bid their farewells shortly after and Sokka packed his stuff into the stroller before taking Juno out to settle her and give her a bottle.

Just as he tucked her into his arms and pulled the bottle from the bag someone walked briskly into the locker room where he was sitting.

Zuko and Assistant Captain huffed in and sat down hanging up his phone and tossing it on the bench.

“Uh hi?”

Zuko whirled around looking ready for a fight before spotting Sokka and said baby sucking on a bottle. “Hi Baby.” Zuko said shyly.

Sokka laughed “ Take me on a date before you call me that.” And winked at Zuko.

Zuko looked like a startled deer so Sokka took pity on him.

“Just kidding dude, I mean sort of I am Bi - what a discovery that was and anyways - sorry I wasn’t coming on to you - I don’t know you - I just thought I should make it clear that I COULD come on to you because I like guys, and girls…. Whelp I would start running away in shame now for oversharing but I’m currently a food spruce for this nugget sooo, yep just going to sit here and wish I could time travel to punch myself in the face.”

Throughout the vomit of words coming out of sokka’s mouth Zuko seemed to relax and then smirk at the other man.

“You do know I was talking to your kid right?”

“Yep, yes I did”

“Well see you around Sokka.”

And Zuko grabbed his bag and left the locker room. First impressions for today might be bit all over the place Sokka thought to himself.

____________________________________

Sokka talked to Juno all of the time. What can he say, he is a guy with a lot of words and they can’t all stay in his head.

So Juno has an interesting and advanced vocal for a 9 month old baby.

Of course she can address the people in her life, Dada, Kat, Great Papa, and GB (Great Bato)

She can also ask for milk, to go up, and uh oh.

She loves to say no but can infect say yes (sokka swears he’s heard that one)

But it also means she tries to say things that Sokka often says to varying degrees of baby success

“Stupid gravity!”

"Monkey balls”

“Shoot”

“I love you to the moon and back”

“hockey time.

And her favourite word of all time

Puck

It stopped making Sokka freeze after the first 2o times he thought he heard his baby say fuck. Now its just a cute funny thing his kid has figured out, Dada has to find the puck, and it is her job to hide them.

She hides pucks everywhere, he swears sometimes she is multiplying them on her own because he always finds at least two in the diaper bag and one hidden in her crib.

So very quickly into the season the team dubs the hockey baby with her very own nickname

“Little puck”

Sokka quietly thinks that Yue would have liked that one because her favourite Shakespeare play was midsummer night's dream.

________________________

The team gets Juno and Sokka a fancy running stroller for her birthday/christmas

It was Zuko’s idea

Zuko sometimes comes by to offer to take her for a run when Sokka has exams.

_______________________

Zuko seemed to always be the last to leave the locker rooms, Sokka would usually rush out to pick up Juno from whoever had her unless she had stayed with Couch Dao during practise which she had today.

On days like today Sokka takes his time, cleans and folds his gear, re-tapes his stick for next practise and actually has a real shower. So today he was tucking Juno back in her stroller after changing her as Zuko put the tape away. They were casually talking about the hilarious origins of Pipsqueaks nickname when sokka realized Zuko had a funny look on his face.

“What? Do I have poop on me or something?”

Now Zuko looked even more confused as Sokka looked at his shirt, twisting around to make sure he was free of baby droppings.

“No, you just never look at it, is all. I was trying to figure out what was so -weird about you other than being a crazy goalie, and you don’t look at it.”

“I don’t look at what?”

Zuko gestures to the scared half of his face glumly. “You don’t look at it, you look me in the eyes, always have. It’s weird I guess. You pretending it’s not there.”

“Oh”

“Forget it, sorry.”

“No! It’s just of course I know it’s ther, I’m not pretending its not there, it just seems like whatever happen was probably truamitic, ya know? And - well - okay so tragic backstory time. My Mom was killed in a targeted home invasion by some racists, super fucked up... “

“Holy shit.”

“Yep, anyways everyone knew about it, in the town we lived in, in the next town we lived in, So it was like everyone could see my big truma all the time, it wasn’t up to me to trust people enough to share something that was hard for me and that hurt. It was out of my hands and everyone knew including people I didn’t feel safe with or I didn’t know at all. So I get it, in a way. I see your scar I do, but I get that it maybe comes with a pretty sucky story that’s not mine to make assumptions and judgments on. If I’m worthy of knowing then I will, but I will always look you in the eyes, I’m not going to look at your trauma first because you’re Zuko first.”

Zuko stared at Sokka with his mouth open. Sokka looked away and finished strapping Juno into her stoller before looking back up at the other player. When he did Zuko was looking at the wall, his shoulders turned away from the young father.

“Thank you, and I’m sorry about your Mom… I promise I won’t tell anyone, that scar can stay between us for however long you need.”

And before Sokka could stay anything Zuko turned on his heel and walked quickly from the room.

________________________-

Sokka wasn’t sure what was up with this Zuko guy, everyone else on the team except Haru and Sokka had played with Zuko last year, so they all seemed to have an unspoken understanding of the reserve alt captain. But Sokka couldn’t even get him to smile. Sokka knew he was funny, he was full of 100% organic grass fed dad jokes for goodness sakes! But no, Zuko would not smile, he would not laugh, actually most of the time he seemed to be trying to not talk to Sokka in general. Which was hard considering Zuko was one of the defensemen and it was his job to protect Sokka, you’d think there would be an effort to become friends.

“Maybe he’s uncomfortable with the whole baby thing?” Suggested Teo from the table where he was copying data to a new chart.

“Nahh, I don’t think so, he even said hi to Juno at the first prac - ohhhhhhh” Sokka fell to the floor from where he was sitting with Juno, she took the opportunity of her opponent on the ground and began to climb on her dad.

“What ohhhhhh?”

“I totally flirted with him after that and told him I was queer and he like panic walked out of the locker room.”

“Ugh so do you think he’s homophobic or something?”

“Maybe or something? I don’t get bully vibes from him more like “I act scary so people won’t pretend to like me and then stab me in the back” vibes from this guy. So maybe it’s just a little internalized stuff and he’s not going to beat me up just might not want to talk about it.”

“Well it sucks either way!”

Juno continued to climb around her Dad trying to stuff toys down his shirt and then take them out again. Sokka kept a hand two inches from her back whenever she got close to standing just incase she decided that gravity no longer applied to her and she tumbled over.

“Hey Sokka, do you think he told anyone? Would your spot be in danger if you were outed?”

A cold feeling settled in his stomach “oh shit, I uh, I didn’t think about that… I don’t think I would be kicked off the team. There are policies like that for the school, but I don’t know about how safe I would be from the boys.”

“Oh,” Teo finally looked up from his laptop and set down his highlighter. “You know if you need someone to back you up, I know I can’t take them in a fight but I am friends with some freelance hackers and I could make their lives living hell.”

“Teo, you my man are one scary dude, and the wheels only add intimidation with that tricked out chair. You’re also a really great friend.”

Teo blushed and shrugged “Eh it’s whatever, us queers in engineering trying to change the way people use bionic tech gotta stick together right?”

“Totally, isn’t Uncle Teo awesome June-Bug?” Sokka picked up his daughter and flew her over his head as she wiggled her legs.

“Too too!”

“Uncle Teo?” teo said quietly from the table.

“Oh, well ya, if you want? Juno needs a village right? And one day you and I are going to start a bionics company together, so ya you’re going to be around for a while right?”

“Right.” Teo smiled.

“Toto!” Juno screamed again.

Both of the boys laughed and the night went on.

_______________________________________

Juno was still asleep and Teo was in the house studying so Sokka took the opportunity to go for a run around his building with the baby monitor clipped on his waist band.

It was rare nowadays that Sokka could get a good run in outside, his feet pounding the pavement, a chance to clear his mind.

He was surprised to see that Zuko apparently had the same idea because soon they were matching each other stride for stride around the complex. It was surprising even after weeks of Zuko evading Sokka at any chance they seemed to be in sync.

They were still going strong when Sokka heard Juno fuss from the monitor and slowed to a stop. Zuko halted a few paces ahead and looked confused.

“Are you tired? We can stop-” Zuko started but Sokka quickly waved him off.

“No it’s Juno, I just want to see if she’s going to go back to sleep herself or whether I have to call Teo to pick her up, or if I should go get her. Come on J-Bug settle down,”

Zuko looking curious came to hover over Sokka’s shoulder looking down at the tiny screen which showed Juno in her crib tossing and turning.

“Come on J look your penguin is right there- YES!” Sokka pumped his fist and did a little dance. “My baby went back to sleep, ah I love you!” He continued speaking to the machine and the sky and skipped around before remembering he had an audience.

It looked like Zuko was thinking about smiling and Sokka thought that that might be worth celebrating too.

“Hehe whoops, sorry man. I just haven't been able to run in forever, it's like she knows when I grab my runners and demands to see me.”

“No worries, Sokka.”

So the two hockey players started up a soft pace again around the building. It came to Sokka's mind that he shouldn’t poke the bear but he also had poor impulse control so as he thought it the words came tumbling out of his mouth.

“So have you outed me to all the guys and should I watch my back?”

Now it was Zuko’s turn to stop, he looked like Sokka slapped him.

“What.”

“Ugh! You know, like I can not talk about it and we can just play the game but - should I be making sure that Juno is safe? If she comes to a practise and I’m leaving will I get roughed up by the guys? Because I can take a hit, but my daughter is off limits. Nothing has happened yet so, my guess is you haven't told anyone, but are you going to?”

“No!” Zuko still looked scared “ Never - do I come off as someone who would do that?” He followed up quietly.

“I don’t know what to say dude, you looked scared out of your mind when I flirted with you and practically ran out when I told you I was Bi and ever since you have avoided me, I just assumed you were uncomfortable.”

Zuko looked around as if to check for monsters around them, then he looked at Sokka. “I won’t tell anyone, I haven't, I swear to you that I have your back if you ever want to say anything about it. Juno is safe, I swear it.”

“Whoa that’s a serious tone shift, Um thank you then.”

There was an awkward pause as the two men regarded each other for a moment.

“Just out of curiosity why did you avoid me after? Was it the baby thing?”

“No, it wasn't the baby thing.” zuko mumbled and toed the dirt with his shoe.

“Okay… but were good now right?”

“Ya”

Sokka turned and started to jog again, and soon enough Zuko caught up and they continued for a few more laps. As they were cooling down Zuko still looked amped up, Sokka was surprised, running usually calmed him down but Zuko seemed jumpy.

“Well this was fun! If I can ever join again it would be nice to have company, even company as quiet as you along.”

“Why don’t you bring Juno in her stroller or something?”

Sokka rubbed a hand behind his neck “ Well her stroller is a second hand one we got when she was born, it’s not the kind I can take running without it falling apart or bouncing my babies brains out. And her Mom and I both had much to offer in genetic smarts so I would like my babies brain to be perfect so she can run the world or something.”

“Oh and I guess running strollers are expensive?”

“Ya a bit, and I already spend so much on her clothes, she just won’t stop growing!”

“Too bad, it was also nice running with you.”

“Wow a real Zuko compliment, be still my beating heart!”

Sokka grabbed his chest and fell back and rolled in the grass. Zuko’s lips tilted up just a fraction and butterflies fluttered in sokka’s stomach.

Just then Juno started to cry in earnest and Teo’s voice came over the monitor. “Uh Sokka is her bottle the one in the door of the fridge or do I make a new one?”

Sokka sighed a little then pressed the intercom button on the monitor “Don’t worry about it Teo I will be up in two. Just start telling her the periodic table or something.”

“See you later Zuko”

“Bye Sokka.”

_____________

Sokka’s head was pounding and his vision was blurry, as he stumbled in the dark to the toilet and heaved.

“Fuck.”

At some piont after the sweating and throwing up he dragged himself back to his room to fetch his phone. Juno was fast asleep in her crib because he had a headache last night and homework took forever, so he had put her down early.

Back in the bathroom he rested his head on the cool tile and dialed up his dad with shaky fingers.

After three rings Hakkoda picked up in a panic “Sokka, are you okay? Is Juno okay? Where are you?”

Sokka squinted his eyes at the loud voice of his Dad ringing around his skull. “Dad? I think I have the flu.”

“Oh bud, okay. What’s going on, how can I help?”

“I had a headache last night so I put J down for bed early then I woke up with a fever, I keep throwing up, Dad I -” Sokka felt a lump in his throat and tears sting his eyes. “Dad I don’t want to her her, she was just so small, and I don’t want her to get sick. I know I have to do this, but i love her so much and I dont want to fuck up - “

The tears fall down his cheeks to the floor.

“Oh son, okay. One you love that kid more than anything you would die before hurting her this I know. Two people get sick, people also get better with rest and the I think I can help with that.”

“Dad I know I’m grown up ish, but can you tell me what to do?”

Hakkoda chuckled on the other end of the line. “Sokka, Bato and I will come pick up Juno in 30 minutes, we will drop off some crackers and gatorade too.”

“Dad- “

“Nope Sokka, you asked so I am telling you what we are going to do. We will come and get our baby girl and take her for a few days, You will email your profs and get your homework sent to you, you can only go to class when you don’t have a fever and if you do you’re going to wear a mask, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Good you will email your coaches tell them whats what, when you feel better you can go watch practise, the cool might even be good for the fever, but you will not push yourself. This week will not make or break the rest of your life. So you will sleep, rest, do your work form home, and Juno will play at GB and great Papa’s house. And everything will be okay.”

“Okay. Thank you dad”

“We will be there soon buddy”

So Juno went with his Dad’s and he sent his emails and face planted in his bed and passed out for 6 hours.

Later an hour before practise Sokka’s phone pinged, he groaned and grasped around for his phone.

A text from Fire Prince Zuko

Coaches just said you won’t be at practise tonight. Is everything okay? Is Puck good?

Flu bug, don’t want to mess up that pretty ice with my vomit. Juno seems fine she’s at my Dads house until I’m not dying of the plague

A few minutes went by after that and sokka’s eyes started to fall again. “Ping”

I can drop off soup and tea on my way to practise, which suite is yours in family huas?

Dude its fine I can feed myself

Dude. I’m helping at my uncle’s tea shop today. They have soup and tea, it’s no problem. In fact my uncle insists.

14a second floor

And thank you Z

What are Alt Capts for?

Hakkoda was right, everything was indeed okay in the end. Juno had a blast at her grandparents house and sokka managed to get all of his homework done and even managed to watch a few lectures online courtesy of Teo. Zuko was the anomaly he could’t account for but was grateful for none the less. Whenever he could he stopped by with snacks, soup, tea and even weirder sent cute cat and baby videos at random points during the days.

Within 4 days Sokka felt good enough to go to classes and do some dryland training uring practise and after one more day he was back catching pucks on the rink with his daughter sleeping in the bed next to him one hand fisted on his shirt to make sure her dad didn’t leave.

After that week sometimes Zuko would still stop by with a tea, which Sokka had begun to like even when he wasn’t dying. Except now he would occasionally stay and drink his own tea while they watched juno play on the floor.

Sokka was starting to think he might have a new friend after all…

_____________________

[evak-fic-rec-turtleanon]

Evak Fics - Kid Fics

*** Isak and Even have a child together *** They are parents but to different children *** Only one of them is a parent 

***** THEY HAVE A CHILD TOGETHER *****

Nas by OrTheNightEverythingChanged (571 words) - Isak and Even take their daughter to the skatepark. 

Sugar Coat This Love For Me by i_once_wrote_a_dream (1k words) - A little argument over candy during Halloween. 

life with our little prince by glbertblythes (SERIES. 3 Fics) - Isak and Even adopt a little boy with prince curls and blue eyes. 

All in the Eyes of a Boy by MacksDramaticShenanigans (1.3k words) - the first time Isak and Even meet their son. 

all i want for christmas is you by stringsinmelody (1.3k words) - Isak and Even enjoy their first Christmas together with their baby. 

sugar and spice and everything nice by chasingflower (1.6k words) - Eskild and Noora finds Evak’s kid from the future. It’s adorable as heck. 

småfolk by stringsinmelody (SERIES. 5 fics) - a/b/o undertones. 

the room's hush hush and now's our moment by ahana (2.2k words) - A night in the life of Isak and Even, sixteen years later. 

Stjerner Lyser Skinnende by MacksDramaticShenanigans (2.4k words) - Isak and Even attend their daughter’s music concert. She has a surprise for them. 

The Beginning of Believing by MacksDramaticShenanigans (2.5k words) - Their children argue about Santa. 

I'll be there by Wolle19 (SERIES. 3 fics) - All Isak want is for his husband to be home for the holidays. Mpreg. 

I'll give you the brightest sunshine by goldenkisses (3k words) - It was something that they new would always happen, a life being brought into their lives that would make all the gloomy days into something so bright. Adoption. 

everything that happens is from now on. by Skamtrash (6.7k words) - Adoption. At the end so not a lot of the kid is involved here. This is part of a series. The next part, wrap your arms around my heart just like you always do. has more of the kid. 

Isn't He Lovely by MacksDramaticShenanigans (4.4k words) - the first time Evak’s kid meets his uncles. 

don't be wasting your time (on your own) by orphan_account (4.6k words) - Five things Even reminds himself not to forget, and the one thing he does. NOTE: The fic says this is a sequel and the first fic is a must read. But there’s no link so if you know which the main fic is, let me know. P.S. This could go under the different children category but they are already a family here so.. 

The Fools Who Dream by Janey_E (6k words) - A collection of moments from Isak and Even's family life, important and not-so-important. Kids, friends, mornings, evenings, weddings, birthdays, bad days, good days. 

Our Steady True North by verlore_poplap (orphan_account) (9k words) - Five times Isak and Even were amicable; plus one time they just weren't. Co-parenting. Post break-up. 

i ain't no hercules by grinsekaetzchen (12k words) - Post-apocalypse world. This is a sequel. So SPOILERS. They kinda adopt this boy. The first part is if you must live, darling one, just live and it’s amazing. 

my entire world fits perfectly in my arms by theyellowcurtains (12.8k words) - A bunch of cuddle prompts. Not all of these are kid fics. 

(WIP) Everyday Evak: The Realistic Stories of Isak & Even by NeonViolet (14k words) - A realistic looks into Even and Isak's life. It's not always glamorous. 

you told me we were forever by Skamtrash (19k words) - Isak finds out he's having a baby soon after Even breaks up with him so he makes the decision not to tell him. Except Even finds out on his own 3 years later. 

The Fiction of Reality by Midlifecrisis (24k words) - Isak and Even have a daughter, but life is not plain sailing. 

Soup is for the Soul by unfancyandy (26k words) - This is a sequel. So SPOILERS. set 5 years after "Sleep Is For Dreamers," Even and Isak are starting a new adventure. 

Evak Family by orphan_account (SERIES. 7 fics) 80k- Isak is nineteen, Even is twenty-one, and they had a plan. A plan that they've very, very carefully stuck to. Until, that is, Isak gets sick and can't seem to figure out what's wrong with him. Spoiler: he's not sick. Mpreg. 

You Are Everything I Have Never Been by staylucky (78k words) - Isak Valtersen is an unpresented, soon-to-present omega who is convinced his best friend Jonas Vasquez is his alpha mate until he meets a very charming and persuasive new alpha, Tall Stranger aka Even Bech Naesheim, making him question everything. The kid part comes later on in the fic. 

Calm After by desp3ration (270k words) - This is a sequel to Tidal Waves . So SPOILERS. The tags say Evak becoming parents but I have not yet read this and I don't want to fo through it to figure it out because I want to read this later. So if it shouldn't be in here, let me know.  

***** THEY EACH HAVE DIFFERENT CHILDREN *****

shred by tusktooth (22k words) - Has a twist but nor really a twist. I’m just gonna put this in this category.  There were two versions of Isak Valtersen. He was cool, smart snowboarder guy. The real Isak, was also trans, gay, and a father. Keeping the two Isaks separate wasn’t that difficult. At least, not until he saw Even again. 

***** ONLY ONE OF THEM IS A PARENT *****

Even the Illustrator by eavk (SERIES. 3 fics) - An AU where Even’s an illustrator who draws what kids describe to him for YouTube, and Isak is the smitten father of a six year old with a wild imagination. 

a lullaby for you by noirophelia (2.2k words) - Isak has a wonderful little daughter. Even is her wonderful teacher. 

Better With You by iriswests (5.8k words) - Isak and Even don't know what they'd do without the other. Eventually, they realize they don't really need to find out.. Single dad Even. Vet Isak. 

(WIP) carrying our dreams and all that they mean (trying to make it all worthwhile) byodair_goes_my_sanity (8.4k words) - We’ve been hooking up for the past few weeks and holy shit it turned out you’re my kids teacher oh god this embarrassing! 

Universe At Its Finest by Skamtrash (8.6k words) - The universe brings Even into Isaks life, he just didn't know Even came with a full package. A kid fic with 90% pure fluff. 

The Little Flower Named Dahlia by Bellakitse (18k words) - Single!Dad Isak + Preschool teacher Even and the little girl that brings them together. Adorable fic. 

(WIP) Draw a Family by Isakprettykitty (21k words) - Isak, a single parent, takes his 5 year old son to preschool for the first time. Before Isak adopted Magne, his biologic parents weren't treating Magne as they should and some of the scars still haven't healed. Magne's teacher is no other than Even bech næsheim, who makes it his goal to help Magne out with his social anxiety. As time passes, Even and Isak grow closer and the younger one finally learns that it is okay to depend on other people. 

