#Honestly everything's better than Florida

[tomorrowusa]

Don't risk a rerun of the 2000 election.

In the first presidential election of the 21st century many deluded progressives voted for Green Party candidate Ralph Nader.

Their foolishness gave us eight years of George W. Bush who plagued the country with two recessions (including the Great Recession) and two wars (one totally unnecessary and one which could have been avoided if he heeded an intelligence brief 5 weeks before 9/11).

Oh yeah, Dubya also appointed one conservative and one batshit crazy reactionary to the US Supreme Court. Roberts and Alito are still there.

Paul Waldman of the Washington Post offers some thoughts.

Why leftists should work their hearts out for Biden in 2024

Ask a Democrat with a long memory what the numbers 97,488 and 537 represent, and their face will twist into a grimace. The first is the number of votes Ralph Nader received in Florida in 2000 as the nominee of the Green Party; the second is the margin by which George W. Bush was eventually certified the winner of the state, handing him the White House. Now, with President Biden gearing up for reelection, talk of a spoiler candidate from the left is again in the air. That’s unfortunate, because here’s the truth: The past 2½ years under Biden have been a triumph for progressivism, even if it’s not in most people’s interest to admit it. This was not what most people expected from Biden, who ran as a relative moderate in the 2020 Democratic primary. His nomination was a victory for pragmatism with its eyes directed toward the center. But today, no one can honestly deny that Biden is the most progressive president since at least Lyndon B. Johnson. His judicial appointments are more diverse than those of any of his predecessors. He has directed more resources to combating climate change than any other president. Notwithstanding the opposition from the Supreme Court, his administration has moved aggressively to forgive and restructure student loans.

Three years ago the economy was in horrible shape because of Trump's mishandling of the pandemic. Now unemployment is steadily below 4%, job creation continues to exceed expectations, and wages are rising as unions gain strength. The post-pandemic, post-Afghan War inflation rate has receded to near normal levels; people in the 1970s would have sold their souls for a 3.2% (and dropping) inflation rate. And many of the effects of "Bidenomics" have yet to kick in.

And in a story that is criminally underappreciated, his administration’s policy reaction to the covid-induced recession of 2020 was revolutionary in precisely the ways any good leftist should favor. It embraced massive government intervention to stave off the worst economic impacts, including handing millions of families monthly checks (by expanding the child tax credit), giving all kids in public schools free meals, boosting unemployment insurance and extending health coverage to millions.

It worked. While inflation rose (as it did worldwide), the economy’s recovery has been blisteringly fast. It took more than six years for employment rates to return to what they were before the Great Recession hit in 2008, but we surpassed January 2020 jobs levels by the spring of 2022 — and have kept adding jobs ever since. To the idealistic leftist, that might feel like both old news and a partial victory at best. What about everything supporters of Bernie Sanders have found so thrilling about the Vermont senator’s vision of the future, from universal health care to free college? It’s true Biden was never going to deliver that, but to be honest, neither would Sanders had he been elected president. And that brings me to the heart of how people on the left ought to think about Biden and his reelection.

Biden has gotten things done. The US economy is doing better than those of almost every other advanced industrialized country.

Our rivals China and Russia are both worse off than they were three years ago. And NATO is not just united, it's growing.

Sadly, we still need to deal with a far right MAGA cult at home who would wreck the country just to get its own way.

Biden may be elderly and unexciting, but that is one of the reasons he won in 2020. Many people just wanted an end to the daily drama of Trump's capricious and incompetent rule by tweet. And a good portion of those people live in places that count greatly in elections – suburbs and exurbs.

Superhero films seem to be slipping in popularity. Hopefully that's a sign that voters are less likely to embrace self-appointed political messiahs to save them from themselves.

Good governance is a steady process – not a collection of magic tricks. Experienced and competent individuals who are not too far removed from the lives of the people they represent are the best people to have in government.

Paul Waldman concludes his column speaking from the heart as a liberal...

I’ve been in and around politics for many years, and even among liberals, I’ve almost always been one of the most liberal people in the room. Yet only since Biden’s election have I realized that I will probably never see a president as liberal as I’d like. It’s not an easy idea to make peace with. But it suggests a different way of thinking about elections — as one necessary step in a long, difficult process. The further you are to the left, the more important Biden’s reelection ought to be to you. It might require emotional (and policy) compromise, but for now, it’s also the most important tool you have to achieve progressive ends.

Exactly. Rightwingers take the long view. It took them 49 years but they eventually got Roe v. Wade overturned. To succeed, we need to look upon politics as an extended marathon rather as one short sprint.

Republicans may currently be bickering, but they will most likely unite behind whichever anti-abortion extremist they nominate.

It's necessary to get the word out now that the only way to defeat climate-denying, abortion-restricting, assault weapon-loving, race-baiting, homophobic Republicans is to vote Democratic.

[thelightsandtheroses]

sing fever to the form | frankie morales x female reader

Summary: Fake dating Frankie Morales seemed the obvious solution to both of your problems, until you caught feelings and now everything is a mess. Pairing: Frankie Morales x female reader Warnings: language and explicit content, 18+ blog - minors do not interact, a little angst with a happy ending romcom style,no physical descriptors, no use of Y/N or specific age mentions for the reader. Word Count: 6.3k Notes: the fic title is from one of my absolute favourite songs which features on every single playlist i ever compile (fever to the form by nick mulvey). I also owe a huge thank you to the lovely @mvtthewmurdvck for her support on this one 💕 i think without her, this would have probably languished in my drafts.

In the cold light of Benny Miller’s bathroom, you come to the conclusion that you’ve made several mistakes. The worst one of these, the one that set the rest in motion like dominoes, had honestly seemed like such a good idea at the time. It appeared such an obvious solution to the numerous questions, interrogations and unspoken pity that you were encountering. You could never have expected this.

You’d moved to Florida for work some time ago and while you had friends and a great career, your love life was definitely lacking. People picked up on it and while no one directly said it, you felt you were continually judged.  Sure, it was all well and good that you had a nice job, but if no one’s dating you -  well, what’s your red flag?

Between that and the fact your parents kept asking about whether or not you were dating, or if you’d met anyone nice at work, it started to weigh on you. Was there a problem with the way you were living - was it you? Your loved ones seemed so disappointed that you weren’t dating and putting yourself ‘out there in the world’. You tried to tell them the dating pool was not great, that the apps were awful and the only guys you ever seemed to attract came with so many of their own red flags that they could have lined the whole of your street. You’d dated enough bad guys already, you didn’t want to date any more.

You just needed some space.

Frankie was your friend and he was experiencing similar pressures. His friends were asking him when he’d start dating again and he was grappling with a new status as a single father. So, he also needed a break, needed to remove some of the noise from those around him.

Fake dating might belong in the movies, but it seemed an obvious solution to both of your predicaments. For a while, it was perfect. 

Frankie is the ideal fake boyfriend, he’s better than any you could have ever imagined. In fact, he is probably the best boyfriend you’ve ever had, which is part of the problem. Most of your previous boyfriends hadn’t been the best, and suddenly here’s Frankie, acting like the perfect man for you?

Of course, you ended up falling for him.

It might have seemed a good idea back then, only now you’re hiding in a bathroom, fighting back tears and berating yourself as the BBQ you’d been looking forward to carries on outside. You’re so stupid. This is a dumb game. It isn’t real.

You’re not supposed to catch feelings.

But you have.

“So, how did we get together?” Frankie asks, leaning his head back against the sofa so you can see all the freckles on his neck above his hoodie.

“Um…” you chew your lip, take a gulp of your drink, “I have no idea.”

Frankie’s house is the sort of home that has comforting chaos and mess to it. His daughter’s things are strewn around the living room, an aviation manual rests on open pages on the coffee table next to you and a pile of battered paperbacks are stacked next to the sofa. The walls are a warm yellow; surprisingly comforting and bright. It’s a stark contrast to how Frankie presents himself outside of his home - cool, collected, a little quiet.

His home feels lived in. You always feel comfortable here.

“We could say that we just realised one day, hanging out, I mean crazier things have happened. A big story would stand out. KISS principles an’ all.”

“What did you just say?’” you ask. “Did you just say kissing principles?”

“Kiss?” He shakes his head. “Keep it simple, stupid! The way I see it, the only way for us to get away with this is to keep it realistic, boring almost so people don’t ask more,” Frankie says thoughtfully. 

“Ah, so hooking up with you would be boring? That’s good to know.”

“Oh, carinô, if I kissed you for real that is not the word you’d use …”Frankie trails off, mischievously raises an eyebrow.

“Ergh, you can be so arrogant,” you tease, “Okay, fine. We had a sudden movie like realisation and what - we just got together and then what did we do?”

“Well then, y’know, by that point, you couldn’t exactly walk away.” Frankie smirks salaciously.

You throw a sofa cushion at him.“I think I hate you, Frankie Morales..”

“No, no that’s definitely not what you said.” 

“So,” Frankie pauses, runs a hand through his hair. “We should agree what the boundaries are, when we’re with others.”

“Others?”

“Yes, when we’re with our friends. It needs to be believable, right? And I’m sorry, but if we stay like we are now, around my friends, then they’ll know it’s fake in five minutes.”

“Why?”