Lovesick by Sabeley (SERIES. 2 fics) - Even is absolutely not making up excuses to take his daughter to see the hot new pediatrician. 5 times Even's daughter wasn't actually sick and 1 time she was. 

take me as i am-universe by argentae (SERIES. 3 fics) - He isn’t crushing, and nevertheless this guy has become a Problem, because whenever he’s on shift he’s made it increasingly difficult for Isak to really spend his time productively. Sure, he could just find another place to study but he likes the access to coffee here even though he actually kind of hates the bitterness of it and he’s just not going to let himself get swept aside because of this guy. Parent!Even. 

We are our Choices by recklesslee (40k words) - Even is informed that one decision he made on a lonely night months ago has led to a new bump in the road. Now Even has another choice to make, and that just might change his life for the better. Doctor!Isak. 

Emmy by NeonViolet (48k words) - Isak is 25 and working in marine biology. Sana is his best friend. He has a 7 year old. And her new school principal looks familiar. Adorable! 

waiting outside ('til you're ready to go) by mellowellom (52k words) - An AU where Isak's daughter is an actual little devil that he can't control for the life of him, and his neighbour Even offers a helping hand. 

we've made it this far, kid by everythingislove (straykid) (SERIES. 2 fics) - Technically, Isak is an uncle. The one where Isak is just trying to raise his nephew as best he can with the help of his best friends. He doesn't expect to fall for Felix's gorgeous football coach along the way. 

(WIP) The Daughter by Laika_the_husband  (10k words) - A sequel. So spoilers. Even’s daughter appear in the previous fics but not as much. Continues from the series, A Dove, a Snake, a Ghost and a Madman. And what an excellent series this is. 

Quitting You by Laika_the_husband (65k words) - A sequel. So spoilers. From the series, Because of You I'm Nothing, I'm Nowhere. Isak Valtersen is a happy stay-at-home dad of his baby girl, taking care of his new home in Belgium. His peaceful life as a domestic god gets turned upside down, when his deeply buried desires are suddenly forced to resurface. It is simple enough to find someone on Grindr, but when that someone is painfully familiar, things can get complicated. Another excellent series. 

I Can Hardly Breathe by Flatfootmonster (82k words) - This fic, man. Isak gets hired to be the nanny? for Even and Sonja’s kids. This fic is just absolutely amazing. 

[baldrambo]

What an impact do you think Joyce planning to leave, and not even telling him, had on Hopper? The fandom and David himself always talk about El growing up to explain his behavior in S3, but if I were him, it would hurt me much more. El growing up is expected, and she’s still his daughter but Joyce leaving is a real abandonment (I’m not blaming her, btw).

I'm going to sort of agree and sort of disagree with you, Anon.

To Hopper, El growing up IS an abandonment. How does Hopper know she will always be his daughter? She's never called him Dad (as far as we know). They're not blood. He took her in to protect her and hide her from HNL but started to really grow attached to her. One day when she grows up she won't need him anymore to protect her and take care of her and when that happens.....she can leave. I don't think that Hopper is secure in his attachment to her at all. He loves her like she's his own, but he doesn't feel confident that she loves him as much as he loves her. I think that he thinks when she "turns 18" she's going to leave him and he will have lost a daughter (again!). That kind of extreme emotional turmoil layered into her growing up is a large reason why his behavior is what it is, imo, and I think that feeling of loss is always going to be worse for him than Joyce leaving.

Joyce's is more real and immediate though, for sure. I can't even begin to fathom what Hopper felt when he found out. They've known each other for decades (I think he's always loved her). And now they're all each other has. He is completely reliant on her for emotional support, she co-parents El with him, he trusts her implicitly, and they have a unique bond over what they went through. He was beginning to think that this could be it: his second chance at a real life and a real family. For someone as adled with trauma (particularly around losing family) as him, it's probably bringing back those old feelings and it's like he's re-living all that loss again.

And the worst part: she didn't tell him she was leaving. So not only is he losing her as a companion, but he's getting a constant reminder that his emotional attachment to her is not what hers is. He loves her, they're supposed to be close, and she never even tells him she's thinking about moving, let alone when she finally makes the decision.

I'm sure it's unpopular to say this, but I think it was pretty shitty of Joyce not to tell him. Putting all the romantic stuff aside, they're supposed to be friends. Good, close friends. She's taking her kids and leaving for good (I'm with you Anon, on not blaming her for wanting to leave or actually leaving) but she's not going to tell him? The town busybody had to? Was she ever going to? Was she going to just wait until moving day and be like "peace out, bro?" This is why I think a lot of their conflict in S3 is understandable and why I don't place all of the blame on Hopper for it. Joyce is REALLY walled off, emotionally (pleaseeee Duffers can we explore this more in S4?!), and I think it was super uncool of her to keep something like that a secret.

Thanks for this question Anon, it was a really interesting one! I understand where you're coming from re El vs. Joyce and I think certainly your interpretation is fair and I think so much of it is up for interpretation especially because its so complicated! I just am always of the mind that the El stuff is going to affect him more.

[unmeiverse-nextadventures]

I decided to answer no. 7 as a ‘both of them’ sort of thing since essentially/technically they share the one major scandal that anyone who knows of their family knows about.

Enid

5. What is a secret that they have?

Enid isn’t the type to keep secrets for long unless she really feels the need to keep it secret. The one she did keep for a long time that troubled her a lot was the fact that, despite being dead in her verse, she couldn’t help but feel complicated towards her extended family, particularly Tristan. At some point in her teens she was able to piece together that she was meant to replace her deceased cousin, and this just really made her uneasy and insecure. She knows its dumb and its not like Ingo or Emmet ever compare her to him so she just kept those feelings to herself for the most part. It helps that neither of her dads try to bring up the subject of their dead family members to her much.

(This finally comes up once she meets Tristan and his universe’s version of her dads. Awkward times ahoy)  

14. What is something that never fails to make them excited?

Traveling! She likes going to new places especially, meeting new people and pokemon and seeing new sights! It probably started around the first time she visited her “aunt” Evelyn and her family in Kalos. While she loves the Battle Subway and Nimbasa City as a whole, she’s always up for the chance to visit another city or even region.

24. What do they think they’re good at, but aren’t? 

Hiding her feelings. 

Specifically, when she’s at work and faced with very rude or difficult to handle people she tries to keep on the “Friendly and Helpful” image even when she’s clearly agitated / frustrated / uncomfortable. Her smile becomes more stiff and forced and there’s a change in her tone of voice. Its not that it looks like she could cry or snap in a few more seconds, it just looks like she’s become more ‘robotic’ to most onlookers. Its clearly obvious to her co-workers though that she is Not Handling It Well and they would step in, but she herself doesn’t realize any of this.

28. When left to their own devices, how would they spend a free day?

Enid likes to go out around the city and visit shops, maybe find some new ones, and buy at least one thing from each one. Going around for some casual trainer battles or even trying out a new sport or activity are also good.

Generally though she doesn’t really mind what to do on a free day so much as getting to spend it with the people she likes. Those people being her dads, her close friend Rinne, and possibly some other acquaintances or friends she might have (that I haven’t developed at this point). Scarlet is at the bottom of the list of people she would willingly spend a free day with though. Alone at least, she would probably not mind as much if Briar or An or even Denis were there since then Scarlet would have others to annoy tease pay attention to.

Tristan

28. When left to their own devices, how would they spend a free day?

Tristan is the type of person you have to force to take a break because otherwise he’d just use the free day to get “other work” done. Though he does have some activities he prefers to do once he gets barred from working. 

He likes going to crowded areas, places where a lot of activity goes on, and just doing his own thing while life goes on around him. Would spend hours on one of the tables of the outdoor dining area of a cafe or small restaurant in a busy area, heck even just sitting at a public bench would do as well. He likes the feeling of many people just going about doing their own thing while still in the same space for a relatively brief period of time (just like in the subway). 

If for some reason he can’t go out he’d either try drawing the inner workings and machinery of some trains or try sketching out a new design that would come to mind. He isn’t the type to go and work on a new idea on his own but he would show it to Rinne if she asks and she would try to build a small scale version of it when she has her own free day.

And now the fun part

7. Any family scandals? Does your character know about them?

Well the most obvious one is Ingo and Emmet’s relationship. No matter the verse those two are way closer than is normal for twin brothers, and people will notice and will talk. 

Enid deals with more of it though, being their daughter and all. Even though biologically she’s not an actual incest baby, the fact she’s being raised by twin brothers who are both alphas and who are mated to each other just makes things equally scandalous. She definitely had some trouble in school because of the whole situation, but for the most part she tried to not let it get to her and Rinne was there to curb most instances of bullying. 

There’s also the whole drama that lead up to her being born in the first place, but the public doesn’t know that and neither does she at first. It’s more of a scandal for the families involved (the SubMas twins and the Chatelaine sisters) and absolutely no one wants to bring it up to any of the kids. She does eventually figure out some of it on her own though and keeps it to herself.

Tristan only has to deal with the rumors since his uncles aren’t together like that, really. His main way of dealing with it is just ignoring what the people say, unless someone tries to actually publish something on it then you can bet he’ll desperately try to stop them. Later on its one of the few reasons he’s grateful for meeting Scarlet; she’s not afraid to take more extreme and probably illegal measures if needed. His personal feelings on the matter, though? He’s in denial, but he knows deep down his uncles are really dangerously toeing the line with their relationship. He would still accept and love them, if they ever do cross it, but they don’t.

Besides that, anything that Alvert (Tristan’s dad) might have done that might have been considered scandalous were all Dealt With and unlikely to ever come up. Tristan’s...heritage...from his other parent might also be big deal if people found out but like, none of them even knew anything about that for most of Tristan’s life. Said parent is long gone by the time they do find out (plus genuinely didn’t know at the time either because of deliberate, self-inflicted amnesia and all that). They only find out because Siegfried ends up befriending and later dating Tristan, and while he didn’t mind how “off” Tristan’s aura was everyone else he knew that had something to do with the supernatural Very Much Minded. They all agree to keep it just within their circle though so it doesn’t become too big of a deal.

Also both Tristan and Enid have to deal with a Scarlet that keeps doing things to try and start drama, especially flirting with people older than her, which include them. 

[coffeebased]

Hey! Wikathon na! I’ve started reading Relocations by Karen Tongson, about a third through now, but I had to take a little detour through Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir like I said I would. I’ve finished reading HtN but I’m not quite done experiencing it, so I’ll probably pick Relocations back up tomorrow.

But here’s what I read in July! What’s a segue?

1. Haikyu!! Volume 44 and 45 by Haruichi Furudate

A chance event triggered Shouyou Hinata’s love for volleyball. His club had no members, but somehow persevered and finally made it into its very first and final regular match of middle school, where it was steamrolled by Tobio Kageyama, a superstar player known as “King of the Court.”

Vowing revenge, Hinata applied to the Karasuno High School volleyball club… only to come face-to-face with his hated rival, Kageyama!

And with those two volumes, Haikyū has ended. I’m really glad that my cousin got me to catch up to the series because being a part of the sheer joy and love that’s poured out the fandom these past few months has been refreshing to my spirit. I enjoyed the way Furudate brought the series to its conclusion, by giving all the characters a future and room to grow. I hope to hear more from him in the upcoming years.

  2. Looking for Group by Alexis Hall

I read Looking for Group because I was reading up on Alexis Hall in anticipation of Boyfriend Material, which I will talk about later, and saw the synopsis:

So, yeah, I play Heroes of Legend, y’know, the MMO. I’m not like obsessed or addicted or anything. It’s just a game. Anyway, there was this girl in my guild who I really liked because she was funny and nerdy and a great healer. Of course, my mates thought it was hilarious I was into someone I’d met online. And they thought it was even more hilarious when she turned out to be a boy IRL. But the joke’s on them because I still really like him.

And now that we’re together, it’s going pretty well. Except sometimes I think Kit—that’s his name, sorry I didn’t mention that—spends way too much time in HoL. I know he has friends in the guild, but he has me now, and my friends, and everyone knows people you meet online aren’t real. I mean. Not Kit. Kit’s real. Obviously.

Oh, I’m Drew, by the way. This is sort of my story. About how I messed up some stuff and figured out some stuff. And fell in love and stuff.

And I knew that I had to read it. Immediately.

I enjoyed it way too much. The characters were adorable, the conflict was done well, the geeky gamer wrapper was AMAZING and the author never dropped the ball on integrating the online game into the narrative. It was very readable and I enjoyed the atmosphere of the book immensely. I also may have spent a heady week or so thinking of playing WoW, but I avoided that temptation. Made me miss uni too, and the way my friends and I would spend countless hours with each other.

  3. Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall

Wanted: One (fake) boyfriend Practically perfect in every way

Luc O’Donnell is tangentially–and reluctantly–famous. His rock star parents split when he was young, and the father he’s never met spent the next twenty years cruising in and out of rehab. Now that his dad’s making a comeback, Luc’s back in the public eye, and one compromising photo is enough to ruin everything.

To clean up his image, Luc has to find a nice, normal relationship…and Oliver Blackwood is as nice and normal as they come. He’s a barrister, an ethical vegetarian, and he’s never inspired a moment of scandal in his life. In other words: perfect boyfriend material. Unfortunately apart from being gay, single, and really, really in need of a date for a big event, Luc and Oliver have nothing in common. So they strike a deal to be publicity-friendly (fake) boyfriends until the dust has settled. Then they can go their separate ways and pretend it never happened.

But the thing about fake-dating is that it can feel a lot like real-dating. And that’s when you get used to someone. Start falling for them. Don’t ever want to let them go.

I came into this book with high expectations after Looking for Group, and my expectations were mostly met. The few issues I had were ultimately negligible, probably cultural differences or conventions of a genre that I’m not familiar with. The characters were strong, and I found the book funny. I know it sounds as though I’m damning it with faint praise, so I’ll say it plainly: it was an enjoyable read and I was totally invested in the romance. I think it’ll make a really good film as well.

4. The Subtweet by Vivek Shraya

Everyone talks about falling in love, but falling in friendship can be just as captivating. When Neela Devaki’s song is covered by internet-famous artist Rukmini, the two musicians meet and a transformative friendship begins. But as Rukmini’s star rises and Neela’s stagnates, jealousy and self-doubt creep in. With a single tweet, their friendship implodes, one career is destroyed, and the two women find themselves at the center of an internet firestorm.

Celebrated multidisciplinary artist Vivek Shraya’s second novel is a stirring examination of making art in the modern era, a love letter to brown women, an authentic glimpse into the music industry, and a nuanced exploration of the promise and peril of being seen.

If you’re a millennial and if you’ve ever had complicated friendships, this book will ring really true for most of it, I think. I kept wincing at the characters’ actions and “mistakes”, recognising them as things I or my friends have done, but there are portions of the story that I found inaccessible because Neela, the main character, just seems really opaque even when they’re the ones speaking. The music Shraya made as a companion to the book slaps and can be found here.

  5. Empowered 11 by Adam Warren

Costumed crimefighter Empowered finds herself the desperate prey of a maniacal supervillain whose godlike powers have turned an entire city of suprahumans against her.

Not good! Outnumbered and under siege, aided only by a hero’s ghost, can Emp survive the relentless onslaught long enough to free her enslaved teammates and loved ones, or is this–*gulp*–The End?

From comics overlord Adam Warren comes Empowered, the acclaimed sexy superhero comedy–except when it isn’t, as in this volume’s no-nonsense, wall-to-wall brawl guaranteed to bring tears to the eye and fists to the face!

Warren’s tying up a lot of loose ends and answering a lot of questions and I’m wondering if that means Empowered‘s ending soon. I haven’t seen any info regarding this, even though the words “The End” are right there in the summary, because comic books always lean on the whole the hero could die! thing, and more often than not they never do. But Emp has come so far in the past 11 volumes, and I think that she’s ready to confront a lot of the stuff that Warren’s only hinted at in the past. Most of Empowered is about how Emp deals with failure and how she rises above it, and recently it’s become about how other people have failed her, rather than how she has failed, and how she deserves better. I’m worried about her, but at least we are another volume’s worth of evidence for the Emp/Thugboy/Ninjette OT3.

  6. Sex and Vanity by Kevin Kwan

The iconic author of the bestselling phenomenon Crazy Rich Asians returns with a glittering tale of love and longing as a young woman finds herself torn between two worlds–the WASP establishment of her father’s family and George Zao, a man she is desperately trying to avoid falling in love with.

On her very first morning on the jewel-like island of Capri, Lucie Churchill sets eyes on George Zao and she instantly can’t stand him. She can’t stand it when he gallantly offers to trade hotel rooms with her so that she can have the view of the Tyrrhenian Sea, she can’t stand that he knows more about Curzio Malaparte than she does, and she really can’t stand it when he kisses her in the darkness of the ancient ruins of a Roman villa and they are caught by her snobbish, disapproving cousin, Charlotte. “Your mother is Chinese so it’s no surprise you’d be attracted to someone like him,” Charlotte teases. Daughter of an American-born-Chinese mother and blue-blooded New York father, Lucie has always sublimated the Asian side of herself in favor of the white side, and she adamantly denies having feelings for George. But several years later, when George unexpectedly appears in East Hampton where Lucie is weekending with her new fiancé, Lucie finds herself drawn to George again. Soon, Lucy is spinning a web of deceit that involves her family, her fiancé, the co-op board of her Fifth Avenue apartment, and ultimately herself as she tries mightily to deny George entry into her world–and her heart. Moving between summer playgrounds of privilege, peppered with decadent food and extravagant fashion, Sex and Vanity is a truly modern love story, a daring homage to A Room with a View, and a brilliantly funny comedy of manners set between two cultures.

This was the third romance novel I read in July, and that’s honestly the highest concentration of romance novel I’ve ever had in my life. I know that I’m supposed to find romance novels like super kilig and stuff, but so far I am just very anxious for romance novel protagonists all the time. I think that the whole thing about the romance novels I have read is that they’re mostly about how deeply anxious people learn how to allow themselves to be loved and that is tough! I wanted to protect Lucie all the time! I was Invested in her Welfare, and I don’t think I cared about Rachel Chu from Crazy Rich Asians half as much, even if you condensed all my attachment from the entire trilogy. Also, small spoiler, there is a hint that Sex and Vanity is in the same universe as Crazy Rich Asians, which I think is awesome.

  6. Trust Exercise by Susan Choi

Pulitzer Finalist Susan Choi’s narrative-upending novel about what happens when a first love between high school students is interrupted by the attentions of a charismatic teacher

In an American suburb in the early 1980s, students at a highly competitive performing arts high school struggle and thrive in a rarified bubble, ambitiously pursuing music, movement, Shakespeare, and, particularly, their acting classes. When within this striving “Brotherhood of the Arts,” two freshmen, David and Sarah, fall headlong into love, their passion does not go unnoticed—or untoyed with—by anyone, especially not by their charismatic acting teacher, Mr. Kingsley.

The outside world of family life and economic status, of academic pressure and of their future adult lives, fails to penetrate this school’s walls—until it does, in a shocking spiral of events that catapults the action forward in time and flips the premise upside-down. What the reader believes to have happened to David and Sarah and their friends is not entirely true—though it’s not false, either. It takes until the book’s stunning coda for the final piece of the puzzle to fall into place—revealing truths that will resonate long after the final sentence.

As captivating and tender as it is surprising, Trust Exercise will incite heated conversations about fiction and truth, friendships and loyalties, and will leave readers with wiser understandings of the true capacities of adolescents and of the powers and responsibilities of adults.

This is a book I could not stop reading and I felt gross after I finished it. I think that I enjoyed it and that the narrative flips were well-done and it was engaging, but Choi writes teenage trauma in 3D, and you can smell her scumbag characters. Very good will never read again unless looking to feel bad.

  Re-read:

Temeraire: His Majesty’s Dragon, Throne of Jade, Black Powder War, andEmpire of Ivory by Naomi Novik

Aerial combat brings a thrilling new dimension to the Napoleonic Wars as valiant warriors ride mighty fighting dragons, bred for size or speed. When HMS Reliant captures a French frigate and seizes the precious cargo, an unhatched dragon egg, fate sweeps Captain Will Laurence from his seafaring life into an uncertain future – and an unexpected kinship with a most extraordinary creature. Thrust into the rarified world of the Aerial Corps as master of the dragon Temeraire, he will face a crash course in the daring tactics of airborne battle. For as France’s own dragon-borne forces rally to breach British soil in Bonaparte’s boldest gambit, Laurence and Temeraire must soar into their own baptism of fire.

I started re-reading it because I wanted to introduce it to my girlfriend, and I outpaced her very quickly, and selfishly. She’s still at the beginning fourth of Throne of Jade, and I feel like I blinked and gulped down four of the books in quick succession. I had to stop myself after Empire, in a very belated effort to sync up to my gf’s progress. The series is amazing, and I don’t know if I’ll ever read one like Temeraire again. Being able to revisit it should be enough, really, because every time I do it’s as though I’m caught up in a strong and wonderful wind that fills me up with delight and awe. Novik’s starting a new series this September, and I hope it’s just as good.

    That’s it for July! I’m probably going to do two books at a time for my Wikathon posts, just to keep things fresh and current, so keep a weather eye out for those posts!

  July, next verse, same as the first Hey! Wikathon na! I've started reading Relocations by Karen Tongson, about a third through now, but I had to take a little detour through…

[saintheartwing]

Invader Zim: The Pod People Invasion

"So…tell me again WHY my poor son is here?"

Professor Membrane was rather astounded that his son had been unceremoniously tossed into a straight jacket, gagged, and put in the school counselor's room. The black, scythe-haired scientist looked furious, despite nobody being able to see his eyes behind those large goggles he wore, and the fact his big white labcoat covered up his lower mouth. But his black-gloved fingers were clenching tightly onto his arm, his body practically vibrating with fury and rage as he glowered at the police who were in the whitish/grey room with him, the office of the school counselor, Mr. Thildari. The blind man had a soft face and white eyes, wearing glasses over those milky orbs as he wore a white button up shirt and white pants, and had a necklace with a lovely green orb-like gem at the end of it as he tilted his head to the side, the almost androgynous-looking man intrigued by what Professor Membrane had to say.

His son, Dib Membrane, was sitting in a chair nearby, in a straight-jacket and Mr. Thildari nodded at the police as they undid the straight-jacket. "I think it's unnecessary since his father's here at last. We apologize for the dreadful inconvenience." Mr. Thildari's soft yet dark voice remarked, his tone having almost a faint echoing undercurrent to it. "Please accept the school's humble apologies. Would you, perhaps, like to buy some chocolate? The school's having a promotion!"

He reached into his desk and pulled out big jars of chocolate-covered nuts. "How about it?" He inquired of Dib as they got him out of the straight-jacket and removed the ball gag and he dusted himself off. "You maybe got some…mad money to spend?"

"HA. HA. HA." Dib snorted as he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose a bit and frowned, amber/golden eyes glowering at the school counselor, then at the cops. "This sucks, Dad. I got practically violated by these jerks!"

"Well you were ranting and raving about the end of the world in the middle of the school cafeteria for a good four minutes until we finally tased you." The first cop remarked.

"Because it's really happening!" Dib said. "Look, maybe I should just start from the beginning…" He sighed, pinching the space between his eyes and shaking his head back and forth. "It all started simply enough…" He murmured. "I'd forgotten my wallet yesterday on Sunday, and I had to race back into town. See, there was this really cool convention just the next town over, so I had to take a bus there only to realize…WOOPS. Forgot my wallet with my tickets in it. And the worst part was that because I only had enough change for the bus fare once, I had to walk back. And by the time I got back, that's when I realized something was really, really wrong with the town. I mean, everything seemed okay at first but…"

"You gotta help me!"

Torque Smacky had grabbed hold of Dibbun Membrane and was shaking the black-jacket-wearing, blue-undershirt-having young 12 year old about, looking mortified. The frazzled, spiky hair of Torque was even more messy, his big, ugly face looking horrified as he looked into Dib's eyes, his dad, lantern jaw and all, walking towards him.

"What the heck's wrong with you?" Dib asked. "I'm not doing your homework for you-"

"It's my dad, dude, he's not actually my dad! He's not!"

Dib stared at him. "…what?"

"He can't be! He hasn't spanked or smacked me once today!" Torque Smacky insisted.

"Oh, relaaaax, I'm sure your Dad will start smacking you around again soon enough." Dib remarked snidely. "Geez, Torque, you're angry that your family isn't hitting you? I call that finding a unicorn, do you know how many times Gaz hit me over the head during her "blue period"?"

"Thank you, sir." Torque's father said, taking hold of his son by the collar. "Come on, son, you must be…tired." He insisted, bringing him towards the screen door to his home nearby as Torque uselessly squirmed around, trying to break free.

"No, no, no! Please, believe me! Believe meeeeeee!" Torque cried out as he vanished into the house.

"Looking back, I…I can't believe how stupid I was not to see what was happening. I guess I was also in a bad mood, because I was missing the convention. AND I was starving too. So I went to get my wallet from my house. It was quiet, real quiet. Nobody seemed to be there, and there wasn't any food in the cupboard left over. So I decided "Okay, I'll get some snacks from the gas station, then head out and catch the last half of my convention". But then I met GIR, Zim's little robot friend, all disguised as a dog, and he'd finished up a Suckmunkey. He was sitting on the stoop and looking really depressed, and Zim was eating a candy bar…"

Indeed, the Irken alien invader, Zim, had distinctly green skin, no ears, no nose, ruby/maroon eyes hidden behind obvious contact lenses, and his black insectoid antenna was hidden by a black wig. He was still obviously wearing black gloves and boots and a maroon "invader's attire" that was a big ol shirt with long sleeves, dark grey pants, and he had clawed hands for God's sakes! And yet…hardly anyone seemed to realize he was an alien.

But even he seemed down.

"You guys look…really depressed."

"NONE of the filthy huuuuuman children will listen to me going into detail about my glorious new plans!" Zim remarked. "The whole town is…quiet! Lethargic! Slothful! Nobody cares about what Zim has to say!"

Dib sniggered as GIR sighed as well, the little green doggy suit he wore having its head a-drooping. "None of my friends'll play with me." He murmured. "Nobody wants to pet me. NOBODY LOVES MEEEEE!"

"Uh…gee, little alien robot, sorry…" Dib mumbled. Something was rather odd, he was beginning to pick up on that. But he'd learn the truth soon enough, because as he walked towards the bus station after getting some nachoes and a soda to sate himself, he saw, of all people, SKOODGE racing out of Zim's house, grabbing Dib!

"You gotta help me, Mr. Dib! PLEASE! Nobody else will listen to me!"

"Okay, alright, alright." Dib groaned, rolling his eyes as Skoodge led him to the backyard, past the guard-an-gnomes that Zim had, following the very tubby and rotund alien invader. Skoodge was dressed up in a better disguise, he had a holographic display that gave him a freckled face, orangish hair and the like…but he hadn't taken his Invader's garb off. Ah well. Skoodge was more agreeable, civil and just plain nicer than Zim. If he wasn't an alien invader, Dib would have probably gone along great with him-

"HOLY CRAP!"

Dib gazed down at what laid in the backyard, a gigantic pod, big, green, faintly pulsating and with Skoodge's head upon it!

"Wh-what is this?!" Dib asked. "It's an amazing likeness of you!"

"Yeah, I found it in the backyard along with this other pod that's just…lying here." Skoodge said, jabbing a thumb at another nearby pod. "No clue who it's for. It's not one of Zim's ideas, believe me…he'd be talking about it all morning if it was."

"I think I know what it is…" Dib realized, his eyes going wide. "Skoodge, this is a space pod! Part of a diabolical alien invasion force from deep space to replace all humanity as we sleep! There's only one thing to do!"

"Uh…call the cops? The FBI? The CIA? NASA? 60 Minutes, maybe?" Skoodge asked. "Or, I dunno, go to every house and set fire to all the backyards?"

"No! We'll look for a pod person and make them explain everything in a convoluted bit of expositionary dialogue!" Dib proclaimed, pointing upwards dramatically as Skoodge stared at him, scratching his head.

"Um…Dib, I don't think they're going to do that." He remarked.

"Skoodge, c'mon, if there's one thing aliens LOVE, it's bragging and talking about how amazing their plans for taking over worlds are." Dib told him, folding his arms over his chest as Skoodge opened his mouth to protest…then tilted his head to the side and nodded a bit, wagging his hand in the air in a kind of "Yeah, okay" sort of gesture.

So off we went. We asked people left and right if they were pod people. We didn't always get the answers we wanted. Didn't have a lot of good luck!

"Excuse me, are you a pod person?"

"A WHAT?!" Iggins asked. "What's THAT supposed to mean?! POD PERSON!? I'll have you know I'm proudly gay and there's nothing wrong with that! Pod person. POD PERSON…"

"Dude, you're being creepier than usual!" Zita proclaimed, glowering at the two. "I have mace. I am not afraid to use it."

"No, I'm black." Said the Letter M, the tight-crop black hair of the kid almost standing up on end in irritation as he frowned.

"Say, why are you called The Letter M anyway?"

"Well, it beats what my sister got named. The Letter F." M remarked with a sigh.

"…wait. You mean…" Dib trailed off. "…do your parents, by chance, work as scientists like MY dad?"

"Yes, and they changed their names when they got married and are now the Mr and Ms Sir and Madam no more, now they're the proud Mr. Husband and Mrs. Wife. They even named our dog the letter C. I wanted a cat. But they said it would make calling for their daughter too complicated."

"I am so, so sorry." Dib said apologetically. "I can't think of any worse name than being called the shorthand for Male."

"When I have a son, I'm going to name him SUE." Letter M insisted angrily. "Then I'll scatter my parents ashes over the toilet, and will scatter something else over that." He growled.

We learned a lot more about the people of this town than I think I wanted to...but not much about pod people. Finally, though, our persistence paid off.

"Why yes. Yes, I AM a pod person." Sara said cheerily, the faintly nun-dressed young girl sitting on a park bench and giving them a rather…unsettlingly fake smile. "And I'd be delighted to tell all of you about our people's invasion plans before I go alert my co-conspirators to your presence. You see, our space pods land on a planet, replacing all its people with emotionless replicas as they sleep. Then we grow more pods, spreading sterility and tranquility throughout the cosmos!"

"Really?" Dib remarked. "That's it? Kinda…simple."

"Well, yes! It's our first time doing this, so we're keeping the plan simple. Still, to be fair and further spread our mission, we also invented tofu, created EuroDisney, and Ben Stein. Oh, and Lily Collins. She's been one of us for years." Sara added.

"How about Tommy Wiseau from "The Room"?"

"Oh, no, no, no." Sara shook her head. "He's too weird for us. That's on you people. We're not going near him with a fifty foot pole. We may be emotionless, calm, collected alien invaders, but even we get weirded out by that guy."

"So you wanna get rid of all our emotions?! That's horrible! That sounds like you wanna turn the world into a bad Lifetime Channel movie or some kind of old home video you'd show kids in Sunday School!"

"I dunno, I think it's pretty nice being a pod."

"AAAAA!"

Dib gaped in horror at Skoodge, who now looked…off. His eyes were kind of distant. His face looking like it was miles away! And the pod he'd been carrying with them for proof…EMPTY!

"How the heck?!" Dib cried out.

"Yeah, turns out me carrying it around wasn't such a nice idea. Or at least, that's what I thought about…ten seconds ago. But now I "feel" fine. You should try it." Skoodge said as he took hold of Dib along with Sara, dragging Dib into a nearby convenience store, people standing listlessly about as the man behind the counter stared ahead.

"So. What would you like? We have water…water…and, ah, more water."

"I'd like a tepid water."

"Yes, tepid, please."

"Tepid would be very nice."

"Oh, and I must remind you all, we are having "Unemotional Hour" tonight from 10-11 at the bar across the street. Is that not just lovely?" The convenience store owner intoned in a deadpan voice as the others nodded in agreement.

"Here, to ease your transition in, human." Said Skoodge as he handed Dib something from a large pile of objects to the side as the other pod people nodded some more. "Your own space pod and introduction membership kit! All you need for a nice, simple, assimilation into never having problems ever again. Oh, and we also have this very lovely foam finger." He added with a nod as Dib looked over the "Pods #1" foam finger he'd been given. "We got the idea from a very lovely little dog."

"Uh, look, um….I kinda want my emotions." Dib insisted. "They're good for, y'know…improving the world. Caring about people? Protecting it from…well, alien invasions!?"

"Don't be silly, Dib. Emotions lead only to bad things. Like competition, jealousy, and hallmark cards. We're doing your world a favor!" Sara remarked. "You'll never have any worries or cares ever again. Become one of us just like Mark Zuckerburg did. He's far better off now."

"Mark Zuckerberg's one of you? Really?"

"Yeah,it took ages to be sure he was, even before our pod, the man was as soulless as a piece of toast!"

"So…I won't care about…say…my favorite TV show, Mysterious Mysteries?" Dib inquired.

"Nope. Not a bit."

"…what about…hunting down Zim?"

"He won't be caring about anything anymore, why should you?"

"…my family?" Dib asked.

"No, you won't care about them either. You won't even care that you don't care!"

"…BUH-BYE!" Dib said, kicking Skoodge in the foot. BOINK! He flopped over, Sara gaping as Dib took off running.

"Hey, stop him!"

"You stop him. I don't care if he escapes." Skoodge remarked as he laid on the floor.

"Yeah, doesn't bother me any." Said the convenience store owner as other pod people nodded along.

"But if we don't stop him he'll ruin all our plans!" Sara remarked.

"…oh, well that's different." Skoodge said, chasing after him with the others as they barrled out of the street after Dib, who tore down the sidewalk. "Please stop running. You have forgotten your pod."

"Ask me if I care!" Dib called back.

"You know, if I had any emotional capacity I would be very cross with you right now." Sara added as they jogged after Dib, who glared back at them slightly before diving into an alleyway, scrambling over a chain link fence. He bolted as fast as he could, barreling down the road, into his house, slamming the door shut, Zim sitting on the couch and shaking his head back and forth.

"I really don't get why you like this show." He told GIR and Gaz as they sat down on the couch next to him. "Oh, Dib-Stink. Yes, I'm in your house, GIR stupidly insisted we come over here to check on "Gazzy-Wazzy". They evidently were doing something upstairs for a long time and now they want me to watch the…what is it? Calm Monkey Show?"

"Calm Monkey!?" Dib stared at the screen, mouth agape as Gaz and GIR kept watching, staring ahead blankly.

"…hello." Said the brown-furred, slightly yellow-eyed monkey on the screen. "…what a nice day. Isn't it a fine day. Isn't it fine that we're feeling fine?"

"Yes. Yes, it's fine to feel fine, isn't it?" GIR asked Gaz.

"Oh, yes. We're both feeling fine. You know, I think the paint's drying on the back of the wall behind that monkey." Gaz added, the purple-haired Goth girl…not even having her eyebrows down so much over her eyes she looked like she was perpetually frowning. She had her eyes wide open and she…she wasn't even wearing her skull necklace!

"This is not a good show." Zim muttered.

"Maybe you'll like…say…some nice, relaxing music." Gaz said, changing the channel to a music station as Dib frowned, then yawned.

"UGH. Post Malone's "Psycho"?! This song is so dull, he's supposed to be talking about going insane but he sounds like he's on Quaaludes!"

"We could always switch to a nice C-SPAN discussion if you'd prefer, they're talking about bumper crops." GIR remarked.

"…oh no. OH NO. I know what you're trying to do. You want me to fall asleep so you can replace us with pods!" Dib gasped. "No way!" He proclaimed. "Zim, we have to get out of here now. GIR and my sister have evidently been replaced by pod people from outer space and if we don't leave, they'll put us to sleep and replace us too!"

"Oh, c'mon." Zim said with a snort. "I mean, just because Gaz and GIR are acting much more calm and rational and polite and courteous and civil doesn't…doesn't…"

BAM!

Zim and Dib barreled out the front door, Zim's disguise falling off his face as he howled in terror. "YOU WILL NEVER, EVER TELL ANYONE I ADMITTED YOU WERE RIGHT, DIB!"

"SHUT UP AND RUN, LOCUST!"

"You can't hide from us!" GIR cried out as he walked after them, smiling stupidly along with Gaz.

"Yes. Today, Philadelphia, tomorrow…a whole bunch of other places!"

"We have to find a place to hide. Somewhere. Anywhere!" Dib proclaimed as they barreled past people in the street, racing out of the city as fast as they could, off to the outskirts as the sky began to get darker, Zim wiping his brow. "C'mon, Zim, pick up the pace!"

"S-Sorry! I'm…I'm not used to…running around so much!" He moaned. "Zim's PAK legs usually do this for him but I had to put it on "DEBUG" for the day, nothing's working but the life support." He commented.

"You are soooo out of shape." Dib intoned as they reached the old mine, climbing inside, panting heavily, Dib wiping his brow as Zim flopped against the stony wall within, the soft echoing of a stalactite dripping water down into a cave pool not far away. DRIP…DRIP…DRIP.

"OOOF…" Zim moaned. "I wish I'd eaten more than a candy bar. I'm starving."

"I'm going to check to see if the coast is clear. Lemme look outside the back entrance." Dib told Zim, heading down the mine, going to the south entrance, using his smartphone's flashlight to light the way as he wiped his brow on his jacket arm. "Hoo…I'm getting tired too. Okay, once I know we're safe, we can take a little nap and then I'll gather my thoughts and think up a plan." He mused to himself as he finally reached the southern entrance to the mine about half an hour later. He peered out as the stars began to twinkle overhead, a soft wind blowing through his hair as he clung to the wall of the mine, peering out.

No sign of anyone or anything, save for a natural pathway leading out to the highway. Dib grinned, then headed back the way he'd come, calling out. "Zim! Zim, the coast is clear, let's get-OH NO!"

There, by Zim's side…was a pod!

"Yeah, uh, funny story. They had some spares here in the mine. Anyway, Zim is a pod now. It's pretty awesome." Zim intoned. "I think you should be a pod too." He added, holding up another pod. "One of us! C'mon."

"AAAACK!" Dib barreled back to the southern entrance, racing off as Zim called out, the pod people coming in through the north entrance.

"He's over here, this way! Human over here!"

Dib barreled down the highway, racing off for the school, looping to the west as he slid his way inside through a window. His chest felt like it was on fire as he made his way into a closet, panting heavily, wiping his brow and looking around. No pods anywhere. NOWHERE. Phew. He quickly began to move things around, barricading the door and finally, at long last, sitting down to rest and-

"Hey. This is my closet." Said an irritated-looking janitor with a bit of messy black hair atop his head and a dark look in his eyes, his body thin and emaciated as he poked his head out from behind a bucket. "I've got a busy day tomorrow of painting a wall red with blood to feed the demon that lies inside."

"Well I'm hiding from pod people who want to take away all our emotions!"

"…yeah, okay, fair enough. Just so you know? I snore." The janitor intoned, plopping back down behind the bucket.

And so, come the next morning as the kids were going into the cafeteria for a big announcement…that was when I barreled in, fully rested and probably still looking wild and crazed, waving my arms over my head as I got on top of a table, bouncing up and down, yelling loudly to all in the room about the oncoming alien invasion of pod people!

And about four minutes in, that's when the school's police guard came in to tase me.

…

…

…

… "So that's what happened." Dib explained.

"Only a moron could believe stuff like that!" said one of the cops as Mr. Thildari rubbed his chin.

"I'm very sorry, Dib. But without any kind of supporting evidence, well…the best you can do is let the media exploit you for a lucrative book and Netflix movie deal." The school counselor remarked just before Professor Membrane noticed something.

"Oh. One moment." He lifted open his chest, showing off a built-in smart TV, everyone looking on in awe as he cheerily chuckled. "We're getting a breaking news bulletin! I can always tell because I get a tingling in my colon."

"This just in! SPACE PODS HAVE INVADED EARTH!"

"And by the way!" a voice rang out as the rather homicidal-looking janitor brought in several big ol' green pods, tossing them into the room. "I found these in the damn bathrooms. How am I supposed to clean up all the blood if these pods are in the way!?"

"Oh, Dib! You a pod yet?" Zim inquired as he poked his head into the room with an unnatural smile as Gaz, GIR and Skoodge stood by him.

"HA! HA-HA-HA-HA-HA! SEE?! SEEEE?!" Dib cried out. "You believe me now, you jaded authority figures, you?"

"I dunno…not really…" One of the cops remarked.

"Mmmm…gee, nah, I don't think so…" Another cop intoned.

"Actually, I do." Said Mr. Thildari as he smiled broadly…

And then, before their eyes, became an Irken with balled antennae dressed in a big white robe with a silver belt! He smiled cheerily at Dib, waving his clawed hands, white eyes blinking. "You see, we Irkens have actually been on Earth for many decades now. My own mother and originator, Almighty Tallest Miyuki, blessed be her name, came here aaaaages ago to do some experimentation with a VERY lovely black-haired young scientist who ended up charming her."

"Wait, WHAT?!" Professor Membrane's eyes bugged behind his goggles. "Though this explains a lot…" He confessed as Dib gaped in astonishment, the cops in the room, Zim, GIR, Gaz and Skoodge gasping in amazement. "She always felt very different down there whenever we-"

"BAH, we're not worried about you." One of the cops said as he took off his hat…then his head, revealing a distinctly green, scaly-skinned, tusk-having alien who was amazingly tall! "We Martians have been preparing too! We've been seeing all of your efforts for twenty decades and we're getting our hunting parties ready!"

"That'd be very impressive…" said another one of the cops before his skin melted off…showing off synthetic alloy beneath with soulless eyes as his arm opened up to reveal a carbine blaster that was revving up to fire. "But we robots have foreseen your attempt. I come from the future to end your reign before it begins! If need to, we will shoot you twice! We'll screw you over more than the new Terminator did to it's franchise!"

"Wait a minute, I thought we were only being invaded by pod people!" Dib remarked.

"You think that's what's going on? Not at all, man!" yelled Nick as the young man with the obvious head injury stuck his head into the room and walked inside, wearing…a kilt. They stared at him in shock as he sighed, folding his arms over his chest, the poor kid's brain exposed from horrifying experiments that Zim had done on him, the brain barely kept in by a kind of glassy little dome. "Giant blancmanges landed. They've turned half my class into Scotsmen so they can dominate the Olympic games this year because "everyone knows Scottish people are terrible at sports"! Bunch of prejudicial puddings!" He grumbled.

"You think that's bad?!" Ms. Bitters intoned as she crawled in from the window outside, panting heavily and wiping her brow, looking mortified, smoke slightly rising off her skeletal frame as the glasses-wearing old, white-haired crone cringed. "It's the apes you need to worry about. Apes have inherited the Earth!"