“I did an online quiz with my ex and um, physical touch is my love language,” Frankie says sheepishly. 

“You do know that whole love language thing is bullshit, right?”

“No, it’s not. Jessie said -”

“She’s wrong.”

“Regardless, the quiz said that - ergh, fine, whatever. So, what’s the plan there? I don’t want either us to feel uncomfortable though, okay.”

“We’ve been friends a long time,” you say lightly, “This won’t change that. We can figure this out.” It’s not like you’ve never hugged Frankie or he hasn’t put an arm around you before. How hard can it be - you need people to believe you?

“Also, I am not lying to my kid, or getting her to lie for me. We need to keep her out of it, tell everyone else we’re taking it slow with her until we know it’s serious, okay?” Frankie looks at you with a suddenly serious expression. Oh god, he’s a dad and this is stupid and complicated and you can’t involve her in this and you’ve just been discussing the physical boundaries in this stupid game and this is ridiculous. 

It was a pathetic idea of yours.

“Maybe we shouldn’t -”

“It’s fine. We just keep her out of this.”

“Okay, that sounds sensible.”

“So we’re really doing this then?” he asks with a shy smile.

“Yeah, I think we are.”

It’s Frankie. What other choice was there when it came down to it? It’s Frankie with his deep brown eyes that have mastered the puppy dog expression and his shy smiles. You care about him and all of his insecurities, doubts and vulnerabilities you’ve learned over the years. They make him tangible, real, and truer. Perhaps you always liked him and you didn’t know. Maybe you did and subconsciously thought this was the only way you’d have him which is why you’d pursued such a ridiculous idea. Perhaps you had thought this would be like the movies, that he’d confess his love for you and you’d drive off into the sunset.

You’re now accustomed to the way his hands skim your back or waist when you’re with friends, the way he leans closer to you and you can feel his breath against your ear when he whispers sweet nothings in his low voice, smell the laundry detergent on his clothes.

He’s so convincing.

No one has ever questioned whether it’s real with the two of you. You don’t think it would ever cross their mind that the two of you are fake dating. 

Your body and mind certainly doesn’t think it’s fake anymore.

You sit on the edge of the bath and try and try and pinpoint when you realised you felt this way. You’ve both been flirting with danger for weeks; the way you’ve let him trace shapes on your side when he pulls you close, how you lean into the crook of his neck, play with the ends of his curls when you’re out with friends. You tell yourself it’s just to make it look real, to make this situation look authentic.

You’ve certainly fooled yourself.

You’re not even sure when you realised this. One moment everything was like normal and then it wasn’t. Perhaps it’s your fault, you have always been a dreamer. You’ve always walked through life fantasising that this will be the moment when everything changes, when you suddenly fit in and someone will like you or fall in love with you. Given the way your mind works, it was inevitably a stupid idea to even try this with Frankie.

It’s been overwhelming at the BBQ today; the gentle touches, the way he looks at you and you almost believe it’s genuine.  It wouldn’t normally bother you so much, but now you’re aching for it to be something it can’t be and it’s all too much.

You couldn’t help looking at Frankie throughout the BBQ; wanting to count the freckles on his neck, to run your hands through the curls hidden by his hat as you notice the ends peeking out at the nape of his neck. You’re always taken with the broadness of his shoulders too, his hands. 

You’re completely doomed. 

You can’t do this anymore. It’s not fair, it’s a betrayal of your friendship with him. It’s a betrayal of his trust because agreeing to do this fake dating was an exercise in trust, one you are failing.

You’ve been thinking about it for days. The reason you feel so safe with Frankie is because it’s not real, because you weren’t supposed to have to give your heart away. It was just meant to distract people so you could breathe again. You’ve seen too many romcoms and movies, you’re too much of a dreamer to have ever let this work without getting messy. You thought you could be detached and objective, but you can’t.

It’s you, you’re the one who has screwed up.

So you go downstairs, make your excuses and leave.

You’ve been fake dating for two weeks and this just might be your best relationship ever.  You can’t decide if that’s sweet or perhaps the most depressing thing you’ve ever admitted.

You’re in Frankie’s car on the way to Tom’s birthday, playing with the handle of the gift bag you’re holding. The sun is out, Frankie’s playlist is setting the scene and you feel so happy in this moment.

“Don’t be surprised if they say something about us,” Frankie says casually as he changes gear, “The guys have been giving me grief since I told them about us. Well, since I told them about what we’re saying about us, anyway.”

“I thought the idea was it would stop them giving you grief?”

“Oh, this is much better than it was, trust me,” he says, laughing as he looks at the road ahead. With his sunglasses on, no hat and a loose t-shirt he looks more relaxed than you’ve ever seen him. Frankie strikes you as a tightly wound coil, he’s just got that energy. He’s calm, not something or someone you are afraid of, but you recognise the way he thinks, see the nervous anticipation in his eyes before he smiles at one of his friends on a night out.

You see the same thing in yourself.

“You know, I can’t believe this is working,” you say cheerfully to Frankie, “My mom has even stopped sending me those news articles about people who meet their soulmates later in your life.”

“Your mom was sending you those?” Frankie asks, raising an eyebrow. 

“She means well,” you say placidly. “My parents have always had a lot of expectations for me.”

“Shit.” He reaches over and squeezes your hand. “Well, I can promise you that you’re the best fake girlfriend I’ve ever had.”

“Likewise, Frankie, likewise.”

You don’t mean to ghost Frankie after the BBQ. It’s just you’re not sure what to say to him. I’m sorry, but I think this fake dating is getting a little too authentic because I might be falling for you?

You can’t do that to him, can’t embarrass yourself with your stupid crush either. It’s better to just ignore the messages, pretend it’s not happening and bury your head in the sand.

Of course, Frankie knows where you live, so you shouldn’t be as surprised as you are when he turns up at your home.

“So what’s going on? I texted you,” he says with a forced casual voice as he leans against your kitchen counter. He’s wearing a loose t-shirt and jeans, his usual hat discarded next to him. He runs a hand through his hair and looks over at you.

You don’t want to look at him properly, so you focus your attention on your kitchen tiles instead . You really need to mop the kitchen floor later. 

“I think, I think this thing has run its course.”

“Oh, really?” Frankie looks surprised, almost sad, when you dare to look at him, “I thought this was working well for us both.”

“A little too well,” you mumble under your breath.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

You sigh.

“Hey, cariño, talk to me.”

“It’s just us, Frankie, you don’t have to call me that right now.”

“Why, do you not like it?”

You exhale again with exasperation and shake your head. Just make this easier on me, you think, stop muddying the water. When you meet Frankie’s eyes he looks perplexed though, concerned and his brow is furrowed.

“What’s going on?” he asks, arms folded as he looks over at you. “Talk to me.”

“I think we should stop with this fake dating arrangement. I mean, the idea was just to do it until my friends and my parents were off my back and until your friends were off yours, and they are. So, let’s call it a win and move on.”

“Did something happen?” Frankie asks. “You meet someone?” There’s a strange tone to his voice, almost wistful.

“No, no. I just - I don’t think we should keep doing this. I mean that girl asked you out last week at the bar and because Will and I were with you, you said no.” 

“She wasn’t my type anyway and that’s what this is about? Come on!”

“I’m - I’m clearly holding you back and that’s not what this was supposed to be.”

“Is this what you really want?”

“Absolutely,” you lie brightly, smiling as widely as you can. “We’re friends and we’ve helped each other out so let’s bow out of this gracefully. We can say to the others - we can tell them we realised that we’re better off as friends.”

“Right. Okay.”

“Okay?” you repeat, disappointed that he’s just giving up, that this really is it. 

A small part of you was holding out hope for Frankie fighting back, for him to declare his love for you, take you into his arms and then for the two of you to have the most passionate, intense sex of your life right there in the kitchen. That’s what happens in the movies and books. It’s all meant to end with a kiss.

Only he doesn’t do that.

He just quietly acquiesces to your demand that this ends now and when he smiles, as though his acceptance will make you happy, he shatters your heart into a million pieces.

You have no idea how your friendship will recover from this. You have no idea how to watch someone else love Frankie in the future, to watch him put his hands on someone else or look at them like he looked at you and know it’s real for them but wasn’t for you.

“I should probably go,” Frankie says, his gaze fixated on the floor.

“Oh, right. Well, I’ll see you around.”

The story of your breakup spreads quickly. Your friends are disappointed, they tell you it’s obvious you both liked each other, they ask if you’re sure you can’t work it out? Your parents are clearly disappointed, but at the same time you catch a glance of relief on your mother’s face when you tell her.

“He’s complicated,” she says, taking a sip from her cup of tea.  It’s your mom’s first visit in months, a visit you had originally planned during the fake dating misadventure.  

“Complicated?”

“He’s a single father and the job he has? Being a pilot isn’t like a regular 9-5.” 

“He makes his hours work for his kid, and none of those things were the reason we broke up”you say defensively. “And at my age, most people have previous relationships and baggage so I don’t think that makes him any more complicated than anyone else I could meet.”

“You don’t, darling, you don’t have any baggage.”

“That in itself is clearly a complication,” you say, rolling your eyes like a petulant teenager. “I mean, you and Dad hated it when I was single. You were always asking if I’d met someone, or if I was looking and -“ you trail off and stare at your hands on the table. Your nail varnish is chipped. Rouge Noir, the classic vampy red you always put on when you’re feeling blue, when you need a confidence boost. It’s not working for you right now though.