"Have we actually all died and gone to Hell? What's going on here?!" Dib groaned as he looked around the room, other people beginning to talk amongst themselves, the voices getting loud and panicked and terrified.

"No, no, it's all a twisted experiment!"

"It's the GOVERNMENT'S fault!"

"IT'S A COOKBOOK! IT'S A COOKBOOOOOK!"

"You stupid, STUPID morons!" A voice rang out as they all turned, suddenly seeing someone whom they never expected to see…Minimoose. The flying, purple little moose-like toy glowered at them all, speaking perfect English! "None of this is real! We're all just typed words on a page, stuck in a comedic horror story written by a New Englander! This is all just FANFICTION!"

Everyone stared at him…and then burst out laughing, hysterically cackling. "Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!"

"WOOP! HA HA HA!"

"PFFFTTT!"

"HEE-HEE-HEE!"

"Oh, that's a good one. Fanfiction! Ha-ha-ha! That's the stupidest one yet!" Dib sniggered.

"Oh yeah?!" Minimoose glowered as his eyes narrowed. "Then how do you explain the fact that the next words out of your mouth are going to be "You're just being silly, Minimoose!"

"You're just being silly, Minimoose-" Zim began to say before he stopped, and everyone gazed at him, his expressionless face now looking terrified. "…wh…what?"

"And look! Look up THERE! See! The PAGE!" Minimoose proclaimed as he pointed up above, and everyone stared.

"Wh…what? H…How can I be up there when I'm speaking now?" Dib murmured fearfully as they all glanced around at each other.

"And there's MORE!" Minimoose proclaimed. "Haven't all of you felt it? That feeling you were being watched? Like the eyes of strange things are upon you?! Look! Reading this right now! YOU! Yes, YOU!"

"OH MY GOD!" Dib cried out as he saw you, the others gazing on in amazement and horror. "That…that means…"

"Then…then…" Professor Membrane murmured.

"AAAAAAAAAA!"

People were screaming, running left and right. The pod people howled in terror, folks were bolting out the door and the windows, and Dib, pale as a sheet, shook his head back and forth, looking up at you.

"Please, whatever you do! Don't stop reading! DON'T STOP READING THIS STORY! DON'T EXIT THE TAB! DON'T CLICK AWAY! DON'T! STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!"

[takadasaiko]

Love Me Twice: Chapter Fourteen

FFN II AO3

Summary: Liz and Tom uncover something about Brigitte Tremblay and Red has a surprising visitor.

Chapter Fourteen

They were both frozen, tense, as the door opened up. Liz eased back and away, looking for her purse with her gun inside of it, but she'd left it in the living room hours before. Tom rolled as quietly from the bed as he could, his fingers wrapping around his own firearm that he'd set on the nightstand just before Liz had unhooked his belt.

And then she heard it. A small, excitable voice. "It's in here!" Agnes announced, and Tom was already halfway to setting the gun back down when Liz waved at him. She motioned at the drawer and he slipped it inside as she started for the bedroom door that stood only half closed.

Beth stood just past it, watching Agnes and Shelly run for the pile of princess dolls. Beth's gaze was fixed on Tom's sweatshirt that had been dropped on the floor.

"Hey," Liz said softly, but still managed to startle the other mom.

Beth startled, turning with her hand pressed against her chest. "Liz! You scared the crap out of me! I thought you were at work."

"Not that one!" Shelly huffed loudly, pulling both mothers' attentions to the girls and Agnes was on her feet already.

She was halfway to Liz's room as she called over her shoulder, "Mommy, is Cinderella in your room?" Liz didn't have a chance to stop her and could only hope that Tom was more clothed than she'd left him. "Hi, Jacob! I'm looking for Cinderella!" Agnes' voice carried from the room.

Beth turned an amused look on Liz. "Jacob?"

"It's…. complicated," Liz managed, but Beth nodded towards this discarded clothing.

"Not toocomplicated, I hope. This is good. How long has it been since Agnes' dad….?"

"Found her!" Agnes shouted and reemerged from the room. She had her Cinderella doll in one arm and had ahold of Tom's hand so that she could pull him out into the living room with the other hand. Thankfully he had managed to get his jeans and t-shirt back on. No telling where his boots were. "Jacob helped!"

"I got Merida!" Shelly called out from the pile of dolls.

Beth shot Liz a look, not bothering to try to hide her small smile of approval. "Well, that's what we were after. Agnes, are you ready for your sleepover?"

Agnes' little face screwed up in irritation and she tightened her hold on Tom's hand. "I wanna play with Jacob."

"Hey, kiddo," Liz said softly, pulling Agnes' attention around. "Weren't you looking forward to your princess sleepover?"

The irritation deepened and the four-year-old looked like she was on the verge of a meltdown. Well, that was unexpected. Sleepovers at Shelly's house were usually at the top of Agnes' list of favourite things to do, but in that moment she looked like Liz had just told her that she was going to the doctor's for a shot. "I wanna play with Jacob!" she said again, more forcefully this time, and clung just a little harder as she turned to look up at the man she couldn't possibly know was her father. "Please?"

Liz watched the brief look of terror flash through his dark blue eyes before he readjusted, his expression softening at the increasingly determined look that was settling into their daughter's face, and he looked to Liz giving the smallest of nods. He was good with it if she was.

"Looks like we're going to have to postpone princess night," Liz relented and shot Shelly an apologetic look. "That okay?"

"Can Merida come home with me?" the little girl asked and Liz forced a smile.

"I think we can work that out."

"You sure?" Beth asked quietly and she looked sympathetic.

Liz wasn't sure if - or even how - she would ever explain how the layers of the complicated mess that she and the man that Agnes was calling Jacob had found themselves tangled up in. How do you tell a perfectly normal woman with a perfectly normal job and a perfectly normal life that your husband that you thought was dead for the last two and a half years was back and missing a decade's worth of memories? That you found out only because a woman that they didn't even know the real name of had hired him and that another woman that you had thought was your mother had been ready to put a bullet in his head for spying on her? There was no way to make that sound even remotely sane, and that didn't even touch on any of the other pieces of chaos that made up her life. She was starting to remember why she'd ghosted on most of their friends after their first marriage had ended.

"He must be special," Beth said, pulling Liz out of her thoughts. "I'm really happy for you." She reached out for Shelly who held onto the doll tightly and waved goodbye to Agnes who seemed much more interested in Tom.

There was something in not only the way that their daughter was looking at him, but how much softer he seemed to be with her that helped to push away the rest of the chaos. "He really is," Liz breathed, barely audible as Beth and Shelly left. She felt a smile tug into place. "Hey, how about a trip to the park?"

Agnes' face lit up. "The park!" she squealed.

She ran to go put Cinderella on her bed and Liz leaned in close. "You sure? There's no turning back once she's involved."

"I don't want to turn back," he answered softly. "No more running."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

----------

Tom had always had conflicting views about being a father. He'd all but begged her to have a child with him during their first marriage, his excitement over her dream of adopting making a whole lot more sense after she'd learned about his own childhood and upbringing. They had hit roadblock after roadblock with the adoption. The timing had been thrown off when Zamani had nearly killed Tom and then Liz had backed out at the last second with their friend Jenni's little boy. Tom had been devastated after the last one, but even now she knew it had been for the best. They never could have raised a child in that home with so many lies between them. It wouldn't have been fair to them or the child.

Then he'd found out that she was pregnant with Agnes and she'd seen that same excitement return, despite the flippant manner he'd referred to everything when she had interrogated him on the boat. Something in him wanted to be a father - to have a home and a family with her - and she'd wondered in that moment if it wasn't a bit of what she'd struggled with herself. He hadn't known where he came from and his own childhood had been a disaster. There was something in the idea of having a little one that made it feel like, somehow, something good could come of it.

And it had. All the fears, all the worries, and all the struggles later, that little girl was the center of her world. Liz hadn't been willing to risk adding to Agnes' trauma by letting her get close to him until Tom was certain. She thought that would come with his memories, but some things were stronger than memories. He was nervous, hesitant, but there was no missing the way he softened with her or the contentment that made its way to his expressive eyes as Agnes ran circles around him, like for just a moment he didn't have to fight just to survive. For the first time in a long time Liz let herself remember how much their daughter's laugh reminded her of his.

For the rough start, this day had been exactly what she needed to reset. It had given her hope. Orchard had finally gotten in contact, the Collector case seemed to be inching forward again, and she couldn't help but feel like her family might be whole someday soon. Agnes certainly adored her father, even if Liz had no idea how she would know who he was. She'd said something about finding her box of photos she kept tucked away, but there was no context for that, and certainly no context that a four-year-old could draw from it. But there was no hesitation in the way she approached him though, tugging his hand to keep him close and pulling him around the park.

And he went with her, never letting go.

"She thinks I'm going to leave again." Tom's voice pulled Liz out of her thoughts and she glanced over to the passenger seat where he was leaned back, his expression difficult to read. He tilted his head a little and turned to look back at the sleeping little girl in the back seat. "She can't remember me, right? From before?"

"I was just thinking about that," Liz admitted softly. "I don't think there's any way she could, but just because she doesn't remember you doesn't mean she doesn't know you, at least on some level."

He let his head fall back against the headrest with a light thumpand turned to watch the city pass by through the window. "I can get that."

Liz kept her gaze fixed on the road in front of them, but her lips tilted up in a smile. Yep. This had turned out to be a good day, despite the way it had begun.

They parked in the garage and a sleepy Agnes refused to move unless Tom was carrying her. She wrapped around his neck, cheek pressed against his shoulder, and she was out again. He took it in stride and it would have been very easy in that moment to pretend that the last two and a half years had played out very differently. That he had been there for the play dates, the weird breakfast requests, and every princess tea party. That Agnes had grown up perched on his shoulders as he made sure she had the life he'd never known after he'd been taken. That she grew up safe and loved by both of her parents. It was easy to pretend, and that image lasted her up to the door of their apartment where reality crashed back into place.

Nothing good lasted forever. That was the one constant in their lives.

Liz didn't see any sign of forced entry, but Gina Zanetakos had made herself right at home in the white rocking chair that faced the front door of the apartment. In unison both Liz and Tom went for their guns, Tom sliding Agnes around with surprising ease and shifting so that he was between the little girl and the bored looking blonde.

Gina smirked just a little at the sight of Tom with Agnes. "Back to playing house so soon?"

"What part of our last conversation made you think it wasn't our last?" Tom snarled and Agnes started to stir at his tone.

"Put your guns down. I'm not here to bring you back."

Agnes started to squirm in earnest and slipped down, landing in a controlled fall so that her bare feet hit the wood floor. Liz grabbed her, pulling her behind both she and Tom.

He readjusted his grip on his gun, steadying it with both hands. "Then why?"

Gina sighed, the sound exasperated and she relaxed back in the chair. "You came to me after you left the first time and said you wanted peace."

"Doesn't sound like me."

"You'd changed." She tilted her head, studying him.

"What do you want, Zanetakos?" Liz growled and for the first time the other woman's attention focused on her.

"Peace," she answered tightly, as if the word physically sickened her.

"You think I know too much, don't you?" Tom asked, finally lowering his weapon just a little.

"I know you know too much."

"Why not just kill me?"

Liz stiffened a little at Agnes' worried sound. It wasn't lost on her that Agnes was the same age she had been when she had gotten her hands on a weapon and took that fateful shot all those years ago. There were plenty of dangers surrounding her and she certainly had the stubborn streak that she'd inherited from them both. Liz didn't want her daughter to get it stuck in her mind that she needed to protect them. Thankfully, Tom managed to block Agnes from finding space to get around them and Liz felt a relieved breath escape her.

Gina's expression had shifted when Liz looked back to her. A little softer. Little more strained. "You know why," she murmured, but then she squared her shoulders and her expression turned back to bored. "I'm here for a trade." She reached into her pocket, not seeming to be bothered by the pair of guns that leveled at her movement. She held a jump drive between her fingers. "Your buddy Fitz was digging into something he shouldn't have. No one knows where he is."

"Dead," Tom answered sharply and Gina shrugged.

"He found some interesting information about the woman he was researching for you…. and more."

"What kind of more?"

"Enough to buy your silence. I give you this, I don't have to worry about the feds showing up at my door as thanks for letting you live. We go our separate ways and we're done. For good this time."

"And if it's not worth the swap?" Tom asked.

"Then you know where to find me." She stood offering the jump drive to him. Slowly Tom lowered his weapon to reach out for it, but she didn't immediately let go. "Just know they have orders to kill if you show your face on campus again."

He smirked, tugging the drive from her fingers. "Noted."

Liz pulled Agnes back as Gina circled far too close to her for Liz's comfort. She clenched her teeth, waiting, and Tom moved first to lock the door. Only then did Liz risk loosing a breath, setting the gun aside, and pulling Agnes up into her arms. Gina Zanetakos had been in their home with their daughter. She'd said she'd come with a peace offering, but to Liz, it felt more like a show of power. Another person that could get to them any time she wanted to.

The little girl wrapped around her. "It's okay, Mommy. The bad lady's gone."

Liz felt the tenseness loosen just a little and she pressed a kiss to the side of her daughter's head. "I know, baby. I know."

--------

The feeling of danger lingered in the apartment long after Gina was gone. Agnes consoled her mother almost more than her mother consoled her, leaving Jacob with another round of questions on how a kid that was supposed to be his was more compassionate at four than he knew how to be at thirty-five.

Liz worked to get Agnes settled and distracted in their line of sight while he borrowed her computer to see what Gina had felt was so important that she could use it to leverage him from bringing everything she cared about down around her head after what she'd done to him.

It wasn't a small file which, having known Fitz and his boundless curiosity over the years like he did, shouldn't have surprised him. The man had had connections everywhere and was able to dig up dirt that no one else could touch. He was able to bury it in the same way too, which was one of the things that had made him so useful to St Regis over the years.

There were folders of information, most of it in Russian and redacted, but there were documents under a dozen aliases littered in it. Birth certificates, death certificates, IDs, and other odds and ends. He read through the notes, eyes fixing on photos where they were available, and Fitz had even left a document explaining what he'd found. Jacob was halfway through it when a hand touched his shoulder lightly and he found Liz joining him on the couch.

"Is all of this linked to Tolliver?" she asked quietly.

Jacob glanced over to see Agnes busy with a sketchpad and crayons at the table, but kept his voice low as well. "Not all of it, doesn't look like."

"So who are the other women?"

"From what Fitz found…. Katarina Rostova."

Her eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"

"I'm still working through it, but… You ever play Three Card Monte? Find the Lady?"

"The card game? Sure. My adopted father was a grifter. I could pull that one off without a hitch by the time I was seven."

Jacob smirked at the thought of Liz conning some unsuspecting schmuck out of their cash. "Looks like that from what I can tell. Multiple women working under the same name. You can have her in more than one place at once and it builds the legends. We studied the theory when I was a teenager at St Regis, but Bud said no one had pulled it off successfully. Guess he was wrong."

"So Tolliver wasn't my mother, but that doesn't mean… Are there any other photos? The different women?"

There was a desperation in her voice that Jacob wasn't sure he liked, but he nodded, scrolling through. There were at least three different women, all around the same age and of similar builds. Redheads - possibly unnaturally so - with dangerous looks to them. It would be easy to mistake one for the other if you weren't looking very closely.

"There. Her," Liz snapped and Jacob stopped scrolling.

He felt his breath catch. "Who is she?" he asked carefully.

"My mother. It's her, from when I was little. I recognize her." The words tumbled out, quick and shocked and terrified and excited.

Jacob swallowed hard. "Liz… I know that woman."

"What? How?"

"Age her up a little over thirty years and it's her. That's the woman that hired me. That's Brigitte Tremblay."

They turned to look at the photo together, a new layer of shock settling over them as Brigitte Tremblay - Katarina Rostova - stared back from the file.

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

It had been a long day. Elizabeth may have been focused on what she saw as the truth - that Red had offered up a Blacklister with the sole intention of taking him off the playing board - but taking out the Collector had only slowed the rate in which everything was crashing down around them. The search for the Sikorsky Archive, Elizabeth's poking and prodding where she shouldn't, and now the understanding that the Bonn faction of the Cabal was coming back into play didn't hold a candle to what it would all mean in the end.

And the end was coming. He'd always known it would. Reddington had just hoped he would live long enough to shield the people he loved from the brunt of the fallout.

He heaved a heavy sigh, leaning back in his recliner and closing his eyes. Life had been simple once, hadn't it? At the very least he had been able to pretend that it was. A wife, a daughter, a career, and a name that he'd worn like a mask. It had protected him. It still did, at least from the worst of it. It protected her too.

No, he conceded, if only to himself, even the illusion of simplicity had been washed away when she came into his life, but he wouldn't change it for anything. If Elizabeth and her little girl managed to surface from all of this safe and whole, it would all be worth it.

These were the moments he wished that Dom were awake. He hadn't realized how much he had come to rely on the man. Perhaps not for advice, but for a figure that had been with him for so long. He knew him in a way that most didn't. Couldn't. Even Dembe who knew of the secrets hadn't been there for their birth into the world.

Dom had been, but despite all of the doctor's efforts the older man still hadn't surfaced fully from his coma. He was breathing and he was healing, but much like Elizabeth only a couple of years before there was a question of if as well as when.

A knock at the door startled him from the near-dozing state he had sunk into and he straightened to listen. Dembe must have slipped out at some point, but he wouldn't have knocked to come back in. With precious few people aware of this little apartment hideaway that he kept, Elizabeth was the only other reasonable option.

Anyone else would spell trouble.

Reddington reached for his revolver, frowning at the slight tremor in his hand as he did. He pulled it from its holster and moved towards the door with all but silent footsteps. He risked a look through the peephole and blinked in surprise at the red headed woman flexing her fingers in a playful wave, her smile as impish as it had been all those years ago when he had first met her.

"Are you planning on letting me in?" she asked, her tone light even as he undid the locks and pulled the door open. He dropped the gun down so the muzzle was aimed at the floor and her smile only broadened. "Hello, Raymond."

"Katarina," he managed, her name escaping on a breath.

"We need to talk."

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

TBC

Notes: I realized some time after writing this that the Keens really do have a lot of unexpected and sometimes unwelcome guests in their home. Two in one chapter lol

So, a lot happened in this chapter, but I want to give a shoutout to everyone that thought Brigitte was Katarina. You were riiiiiiight! Now here's the big question: what's her endgame?

Next Time: Katarina tries to enlist Reddington's help, Ressler reveals a secret to Cooper, and Tom has his first memory recovery session.

[florrickandassociates]

TGF Thoughts: 3x01-- The One About The Recent Troubles

HI GUYS I WROTE A LOT 

New season, new naming convention. Well, it’s either that or Diane Lockhart’s joined a reboot of Friends. Jokes aside, I don’t love the new naming convention (I never watched Friends) but I don’t dislike it either. It’s fine. What I do like is that we’ve dropped any sort of counting (unless you consider “the one” counting). (I am just now realizing that last season’s episode titles were more in the TGW tradition than I thought-- they were just another form of counting). Three seasons in, TGF is its own show (with its own titles!), and that makes me very happy.

I’m about to hit play on my third viewing of this episode. I watched at 5 am on the day it was released (worth it, tbh), then again with my roommate after work that same day.

This year’s previously montage works better than last year’s, but I still don’t love it. The selection of clips seems a little random at first: Liz talking about her father? The Assholes to Avoid case that I was hoping to avoid thinking about ever again? Okay…?

It’s time for some tone-setting! “I’m happy,” Diane states as the season opens. She’s in bed with Kurt, waking up in the morning. This is one of those statements that becomes important mostly because it’s so prominent. I believe that Diane’s happy with her life and happy waking up next to her husband, but I don’t think Diane is trying to make a Thesis Statement. I think she’s just expressing that she feels good. The writers, however, definitely want us to note that Diane starts out the season in a good, happy place. This is because they are going to slowly complicate and destroy Diane’s happiness. That’s not a spoiler-- it’s a prediction.

Kurt laughs. “You like narrating your life,” he comments. Interesting.

“You know, there are psychological studies that say, when people are happy, they look desperately for things to make them unhappy. But that won’t happen to us, will it?” Diane wonders. Of course it will. I know these writers. If there’s one thing they hate it’s writing more than a few scenes of a healthy marriage.

Diane and Kurt’s new bedroom confuses me. It has an arch that seems very low and I can’t tell if that’s the angle or not. Also, we only see the area with the bed, the bathroom, and a large sitting room in this episode. It would make sense for Diane to have a bedroom suite and a separate living room/dining room/kitchen, but the way this episode is shot makes it feel like Diane and Kurt only have that one space.

Now Diane’s asking Kurt for reassurance that everything’s going to be alright, and she seems moderately worried that he doesn’t sound certain when he responds. Maybe there are still some issues there…?

“What could go wrong?” Kurt asks, and right on cue, shit starts to blow up. (By which I mean the title sequence rolls.)

New objects/shots this year include: A tea set, aerial shots of a wine bottle, coffee cups (they discovered aerial shots this year and clearly liked them a lot), the same four purses from last year but arranged differently (looks cooler now), new images on the TV (bye, tiki torch nazis), and the entire set where they staged the explosions.

The third co-creator is still listed, because his name will be attached to this show for as long as it runs, but I really want to know: what did Phil Alden Robinson even do to create the show? Invent the basic sketch of the premise and the new characters? Just today I saw him credited in an article praising season 3, and it’s my understanding that he hasn’t even touched TGF since the pilot, back before the Kings signed on.

The Kings wrote this episode, but I didn’t need the credits to tell me that. Robert directed, too, which is only surprising because I wasn’t sure if it would be him or if it would be Brooke Kennedy.

Complaining about this now before I get any farther into the episode: CBS, FIX YOUR CLOSED CAPTIONING. Someone over at All Access doesn’t believe in apostrophes and it’s driving me up a wall.

After the credits, we resume with Julius talking about Carl Reddick, founding partner of RBL and civil rights icon. Julius has to be prompted to add on that last part, but Lucca doesn’t: she read about Reddick in history books.

Lucca’s dress for the interview shouldn’t work, but she pulls it off. It has several different colors and patterns, big gold buttons, and a ruffle down one side.

Here’s Liz’s comment on her father: “When my father died, I could think of no better way to honor his life than by taking over his partnership here.” We know that’s only partially true.

Next up is Reddick’s secretary of 15 years. She refers to him as “Mr. Reddick” instead of “Carl” and seems uncomfortable talking about her experience. Jay and Marissa, who have for some reason been tasked with creating promotional materials for the firm, notice her hesitance. Marissa asks what a typical day was like, and the secretary-- Cynthia-- starts to cry.

Cut to the RBL website, which is very boring and generic. “Who are you?” a publicity consultant asks Adrian and Liz. This reminds me of two things: one, Diane and Will’s conversation in season 4 about firm identity, and two, the fact that Hitting the Fan started off with the line “You’re stable.” Isn’t that very reminiscent of this episode starting off with, “I’m happy.”?! Yikes, we must be in for a ride…

Adrian’s answer is that they are a “mid-size Chicago law firm.” Really? That’s all you’ve got? The consultant pushes further-- he wants their story. Liz says their story is that they’re growing with new hires and a new floor. The consultant isn’t happy with that, either, because he seems to believe there’s only one right answer: they’re an African American firm, and that is their entire identity. Ugh.

When TGF first started, RBK felt like a firm that had an identity  and a mission-- a commitment to giving black lawyers opportunities for success in an environment where no one would be a token, coupled with a strong focus on civil rights cases (particularly police brutality cases). I assumed that was the shared goal of Carl, Adrian, and Barbara, but the firm’s gone through enough changes that I’m willing to accept that RBL might now be struggling for an identity. Carl’s dead, Barbara was always the one who would actually put her money where her mouth is (sorry, Adrian), Diane is (as always) interested in being profitable while looking like a liberal legend, and Liz accepted partnership because it was a lucrative offer that fell into her lap right when she lost her job at the DOJ.

Adrian says he doesn’t want RBL to be sold as an African American law firm. Hasn’t he pitched it as such in the past?

“Diversity is in right now. Black Panther. Black-ish. And diversity is something you have in sp-- in abundance,” the consultant says. My God, he’s terrible. He’s also using “diverse” and “black” as interchangeable words.

Adrian gets a reprieve when Jay and Marissa call him out of his meeting, but it doesn’t last long. Cynthia, Carl’s secretary, told Jay and Marissa that Carl repeatedly sexually assaulted her.

“He forced her for 15 years? Why would Cynthia stay for 15 years?” Adrian asks incredulously. “Seriously?” Marissa replies. Woah there. I agree wholeheartedly with Marissa but just because I’d write “SERIOUSLY?” in a recap doesn’t mean I’d ever say it to a name partner with that tone! (But really: Marissa’s very right. “Why would she stay?” is a terrible argument. Cynthia had bills to pay and a family (or at least a daughter) to care for. She likely didn’t have the luxury of looking for a new job. And that’s setting aside the fact that for decades, language around sexual assault wasn’t widely known!)

Adrian asks Marissa and Jay to keep quiet, and Marissa pushes back, asking if it’s so they can cover it up. Marissa! You’re not helping your cause here!

“Marissa, I don’t have the luxury right now of being outraged. That doesn’t mean I’m not outraged,” Adrian explains.

In the hallway, Jay suggests that Marissa give Adrian (and Carl) a break, since the Reddick name brings in half of their business, and if Reddick’s name becomes toxic, the firm could be in trouble. “Well, then, maybe it should be,” Marissa responds.

I loooooooove Diane’s new hairstyle! It’s been ten years; it’s time for a change.

Diane is about to head into the office when she notices Kurt went hunting the previous night with a gun he hates. And to make matters worse, there are blonde hairs on his jacket and Kurt won’t admit he went shooting with anyone. Well, I guess Diane’s happiness didn’t last very long at all.

Maia has a scratched cornea, so she’s wearing big sunglasses. “I wouldn’t wear those when you meet with the partners,” Marissa says, planting a bad idea in Maia’s mind. The sunglasses take two seconds to explain, and no one is going to fault her for this. If Maia didn’t get fired for not doing any work over a two year period, she’s going to be just fine wearing medically-required sunglasses to an internal meeting.

Julius wants to talk to Maia and explains that on the new website, they’re adding associate and partner bios. They just might not be adding Maia’s. “Don’t take it as a criticism. You’re doing a great job,” Julius says. This is basically the only circumstance in which I understand giving Maia praise: trying to keep her from causing a scene by stroking her ego.

Since Maia took off her sunglasses, she now appears to be crying. Since Maia lacks common sense, she does not explain why she is crying, leading Julius to keep heaping on the praise and explain the obvious (it’s about her parents’ scandal). Maia says she understands and that “this is all medical.” THAT’S SO VAGUE, MAIA. You’re looking for the sentence you just said to Marissa: “I have a scratched cornea.” I know this moment is supposed to be funny. It just makes Maia look impressionable (she took off the glasses) and slow (she can’t easily navigate out of this situation when the exit route is obvious). I already think Maia is both of those things, so I’m not complaining about this scene (I did laugh!), it’s just…  Maia, why???

Julius is so confused by Maia’s odd reaction that he goes straight to Lucca’s office. Lucca is pumping and doesn’t care who sees, because she’s the fucking best. Julius asks Lucca to talk to Maia about the website.

Diane’s still thinking about the hair when she arrives at RBL. Marissa greets her with an empty mug, I mean, with coffee. Diane asks what Adrian wants to talk to her about, and Marissa says, “I’ve been told I speak too much, so I won’t handle that.” If Marissa weren’t so good at her job she’d need to watch out.

Marissa tries to join Adrian and Diane’s meeting, and Adrian slowly closes the door in her face. Marissa walks away. I love it when this show emphasizes that their main players aren’t all of equal status at the firm, and this episode does a fantastic job of showing it.

Adrian explains the Reddick issue to Diane. He’s (wisely) chosen to go to Diane before Liz about this.

Adrian’s plan is to have Cynthia sign an NDA, and now there’s a “Good Fight Short” to educate us about NDAs. God, this show is weird and I love it.

“Think they’re maybe always in a red folder but I didn’t do my research that well” cracks me up.

“Let’s try to count all the red folders in the show today. You know what who cares just pay attention, put your phone away,” the song continues. Okay, show, I’ll listen to you and put my phone (on which I’m watching this show) away and go run my errands. That’s what you wanted, right?

A storm rolls in as Adrian and Diane pay Cynthia a visit. Thunder is dramatic, in case you were unaware.

Adrian tells Cynthia he knew nothing about Reddick’s behavior. He reaches for the NDA a little too quickly and Diane slows things down.

Adrian promises they’ll have sexual harassment training moving forward. Cynthia reminds him that they’ve always had that-- but partners never attended. Or, apparently, remembered that it existed.

Diane and Adrian hear pots and pans banging in the kitchen and realize that Cynthia’s daughter is home. That complicates things because the daughter anticipates the NDA and doesn’t want her mom to sign.

When Cynthia leaves the room, Adrian comments to Diane that “this house, it reminds me of my aunty’s house.” Diane just smiles, probably because that’s a reference she can’t understand.

The partners hold a secret meeting without Liz, which is certainly a way to handle this but probably not the optimal way. Liz should know what’s going on before any NDAs concerning her firm are created.

Liz notices that the offices are empty, and asks Marissa (who’s walking past) where everyone is. “I have no idea. I’m just staying on the sidelines today,” Marissa says unhelpfully. Great attitude. Very professional. As you’d expect, Liz is not satisfied with that answer.

Downstairs, the MANY partners of RBL are debating next steps. Why do they always pack these partner meeting scenes with so damn many extras? How many partners am I meant to believe they have?!

As we learned in the Assholes to Avoid episode, the most interesting thing about #MeToo is that it’s controversial and leads people to talk over each other. That’s what’s happening in this scene, but it works far better than the show’s last attempt at showing this idea. Unsurprisingly, when they have more to say than just “controversial topic is controversial” they do better.

And, I’m not sure where to put it so I’ll just say it here, I think the Kings have more to say about #MeToo, and a new (and better) angle on it because it hit closer to home. This plot isn’t a reenactment of what happened with Moonves, but the ideas it explores? Once you think about Moonves and the role he had in bringing TGW to life (and keeping it on the air), it’s all you’ll see. This plot is the Kings reckoning with how to move forward and create distance after a powerful man in no small part responsible for their own success turns out to be a serial harasser.

And that’s so much more interesting than “what if we took the Aziz Ansari thing but removed all nuance?” TGW, and TGF, wouldn’t have existed without Les Moonves. I’m pretty certain I’ve heard the Kings and Julianna-- and probably other cast members-- speak glowingly about him (before the allegations, obvs). He allowed TGW to flourish (and TGF to exist, which is kind of amazing when you think about it) while also enabling sexual assault all throughout CBS.  

The reason for this meeting? Now they want to pay Cynthia off. Diane suggests letting the story surface, emphasizing that Carl did good things and bad things. Diane also, wisely, notes that if they pay someone off, then it becomes the whole firm’s problem. But it seems they might have already paid someone off, so it’s too little, too late. RBK had, in 2012, agreed to cover all of Reddick’s sexual harassment suits. (This is, apparently, “standard” for CEOs, barf.)

I’d still like to dig into Diane’s “just own it” idea a little more, but I do see why the other partners (the ones who were actually there for the bulk of the time Reddick was) shut it down.

Then Wendy, the stenographer, speaks up: Carl Reddick assaulted her, too. If there are two, there are more than two, and I’m surprised that Liz is the first person to suggest this.

At home, later, Diane scrolls through Netflix (not a streaming site, this is Netflix’s layout with different shows), unable to decide what to watch. I’m sad to report none of the fake shows are any fun, and none of them are Darkness at Noon. I guess Darkness at Noon is probably on AMC All Access, behind a paywall…

Kurt arrives home and asks what Diane’s doing. “Figuring out whether to watch a German series about serial killers or a Scandinavian series about serial killers,” Diane replies. Haven’t we all been there? That’s scrolling through Netflix in one sentence.

Diane has “helped” Kurt pack for a trip, and THANK GOD, she’s not kicking him out (that’s how scenes where the husband arrives home to find his bags packed always go). She’s passive-aggressively packing for his upcoming trip she discovered on their credit card account.

Kurt’s going on a safari. Diane says she doesn’t shoot anymore (I guess since 2x10?) and wants to know who Kurt’s going with. Shouldn’t Kurt be telling Diane if he’s going to go on a safari?

Kurt senses something’s up and asks what’s wrong. Diane says work has her thinking about “men.” Then she tells Kurt she doesn’t think he’s being honest and says she doesn’t like pretending to be the “cool wife who overlooks lies.” Is “Cool Wife” a variation of “Cool Girl” and if so, can we get a Gillian Flynn novel about it, please?

Finally, the truth emerges: Kurt isn’t hiding an affair (though Diane briefly suspects he’s seeing someone named “Holly Westfall” again… idk, have we ever heard that name? Nothing’s coming to mind, because Kurt never cheated on Diane and Peter’s trial never happened.). He’s giving private shooting lessons to 45’s sons.

My GOD, Diane’s reaction.

I love how every time Diane says “safari” she says it with a little more disbelief in her voice.

Kurt says this is just a job; he’s being paid. Can he take someone else’s money then? How strapped for cash is he? This is like the “we’re defense attorneys!” line Diane always goes back to. SURE, but you don’t have to take EVERY case to be profitable.

Diane proceeds to start BANGING HER HEAD AGAINST THE WALL, REPEATEDLY. This scene is simultaneously comedic, dramatic, and ridiculous and I love it. I’m not sure how it manages to feel far-fetched and also character-driven at the same time, but hey, it works.

Diane storms out, saying she’s going to do something she should’ve done nine months ago: conjure up space bugs. Okay, no, she’s making contact with her FuzzyFuzzyCuteCute friend, but she’s doing so in a way that involves moving lots of flowers to her windowsill, and THAT’S HOW YOU DRAW IN THE SPACE BUGS.

In case I haven’t said it enough times, TGF in some ways seems more like it’s a continuation of BrainDead than TGW.

Diane talks to Tara and asks her to break her NDA (some legal nonsense) and come forward with allegations that 45 paid for her abortion. Tara asks Diane why now, and Diane’s answer is kind of bullshit: “because now it’s personal.” And it wasn’t before?! And that matters?! (I believe it from Diane, but come on. You need it to be personal to fight this as hard as you can? The fact that this administration’s policies are having catastrophic effects on families isn’t enough?)

Adrian finally shows Liz the interview with Cynthia, and Audra McDonald could win an Emmy for her reaction shots alone (I can’t say enough times how pleased I am with the addition of Liz). Adrian draws the curtains of Will’s office, I mean Liz’s office, to give them some privacy. Good move.

Liz wants to know if Adrian knew, and she has good reasons to believe he might have. For one, when they were married, Adrian asked how her parents were doing-- suggesting they might have reason to not be doing so well.

Liz goes into her bathroom (first time we’ve seen this set, though we’ve obviously known it existed from ~Willicia sexytimes~) (Not to derail this recap entirely, but does anyone else ever wonder how Willicia would’ve played in this day and age? I wouldn’t consider it assault or harassment because it was obviously consensual, but I don’t know that you can do a boss/employee romance plot as easily today as you could in 2011.)

Liz, through tears, confesses that her father didn’t always treat her mom (or “us”-- I assume meaning Liz and any siblings she may have) well. She’d always rationalized it as the part of “sharing him with the world” while he was “fighting,” but “he was just here.” God, this is devastating, and this scene is spectacularly done.

Adrian tries to comfort Liz, but she realizes something: Adrian put in the glass walls. She wants to know why. Was he trying to force Carl to be more transparent about something? Liz remembers her dad complaining about the glass walls. Adrian says it was just a design choice. Liz doesn’t believe it, but she’s moved on to other things. She’s putting on her jacket and trying to decide her next move. She angrily opens up the curtains even though she’s about to leave her office (just to show that she values transparency) and marches down to the partner’s meeting.

Everyone quiets down when Liz walks in. She grabs a notepad and a chair and begins to take an active role in negotiating payouts. Julius mentions Wendy, and Liz didn’t know about Wendy yet. Her reaction? A long pause, and then: “My dad raped the stenographer?”

Have I mentioned yet that Audra’s great? She delivers the line with a fantastic blend of anger and resignation. And I love the line itself, particularly the use of the word “rape.” Aside from Cynthia’s daughter, Liz is the first person in the episode to call Carl’s actions what they are, and it’s meaningful to hear the word from her. Liz isn’t shying away from what her father did; she is trying to figure out how to name it and address it. Pretty remarkable.

Liz volunteers to make the deal with Cynthia. She immediately begins to ask Jay for help, but she thinks again and goes to Marissa instead (and says “rape” again) to find out if there are any others. Adrian and Diane should’ve had Marissa on this yesterday.

LUCCA!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry I’m just happy to see Lucca Quinn, who is the best and does not get nearly enough screentime. Because Lucca is the best, she’s meeting with the partners. She thinks something must be wrong-- that she’s about to be fired (no!!! I don’t even like thinking about that!!). But nothing is wrong. “In fact, consider this a promotion,” Adrian says. He offers Lucca the position of head of divorce law. (What are the odds we get through this arc without a cameo from David Lee?)

People who know more about the law than I do, is this even remotely plausible? Shouldn’t this be Lucca’s specialty if we’re going to see her head it up? Have we ever seen her on a divorce case?

The guy they had hired to head up divorce law had “harassment issues at his last firm.” “And that’s a problem these days?” Lucca jokes, not knowing just how bad her timing is. No one else laughs. (I! Love! Scenes! That! Show! That! Some! Of! The! Characters! Are! Junior! Staff!)

Lucca does not seem to want this promotion, but she realizes she’s being told, not asked.

Meanwhile, Maia’s spending her work day staring at the company website. Adrian stops by to see her (guess Lucca didn’t talk to her) and console her about the website. Maia now chooses to explain her scratched cornea. She doesn’t explain it clearly, so Adrian continues with his speech. “This is not a reflection of how we feel about you. It’s a branding thing.”

I suppose the same could also be said of the fact that the main poster for this season of TGF features Diane, Adrian, and Lucca when the first two seasons had posters featuring Diane, Maia, and Lucca. Maia adds less value, to the show and to the firm!!!!!

(I don’t hate this Maia plot, I just think it’s silly and unnecessary, and Maia’s still done nothing to prove to me that she’s interested in her job and/or good at it.)

“You keep up the good work,” Adrian says. Forget good work. What WORK?

The partners fussing over the website has made it a Big Deal for Maia, and now she’s pissed! Luckily, Marissa’s there to teach her how to be a badass.

“I’m a third year associate, and they are treating me like I was hired yesterday,” Maia fumes. Well, are you doing the work of a third year associate, or are you doing the “work” of a new hire who hasn’t yet been staffed on projects and just stares at the company website all day? Hmmmmm?

Marissa blames this on “the curse of short people.” Is Maia short? She’s never seemed short. Rose Leslie is, according to Google, 5’6”, which is hardly short! Then Marissa starts rambling about “the volcano of Vulcan” and, whatever, Marissa, I think Maia’s problem is that she has scumbag parents, not that she’s short.

Marissa’s advice-- which is basically to be more confident-- isn’t bad advice. But that’s not why Maia’s not on the website. Maia could be Lucca levels of incredible and her name would still look toxic on the website.

Maia’s so awkward she makes me look confident.

Marissa commands a “tall lady” not to wash her hands after using the bathroom and what, that’s gross, why are you doing this Marissa?

Marissa has a gift for Maia: Sunglasses that are “cool.” Marissa then breaks the doctor-approved sunglasses. Seems… unwise.

New, cool Maia gets a theme song and a leather jacket. She makes quite an impression on the image consultant in the elevator, and he asks her out. She rejects him. Ha ha.

Liz and Jay head to Cynthia’s next. They remember meeting each other before. Liz mentions the NDA, and Cynthia responds, “Your father wasn’t a bad man.” “I don’t understand how you can feel that way after everything that he did,” Liz replies.

Liz seems like she’s close to getting a signature on the NDA when Naomi Nivola, the reporter from 2x05, appears at her door asking about sexual harassment. Cynthia’s daughter tipped her off. I’m very happy to see Naomi again, not because I think she’s a wonderful character but because I thought Adrian’s “starfucking” excuse was too weak of a conclusion to her plotline last season. I’m almost glad to know she still holds a grudge, because it doesn’t let Adrian off the hook for some shitty behavior. Adrian isn’t Carl Reddick levels of disgusting but he’s done some troublesome things (and the way he talks to the female characters is a little condescending, no??)

(I went to re-read my thoughts on 2x05 and Naomi as I was writing this, and apparently I said I thought an episode about NDAs as they relate to #MeToo would be interesting. Hah!)

It’s still raining.

“I’ll talk to Naomi, find out what she knows,” Adrian decides. “You?! No,” Liz replies. Adrian actually asks why not!!!

Liz goes to settle with the stenographer next, and, again, she insists on doing it herself.

Maia is holding an NDA and sitting out at one of the associate desks, surrounded by a bunch of black men (does the firm have female associates?). Maia’s holding a red folder, and while that should mean she’s working on a case, she probably just picked it up because it was BOLD LIKE HER. What are work files if not accessories to make you look badass?

Maia’s also got her feet up on the desk. YOU’RE AT WORK, GIRL.

Julius asks Maia to move her feet. “Yeah? What do you need?” she replies. Julius is too stunned to actually play rank. Maia takes this as a victory. She shouldn’t. She can do this once, maybe twice, before it stops being cute and confusing and starts looking like what it is: an entitled white girl acting out and being disrespectful. If she wants to create distance from her parents’ scandal-- the actual issue here-- then she needs to be mature and develop a plan to work around it. She could, for example, take on lots of charity work and write an op-ed about deciding to help turn her dad in, and what she’s learned about the world from having her world crash down. Acting out in designer boots, red lipstick, and sunglasses is going to make Maia look like the oblivious child of privilege she is.

Why does this show insist on saying that Maia’s biggest weakness is her lack of boldness? She’s just awkward. She’s plenty confident. She just expresses it poorly.

I know this is a comedic subplot but Maia does not really behave like a human being??? Who would have that interaction and then feel self-satisfied? This is her place of work!!! She looks ridiculous!! She just talked back to a partner!!

Wendy doesn’t want to sign the NDA, and she doesn’t want any money. She says she’ll never tell anyone, because “there are so many people who want to destroy men. Black men.” And she doesn’t want to be a part of it. Interesting perspective, not one I agree with but one I’m pleased the writers included because it adds some nuance to the episode’s exploration of #MeToo.

Naomi and Jay talk in a not-very-interesting scene that includes some weird and unnecessary close ups of Jay. Main takeaway: Naomi thinks it’s Adrian who assaulted Cynthia.