“We just want you to be happy,” your mom says, gently taking her hands in yours. “Whatever that looks like.”

“I am happy.” It’s meant to sound assertive but it comes out more like a question as you speak. You’re happy, dammit. Or you were before everything went wrong.

“No, honey, you’re in the middle of a break up and it’s obvious you still feel something for him. Are you sure - are you sure it’s over? You told me you were the one who ended things.”

“Yeah, I did. I don’t think - I don’t think it’s a good idea, mom. I’ll get over it. I have this big work project and then that trip and the apartment move soon, so I’ll be fine.”

You’re not sure of anything now. You thought stopping the arrangement with Frankie would save your friendship, but it didn’t. Now you don’t have him at all and it fucking hurts.

You are so angry and sad and confused. This is all your fault for getting feelings that you’d laughed at the possibility of months ago. You’ve lost him anyway and it’s caused a great  chasm in your heart.

 How can you be mourning something that wasn’t even real in the first place?

When you became friends with Frankie, he introduced you to some of his friends from his military days. While you didn’t exactly get on with all of them, Tom is aloof at best, Benny and you had become friends over time. In the wake of your fictionalised break-up, you’ve lost those people too. You’ve avoided Benny’s fights, wanted Frankie to have his friends without the bother of you. Besides, you’ve been focused on work. You had a trip away for a few days and then you had a big project, presentations. Work has been something to throw yourself into.

It’s a good plan, but Benny keeps texting you and personally invites you to his next fight.

You and Frankie have both said you’re still friends so what’s the problem?

I don’t know if it’s a good idea.

Just come to the damn fight, would you? Liv keeps asking after you.

You decide you should go at least once to show your face. You can do this, you can handle one night. You like Liv, Benny’s girlfriend, and you can say hello and then vanish quickly after the fight ends. If you’re careful with the seating set up, you might not even see Frankie or have to talk to him at all.

The bar is crowded and while Will, Santiago, Tom and Frankie all greeted you when you arrive, it feels different. Stilted somehow.

 It’s almost how it would feel if this was a genuine break up, if this was real. You suppose it is to Santiago, Tom and Will.

You sat with Benny’s girlfriend, Liv, for the fight. She squeezed your hand sympathetically when she catches you looking over at Frankie.

Frankie still looks the same as ever, you think as you cast your eyes over to where he is in the crowd. He’s wearing his usual hat, the one you’ve teased him about for years but can’t picture him ever giving up, with well fitting jeans and a jacket. He looks infuriatingly good.

Before the fight Frankie had moved so he was next to you and he looked like he wanted to say something to you before the fight began. Panicked, you quickly moved next to Liv instead and so you were sitting on the other side of the group to him as you took your seats.

Crisis averted, you thought. Only now, you can’t stop wondering what he might have said to you.

“I can’t see why you can’t get it together,” Benny says, taking a sip from his bottle of beer. The two of you are standing together by the bar, waiting for the rest of the group’s drinks. Benny’s mostly fixed up from his fight, with just a small red stain on his forehead between the steri-strips and bruises. You think the other guy must look a lot worse. 

“Wait, what did you say?” you ask.

“I don’t see why you and Frankie can’t work it out. I mean, look at him,” Benny points his bottle towards your friends, to where your attention had just been. Frankie’s standing on the edge of the group, arms folded, hat rigid. He looks uncomfortable.

You shouldn’t have come here tonight.

“We tried and it wasn’t a good fit. It wasn’t going to work out,,” you say flatly, repeating the line you and Frankie had agreed on.

“Look, you might have fooled the others, but you can’t fool me.”

Your stomach sinks. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I know you guys were fake dating at first.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You could barely keep your stories straight about how you got together when I asked,” Benny says softly. “You kept adding details and I noticed Frankie shake his head whenever you did that.”

“Why didn’t you say anything? Does Frankie know?” You’re mortified for him, you know how embarrassed he would feel if he found out that Benny had guessed all along it was fake.

This really can’t get any worse.

“‘Cause you two obviously liked each other. I assumed that you’d figure it out along the way. I thought you had, but then -” Benny trails off.

“You know when you assume, you make an ass -”

‘Oh sweetheart, don’t even finish that sentence.“ Benny exhales. “How are you holding up?”

“It’s what you said, it was fake and we ended it and it’s all fine now.”

“Bullshit,” Benny exclaims, his southern drawl even more pronounced.

“It’s not.”

“It is.”

The bartender interrupts by finally handing you the rest of your drinks and between you and Benny, you take them and rejoin your friends.

‘Cause you two obviously liked each other.

Benny’s words echo in your mind. He didn’t say because you liked Frankie, but because you both did.

Frankie doesn’t like you like that though, you know this. He’s clearly just a very good actor.

You end up the one handing Frankie his drink, no doubt due to Benny’s meddling. Your hands brush against his as he takes the bottle and you can’t help looking up at him, noticing the unreadable expression on his face.

Will coughs loudly and you quickly take a step back.

“It was a good fight, Benny,” you say awkwardly, hoping he’ll take the change of subject.

“I need a smoke,” Frankie says, hunching his shoulders as he walks away from the group.

The room instantly turns cold. 

You awkwardly pull the edge of your jacket down, wishing the ground would swallow you up. Santi, Tom and Will are staring at you and you can’t be here. They hate you, they’re judging you.

This is so fucked up.

“I’m uh, going to go.”

Liv makes a motion as if to stop you, but she doesn’t, and Benny’s looking at you with real disappointment but that doesn’t stop you either. You’re getting good at running away now.

You’re too afraid to look behind you and see whether they’re looking at you as you walk away.

Frankie’s standing by the parking lot when you finally weave your way past the crowds and bloody fighters to reach the exit.

He looks surprised to see you. Just seeing his face makes your heart ache because you’ve lost him, you’ve lost him and you didn’t want to.

“I’m leaving now, so you can go back in” you say flatly.

“I was just having a smoke,” he says defensively. It’s an obvious lie, you both know it.

“Sure, Frankie. Look, you can’t just stomp off like that. You can’t leave me in that position with everyone. It’s not fair.”

“Yeah, well, there’s a lot of things we don’t discuss, lot of things that aren’t fair,” Frankie says bitterly, tossing his cigarette to the floor and stamping on it a little too vigorously.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“What’s going on with you? This wasn’t meant to affect our friendship. I never, ever would have agreed if I’d known,” Frankie says firmly. “You were my friend and I still wanted you to be but you ghosted me and ended our deal. That’s fine, but we didn’t go back to normal after. We just - it’s like you hate me now.”

“I don’t hate you.”

“Just would you tell me what I did wrong?”

“You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Then why -”

“It was too real,” you whisper, folding your arms around yourself and leaning against the brick wall.

“What? What did you say?” Frankie asks, moving closer.

“You know, the faking it thing. It was too real, it was confusing me. And I - I didn’t want to ruin everything but I still ruined it all. Story of my life.”

“Don’t say that. Don’t be so hard on yourself.” You think, somehow he’s going to break your heart even more tonight and you didn’t think that was possible..

“I just - I got confused.”

“How did you get confused?” he asks in a low voice, taking another step closer to you.

“Don’t, Frankie, don’t make me say it.”

“Say what?” he asks, dramatically throwing his hands in the air, “I can’t understand you. I mean, this was your idea and then you ended it and now you don’t even want to be friends? I don’t know what I did but -”

“You did nothing, Frankie. It’s me, not you.”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. Clearly something happened. Can’t you just talk to me? I’m fucking miserable here. You were supposed to be my friend and I miss you.” You hadn’t thought that your actions could have hurt Frankie, you thought you were protecting him by doing what you did.

You feel even worse, a sick feeling rising in your stomach. 

“It got muddled in my head, okay, it felt like it was real and I couldn’t do that to you, so that’s why - that’s why.” You falter at the end of your sentence as all of the adrenaline and energy from your body fades away..

“It got too real for you? What are you saying?”

“That I like you. That I ended up liking you more than I should, you obtuse jerk!”

Frankie pauses then takes another step closer. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks, a slight smile on his face that you can’t make any sense of.

“It’s embarrassing, Frankie. We made an arrangement and I caught feelings like an idiotic teenager. I’m just daydreaming my life away again.”

Frankie is so close to you right now, he braces his hands against the wall as he stands right in front of you.

“You caught feelings, huh?”

You notice a familiar smirk on his face and then he’s kissing you.

Frankie’s kissed you before; it’s been part of the facade after all, but not like this.

This kiss is everything. It sends molten heat down your core, renders your mind completely blank. All the anxiety, all the internal dialogue is gone for once. The silence is blissful as you can feel your heart pounding, take in the soft texture of Frankie’s shirt as you fist it to pull him closer because now he’s with you like this, you can’t let him go.

It’s not an aggressive kiss, it’s not teeth clashing or fury. It’s not exactly gentle either.  Frankie kisses you with care; like he’s trying to take you apart right here and now with just a kiss.

In just one minute, he’s ruined you for other people. No one else could kiss you like Frankie does.