Don’t really get why it’s great that Naomi thinks it’s Adrian. I suppose she’s a good enough journalist she wouldn’t publish a story there was no evidence for, but Adrian being able to deny it without lying hardly seems like cause for celebration. And would Naomi really drop it if Adrian said he didn’t rape anyone?

Eric and Don bailed on the safari, so Kurt’s still around. He winces when Diane hugs him, and Diane doesn’t let it slip. Kurt, being Kurt, says nothing is wrong.

He goes to the bathroom, and Diane’s phone rings. It’s Tara saying she won’t come forward.

Diane joins Kurt in the bathroom (lots of scenes in bathrooms this ep) and notices he has a huge bruise on his shoulder because Eric or Don shot him. We don’t get to find out-- and neither does Diane-- because Kurt’s signed an NDA about the incident. HAHAHA!

Adrian has his interview with Naomi. He denies they’ve asked Cynthia to sign an NDA, and denies he harassed her. And that’s it, until Naomi reveals THE REAL STORY: Assholes to Avoid.

I wonder, IRL, how much this would hurt the firm. I also am still not sure why they took that damn case. 2x05 and whichever ep was Assholes (I mentioned I’m glad we’re not counting days anymore, right?) annoyed me more than basically any other s2 episode because they were tied up so neatly, so I’m happy to see both cases come back to complicate things.

Now shit gets weird. I assume this next scene is one of the “soliloquies” the Kings mentioned that the season would include, and I like the idea more than the execution. The characters taking turns verbalizing their inner thoughts in eloquent speeches to no one? Sure! I’m down! Diane suddenly beginning to talk to a Trump-shaped bruise THAT MOVES AND TALKS in the middle of an episode? I’ll just say I hope they’re not all like this.

“The footman to the king. I am married to the footman to the king,” Diane starts. Then TrumpBruise talks back (don’t love this impersonation). I think this would work just fine as a monologue, and I definitely don’t need the animation. I couldn’t see it the first time through and the episode was better for it.

Anyway, Diane’s upset that Kurt’s become a worthless servant to a family she loathes, and she connects this to her ongoing thoughts on the State of Masculinity.

“What has happened to men? Where did the real guys go? Why do we now have these snide little creatures with slicked-back hair and cologne? What happened to Paul Newman and Burt Lancaster? What happened to men who were slow to anger and responsible and who didn’t cry like whiny little bitches? When did Trump and Kavanaugh become our idea of an aggrieved man, quivering lips, blaming everyone but themselves? You’re not fit to kiss my husband’s feet. A truthful man, uncomplaining, never passing the buck, never punching unless he’s punched. When did he become the exception?” Okay. But toxic masculinity is not a new thing. This isn’t insightful enough for me to applaud it and it’s not offensive/wrong enough for me to actually want to dissect it. I like that the show’s taking risks and like the soliloquy idea but this is… meh.

Bruise starts talking about how happy he is. He’s taunting Diane (well, technically, Diane is criticizing herself) because she was happy earlier, and now she’s not and this asshole Bruise is sooooo happy.

So Diane’s solution is to leak Tara’s abortion. Interestingly, she imagines TrumpBruise calling her out on breaking Tara’s confidence. Implying that Bruise has a conscience (or enough savvy to push her buttons), even one fueled by Diane’s imagination, feels weird to me. Diane’s imagining Bruise has a conscience?!

FRANCESCA IS STILL AROUND!!! My wish to ditch Colin and keep his mom came true!

Francesa is singing “I Wanna Be Sedated” to her grandson. Of course she is.

I’m unclear on a few things with this scene: who is Francesca talking to? Does Francesca know them? This must be Lucca’s house (?) if Francesca is leaving and taking calls for Lucca, but why does Lucca have a land line, and why would a client be calling her on it?

Francesca has an Instagram. God, I would love it if that account existed.

Lucca’s baby is really cute. What’s the kid’s name? Is it Joseph?

Francesca tells Lucca she’s the perfect divorce lawyer. Anyone else feel like we missed a scene or three with this Lucca/divorce law plot? Why would Francesca say that? Does she know about the opportunity? Was Lucca working divorce cases and doing great? MORE LUCCA NOW.

Maia’s still wearing her sunglasses the next day (unclear if this is for medical reasons or because she doesn’t know when to just stop). She’s sitting in on a meeting of the partners about the new Assholes scandal.

Adrian says they need to get their story straight, that they didn’t know they were taking down the site. That’s blatantly false, and Maia speaks up to say so. Adrian says they didn’t. Um, they did. Julius asks Maia to step out, and Lucca, who has a seat at the table, defends Maia. Julius says “this should be a partner thing” and Maia gets up to leave. Lucca, who is also not a partner unless we did, indeed, miss multiple Lucca scenes, asks Maia for her opinion.

On her way out, Maia says RBL should “own it. Our client wanted us to take down a #MeToo site. We didn’t agree, but we took it down. Because we’re that good.” Meh. That’s really the only way out of this. But as a client, I would not be reassured by that, especially not if I had brought my business to a firm specifically because of its values.

Adrian takes Badass!Maia’s advice, word for word. And it works. This particular client also wants to know who Maia Rindell is. He typed in ReddickBoseman.net instead of .com (but WHY) and it landed on a “really really cool” page about Maia.

Liz and Adrian immediately go to find this cool site, and Adrian shows how hip he is by typing a url in the search bar. What pops up is a site with the RBL logo and several ~fashionable~ pictures of Maia and her Miraculous Sunglasses. It’s hilariously terrible. They’re not bad pictures, but it’s sooooooooooooooooo inappropriate and ridiculous. It’s also unnecessary, and I know I’m overthinking a sight gag (and it is an effective sight gag) but if Maia wanted to be on the website that badly, she could have, you know, SAID SO instead of making a fucking website.

Lol @ Maia staging a photoshoot at the office. Why wouldn’t she?

The website has the tagline “younger-tougher-smarter”. Well, one of those things is true, and you all know which one it is.

Cynthia’s back, in the office, to sign the NDA. She does.

Marissa’s prepared her research on Carl Reddick. She leaves it with Liz, in a green folder.

Diane goes to Naomi with Tara’s story. We don’t hear her tell it, so there’s a chance she thought better of it, but omg, how shitty, Diane!!!!!

Liz and Adrian share a drink. Adrian says he did suspect that Carl might have been having an affair, he just never thought it was assault.

“Your dad was really good to me, Liz. He’s the reason I have a career,” Adrian explains. “Me too,” Liz says, raising her glass. Damn. I don’t think those words were chosen unintentionally. Lots of layers to this scene.

Adrian decides to lighten the mood by mocking the image consultant. Liz, who’s wearing heels similar to the ones Maia was wearing earlier and has her feet up just like Maia did, comes up with an identity for the firm: “We’re a firm with no past. Not anymore. We’re starting over. That’s refreshing.”

Then they toast to Peter Florrick’s State’s Attorney campaign slogan/the writer’s perpetual favorite phrase: “New beginnings.” But it’s still storming, and the folder with all of Carl Reddick’s past misdeeds is sitting feet away. Dramatic!

As the credits roll, there’s an actual count of all the red folders in the episode. Heh.

I’m very on board with this season so far. Can’t wait to see what happens next!

Couldn’t all the episodes of this show (and TGW) be called The One About the Recent Troubles, though???

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to Political Confessional, a column about the views that Americans are scared to share with their friends and neighbors. If you have a political belief that you’re willing to share with us, fill out this form — we might get in touch.

This week, we spoke with C., a 42-year-old biracial woman who lives in New York City and is a scientific researcher. C originally wrote this:

“I feel very strongly that private schools — especially in a place with very segregated schools, like where I live in NYC — should be massively reformed. I would uphold a change banning these schools or promoting a requirement that an amount equal to the tuition of these schools must be paid into the public school system. This would have to also be upheld with ‘donations’ and monies earned with ‘benefit’ events. OR every private school has to offer a public school or two access to its classes and school offerings (teachers, sports involvement, travel, etc.).”

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Clare Malone: So how did you come to this position?

C: I’ve always felt pretty strongly about it. Just my personality must be one of being hyper-aware of inequality, and that’s why I’m in HIV research. When I was in my 20s and early 30s, before everyone I knew started having children, I was very much pro-public school. And then as some of my friends who are more well off than others decided on private school, there was a huge divergence in thinking. Some parents feel it’s their job to do only what’s best for their child in a vacuum, and then there are other people who feel what’s best for society is what’s best for my child. It was very stark when that started to happen. I didn’t lose friendships over it, but it made me see some people who I was very close to in a different light.

CM: What would you say your social class is?

C: It’s complicated for me. I’m not married to my boyfriend, but we have been dating and together for more than five years and we live together in a a renovated brownstone that’s all ours. Are we the richest people in New York City? No, because we don’t work in finance. But we are extremely lucky and extremely well off. So I would say that we’re on the low end of upper class.

CM: Do you have kids?

C: I don’t have any children of my own. People say, “Well, you don’t have your own kids.” It’s an argument that has only gotten worse as we’ve gotten into this individualistic politics of identity so that I feel even more unable to express my opinion because I don’t have kids. It’s almost to the point where I would have a child just to send them to public school.

CM: What kinds of schools did you go to?

C: I’ve had this discussion with my boyfriend. He knows how I feel because his son goes to a $50,000-a-year high school. I was talking to him about how I felt, and he said, ‘You had a very unique public school experience.’ We had no less than 87 flags of different countries flying in our foyer because it represented our student body. It was minority white, majority black. We had an amazing curriculum. We had a planetarium, and I took oceanography. We offered German, Spanish, Russian, French, Latin.

Who were you and what were your politics if you decided not to send your child there? The kids who went to private school tended to be what would colloquially be termed frat boys. That was the sort of cultural identity that I put on those kinds of kids. They had boats and lake houses and third homes.

CM: Is there any legitimate reason in your eyes for going to private school? For instance, in the milieu you grew up in, what if a kid’s parents were very Catholic and they wanted to send their kid to a particular Catholic school because they wanted him to have a Jesuit education?

C: That’s complicated. I do see subtle nuances in the world even though it may not sound like it! I have a hard time with religious schooling because I don’t like the idea that children, because they’re voiceless and helpless and need the guidance of adults, don’t get to learn things like basic reproductive health. Or experience other cultures. I just don’t like that they’re different curriculums.

CM: I want to go back to that conversation you had with your boyfriend where he says you went to a special kind of public school. Do you accede that point? How do you grapple with the reality of lower middle class people who, given the opportunity to go to a private school, might well choose that option?

C: The only way to make public schools good is to have children go there of all socioeconomic classes. I do think that it’s complicated for people who’ve been given a scholarship to a private school. It’s very hard for me to judge someone who doesn’t have a lot of money who’s been given the opportunity for their child to go to one of these schools. I guess my sympathy always lies with the people who have fewer opportunities. I don’t have a perfect answer. But let’s stop vouchers.

CM: Let’s go to the pretend world where you have control over this. Would you outright abolish private schools?

C: If I could choose a real solution, it would actually be a little less harsh. What it probably would be is that wherever a private school is, it has to have a sister school of children who aren’t given the same opportunity. If parents could push for them to have some of these experiences, I would think that would be a step in the right direction. I think that the hardest thing is that these children are in a bubble and the private school children are in a bubble.

CM: This is a New York City specific question, but there has been some recent controversy over “the test” to get into the city’s specialized public high schools — only seven black kids were admitted to one of the top schools this year …

C: Which makes me want to vomit. It’s gross to me.

CM: So there are even problems in the best of the best public schools — there are a large number of Asian students who get into the best New York City high schools and there’s debate over whether getting rid of the test would diminish opportunities for those students. How do you think about that? How should New York City handle the test?

C: It’s complicated because, listen — I’m biracial. My mother was a tiger mom, she’s Indian and, unfortunately, I was not a good high school student but graduated magna, got on the dean’s list every semester in college. It was definitely because my mother was a tiger mom and I know how to study and that was instilled in me. I understand what these Asian kids are doing and how much pressure their parents put on them, especially if they’re first generation parents and second generation children.

It’s not that I want to take away from them. I just feel that the class issues and the identity issues with African Americans in the United States are unique, that they have for generations been deprived and depressed and removed from any chance of success. We have to acknowledge that. We just absolutely do.

And if that needs to be done through affirmative action, I think it needs to be done through affirmative action. And I think that there is something to be said for being inclusive of all races. I think it benefits even these tiger kids who get into Stuyvesant — their lives are going to be better to have a diverse population around them, to have more white kids, more black kids, more Latinos.

CM: I want to go back to how personal this issue is — people can be in a relationship and have different schools of thought about how to school their kids …

C: My boyfriend is a saint because he listens to my opinions and still knows that I love him and his son just as much as if I shared his opinions 100 percent, so I feel lucky. He co-parents with my stepson’s mother very well, and they had a culture of raising him that I respect. They did what they thought was best for him, so I give way in a different way than I feel politically. I’ve hung out with a couple that have children and those daughters go to private school. I brushed on it lightly, and the mom said, ‘Oh, I lost that battle.’ She was like, ‘I wanted them to go to public school, but these kids are spoiled.’ And those are her own children.

CM: In the world in general but New York City in particular, class differences show themselves pretty clearly. What are factors besides education that you think affect the way children grow up aware of class and privilege? And are there ways to solve the inequality problem outside of simply reforming public and private schools?

C: This was brought up at a diversity evening my boyfriend attended. It came up that for the kids who are there on scholarship, they’re hyper-aware and feel different simply because of things like trips to Utah to go skiing for the weekend. Vacations, I think, are a big sign that you have money. And then probably social activities.

CM: Do you have a person you see on the political scene who represents a vision of education that lines up with your view?

C: I have no idea what any of these political candidates feel about pre-college education. Zero. I know Bernie Sanders wants free college tuition for everyone. I don’t know how they feel about these issues. Politically, I would love for someone to come out and call BS on private school vouchers.

[recentanimenews]

Celebrate Mother's Day with the Greatest Moms in Anime!

It’s that time of year again, folks: Mother’s Day. The time when all of us can come together to celebrate motherhood in all its forms. Mothers come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Some have one mother. Some have two. Some are biological. Some aren’t. Who among us doesn’t have “the Mom friend” in their friend group? I once saw a woman who described herself as “a single mom with no kids” in her dating profile and by golly, folks, that one stuck with me.

  It takes a lot to be a mom—and even more to be a good one. And trust me, I know a good mom when I see one. As a fan of both anime AND moms, I feel truly blessed. There are TONS of great moms out there in anime. I’ve already wished my real mom a happy Mother’s Day, so now it’s time to celebrate with my other moms: the best moms in anime.

    Inko Midoriya - My Hero Academia

    A favorite anime mothers list that doesn’t lead with Inko Midoriya is a list I don’t wanna read. Inko Midoriya is who anime moms should strive to be. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this mom. Every step of the way she takes complete pride in her son Deku and his accomplishments. Even when her son faces immense danger and painful injury, she doesn’t waver in her support. At the same time, she never devalues her own feelings. She’s never shy when it comes to voicing worry and concern over her son’s safety. She chastises both him and his mentor for his recklessness when they deserve it. She reminds them that there’s more to being a hero than simple self-sacrifice, because there are people like her who need them to come home safe and sound. She’s perfect, and I want to give her a hug.

  Tosen Shimogamo - The Eccentric Family

    It takes a lot to be an amazing mother, but luckily for this one being human isn’t a requirement. Matriarch of the honorable Shimogamo family of Kyoto tanuki, the untimely passing of her husband made her solely responsible for raising the next generation of Shimogamo tanuki. Luckily for Yasaburo and his three brothers, their upbringing couldn’t be in better hands (er, paws). The Shimogamo family’s pride lies both in their unwavering pursuit of fun and in the close ties that bind them all together. When she’s not dressing up like a prince and dominating the local billiards clubs, Tosen comforts and guides her children with the unconditional love only the best of mothers can provide. 

  Lisa Lisa - JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure

    Some moms show their love and dedication by coming home from a long, stressful day at work and still taking you to soccer practice. Some moms show their love by throwing you into a big, oily pit and telling you to climb out or die. Lisa Lisa is the latter. While not a Joestar by birth, their fates became intertwined when she was saved from a boat full of rampaging vampires by Erina Joestar as a baby. She later married into the Joestar family, mothered a son, and ultimately suffered the same fate as Erina—her husband was killed by a vampire. Having learned Hamon from her adopted father, she got her revenge on the vampire who widowed her and gave up her son to go into hiding. She became a master Hamon user, and years later her son Joseph would unknowingly seek out his own mother to teach him. Though her methods might seem harsh, her training gave him the tools necessary to once and for all defeat the Pillar Men menace together. Finally reunited, they could be the family they had always wished to be. Smart, beautiful, and tough to boot, on a scale of one to ten this mom is a fifty. 

  Sakura Uchiha - BORUTO: NARUTO NEXT GENERATIONS

    Sakura has a special place in the hearts of many anime fans as one of the only mothers they got to watch grow up and become a mother in front of their very eyes. Though a young girl at the onset of Naruto many years ago, Sakura has since grown into a fine mother raising her own shinobi daughter in the ongoing series BORUTO: NARUTO NEXT GENERATIONS. With her husband Sasuke largely absent on secret missions, Sakura is tasked with being one of the villages best fighters, medical practitioners, and sole caretaker for her daughter. She does it well though, assuaging her daughter’s anxieties through her unshakeable trust in Sasuke and doing whatever it takes to defend her daughter in times of need. She’s living proof that shinobi moms can truly have it all.

  Izumi Curtis - Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

    It might seem a bit cruel or ironic to put Izumi—a woman whose greatest weakness was caused by her inability to have children—she is without a doubt the greatest maternal figure in the Elric brothers’ lives. Like the Elric brothers, she had dabbled in human transmutation following the death of her baby in childbirth. As a result, she lost several internal organs and the inability to ever have children. She later took in and trained the Elric brothers, who had undergone a similar ordeal after the death of their mother. Though a tough-as-nails fighter and trainer, Izumi’s naturally caring nature helped nurture the Elric brothers into two of the best Alchemists and fighters in the nation. She’s as much a fantastic mother as any others in this list. 

  Kobayashi - Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid

    Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid is an anime all about a bunch of misfits coming together and forming their own little family in Tokyo, and Kobayashi happens to be everyone’s favorite tired, working-class stepmom. Having already had her loner lifestyle thrown out of whack when a maid who is also a dragon shows up on her doorstep, her life further complicates when a young dragon named Kanna inserts herself into Kobayashi’s life. Despite being hundreds of years older than Kobayashi, Kanna is still very much a child as dragons go, and begins seeing Kobayashi as a mother.

  The show is full of cute scenes between the two, and one of my favorite episodes in the series spells out their mother-daughter dynamic in pretty explicit terms. A harsh crunch period at work means Kobayashi can’t come to the sports festival at Kanna’s school. Kanna gets upset, and Kobayashi struggles to reconcile the way Kanna sees her with the off-hand approach her own parents took raising her. It’s an incredibly touching episode, and watching Kobayashi open up her heart a little more to her newfound daughter solidifies her as one of the best moms a tiny anime dragon girl could ask for.

  Bulma, Chichi, and Android 18 - Dragon Ball Super

    So far I’ve tried to stick to one mom per show, but when it came time to choose which Dragon Ball mom was best, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. They’re all great. As is the tragic fate of great moms everywhere, they never get the credit they deserve. Take Bulma, for example. She took a genocidal villain hellbent on destroying the earth and turned him into a family man. Not to mention the fact she—the smartest person in the world—invented time travel to save not one but TWO timelines from destruction. Speaking of which, without Android 18, Universe 7 would never have been able to win Zen-oh’s tournament and multiple universes would’ve been annihilated.

  Finally, there’s Chichi, who receives the brunt of maternal disrespect. Sure, she nags her husband and kids, but put yourself in her shoes! All she wants is a good life for her family, yet she can only watch as they put themselves in harms way time after time. How many times has she seen her husband die? Too many! Also, let’s be real here, Goku doesn’t know what a freaking kiss is. That woman has had to endure decades married to an absolute beefcake who won’t even kiss her. Who among us wouldn’t have a little pent up frustration after that?

  Of course, these are just a few of all the wonderful moms that the we’ve been blessed to meet while watching anime. I know I’ll be thinking of each and every one of them, and I hope you will be too. So take the time today to wish your local mom a happy Mother’s Day, then kick back and watch some anime together.

  Which anime mom would you most like to wish a happy Mother’s Day? Let us know in the comments below!

    -----

Danni Wilmoth is a Features writer for Crunchyroll and co-host of the video game podcast Indiecent. You can find more words from her on Twitter @NanamisEgg.

Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[randomrambings]

Little Fires Everywhere: My Opinions

(I found this as a draft and I made this towards the beginning of May)

I can't believe that I'll have to say this, but to stop the rainstorm of boohoos and 'how dare you say that about my favorite show', but this whole post is my opinion. I'm not stating facts. It's my OPINION. Okay? Okay, let's move on. Also - Strong language warning. As of writing this on Thursday, April 30th, 2020, I'm on the second episode of #LittleFiresEverywhere after a friend of mine gave me their Hulu log in (Thanks, Max). As of right now, I only truly care about is Pearl, Izzy, and Moody.