“I told you, if I kissed you for real it wouldn’t be boring,” Frankie mumbles, moving his attention down your jaw and neck to your collarbone. You can feel the velvet softness of his lips, the heat of his breath.

“Oh fuck you,” you joke.

”Well, baby, I think I’m trying. Not here though, we can do better than that.”

You both laugh. The tension breaks for just a second as you wrap your arms around his shoulders, laugh into his neck, breathe him in.

“C’mon, you had to know I liked you. I just, I  just thought you deserved someone better than me -” Frankie starts.

“That’s bullshit,” you argue. Frankie is kind, thoughtful and funny. He’s also so competent, multi-skilled and as you’ve just learned, an excellent kisser. Frankie has that quiet and collected energy you’ve noticed in a lot of ex-military people too. He flies planes and helicopters for a living. He’s your friend. How could you deserve any better than him?

“Can we get out of here?” Frankie asks, “Talk, not talk, I don’t mind. I just - I want to be with you right now. God, I missed you.”

“Okay. I really fucking missed you too,” you say, kissing his shoulder lightly before leaning back against the wall.

He doesn’t stop touching you the whole way to your apartment. He’s either holding your hand or touching your leg. If he has to temporarily remove himself to make a turn or change gear, he’s immediately back with you as soon as possible. You wonder if he’s worried you’ll leave or vanish if he’s not actually touching you, if he’s also wondering if this is really happening..

His car stereo blares uncharacteristically cheerful music by the latest pop sensation and you raise your eyebrows when he looks over at you.

“It’s her favourite album by her favourite singer and school’s been rough for her the last few weeks so this cheers her up,” he says defensively, flexing his fingers on the steering wheel, “I think I can probably hear it even when it’s not playing now.”

“Sure, but your daughter’s not in the car with us. Is she, Frankie? You could have switched it over.”

“I keep forgetting to change the CD,” he whines unconvincingly. “This car’s old.”

You make your way to your apartment, his arm around you, fingers entwined with yours the whole time.

As soon as you close the front door, he’s pushing your back against the wall, cupping his hands around your face to kiss you deeply.

You move your hands up to meet his and then move one of your hands down his chest.

“Your heart’s racing like crazy,” you mumble as he kisses a particular spot on your neck.

There’s always a moment of fear at a junction like this. What if the sex is bad - what if you’re just not compatible this way? But you need him, you need him with you, in you and the two of you are both too far gone to focus on that now.

Your friendship is changed anyway. There’s nothing more to lose.

He places his hands on your hips, pulls you away towards your bedroom.

“I want you so much,” he says.

“I want you too,” you reply, dazed between kisses as he navigates you to the edge of your bed.

He ghosts his hands down to the edge of your top and you move to desperately pull it off you.

You watch him take in the sight of you in your bra, take in the smile on his face. He looks at you with something like reverence; as if he can’t quite take it in that you’re real and you’re with him. Part of you wants to glow under his gaze and the rest of you fights panic, because this feels different, it feels real. You’ve never been looked at like this before.

You’ll do anything to keep this moment.

He gently unhooks your bra, moves his kisses down from your lips to your neck to your collarbone to the curve of your breasts and then down again.

His hands fumble with the button of your jeans and you’re desperate for him.

“What do you want, baby?”

You, you think, I just want you.

”C’mon, tell me,” he coaxes.

“I just need you. I want you to - ”

“I’ve got you,” he says, calmly lifting your hips to remove your jeans, to touch the hem of your underwear - and could you have not put better underwear on this morning?

You open your mouth to say something but then he comes back to meet your lips as he moves his hand inside your underwear. You’re already slick with wanting him, he slides a finger inside before tracing circles over your bundle of nerves to make you gasp.

 “You’re so fucking pretty,” he whispers as he continues taking you apart.

“Frankie -”

“I’ve liked you for so long, I just thought you didn’t want me that way. I’d take anything you give me - friendship, I mean fake dating. I thought it was as close as I’d get.”

“Frankie, how could I not want you that way? You’re - you’re Frankie.”

“Exactly.”

“I’m going to show you.”

You feel your orgasm building and clasp your hands over his shoulders, into his hair. You shut your eyes and then it’s gone.

“Frankie?”

You open your eyes to see him take his finger into his mouth then mischievously smiles as he moves back and off the bed. He moves you so your legs are over the edge of the bed and then. He gets on his knees.

You take a deep breath He kisses the inside of your knee, traces kiss up your thigh until he meets you. You sit up slightly on your elbows as he looks up to meet your gaze with a dazed smile before he turns his attention to you.

Frankie Morales knows exactly what he’s doing between your legs but in case, you tell him how good he is anyway. He takes you apart with expert precision, gets you back to the precipice of pleasure all too quickly and guides you over the line.

“Do you want to -” he asks breathlessly as he comes back to you afterwards and kisses you. You can taste yourself on his lips, can feel his hardness pressing into you.

“Yeah, I do. I have uh - condoms in the bathroom cabinet.”

“Give me a second.” He kisses you briefly and you shut your eyes again as he goes to the bathroom. You try and catch your breath back and get your legs to stop trembling.

Why are the condoms so fucking far away? You still desperately need him, still need to feel him.

When Frankie comes back, he kisses you hungrily before he slides the condom over his length.

“Fuck, to think we could have been doing this the whole time,” he says before he’s sliding inside you.

There’s nothing else at this moment. It’s just you and him and the way you dig your fingers into his back with your free hand and the way your other hands is entwined in his as he moves inside you, the two of you desperately exchanging  sweet nothings to each other, groaning each other’s names.

Your heart is racing and the blood is pumping in your ears. You watch the expression on his face just before he buries his face in your neck, sure he can feel the way you’re tightening around him, can surely feel how close you are too and then just as he takes you to that place one more time, you hear the way he moans as he joins you.

The next morning you watch Frankie pacing your balcony as speaks on the phone to his daughter. His hair is still damp from the shower, curling at the ends, and he has a mug of coffee in his other hand. He turns and smiles at you.

Just twenty four hours ago, you never thought Frankie could feel that way about you. You were resigned to your mistakes and your losses.

You were wrong.

He hangs up the phone and you walk over to join him on the balcony, your mug of coffee tightly clasped between your hands.

“Hi.”

“Hey,” he says, putting his phone in his pocket and wrapping his now free arm around you as he takes a gulp of coffee.

You take a sip of your own coffee.

“I was just thinking,” Frankie says, “so, I guess the story we came up with before was true, right? We just realised how we felt about each other one day - and okay, it might have taken some fake dating to get us both there - but no one else needs to know that.”

“No one else needs to know that.”

You definitely need to tell Frankie at some point that Benny has figured everything out, that Benny clearly pushed you two together last night. You probably owe him a thank you, but you’ll never tell Benny that.

“So, what do we do now?” There’s a lot you need to discuss, figure out, but you just want to be with him. Surely that’s enough for now.

Frankie grins. “Well, I don’t need to be home until the afternoon so I’ve got some time right now.”

“I’m sure we can think of some things to fill that time.”

Frankie laughs. “Definitely.”

Tag List

All Pedro characters: @harriedandharassed @pedrostories @hiroikegawa @pedrosaidsheispunk

[omgthatdress]

I read several articles about the history of Black dolls when I was preparing my AG spam, and one of the consistent things that kept coming up was what a game-changer Addy was. There were only a few Black Barbies at Toys-R-Us, and Black baby dolls were pretty rare. Addy was finally a popular, easily-available, and high-quality doll that Black girls could have who looked like them.

And White girls bought her, too! I had an Addy! I a lot of ways, Addy was my first real intro to Black history.

Addy has earned a lot of flak for being “the slave doll,” but honestly, anyone who reads her books knows that she is so much more than that. She starts her story enslaved and makes a harrowing journey to freedom, and then learns how to live free. She goes to school, learns to read, and then teaches her mother how to read. She celebrates the end of the war and is able to reunite her family.  She offers a counter-narrative to the 12 Years a Slave-style hopeless trauma porn that often comes with slavery stories, how brave Black people brought themselves to freedom and built a community for themselves. Addy helped this little White girl learn that Black lives matter and that Black history is important.

Living in Florida and seeing Ron DeSantis do everything he fucking can to censor Black history (if you don’t know about it, please take this moment to learn about the Rosewood Massacre), I’m really, really, really glad I had Addy and her books to be my entry way to Black history. It may have started with slavery, but it sure as hell didn’t end with slavery.

ANYWAY. Here’s a pretty great article about how Addy came about.

As far as her fashion goes, it’s all pretty accurate! I love that finally an American Girl has her hair up!

In the book, Addy receives her dress from a woman running a safe house during her escape from slavery. Even thought it’s relatively plain, it’s much, much, much nicer than anything Addy has worn before, and it really hits home how much better her life is going to be now that she’s free.

(ebay)

Fun lil fact: in the 90s the gourd was made from an actual gourd (I had the actual gourd!), which had a little cork stopper in it, but a crop failure (and Canadian import laws) changed it to plastic.

[dangerousartisanwerewolf]

To all the Americans on tumblr rn...

I am not American, nor am I old enough to vote yet as I missed being the legal voting age for my province by only about a week- curse my extremely late birthday.

(which weirdly enough has also had such an incredibly tight election that they are still counting the votes right now even though it happened 2 weeks ago because the two parties are basically tied. }

but I am also very worried for you guys way down south. Hopefully America will put the right person into power this time and everything ends up being ok for you all. Not to be too cliché but I am sending thoughts and prayers and I hope you guys all stay safe down there. I honestly can't even imagine how you guys fell- I don't even live there and I've been feeling increasingly nauseous as the hours go by and I have had to offline for the most of the day.

Remember:

To take care of yourselves. Just in general, in whatever way you see fit

You absolutely do not have to live stream the election polling/results thing on TV, doom scroll election content the whole day long, watch the news, or consume any other election related content. As horrible as it feels to say this; the results will be the same regardless of whether or not you are watching it. Sometimes it is just better for you and your mental health to just log off of sm/screens for the night

If it all does feel like its getting too much for you, please log off/take a sm/screentime break

Most importantly, if you haven't already, please vote!!!! I am not American and am barley old enough to be considered a legal voter (Missed my own countries election *tears*) so I can't really help in terms of providing resources but I am sure there are all sorts that can help you I'm sure. I know that its getting late at night; some polls have closed already but not as many as you would think. I found out that most are actually open way later than I thought. As it turns out, some are even open til 1! You learn something new every day I guess!

Just Please, Please, Please go out and cast your ballot and make your voice known, with how close this is quite literally every voice matters!!! GO VOTE!!!

Poll closing times in case you need it (I only included ones that close 8pm and upwards because it is 7:30 at the time of writing this)

8 p.m. ET

Alabama

Connecticut

Delaware

District of Columbia

Florida (Polls in Eastern time zone close at 7 p.m. ET; part of Panhandle are in Central time zone)

Illinois

Maine

Maryland

Massachusetts

Mississippi

Missouri

New Hampshire (Polling hours vary by municipality and are listed by location here)

New Jersey

Oklahoma

Pennsylvania

Rhode Island

Tennessee

8:30 p.m. ET

Arkansas

9 p.m. ET

Arizona

Colorado

Iowa

Kansas (Polling locations close at 8 p.m. ET in all except four counties in the west)

Louisiana

Michigan (Polling locations close at 8 p.m. ET in all except four counties)

Minnesota

Nebraska

New Mexico

New York

North Dakota (Polls close at 8 p.m. ET in all but eight counties)

South Dakota (Polls close at 8 p.m. ET in the east)

Texas (Polls close at 8 p.m. ET for most of the state except three counties in the west)

Wisconsin

Wyoming

10 p.m. ET

Montana

Nevada (The polling location at City Hall in West Wendover closes at 9 p.m. ET)

Utah

11 p.m. ET

California

Idaho (Polling locations in the south close at 10 p.m. ET)

Oregon (Polling locations in Malheur County close at 10 p.m. ET)

Washington

12 a.m. ET

Hawaii

1 a.m. ET

Alaska (Polling locations close at 12 a.m. with the exception of Adak)

I'm not really sure what other useful info I could put as I don't know much about America or it's electoral system but I hope that helps.

A lot of people I have seen have been posting about how they feel sick to their stomach's and that they can't get off the news and how they just feel terrible so...

Things you can do to distract yourself for the rest of the night (And possibly the next few days, idk how long it takes to count votes)

Have an early bedtime/take a late nap (Only go to bed after 9 at least though, otherwise you'll mess up your sleep schedule and make you feel worse.) Just sleep your way througb it if you cant help it.

To add on to point one I often use asmr if I can't fall asleep right away/to distract myself. My favorites are: Jaden Aliana Asmr, Oceans Asmr, Kaitlynn Reha asmr, and my absolute favorite Goodnight Moon ASMR (Check out her babble brook, 1920's, or valley girl series')

Listen to a podcast (I like Rotten Mango- informative true crime, Buzzfeed unsolved- funny true crime/ghost hunting, Look behind you- also true crime, and Chris Chan; a comprehensive history)

Never too late for some cleaning! Clean your house, bathroom, bedroom, closet, do a deep clean.

If your a student like me- do your schoolwork! I know you have some studying or homework that needs to be done! Get on it!! I use the pomodoro method if that does anything

Have a self care night- do an everything shower or fancy bath, make facemasks, mani pedi's ect.

Watch a movie or marathon t.v shows you love/that are comfort shows (Some of my comfort shows are; Bobs burgers, Gravity falls, the moomins 1990, the office, what we do in the shadows, black books, derry girls, moone boy, and all creatures great and small and M.A.S.H. Some of my comfort movies are; Little women, the cornetto trilogy, Emma, Legally blonde, Pride and Prejudice)

Never too late for some cooking! One of my favorite hobbies is cooking and baking (Mostly baking) Make some chocolate chip and snickerdoodle cookies, muffins, cupcakes or try a fun cake.

Go for a night walk! Just make sure you bring a buddy and some flashlights of you're in total darkness like I am right now. (Love me a Canadian fall! Already snow where I am so of course that means everyone now needs to immediately put up Christmas decorations lol. At least the lights are nice at night)

Spend time with loved ones. Call or text a friend, spend time with your family, roommates, whoever. If your on campus at a uni see if there's literally any activities or clubs open at this hour you can go to

Read. I know you have a tbr you keep meaning to get to

Go on a research rabbit hole about something interesting. Try to learn something new. Some topics to get you started relating to where I live cause why not; Try to learn about : The Animals of Canada, Indigenous cultures and peoples of Canada- ex: try to learn some Cree or Halqemeylem phrases, try to memorize all of our provinces and territories.

Get through any chores you still have to do

Make/do something creative: Play an instrument, record a song, make a collage, paint, draw

Play some music, listen to your favorite songs on loop (Spotify's still collecting data for wrapped!)

Download a videogame on your phone- just one to pass the time even if its total addictive trash. Some ones I like: Moomin town- Idle, relaxing, town building, slowpaced, free, Miriam webster quizitative- free, wordgames, has an end to it, Toca boca hair salon- not free, hair salon game, endless, Toca boca town- not free but there are dupes, dollhouse game, bird bnb- townbuilding, slowpaced, as well theres all sorts of cute isle cat games; I like the grocery store and cafe ones

Make sure to:

Drink water

Eat at regular intervals

take breaks from screens (It'll hurt ya eyes)

get some sleep at some point

Don't sleep all day (Try to get up at a normal time)

if you feel like you need- put screen time limits on your phone. Or as well, turn down the brightness if you feel you have to doom scroll.

That's all for now. Hope you guys are doing ok and that the results are what we are all hoping for. Just know that you are in pretty much everyone's minds and we are all thinking of you (Even if we don't live in America). Stay safe and take care of yourself and your mental health.

Love, thoughts, prayers, and support from Canada/Tumblr and have a good night.

Congrats if you managed to get through this absolute brick of text. I commend you. I'll probably check back in tomorrow.

[violetmuses]

Tandem - Multifandom Crossover ❤️‍🩹

Title: Tandem - Multifandom Crossover ❤️‍🩹

Fandoms: “Rebel Ridge” + “Bad Boys” 

Characters: Terry Richmond + Armando Aretas

Love Interest: Female Reader 

Main Storyline: When Terry Richmond arrives in Miami, who knows what could happen next?

Tandem Masterlist

@peaxhygirl @superstar-t20 @adoresmiles @klssngss @deja-r @hyper-trash-panda @amethyst-loves-bucky @planetblaque @sweettea-and-honeybutter @lovedlover @xjjawsomex @readingisahobby @kindofaintrovert @nelo0wesker @gg-trini @cloveroctobers @maliagurl @nobodygetsza @twinklestarslight @yassbishimvintage @sweetiepie4190 @persethegawd @mangoes03 🏷

=====

2024

Relocating to Miami, veteran Terry Richmond wanted to start life all over again after escaping the rural and dangerous town of Shelby Springs. 

Upon entry, the new apartment offered more than enough space. Justice grounded some peace, but even with his cousin avenged, time still burned. 

After taking this much-needed shower to clear emotions, Richmond dumped the weathered backpack and organized his very few items. 

Learning the brand-new area, Terry signaled that elevator and chimed down. Modern decor prolonged this lobby as sunlight illuminated. 

Just before Richmond headed outside, one different man entered the building. 

Detective Mike Lowrey of the Miami Police Department would introduce himself to staff members. 

“Someone will move here, but we'll handle everything.” Lowrey took charge. 

Red and blue overcasts crossed that Florida skyline. Even sirens wailed. 

What the hell? Terry thought. 

Just when Richmond planned to ask questions, the entrance opened. 

Officials escorted this handcuffed man right into the complex and Richmond's nerves heightened with each passing moment. 

“Yo, what's going on? You good, man?” Terry almost gritted his teeth. 

This guy named Armando Aretas wouldn't respond at first. 

Wearing this Bud Light shirt, Aretas chose one trucker hat that veiled his brown eyes. Jeans covered both legs and boots stepped along. 

“It's fine, we got it.” Lowrey noticed Richmond's concern and tried to settle this problem down. 

“What in the world?” Several people offered questions as well. 

Yet when police unfastened Armando's handcuffs, voices shared relief in all directions. 

“Come with us.” Lowrey gestured to Richmond and led Aretas near the elevator. 

“Yes, Sir.” No matter what, Terry offered respect as all three individuals moved upstairs. 