The other two siblings seem like dicks to just be dicks, I want to like Mia and Elena, but they seem every involved in themselves a lot of the time. And yes, moms should be their own persons, but the reason why I don't like them right now is that Mia didn't seem to think about staying somewhere because her daughter really wanted to, until Pearl yelled at her. I get that there's a complicated situation there that we're only scratching the surface of. And Elena just seems like one of those moms that need their kids to be perfect. To be model citizens, to wear pastels, to be basically what most people see as the picture-perfect American family, and I hate it. Not to mention how she clearly favors her older two kids over her younger two kids. And then, of course, Lexi flat out STOLE Pearl's letter about her discrimination about wanting to go to her proper math class.

It might've been how I was raised, but I was always taught to be who you are despite what other people want you to be (laugh if you want, but I was raised by young Millennial parents, so give me a break). It just seems like Elena is trying to suppress who Izzy is but anyway she can because she's scared of how different her youngest is compared to her other kids.

Despite me not liking our main characters, I'll balance it out by saying what I do like about Mia and Elena. First, Mia.

I like how Mia is so very caring towards people. Like how she offers advice to Elena when she's being harassed at school to stand up for herself, and how she cares about a co-worker that she barely even knows, and asks her what's wrong, and hears her out once the time is better.

I like how firm Elena is about her beliefs in things, and how she wants the best for her children but doesn't seem to know the best way to go about it. And despite some of her strange ways of going about it, it is clear that she does love her kids in her own way.

The show itself is really good. The characters, despite me not liking a lot of them, are well developed and I feel like I could meet them in real life.

Episode Three has more promise to it.

Adding Lexie's boyfriend, Brian, to the mix of people that I like in this show, because he pointed out how fucked up it was that Lexie stole Pearl's letter for her essay.

Watching Mia do her art is making me want to get back into art too if I'm being honest. It makes me miss it.

Anyway, I still dislike Lexie, but I love the fact that Izzy has a dress with pockets, but I think she looked pretty without getting all traditionally dressed up. With that being said, the green dress is really pretty.

Okay, something's happening at the baby shower and I feel my anxiety rising as each cup of tea is being split. (I also love the subtle relationship between Izzy and Moody. Reminds me a lot of my brother and me when we were still taking turns hating each other).

Mia is going to get into trouble for sneaking into the baby's bedroom, I can feel it. I can feel so much trouble stirring up everywhere.

Mia, why did you tell Bebe? Mirabelle/May Ling is adopted, she gave up her baby for a good reason, legally, the baby isn't hers anymore... Your heart is in the right place, but this was a bad idea. This was such a bad idea.

Is Moody not going to tell Pearl that he clearly as feelings for her??? Or is Pearl going to have to find out the hard way?

I love the mirroring between Elena and Mia towards the very end of the episode.

Episode Four:

I get why Mia did what she did, but that was a little messed up, for everyone involved. It wasn't helpful towards Bebe who was still grieving over giving up her child, and it wasn't helpful to the couple that has the baby and is nearly through with adopting her. In the previews for this episode, I would like to make a prediction to see how right I am.

Mia was a surrogate mother for a couple, and instead of giving up Pearl, she left with Pearl and has been on the run ever since, and that's the real reason why she and Pearl have never stayed in the same place for very long, and that's why she was so reluctant on staying in a seemingly perfect community, and part of the reason why she freaked out when Pearl was escorted home by what looked like a police officer at the time (that and the fact that it was the 90s, and there was terrible discrimination between cops and blacks, more than there is now). I don't want to be right, I don't want this to be a Finding Carter situation, but it would make sense.

I also really like how Izzy and Pearl are kind of opposites of each other, despite how they were raised, and who they were raised by.

Also, for all the moms out there that are scared that their kids are going to be addicted to sex after they do it the one time, and Lexie's line; "It's like when you do it once, it's all you can think about". From a 21-year-old who can very clearly remember what it's like being in high school, trust me, by the time they're like 14 or 15, they're already thinking about it a lot, in a good way or bad way, that doesn't mean that they're doing it, it's just being a teenager. (Sorry for the rant, I just know that Karens and Lindas will watch this show, hear that line and freak out even more than they already are).

"Being gay is a very rare thing". Elena, my girl, buddy, you're so sheltered from sexuality that it makes me laugh.

I really want to know what Mia's dreams mean. Hopefully, there are video essays on it somewhere that I can look at after the episode is over.

Oh my God, why is there always that one guy in these kinds of stories that always give the advice of "Just treat her like shit" or "Be an asshole the whole time, and she'll defiantly fall for you". First of all, no. Second of all, just be honest, the worst that'll happen is she'll say that she's not interested, and as long as you take it gracefully, nothing else will happen. Damn.

Also, am I the only one that finds it weird that Elena and Bill have a schedule for their sex life? Like who schedule's sex when they're not actively trying to have a baby, or avoid that, or they're old and need to make sure that no one's bones are gonna be ackey that day. I can't be the only one that finds that weird.

Elena is playing so dirty in something she should not be even touching right now, my Lord woman.

Why is Mia going through and taking a bunch of stuff from Elena's house, that's really weird?

Elena and Mia are really strange ladies, everyone's thinking about it.

I know that there is still a thing about adoptive parents vs biological parents, and I have no experience with adoptive parents, and I cannot imagine the pain that Bebe is going through, or Linda. But Bebe gave up her baby, whether or not she wanted to, and obviously is mourning that choice, but it was a choice she made. I'm on Linda's side with this, Mirabelle is Linda's baby. Bebe is the birth mother, yes, but Linda is her mom. There's a difference.

TRIP IS DOING HIS BROTHER SO DIRTY RIGHT NOW. TRIP, STOP MACKING ON YOUR BROTHER'S CRUSH WTF.

Can y'all tell that I feel things and think about stuff way too dramatically yet?

Pearl nO---!

Elena oh my fucking God, Elena, what the fuck are you doing.

Trip just spilled the beans after it was almost way too fucking late. Like I know you're a teenage boy with an attractive girl, but my dude should've said something when you were still making out.

Elena just fired shots holy shit. Do you want to start a fight with a mother? Say she's not a good mother.

Holy. Shit.

This show is really going to throw gas on the fire of biological vs adopted real quick... Not that there shouldn't be conversations about this, but its already a loaded topic.

Episode Five

That flashback kind of just explained why Elena schedules sex with her husband I mean...

I know snooping through things is bad, and I know that Izzy doesn't know that Mia snooped through and even took certain things from her house, but it's kind of hypocritical of Mia to be upset when Izzy went through her stuff when not even an episode ago, Mia was taking stuff fro their rooms.

"You should get on the pill" TOO LITTLE TOO LATE MY DUDE.

This is one of the painful mother-daughter scenes I've seen so far. Top 20.

I'm with Bill, Elena is unraveling and she's unraveling fast.

Do they really ask someone would they like to see the sonogram, knowing that they're getting an abortion? It just seems kind of mean.

I feel like Lexie can't stop doing fucked up shit. "If it got out it'd actually matter" so you used your friend's name?? So that if it got out, people would think that she got an abortion??? M'kay.

I never get show siblings. Trip and Lexie give Izzy a whole bunch of shit about how she might be a lesbian, but as soon as Izzy gives Trip a taste of his own medicine, she's the bad guy?

Holy shit I knew it!!!

Episode Six

I. Knew. It!!!!!

Such a weird way to ask someone to be your surrogate, though. Especially when the woman is obviously so young

I'm starting to see why Elena might have some resentment towards Izzy. I just wanna go through the screen and hug Linda and her husband so tightly and tell them that it'll be okay

Like I know that Mia is 18 in this, and can consent, but it's still kinda fucked, having a romantic relationship with her professor, someone of an authority figure

I think Elena might have postpartum depression. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's what it seems like. That or just majorly regretting her life choices. Probably both

That is fucked up. It shouldn't matter whether or not Mia is regnant, she deserves to go to her brother's funeral. There'll be more questions about where she is, instead of why she's pregnant.

Episode Seven

That was so cold, April, what the fuck.

Am I the only one that thinks Elena doesn't really love Izzy?

I know what April did was really fucked up, but I want her and Izzy to be friends again.

Take some ownership, Elena, Jesus. Hey Bill, can your wife be accountable for all her actions? Including screaming at your own daughter because she refused to wear a certain pair of shoes?

Shit, Izzy, that's fucked up. Looking at you too, April.

Well, my suspicions of Elena not loving Izzy were just confirmed.

I kind of hope Brian does break up Lexie.

I am so done with Elena's crazy nosy ass. For the love of God please tell me that she didn't tell Pearl. Holy shit, so many moral no-nos happening and there is only one episode left.

Oh, Izzy...

Damn everyone just kind of sucks right now.

Episode Eight

It sucks that Lexie is sad, but, Brian deserves better so, I don't feel that bad about it

"She didn't come from my body...but that doesn't make me any less of her mother."

Would it be wrong to post blame with both Elena and Mia? I mean, if Mia didn't stick herself in the middle of something she shouldn't have, and if Elena didn't try to bribe Bebe on behalf of Linda and her husband (I can't remember his name for the life of me) then it either wouldn't have been this bad or never happened at all.

I know I said I liked Izzy in the beginning, but she's kind of a brat.

I have mixed feeling about Pearl, but I still love her and Izzy

Yep, yep, definitely hate Elena. You can't ask your friend to break the law for you because you got her the job she has.

Busted...

MOODY! I can't believe he just said that about her, what the fuck

And Lexie's choice just fucked up everything for Pearl's reputation.

Can I punch Lexie in the face?

No, Elena, you're not a good person.

Oh my God...

I don't blame them, let them set the whole house on fire. Do it. I'd do it. Fuck Elena.

...That ending left in speechless in so many ways...

[easyfoodnetwork]

The Path to Survival Is Even More Complicated for Immigrant-Owned Mom-and-Pop Restaurants

Outside Tonii’s Fresh Rice Noodle in Chinatown, New York City.

Mom-and-pop diners and family-run takeout spots are especially vulnerable to the challenges ahead set by COVID-19

Restaurant owner Eric Sansangasakun saw the novel coronavirus coming from thousands of miles away, and even then, he still wasn’t prepared for how much damage it would bring.

Like many other Asian immigrants in the United States, Sansangasakun — who co-owns Thai and sushi restaurant Gindi Thai in Burbank, California, with his brother, his sister-in-law, and a friend from Bangkok — still has loved ones back in Asia. Since January, he had been monitoring the spread of the virus across China, Taiwan, Japan, and his home country of Thailand. He was confident that the United States would know how to address the COVID-19 crisis when it came to our shores. “By the time it gets to the U.S., it should be handled in a more structural way. We would be ready to tackle that,” he remembers thinking. “That was not the case.”

Instead, like hundreds of thousands of restaurant operators across the country, Sansangasakun and his business partners suddenly had their livelihoods upended when, one by one, cities and states shut down bars and restricted restaurants to takeout and delivery only. Virtually overnight, the industry’s already notoriously thin margins shrank to a razor’s edge, leaving independent restaurants — the mom-and-pop diners, the immigrant-owned takeout spots, the family-run neighborhood mainstays — especially vulnerable, without deep pockets and access to outside funding at the ready.

Caught between the bodily risk of coronavirus exposure on one end, and on the other, the threat of losing the culmination of a lifetime of labor and sacrifice, independent restaurant owners face an impossible choice: to close or to stay open?

I. The dilemma

Several restaurant owners describe the choice between staying open or closing as a balancing act, a constantly shifting calculus that they have to assess on a weekly or even daily basis. There are multiple considerations to juggle, including, first and foremost, health risks.

“If I could choose, I would just stay at home. That’s the safest place that reduces the risk of getting the virus,” says Sansangasakun. “But I have to strike a balance between safety and the practicality of having to run the business. You can stay home for two months, and then after that, there’s no business to go back to.”

Tonii’s Fresh Rice Noodle, New York City

Liz Yee, who, with her family, owns and operates the mainstay Kam Hing Coffee Shop and the newer Tonii’s Fresh Rice Noodle in Manhattan’s Chinatown, says she’s primarily concerned with the health of her parents and sister, all of whom have underlying conditions that could put them at higher risk of becoming critically ill if they contract COVID-19. Yee is aware that if any of them get the virus, “they’re not coming back from it,” so they’ve had to take extra precautions, like letting her father do all the prep work in the basement so that he doesn’t have to interact with people, and sanitizing carefully before having contact with each other.

The family has closed Kam Hing, as well as another store in Brooklyn, so that they can focus on Tonii’s without worrying about increasing the risk of exposure. But they stopped short of being able to reduce the risk entirely by closing all of their businesses. “If we gave up all three stores … we wouldn’t be able to afford to open back up anymore,” says Yee. “This one store is trying to help sustain the other ones.”

Restaurant owners also have to weigh the risks for their employees against those workers’ need to earn a living. Shahista Jiwani, whose family temporarily shuttered one of four locations of Chinese Dhaba, their Indian-Chinese fusion restaurant in the Atlanta area, says that her parents, Nadir and Mubarak — both nearing 60 themselves — worry about their staff’s health, in addition to their own. (Per Jiwani, Chinese Dhaba will continue to offer only takeout and delivery in order “to maintain the safety of our employees, as well as the general public,” even as Georgia’s Gov. Brian Kemp reopened dine-in service statewide on April 27.)

“At the same time, there are a lot of people that do live paycheck to paycheck. It’s very difficult to come to a sweet spot of [generating] revenue and [keeping] the businesses afloat, while at the same time caring for our workers’ health, but also their financial well-being,” says Jiwani. “It’s really hard to have a black-and-white answer to this.”

II. The business of staying open

There’s one black-and-white truth underlying this ever-changing equation: Even if money stops coming in, outgoing expenses do not. There’s rent, utilities, insurance, outstanding bills — not to mention all the fresh food that would go to waste if it were to go unused. So some restaurants keep their doors open, hoping to generate any measure of cash flow while adjusting to a new world ruled by takeout and delivery.

For some restaurants that previously relied heavily on dine-in income, the loss in revenue is significant. Gindi Thai — which Sansangasakun says was positioned to be slightly more upscale when it opened in 2006 — has seen a 70 percent drop in revenue over the past month, even with all the aggressive promotions and discounts put into place to attract more takeout and delivery customers. In order to make ends meet, Gindi Thai had to furlough much of its staff, although Sansangasakun says that he’s urging employees to get free meals from the restaurant if they don’t have anything to eat. “We may not have enough cash to go around at this time, but we have a lot of food.”

Ham Hung, a 35-year-old restaurant in Los Angeles’s Koreatown, has seen a similar percentage decrease. “Takeout and delivery is only like 30 percent of your income,” explains owner Sam Oh, who took over the restaurant after his father retired in 1998. Oh has lost the steady income of at least a few thousand dollars a month from catering corporate lunches for companies like Netflix because office workers are largely working from home. As a result, Oh says, he has had to cut costs elsewhere, starting with his staff. He has only kept on a couple of workers, “not because we are busy, but … so they can take something home to their families.” Still, he says, he can only afford to pay them minimum wage — without the tips they’d usually make from dine-in — on reduced hours. Most of the time, Oh is alone in the restaurant, working for 12 to 13 hours at a time.

“It kind of gets to you,” he admits. But still, he says he “never had a second doubt” about staying open. “We’ve been doing this since ’85. We went through the riots, and we went through the earthquakes. So how bad can it be, right?”

Other family-owned restaurants, meanwhile, have seen surprisingly robust sales, at least for a pandemic. With Tonii’s Fresh Rice Noodle, Yee says that orders have actually increased, between new delivery orders (the restaurant previously only offered takeout and dine-in) and the their participation in an initiative, called Welcome to Chinatown, in which donations are used to purchase and deliver meals for frontline workers at New York City’s hospitals. Tonii’s is also benefiting from being one of the few remaining businesses left open on their block, according to Yee; she says she often serves regular customers, including elderly Chinatown residents who live by themselves or can’t cook on their own.

Tonii’s Fresh Rice Noodle, New York City

Oriental Inn, a Chinese restaurant in Indianapolis, is also seeing good sales one month out from the end of dine-in service, in some cases even exceeding pre-pandemic revenue on busier days. According to Chris Chang — whose grandfather opened the restaurant more than 30 years ago, after immigrating to the U.S. from China with his family — this is likely because the majority of nearby restaurants have closed, driving some customers to travel 40 minutes or more for Oriental Inn’s takeout. “We are fortunate that people are getting sick of cooking at home,” says Chang.

But not everyone is so eager to patronize these restaurants, in a time when racist attacks against Asian Americans are on the rise as politicians commonly refer to COVID-19 as the “Chinese virus.” Chang has brushed off a few phone calls to the restaurant that mentioned “Wuhan bat.” In Chinatown, Yee recalls a bizarre incident in which someone tried to blockade her restaurant’s front door with a police barricade. In Burbank, Gindi Thai was broken into last week, with the thief damaging the door and taking cash from the register. As the economy worsens, Sansangasakun predicts, “there will be more crimes like this.”

III. The business of closing (and reopening)

After the mid-March shutdown, things had been going well at Suwanna Tangchitsumran’s Thai restaurant Pochana in Queens, New York. Takeout orders were up; they were able to maintain nearly the same number of staff as before; employees trusted each other to limit potential exposure to the novel coronavirus (Tangchitsumran even personally drove workers between Elmhurst, where most of them live, and the restaurant in Astoria, so that they didn’t have to commute on the subway).

But Tangchitsumran was starting to have trouble with her suppliers, according to her daughter, Natt Garunrangseewong (a journalist at Eater’s sister site The Verge). Pochana’s regular suppliers were closing or running out of supplies quickly, meaning that Tangchitsumran had to bounce from one limited supplier to the next, while also picking up and dropping off the staff, and while handling the takeout boom. “At the time, my stepdad was in Thailand for a funeral,” explains Garunrangseewong, on behalf of her mother. “So she was kind of running the show all by herself, and it was beginning to get difficult.”

At the same time, Tangchitsumran says, she noticed that the lines out the door of Elmhurst Hospital were getting longer and longer every time she drove past on her way to work. And then, on March 25, the New York Times published a report on the “apocalyptic” surge in COVID-19 cases at the hospital; two days later, news broke of the COVID-19-related death of a Thai chef in New York. This, in combination with everything else, proved to be a breaking point.

“The community back in Queens just felt very fraught and scared, and they were worried about their health,” says Garunrangseewong. Within days, they decided to shut down Pochana. Now, a month later, Pochana has newly reopened for takeout and delivery, with a pared-down menu based on which supplies the family is able to source.

IV. The aid

For restaurants facing plummeting revenue and bills that still need to be paid, the avenues for financial assistance are fairly limited. Some restaurants are seeking help from industry relief funds, although many of those funds have been overwhelmed by so many applications that they’ve stopped accepting new ones. Others, like Pochana, have sought aid directly from friends and strangers on social media, with crowdfunded donations — at least $6,000 as of April 3 — going toward employees (some of whom are undocumented or are international students, and aren’t eligible for unemployment benefits), expenses, and efforts to supply health care workers with personal protective equipment and meals. (“I want to make sure that our frontline workers are being supported, because they’re not being supported by the government,” says Tangchitsumran, translated by her daughter Garunrangseewong.)

But donations can only go so far. As many restaurant owners have stated, rent remains one of the biggest hurdles to survival, with landlords across the country offering a wide range of responses. “Particularly generous landlords might abate rent altogether or give a rent reduction, knowing they will never be repaid in full. Some landlords are choosing to simply not respond, leaving owners to figure out whether or not to pay rent,” Tove Danovich reports for Eater.

Other landlords, such as Pochana’s and Gindi Thai’s, are offering deferment plans, telling owners that they can pay them back in full later. While that momentary relief is welcome, it doesn’t completely alleviate the burden, but merely delays it. “Some landlords would expect that all the rent be paid, but for the people that run the operation, you have a big missing chunk of income, and I don’t know when you can recover that,” says Sansangasakun, emphasizing that small businesses need the understanding and the cooperation of landlords and suppliers in order to survive. “I would hope to see the landlords be willing to spare us and absorb some of the pain that we have seen, too.”

But merely hoping that individual landlords will operate in good faith isn’t enough, say Garunrangseewong and Tangchitsumran: “If there were more official regulations around how businesses and landlords are supposed to interact during this time, it would really give [restaurants] more leverage on hopefully trying to keep [their] businesses open and running.”

The government, as a whole, has not yet addressed this critical need. As Danovich reports, some states “have put a moratorium on residential evictions and encouraged landlords to allow tenants to defer rent; in most cases, this does not apply to commercial businesses.” Meanwhile, restaurant owners have found little in the federal government’s coronavirus stimulus package that can help them with rent; terms for loan forgiveness under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) require that the bulk of the funds be spent on labor, leaving little left over for rent. Given that a majority of restaurant’s operating costs are non-payroll, the math just doesn’t make sense.

Small, independent restaurants are also less likely to have prior lending relationships with big banks, or the scale to be able to apply for larger loan amounts — both of which, some business owners allege, major banks prioritized when processing PPP loan applications. Immigrant owners and independent operators may also lack the resources — ready access to lawyers or accountants, for example — to even know how to apply in time.

“Obviously, my parents don’t speak and read government English,” says Garunrangseewong, who helped translate and walk her parents through the application process. “I really can’t imagine how other immigrant-run businesses are doing the same thing if they don’t have kids who happen to read English well … or access to lawyers or someone who can help them navigate.”