________

“It's a long story, but Armando is my son.” Lowrey stood in the hall with Richmond once Aretas settled his own apartment. 

“Why bring out that police motorcade?” Terry squinted. 

“Like I said, it's a long story. Just know that he works for the department now.” Lowrey explained. 

“Aight.” Terry cleared his throat. “If he's not in trouble, I'll feel better honestly. Thank you.” 

“You're welcome.” Detective Lowrey excused himself from Richmond and returned to Armando's space.

Time would explain what happens now. 

*****

Armando woke up as sunlight greeted the bedroom windows. Gaining this furnished apartment, he organized essentials yesterday. 

Packing his new laptop bag, Aretas left to “explore.” 

Reaching the hallway, Armando pinged this elevator and noticed that someone joined. 

“Terry.” Richmond ended up clipping his name first. 

“Armando.” Aretas wouldn't make eye contact, but followed Terry's lead with introductions. 

“You good?” Terry repeated his genuine question from yesterday. 

“Yeah. Thanks.” Armando accepted Terry's kindness. 

Heading outside, both men walked in silence as vibrant lanes of South Beach lined up. 

Cheerful voices beamed and upbeat music played out loud from vehicles while Terry acknowledged surroundings. 

“Found a coffee shop.” Richmond pointed near one storefront and welcomed Armando past its threshold. 

“Good catch.” Aretas moved. 

_____

“Morning. Could I have some black coffee and a muffin, please?” This muscular man stepped toward the counter and greeted you. His bright eyes nearly prompted your heart to rattle. 

“Got it. Anything else?” You grinned while counting his order. 

“No, Ma'am.” Terry almost smiled not long after paying up.  

“Can I have a name for the order?” You set out markers. 

“Terry.” Richmond quickly stated his own first name

“Thank you. Just wait for a second.” You prepared everything. 

Stepping out of the line, Terry gave room for  different customers, but noticed Armando using his laptop from this window seat. 

“You want something?” Terry leaned inward this time around. 

“I'll get up in a second. Appreciate it.” Aretas noticed Richmond's words again. 

“Terry?”  As expected, you called Richmond's name. 

“Be right back.” Terry reached the main counter again. 

“Here you go.” You handed out his order and smiled once more. 

“Thank you.” Terry almost grinned before sitting back down. 

______

Armando stepped up next and Terry observed everything. 

Once you rang more items and called Aretas, Armando gathered his regular coffee and took one scone, not even messing up his device. 

“Not bad.” Aretas said. “I'll have to leave soon, but thanks for helping.” 

“No problem.” Terry nodded, but looked elsewhere as this Porsche rolled near the curb. 

“Gotta go.” Taking coffee, Armando stepped outdoors and joined the passenger seat of Mike Lowrey's classic ride. 

______

Staying behind at the coffee shop, Terry observed how you handled customers and clocked out that afternoon, leaving this place just in time for lunch. 

“Excuse me?” Richmond stood from that window seat and questioned you. 

“Yes?” You welcomed him outside as this bench waited near the storefront. 

“I'm new here, so thank you for the coffee.”  Terry stepped forward and shook hands.

“Of course.” You smiled. 

“Something happened at my apartment complex yesterday. This guy moved in, but officers showed up and…” Richmond trailed off when you cleared your throat. 

“Armando Aretas…” You nearly whispered. “The police are quiet for different reasons now, but look up his name whenever you can. Most of that information is public.” 

“I will. Thank you.” Terry stood and began to walk away, but you spoke up once more. 

“See you tomorrow?” You wanted to know if Terry would come back. 

“Yeah, I don't mind. Take care.” Terry nodded and bid farewell, leaving your side. 

******

Buying his own laptop, Richmond planned to learn information. 

Nothing could've prepared him for upcoming details, though. 

What the fuck?! 

Realization tunneled this search. Soon enough, Terry's heart raced and dropped all at once. 

Aretas launched havoc on several counts and attacked officials from the Miami precinct four years ago. 

Richmond even found one vital news report from the large-scale case: 

“Famed Miami Detective Mike Lowrey was shot one evening. The video quickly surfaced online and went viral in a matter of hours. Footage first appeared on the darknet and soon spread to mainstream social media platforms. Authorities believed that the shooter uploaded this video himself.”

Damn! Terry slammed his laptop, fed up beyond words. 

No matter what, Armando's crimes remained true with permanent ink. 

*****

Another morning brightened, yet Terry's mind clouded again. 

When Armando's main door opened, Richmond almost flinched while unarmed. 

“Hey, hey, Woah! You good, T?” Armando lifted his empty hands. 

“The barista warned me and I did some research last night. Y'all left out too much.” Richmond turned frustrated without yelling. “Nobody told me about your case.”

“Dammit!” Aretas paced back and forth, quietly upset. “I can explain what happened, all right?”

“Go ahead.” Terry arched his brow. “I got plenty of time on my hands.”

_______

Sitting with Terry in private, Armando started talking first. 

“After leaving the military, I joined the family cartel. My mother planned everything and hoped that I wouldn't spare Lowrey.” Aretas grounded his truth. 

“What happened to your mother?” Terry settled the question. 

She's dead.“ Armando never hesitated with that phrase. 

“Damn, man.” Richmond attempted. “The case is harsh, but I'm sorry.”

“Honestly, there was nothing good about our situation.” Armando declined. “She lied to so many people.” 

“You learned the truth now, right?” Richmond attempted. 

“Yeah, but you know what? I really don't wanna talk about this anymore.”  Mentally exhausted, Aretas stopped debating and glanced toward his new watch.

“Fair enough. You're right, so let's get out of here.” Apologizing, Terry stood from the bench and followed Armando to this new spot. 

*****

“Hi, Terry. Good morning.” You've smiled and already learned his order as Richmond faced the register. 

“Morning. Thank you for giving the update with Armando. We've talked.” Richmond quietly acknowledged how he checked details last night. 

“Of course. We can't risk more issues if people haven't learned that case because Armando just got back.” You nearly whispered the response like code 

“You know a lot about this one.” Terry glanced around. 

“I used to work as an informant.” Still facing Terry now, you offered black coffee and handed over this muffin again. 

Wow. Richmond noted. 

_____

“Hey.” Slightly accented English rasped near your direction when Armando stepped forward. 

“I'm not a snitch.” There's no joyful greeting this time around. “We've lost too many people and I just want everyone else to be safe.” 

“I know.” Aretas completely understood your point. 

“Listen, I'm not afraid.” You arched one brow while ringing up his regular coffee with another scone. 

“I searched your name, too. Why give up the police department for a coffee shop?” Aretas moved ten steps ahead and had learned all about your skills. 

“You.” Your genuinely pleasant voice darkened for the first time. “Once the case guaranteed prison, I quit.”

“Thought you weren't scared?” Armando slyly chuckled and departed the line, waiting for his order. 

____

“Armando?” When you called his name, the area nearly silenced and almost everyone held their breath. Even Terry closed one fist to veil his mouth. 

“Ooh!” Everyone observed as you traded the items. Within seconds, Armando stepped back and didn't face drama. 

When Aretas sat back down, Terry almost smirked. 

“Why the face?” Armando clipped. 

“She hasn't kicked you out.” Richmond pointed near the register as you kept working. 

“Whatever.” Aretas casted both eyes toward that ceiling. 

______

Armando exited that local coffee shop as Mike Lowrey's classic Porsche rolled out again. Before long,  Richmond sat with privacy this time. 

When you began to leave for lunch once more, Terry still noticed your presence. 

“Don't worry.” Terry laughed and opened the front door for you. ‘I'm not hard-headed like Armando.” 

“Very funny.” You walked toward Florida sunlight and joined the storefront bench as usual. “Any plans today?”

“No, Ma'am. Still figuring out my apartment complex.” Richmond glanced toward you. 

“You'll learn.” Now, your gentle voice encouraged him. “Living somewhere new is a process.”

“I understand.” Terry nodded. 

“Oh, shit! Sorry, but I gotta go.” Your phone buzzed seconds later. 

“No problem. See you.” Saying goodbye, Terry watched you almost jog around the block for some odd reason. 

What now? Richmond thought. 

*****

Once you entered this restaurant, confetti popped upwards. 

“Happy birthday!” Members of the AMMO squad cheered after standing from this large table. 

“I thought you needed something! This is my lunch break.” You hugged weapons expert Kelly and tech genius Dorn laughed for a moment. 

“We've already cleared the schedule with your manager.” Captain Rita Secada welcomed your spot from that table. “Take this weekend off.”

“Thank you, Rita. Everything looks great!” You smiled toward the platters and would share each meal with friends. 

Just before indulging, you realized that Detective Marcus Burnett, Mike Lowrey's longtime partner and best friend, peeked around one corner. 

“Where's my niece? Happy birthday, girl!” Marcus shuffled footsteps into the private room. 

“Thank you, Marcus!” You opened both arms to hug Burnett and still observed his recovered heart. 

Not long ago, Marcus collapsed during Mike Lowrey's wedding. 

Lowrey fell in love with Christine, an experienced physical therapist. She also help .ed Mike heal with his shooting recovery that took place years back. 

“Doesn't matter if you've left the team. You're still important, Rook.” Marcus shortened one of your nicknames. 

“I appreciate it. How's everyone?” You acknowledged Burnett's family. 

“Everybody's fine. Megan just gave birth to a baby girl.” Smiling, Marcus counted his second grandchild. 

“Aw! Congratulations, Grandpa.” You laughed while messing with Marcus. Even Kelly almost giggled. 

“Pop-Pop.” Marcus corrected the title and arched his brow toward you. 

“You're still old!” You joked right back and everyone cackled. 

_______

“Happy birthday to you!” Servers pushed the cake forward as everyone sang along. 

Grateful, you blew out candles and prepared your sweet tooth, sitting beside Kelly and Rita. 

“Oh, damn! You cut the cake already?” Detective Mike Lowrey showed up with his wife Christine. 

“Might bring this party to the house, Rook. Now we're crammed in here!” Marcus chuckled. 

“Stop it, Marcus! Let's get some cake and go from there.” Mike jokes with his best friend. 

Even you hugged Christine, sharing dessert with everyone as sunset arrived. 

There was no better feeling here. 

******

Armando returned to this apartment and showered after trading used car keys from Mike at the precinct. 

Lowrey had just picked up his wife Christine to celebrate your birthday elsewhere. 

“Going back home with everybody if you wanna visit.” Mike called. “We can't stay at this restaurant all night.” 

“I don't think she likes me.” Aretas knew better than to interrupt your surprise. 

“Even you and I need to work on things, but I'm trying all right?” Lowrey still attempted. “Come over. It'd be good.” 

“I know. See you later.” Armando hung up, prepared to deal with the occasion. 

****

“Don't argue tonight.” Marcus warned both  you and Armando. 

“Hey, be careful. Now you're instigating.” Lowrey cautioned Burnett. 

“Hold up, I brought wine.” Settling down Mike and Marcus, Aretas carefully held two bottles. 

“Thank you.” Mike welcomed Armando inside and you found Christine again, heading to the backyard. 

______

“Still mad at me?” Armando offered the question while sharing cake with you. 

“No.” You shook your head. “Only cautious.”

“That's fair.” Aretas nodded in return as music played. 

“In all seriousness, how are you doing?” You wanted to help Armando regardless. 

“Better. Things are pretty quiet.” Aretas offered his vague response. 

“Started messing with Terry yet?” You laughed about one regular from the coffee shop. Terry Richmond even became Armando's neighbor.

“No, but can I ask you something?” Aretas leaned back in his chair. 

“Yeah?” You silently waited for Armando's next move. 

“You want him?” Armando clipped the unexpected idea. 

“What are you talking about?” You squinted. “We just met.” 

“Y'all smile almost every day now.” Aretas pulled his observations with Terry. Even coffee transactions looked more joyful. 

“It's none of your business, but you sound jealous.” You nearly laughed. 

“C'mere.” Throwing out trash for both of you, Armando started flirting. 

“Yes?” You stand from the table and trailed Aretas, intrigued. 

“Stop ignoring me.” His slightly accented English nearly whispered to reveal this truth. “It actually hurts my feelings.”

“Did I hurt your feelings or bruise that ego?” You corrected his phrase this time. “Get it together, okay? You're not the big bad wolf anymore.” 

Taking your words, Armando became outright silent as you walked away and started dancing with everyone else that night. 

*****

The next morning, you wake up after somehow choosing this living room floor. 

In some corner, this air mattress waited nearby and even one of Armando's wine bottles looked empty. 

What happened last night? Your now pounding mind buzzed questions. 

When Kelly emerged from the kitchen, you took random sunglasses to dodge brightness. 

“Where's everybody?” You stood up and joined K, greeted by many choices to eat. 

“Mike and Christine are running errands, Rita left, and Dorn took my car to the auto shop.” Kelly pinpointed almost everyone. 

Before you'd question Armando's spot, footsteps moved toward the living room. 

“You're wearing my sunglasses.” Aretas chuckled and gestured by your face. 

As you gaped while embarrassed, Kelly covered her mouth in shock. 

______

“What happened last night?” You offered the question between Armando and Kelly. 

“Lots of drinking and dancing.” Kelly just smiled towards you. “We all crashed down here when Mike and Christine went upstairs.” 

“How much did I drink?” You absolutely cringed right now. 

“You finished that wine bottle with Armando and danced together.” Kelly took a moment and drank water. 

“Dancing?” You then furrowed your brow near Aretas. 

“Yeah, it was fun.” Armando nearly smiled, but caught himself. 

“I definitely have some videos. Hold on.” Kelly seemed more and more humored. 

“Oh, no!” You removed the sunglasses, but still veiled your face this time. 

Just when Kelly began scrolling, Armando's phone started ringing.  

“Hello?” Both you and Kelly stopped messing around when Aretas picked up the call. 

“Dude, it's Terry. We need help, man!” Terry Richmond somehow contacted Armando. 

“What happened? I'm listening.” Aretas put Richmond on speakerphone to hear every detail. 

“The coffee shop's manager is dead.” Terry exposed that truth loud and clear. 

*****

As sirens wailed throughout and emergency lights flashed beyond direction, yellow tape met that coffee shop when law enforcement intervened. 

For the first time since quitting, you prepped one of the uniform jackets and dodged guidelines to help. Sitting back would never become an option. 

“Estimated time of death?” You questioned experts after joining that crime scene. 

“Last night around 10:00 PM.” One professional spoke up this time. 

“Quick kill. Discreet enough to avoid some outward panic.” Mike observed, requesting for you to bring Terry Richmond for questions. “Get Terry, Rook.”

“All right.” You turned away from that body bag while the forensics team moved along. 

______

“Explain what happened, T.” Drifting back to the police station, you joined Armando while Terry occupied this interrogation room.  

“Uh, everything seemed normal. Walked by the coffee shop and picked up my order as usual, but when I left that restroom to go home, there was spotting on the floor.” Terry leveled his response right now as bright eyes focused. 

Spotting? Fuck! You realized. Blood. 

“Where did you find that spotting?” You offered more questions for Richmond while Armando typed. “Did you see anything in the restroom?” 

“No, Ma'am.” Terry cleared his throat. “There's an employee door and office space located directly across from restrooms.”

Bingo! Of course you memorized the layout this year and pictured each area. 

“Who found that body?” You offered that chance just in case. 

“I found your manager sitting dead in his office chair.” Richmond's deep tone answered. 

Despite remaining composed, your heart still dropped. 

______

“We'll block this area until further notice. Who knows what else happened?” Returning to the crime scene, Lowrey took charge again. 

“Looks like another homicide case.” Marcus Burnett cringed. 

“Nope.” Lowrey declined. “Our squad just confiscated plenty of drugs, too.” 

“What the hell?” Burnett still can't believe what's going on. 

“Rook, bring Terry along.” Lowrey asked you to invite Richmond near everyone else as a precaution. 

Here we go. 

*******

Once this team confirmed an investigation, Mike, Marcus and Rita returned home before kicking off the police department's brand-new game plan. 

You bring Terry around as expected and gathered remaining members of the AMMO squad. 

“Sorry for the last-minute rush. We can't take any chances if you stay near that crime scene.” You explained this plan as Terry entered your house. 

“Don't worry. I get it.” Terry nodded, glancing around. 

“Make yourself at home. Kelly and Dorn would crash here all the time.” You welcomed Richmond. 

“Thank you.” Terry nodded and gathered his backpack, scoping the residence just in case.  

______

While Kelly and Dorn occupied one of the guest rooms, Terry showered upstairs. 

Down by that kitchen, you've set up this Bluetooth speaker and quietly played music while cooking for everyone. If only circumstances improved. 

“Hey.” Slightly accented English caught your attention and you carefully turned around. 

“Almost done making dinner. Did you need something?” You asked. 

“Where's your outlet? I just need to charge my phone. ” Aretas lifted his cell. 

“Check underneath my kitchen counter.” You gestured for a moment and finished cooking as Armando walked over. 

“Thanks.” Armando plugged the phone and washed his hands, setting the table with five plates or matching silverware like second nature.  

When that kitchen table looked ready this evening, you'd texted the group chat and everyone started heading downstairs without fail. 

“Smells good in here.” Terry almost smiled over some good news. 

“Thank you, T.” You still expressed gratitude right now. 

“You're welcome.” Terry's bright eyes almost glinted once more. 

Kelly and Dorn sat together, but Armando observed when Terry found this spot near you. 

“Let's not mention the case. How's everyone feeling?” Dorn spoke up next. 

“Never respond. We'll end up with therapy cards…Ow!” When Armando faced Terry, you stepped on his foot under the table. 

“Don't be rude.” You say.

“That hurt.” Aretas clenched his words near you and Terry sipped water to avoid laughing. 

“Get some ice or stop complaining.” You're just trying to eat and Armando frustrated nerves once more. 

“Damn!” Even Terry chuckled while Kelly and Dorn almost looked on. 

“What's so funny?” Armando clipped venom toward Richmond this time. 

“Chill…” Terry warned. “Regardless of the case, you're getting uptight now.”

At that moment, Armando stopped talking and excused himself from this table, choosing to finish his meal outside near the patio. 

Ditching your meal, you followed his path and closed the sliding door. 

______

“What the hell?” Your voice started debating. “You can't keep doing this shit!”