But even after surpassing any barriers to applying in the first place, receiving funds is still not a given. The initial $349 billion earmarked for small-business loans ran out less than two weeks after applications opened, with only 9 percent of the loans going to food services (an industry that employs 14 percent of all small-business workers in the U.S.). Thanks to a rule that allowed restaurants and hotels with 500 or fewer employees per location (not per company) to apply, some of those limited funds went to large restaurant chains, like Shake Shack ($10 million), Ruth’s Chris Steak House ($20 million), Sweetgreen ($10 million), Kura Sushi ($6 million), Potbelly ($10 million), J. Alexander’s ($15 million), Fogo de Chão ($20 million), and Fiesta Restaurant Group, the owner of Taco Cabana ($10 million); amid an onslaught of criticism, many of those chains returned the millions they received in PPP loans.

The problem is not strictly that big chains are taking up all the oxygen in the room; chains, after all, are made up of smaller units, each of which employs workers who also need to make a living. The real issue is that businesses of all kinds are forced to compete against each other in the zero-sum game that Congress has created by providing inadequate funds to support everyone who has suffered in this pandemic. Those who emerge with the greatest aid, as is the case more often than not in the U.S., tend to be the supplicants with the most capital, and the relationships and influence that that capital entails. Meanwhile, smaller, independent businesses without fame or reach — more often than not, owned by women and people of color — fight for scraps. (Among the independent owners interviewed for this story, two were approved for PPP loans by late April; another received an Economic Injury Disaster Loan grant of $6,000.)

“It’s kind of crazy, because they always make money,” says Yee of the major chains that were approved for small-business loans. “They’re always around. They have a name for themselves already. For small shops like us, it’s hard. Without government help, if it dies out, you’re not gonna have it anymore.”

More funds have been made available; on April 21, the Senate approved a $484 billion relief package, which includes $310 billion to replenish the PPP — although, as Ryan Sutton writes for Eater, there still appears to be little in the new bill addressing the restaurant industry’s specific needs, among them measures that would better ensure the short- and long-term survival of an industry that is said to be “too big to fail.”

V. The legacy

While the industry writ large may be too big to fail, is there a chance that local mom-and-pop restaurants are not? Many seem to think so — as Kim Severson and David Yaffe-Bellany write for the New York Times, “large chains and well-funded restaurant groups have the resources to ride out a protracted shutdown, but the independent restaurants that make up about two-thirds of the American dining landscape — noodle shops, diners and that charming urban restaurant that always had a line out the door — may not survive.” (President Donald Trump’s prediction, by the way, is that restaurants will “all come back. It may not be the same restaurant, it may not be the same ownership, but they’ll all be back.”)

Tonii’s Fresh Rice Noodle, New York City

Independent, immigrant-owned restaurants have long been woven into the fabric of America dining. For decades, restaurants have served as a “vital lifeline” and source of employment for immigrants from China and other countries, proving a way for new arrivals to survive in a nation that can be hostile to immigrants and anyone perceived as foreign. “It’s for my kids,” one owner of a Chinese restaurant told Hannah Yoon, reporting for The Outline. “Their education and their future. I don’t think about mine.”

But there are other things at stake, too: family legacies, culinary lineages, serving their own communities. “If I were to get into a business … to make money, I wouldn’t be doing restaurants, trust me,” says Oh. For him, it’s as much about pride, continuing a legacy that dates back decades. “This is the typical food we’ve been selling since my father, and I want to keep on doing that as long as I still work.”

What comes after, though, is uncertain, even while Oh is confident that family-owned restaurants like Ham Hung will stick around for a while. For so many immigrant parents, the goal of working 12-hour shifts in restaurants every day is so the next generation won’t have to. “I don’t want to give them a burden,” says Oh. “I went through that so hard with my parents. I don’t want to pass that on to my kids.”

The pandemic has only highlighted the sacrifices that mom-and-pop restaurant owners have made — and continue to make — for their children. “I’m in a comfortable situation where I’m not worried about where my paycheck is coming from. And the only reason I’m in this situation is because my parents … worked so hard for my brother and I to be in a situation where we wouldn’t be affected by something like this,” says Jiwani, comparing her tech job in San Francisco to the risk and uncertainty that her parents face at their restaurants in Atlanta. “It’s twisted and ironic … they worked so hard to give us the education to bring us, professionally, to where we are today. And I’m reaping the benefits of that, and they aren’t.”

But right now, there are still sacrifices to be made, battles to be fought for the survival of independent restaurants. Sansangasakun, along with his co-owners, had to take out personal loans to cover Gindi Thai’s expenses for the month. But he says they’re not giving up yet, having already gone through what once seemed like insurmountable obstacles to open the restaurant that he likens to his “kid,” with all the work and care that he and his business partners have put into it over the years.

“We are fighters. As a group of immigrants that came here 20 years ago, when we started the business, everything was harder for immigrants to do: to navigate the bureaucracy, to get started in a new country,” he says. “We’ll continue to fight this. Whatever comes out, we will come out not regretting the decisions that we have made.”

Gary He is a photojournalist in New York City.

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/2SGsv7U https://ift.tt/2zcxcjh

Outside Tonii’s Fresh Rice Noodle in Chinatown, New York City.

Mom-and-pop diners and family-run takeout spots are especially vulnerable to the challenges ahead set by COVID-19

Restaurant owner Eric Sansangasakun saw the novel coronavirus coming from thousands of miles away, and even then, he still wasn’t prepared for how much damage it would bring.

Like many other Asian immigrants in the United States, Sansangasakun — who co-owns Thai and sushi restaurant Gindi Thai in Burbank, California, with his brother, his sister-in-law, and a friend from Bangkok — still has loved ones back in Asia. Since January, he had been monitoring the spread of the virus across China, Taiwan, Japan, and his home country of Thailand. He was confident that the United States would know how to address the COVID-19 crisis when it came to our shores. “By the time it gets to the U.S., it should be handled in a more structural way. We would be ready to tackle that,” he remembers thinking. “That was not the case.”

Instead, like hundreds of thousands of restaurant operators across the country, Sansangasakun and his business partners suddenly had their livelihoods upended when, one by one, cities and states shut down bars and restricted restaurants to takeout and delivery only. Virtually overnight, the industry’s already notoriously thin margins shrank to a razor’s edge, leaving independent restaurants — the mom-and-pop diners, the immigrant-owned takeout spots, the family-run neighborhood mainstays — especially vulnerable, without deep pockets and access to outside funding at the ready.

Caught between the bodily risk of coronavirus exposure on one end, and on the other, the threat of losing the culmination of a lifetime of labor and sacrifice, independent restaurant owners face an impossible choice: to close or to stay open?

I. The dilemma

Several restaurant owners describe the choice between staying open or closing as a balancing act, a constantly shifting calculus that they have to assess on a weekly or even daily basis. There are multiple considerations to juggle, including, first and foremost, health risks.

“If I could choose, I would just stay at home. That’s the safest place that reduces the risk of getting the virus,” says Sansangasakun. “But I have to strike a balance between safety and the practicality of having to run the business. You can stay home for two months, and then after that, there’s no business to go back to.”

Tonii’s Fresh Rice Noodle, New York City

Liz Yee, who, with her family, owns and operates the mainstay Kam Hing Coffee Shop and the newer Tonii’s Fresh Rice Noodle in Manhattan’s Chinatown, says she’s primarily concerned with the health of her parents and sister, all of whom have underlying conditions that could put them at higher risk of becoming critically ill if they contract COVID-19. Yee is aware that if any of them get the virus, “they’re not coming back from it,” so they’ve had to take extra precautions, like letting her father do all the prep work in the basement so that he doesn’t have to interact with people, and sanitizing carefully before having contact with each other.

The family has closed Kam Hing, as well as another store in Brooklyn, so that they can focus on Tonii’s without worrying about increasing the risk of exposure. But they stopped short of being able to reduce the risk entirely by closing all of their businesses. “If we gave up all three stores … we wouldn’t be able to afford to open back up anymore,” says Yee. “This one store is trying to help sustain the other ones.”

Restaurant owners also have to weigh the risks for their employees against those workers’ need to earn a living. Shahista Jiwani, whose family temporarily shuttered one of four locations of Chinese Dhaba, their Indian-Chinese fusion restaurant in the Atlanta area, says that her parents, Nadir and Mubarak — both nearing 60 themselves — worry about their staff’s health, in addition to their own. (Per Jiwani, Chinese Dhaba will continue to offer only takeout and delivery in order “to maintain the safety of our employees, as well as the general public,” even as Georgia’s Gov. Brian Kemp reopened dine-in service statewide on April 27.)

“At the same time, there are a lot of people that do live paycheck to paycheck. It’s very difficult to come to a sweet spot of [generating] revenue and [keeping] the businesses afloat, while at the same time caring for our workers’ health, but also their financial well-being,” says Jiwani. “It’s really hard to have a black-and-white answer to this.”

II. The business of staying open

There’s one black-and-white truth underlying this ever-changing equation: Even if money stops coming in, outgoing expenses do not. There’s rent, utilities, insurance, outstanding bills — not to mention all the fresh food that would go to waste if it were to go unused. So some restaurants keep their doors open, hoping to generate any measure of cash flow while adjusting to a new world ruled by takeout and delivery.

For some restaurants that previously relied heavily on dine-in income, the loss in revenue is significant. Gindi Thai — which Sansangasakun says was positioned to be slightly more upscale when it opened in 2006 — has seen a 70 percent drop in revenue over the past month, even with all the aggressive promotions and discounts put into place to attract more takeout and delivery customers. In order to make ends meet, Gindi Thai had to furlough much of its staff, although Sansangasakun says that he’s urging employees to get free meals from the restaurant if they don’t have anything to eat. “We may not have enough cash to go around at this time, but we have a lot of food.”

Ham Hung, a 35-year-old restaurant in Los Angeles’s Koreatown, has seen a similar percentage decrease. “Takeout and delivery is only like 30 percent of your income,” explains owner Sam Oh, who took over the restaurant after his father retired in 1998. Oh has lost the steady income of at least a few thousand dollars a month from catering corporate lunches for companies like Netflix because office workers are largely working from home. As a result, Oh says, he has had to cut costs elsewhere, starting with his staff. He has only kept on a couple of workers, “not because we are busy, but … so they can take something home to their families.” Still, he says, he can only afford to pay them minimum wage — without the tips they’d usually make from dine-in — on reduced hours. Most of the time, Oh is alone in the restaurant, working for 12 to 13 hours at a time.

“It kind of gets to you,” he admits. But still, he says he “never had a second doubt” about staying open. “We’ve been doing this since ’85. We went through the riots, and we went through the earthquakes. So how bad can it be, right?”

Other family-owned restaurants, meanwhile, have seen surprisingly robust sales, at least for a pandemic. With Tonii’s Fresh Rice Noodle, Yee says that orders have actually increased, between new delivery orders (the restaurant previously only offered takeout and dine-in) and the their participation in an initiative, called Welcome to Chinatown, in which donations are used to purchase and deliver meals for frontline workers at New York City’s hospitals. Tonii’s is also benefiting from being one of the few remaining businesses left open on their block, according to Yee; she says she often serves regular customers, including elderly Chinatown residents who live by themselves or can’t cook on their own.

Tonii’s Fresh Rice Noodle, New York City

Oriental Inn, a Chinese restaurant in Indianapolis, is also seeing good sales one month out from the end of dine-in service, in some cases even exceeding pre-pandemic revenue on busier days. According to Chris Chang — whose grandfather opened the restaurant more than 30 years ago, after immigrating to the U.S. from China with his family — this is likely because the majority of nearby restaurants have closed, driving some customers to travel 40 minutes or more for Oriental Inn’s takeout. “We are fortunate that people are getting sick of cooking at home,” says Chang.

But not everyone is so eager to patronize these restaurants, in a time when racist attacks against Asian Americans are on the rise as politicians commonly refer to COVID-19 as the “Chinese virus.” Chang has brushed off a few phone calls to the restaurant that mentioned “Wuhan bat.” In Chinatown, Yee recalls a bizarre incident in which someone tried to blockade her restaurant’s front door with a police barricade. In Burbank, Gindi Thai was broken into last week, with the thief damaging the door and taking cash from the register. As the economy worsens, Sansangasakun predicts, “there will be more crimes like this.”

III. The business of closing (and reopening)

After the mid-March shutdown, things had been going well at Suwanna Tangchitsumran’s Thai restaurant Pochana in Queens, New York. Takeout orders were up; they were able to maintain nearly the same number of staff as before; employees trusted each other to limit potential exposure to the novel coronavirus (Tangchitsumran even personally drove workers between Elmhurst, where most of them live, and the restaurant in Astoria, so that they didn’t have to commute on the subway).

But Tangchitsumran was starting to have trouble with her suppliers, according to her daughter, Natt Garunrangseewong (a journalist at Eater’s sister site The Verge). Pochana’s regular suppliers were closing or running out of supplies quickly, meaning that Tangchitsumran had to bounce from one limited supplier to the next, while also picking up and dropping off the staff, and while handling the takeout boom. “At the time, my stepdad was in Thailand for a funeral,” explains Garunrangseewong, on behalf of her mother. “So she was kind of running the show all by herself, and it was beginning to get difficult.”

At the same time, Tangchitsumran says, she noticed that the lines out the door of Elmhurst Hospital were getting longer and longer every time she drove past on her way to work. And then, on March 25, the New York Times published a report on the “apocalyptic” surge in COVID-19 cases at the hospital; two days later, news broke of the COVID-19-related death of a Thai chef in New York. This, in combination with everything else, proved to be a breaking point.

“The community back in Queens just felt very fraught and scared, and they were worried about their health,” says Garunrangseewong. Within days, they decided to shut down Pochana. Now, a month later, Pochana has newly reopened for takeout and delivery, with a pared-down menu based on which supplies the family is able to source.

IV. The aid

For restaurants facing plummeting revenue and bills that still need to be paid, the avenues for financial assistance are fairly limited. Some restaurants are seeking help from industry relief funds, although many of those funds have been overwhelmed by so many applications that they’ve stopped accepting new ones. Others, like Pochana, have sought aid directly from friends and strangers on social media, with crowdfunded donations — at least $6,000 as of April 3 — going toward employees (some of whom are undocumented or are international students, and aren’t eligible for unemployment benefits), expenses, and efforts to supply health care workers with personal protective equipment and meals. (“I want to make sure that our frontline workers are being supported, because they’re not being supported by the government,” says Tangchitsumran, translated by her daughter Garunrangseewong.)

But donations can only go so far. As many restaurant owners have stated, rent remains one of the biggest hurdles to survival, with landlords across the country offering a wide range of responses. “Particularly generous landlords might abate rent altogether or give a rent reduction, knowing they will never be repaid in full. Some landlords are choosing to simply not respond, leaving owners to figure out whether or not to pay rent,” Tove Danovich reports for Eater.

Other landlords, such as Pochana’s and Gindi Thai’s, are offering deferment plans, telling owners that they can pay them back in full later. While that momentary relief is welcome, it doesn’t completely alleviate the burden, but merely delays it. “Some landlords would expect that all the rent be paid, but for the people that run the operation, you have a big missing chunk of income, and I don’t know when you can recover that,” says Sansangasakun, emphasizing that small businesses need the understanding and the cooperation of landlords and suppliers in order to survive. “I would hope to see the landlords be willing to spare us and absorb some of the pain that we have seen, too.”

But merely hoping that individual landlords will operate in good faith isn’t enough, say Garunrangseewong and Tangchitsumran: “If there were more official regulations around how businesses and landlords are supposed to interact during this time, it would really give [restaurants] more leverage on hopefully trying to keep [their] businesses open and running.”

The government, as a whole, has not yet addressed this critical need. As Danovich reports, some states “have put a moratorium on residential evictions and encouraged landlords to allow tenants to defer rent; in most cases, this does not apply to commercial businesses.” Meanwhile, restaurant owners have found little in the federal government’s coronavirus stimulus package that can help them with rent; terms for loan forgiveness under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) require that the bulk of the funds be spent on labor, leaving little left over for rent. Given that a majority of restaurant’s operating costs are non-payroll, the math just doesn’t make sense.

Small, independent restaurants are also less likely to have prior lending relationships with big banks, or the scale to be able to apply for larger loan amounts — both of which, some business owners allege, major banks prioritized when processing PPP loan applications. Immigrant owners and independent operators may also lack the resources — ready access to lawyers or accountants, for example — to even know how to apply in time.

“Obviously, my parents don’t speak and read government English,” says Garunrangseewong, who helped translate and walk her parents through the application process. “I really can’t imagine how other immigrant-run businesses are doing the same thing if they don’t have kids who happen to read English well … or access to lawyers or someone who can help them navigate.”

But even after surpassing any barriers to applying in the first place, receiving funds is still not a given. The initial $349 billion earmarked for small-business loans ran out less than two weeks after applications opened, with only 9 percent of the loans going to food services (an industry that employs 14 percent of all small-business workers in the U.S.). Thanks to a rule that allowed restaurants and hotels with 500 or fewer employees per location (not per company) to apply, some of those limited funds went to large restaurant chains, like Shake Shack ($10 million), Ruth’s Chris Steak House ($20 million), Sweetgreen ($10 million), Kura Sushi ($6 million), Potbelly ($10 million), J. Alexander’s ($15 million), Fogo de Chão ($20 million), and Fiesta Restaurant Group, the owner of Taco Cabana ($10 million); amid an onslaught of criticism, many of those chains returned the millions they received in PPP loans.

The problem is not strictly that big chains are taking up all the oxygen in the room; chains, after all, are made up of smaller units, each of which employs workers who also need to make a living. The real issue is that businesses of all kinds are forced to compete against each other in the zero-sum game that Congress has created by providing inadequate funds to support everyone who has suffered in this pandemic. Those who emerge with the greatest aid, as is the case more often than not in the U.S., tend to be the supplicants with the most capital, and the relationships and influence that that capital entails. Meanwhile, smaller, independent businesses without fame or reach — more often than not, owned by women and people of color — fight for scraps. (Among the independent owners interviewed for this story, two were approved for PPP loans by late April; another received an Economic Injury Disaster Loan grant of $6,000.)

“It’s kind of crazy, because they always make money,” says Yee of the major chains that were approved for small-business loans. “They’re always around. They have a name for themselves already. For small shops like us, it’s hard. Without government help, if it dies out, you’re not gonna have it anymore.”

More funds have been made available; on April 21, the Senate approved a $484 billion relief package, which includes $310 billion to replenish the PPP — although, as Ryan Sutton writes for Eater, there still appears to be little in the new bill addressing the restaurant industry’s specific needs, among them measures that would better ensure the short- and long-term survival of an industry that is said to be “too big to fail.”

V. The legacy

While the industry writ large may be too big to fail, is there a chance that local mom-and-pop restaurants are not? Many seem to think so — as Kim Severson and David Yaffe-Bellany write for the New York Times, “large chains and well-funded restaurant groups have the resources to ride out a protracted shutdown, but the independent restaurants that make up about two-thirds of the American dining landscape — noodle shops, diners and that charming urban restaurant that always had a line out the door — may not survive.” (President Donald Trump’s prediction, by the way, is that restaurants will “all come back. It may not be the same restaurant, it may not be the same ownership, but they’ll all be back.”)

Tonii’s Fresh Rice Noodle, New York City

Independent, immigrant-owned restaurants have long been woven into the fabric of America dining. For decades, restaurants have served as a “vital lifeline” and source of employment for immigrants from China and other countries, proving a way for new arrivals to survive in a nation that can be hostile to immigrants and anyone perceived as foreign. “It’s for my kids,” one owner of a Chinese restaurant told Hannah Yoon, reporting for The Outline. “Their education and their future. I don’t think about mine.”

But there are other things at stake, too: family legacies, culinary lineages, serving their own communities. “If I were to get into a business … to make money, I wouldn’t be doing restaurants, trust me,” says Oh. For him, it’s as much about pride, continuing a legacy that dates back decades. “This is the typical food we’ve been selling since my father, and I want to keep on doing that as long as I still work.”

What comes after, though, is uncertain, even while Oh is confident that family-owned restaurants like Ham Hung will stick around for a while. For so many immigrant parents, the goal of working 12-hour shifts in restaurants every day is so the next generation won’t have to. “I don’t want to give them a burden,” says Oh. “I went through that so hard with my parents. I don’t want to pass that on to my kids.”

The pandemic has only highlighted the sacrifices that mom-and-pop restaurant owners have made — and continue to make — for their children. “I’m in a comfortable situation where I’m not worried about where my paycheck is coming from. And the only reason I’m in this situation is because my parents … worked so hard for my brother and I to be in a situation where we wouldn’t be affected by something like this,” says Jiwani, comparing her tech job in San Francisco to the risk and uncertainty that her parents face at their restaurants in Atlanta. “It’s twisted and ironic … they worked so hard to give us the education to bring us, professionally, to where we are today. And I’m reaping the benefits of that, and they aren’t.”

But right now, there are still sacrifices to be made, battles to be fought for the survival of independent restaurants. Sansangasakun, along with his co-owners, had to take out personal loans to cover Gindi Thai’s expenses for the month. But he says they’re not giving up yet, having already gone through what once seemed like insurmountable obstacles to open the restaurant that he likens to his “kid,” with all the work and care that he and his business partners have put into it over the years.

“We are fighters. As a group of immigrants that came here 20 years ago, when we started the business, everything was harder for immigrants to do: to navigate the bureaucracy, to get started in a new country,” he says. “We’ll continue to fight this. Whatever comes out, we will come out not regretting the decisions that we have made.”

Gary He is a photojournalist in New York City.

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