“Go back inside and leave me alone.” Ignoring his plate now, Aretas locked eye contact with you. 

“Don't tell me what to do in my own house!” This nearly raging tone gritted anger. “I brought y'all here for safety reasons.” 

“Why even do it?” Armando kept going. “We can take care of ourselves and you're not a babysitter.” 

“I won't leave anyone behind, not even you, Armando.” No matter what happened next, your words shared this vow. 

“Thanks.” Heading back, Aretas found his spot at the table and tried to feel better. 

******

“Everything okay?” Terry checked on both of you when Kelly and Dorn planned to sleep. 

“We're good. See you in the morning.” Armando nodded and would shower late before resting himself. 

“Aight, see you tomorrow.” Richmond dapped up Aretas for the evening, but stayed downstairs with you. 

Glancing over your shoulder, smiled for their moment of kindness. 

_____

“Don't worry. I'll straighten things up. It's the least that I can do. Terry wanted to help out as you'd reorganize the kitchen. 

“We'll work together. Deal?” You compromised instead. 

“Deal.” Terry cleared different places as you cleaned up. “So how long did you stay with the police? Y'all have pictures everywhere.” 

“About seven years.” You've signaled the dishwasher. “AMMO wasn't even founded yet when I joined that precinct.” 

“Impressive.” Terry almost whistled before fanning out this new trash bag for the garbage. 

“Thank you.” You smiled and described the origin of your nickname: Rookie. “Mike and Marcus call me Rook because of my age. It's not an academy thing.”

“You know enough information and can't feel outdated here.” Terry washed his hands before sitting down in the living room once you both finished responsibilities. 

“Yeah. It's sad, but let's just say that older CIs aren't discreet anymore.” You joined Terry. “No comfort means no details.” 

“How did you find Big Dawg?” Almost laughing, Richmond vaguely referenced Armando. 

“Someone called with an anonymous tip that night.” You explained. “We locked down coordinates and found a bloodbath sprawled out near the Miami Harbor.” 

Shit! Richmond shook his head. 

“How rough?” Terry went on. 

“No survivors: shootings, stabbings, money toppled over that dock. It was one of the scariest things I've ever seen.” You remembered the problem, but never crossed Aretas until now. 

Before Terry asked further questions, you both looked up to see Armando heading back downstairs. 

Fuck. You thought. 

Fresh out of the shower, Aretas wore this tank top with loose pants, heading back to the kitchen. 

“What are you doing?” Changing the subject, you leave this couch and watch Armando get a snack. 

“Can't sleep?” You laughed. 

“Isn't it obvious?” Aretas casted both eyes toward that ceiling and found one bowl, dumping popcorn. 

“Grouch.” Chiding Armando, you gathered more snacks to share with Terry as well. “What's wrong this time?”

“Nothing.” Aretas declined. 

“Hey, don't start that shit again. “She's just checking on you, all right?” As his deep voice returned, Terry defended you while correcting Armando. 

“Stay out of it because I wasn't even talking to you.” Aretas clipped right back. 

“Be grateful that she didn't throw us to the wolves now.” Richmond nearly sized up Aretas while talking about your home. “What the hell is wrong with you, man?” 

“Stop taking charge.” Armando backed off and gestured around. 

“What are you talking about?” Terry squinted, puzzled. 

“You moved here and everybody thinks you're special, but I can't even spend five minutes alone with her.” Armando expressed himself. “Maybe we'd have a better relationship if you'd back off.” 

“Not my problem.” Terry lifted both hands, sitting beside you once more. 

“What do you want?” You crossed both arms and looked toward Armando. 

“Don't ask me that.” His voice noticed you even more as Armando took the popcorn and headed right back upstairs. 

“What?” Frustrated, you squinted near Terry by this point. 

“It's better for everybody if you talk to him. Good night.” Arching his brow, Richmond leaves you as well. 

______

When you finally planned to sleep in your own bedroom, someone knocked. 

You opened this door to see Armando standing in the hall.

“Hey. I'm sorry for irritating you…” Your voice trailed off when Aretas stepped closer. 

“I'm sorry.” His brown eyes locked your presence when Armando sniffled quietly. “I just…”

“Yeah?” You tried to listen because his voice still mattered. 

“Nothing changes what I did, but y'all still ganging up on me doesn't help, either.” Aretas expressed more feelings. “I might as well go back to prison.” 

“Maybe if you weren't so quick to hide from everyone, things would be different.” You offered another perspective. “I just wanna solve this case and go back to normal.”

“I know. It's not easy for me, but I'll try. Get some rest, okay?” Struggling this time, Armando stepped back and you could sleep without interruptions. 

******

By morning, everyone settled around the kitchen together when you finished cooking breakfast. 

“Pass the hot sauce, baby girl?” Terry slipped that nickname by you while looking for one condiment. 

“Here, T.” You didn't even correct him and exchanged the bottle, picking up silverware to eat again. 

“Thank you.” Terry nodded and spiced eggs for his meal, moving on. 

Dorn and Kelly froze in unison here, surprised beyond words. 

“Espero que te quemes la lengua.” Using his native language of Spanish, Armando wanted Richmond's tongue to burn. 

“What was that?” Terry caught on. 

“Doesn't matter.” Aretas stood from the table and noticed Richmond once more. “Help us solve the case or leave.”

“Back up. Gettin’ tired of your attitude.” Of course Terry wouldn't fight, yet patience grew thin. 

“Guys…” Dorn wanted to settle this problem for  everyone, but Kelly stopped him. 

Terry sat back down and still warned Armando. “I thought you wanted another chance here.”

“Stop assuming shit. You have no idea what's going on with me.” Aretas defended himself again. 

Out of nowhere, your phone rings, breaking silence and moving tension elsewhere. 

Putting the call on speaker for everyone, you know better this time. 

“Hello, who is this?” You leveled this question for so many reasons. 

“Hola, Mami. Que tal?” One familiar chuckle reached your phone when Armando's old goon Zway Rodriguez picked up. 

“What did you do?!” After reaching his breaking point, Aretas snapped upon realization, held back by Terry and Dorn when hearing Zway's voice. 

“Just keep me out of prison and I'll explain everything. Otherwise…” Zway requested his own terms. 

“What?!” Armando's rage only worsened, but Terry and Dorn still wouldn't let go of Aretas. 

“Be careful, man. I'd hate for this special girl to be the next target.” Zway dropped that call, bringing everyone into this chaotic frenzy. 

******

“Are you saying that Zway killed this coffee shop manager?” As you stayed home, Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett gathered AMMO members near the department. 

“We'll find out soon enough.” Dorn tracked information to find puzzle pieces for the case. 

“Compromised again?” Mike questioned protocol once more. 

“No, but if we don't listen to Rodriguez, she'll be dead.” Dorn grounded the truth with your safety and planned to lock that case. 

“Be careful while you plan Zway's interrogation, all right?” Marcus and Mike also warned Captain Rita Secada. “We can't even put Armando in the same building.” 

“Fair enough. Go ahead and deal with Rodriguez yourselves.” Rita stepped out of the precinct. 

________

“Listen, be grateful. Armando would've kicked your ass, Zway.” Marcus Burnett paced back and forth while questioning Rodriguez. 

“No, Marcus. If it wasn't for us, Zway would be dead at the morgue tonight.” Mike folded both arms and stood in one corner. 

“Keep me out of prison.” Zway dared to speak this time. 

“First of all, don't fuck around. Did you kill the coffee shop manager or not?” Mike Lowrey squinted. 

“Yeah.” Zway dropped his bored response without showing emotions. 

“Why?” Mike prompted immediate eye contact, keeping composure. 

“It's all revenge.” Zway continued. “I even planted drugs y'all found at the coffee shop.”

“Revenge for what?” Mike questioned. 

“When Armando shot me near that helicopter four years ago, I fell into water, but survived.” Zway revealed. “Keep me away from prison unless you want problems.” 

Glancing toward one another, Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett left the interrogation room. 

_______

“It's official, y'all. Zway just confessed to everything.” Marcus exposed the truth. 

“Is it possible to keep him out of prison?” Dorn looked concerned. 

“No. We need a different plan.” Marcus shook his head. 

“We've got no other choice, then.” Lowrey darkened his voice. 

“What the hell are we supposed to do?” Marcus worried. 

“Somebody needs to kill Zway.” Lowrey couldn't turn back this time. 

_______

While staying home as a precaution, you find Terry and Armando in the living room. 

“Hi.” You spoke up. 

“Hey.” Both protective men faced your direction as sympathy reached their eyes. 

“Thank you for looking out.” You've expressed so much more gratitude. 

The doorbell prompted all three of you to glance forward, but Terry checked your RING Camera first. 

“It's Lowrey and Burnett.” Terry pinpointed your friends. 

“Let them in, T.” You offered permission, but Armando stood up anyway, ready for the next plan. 

“Before we start talking about this shit, c'mere, Rook.” Lowrey opened both arms to hug you. 

And for the first time since handling Zway's call, your eyes began to well up. Even Marcus wouldn't pass jokes. 

“What's the plan?” Your kind voice lowered without hesitation. 

“Somebody needs to kill Zway, but Armando can't do it or he'll go right back to prison.” Mike revealed this truth. 

There's no other choice. You've realized the possible outcome. 

“All right, then.” Enough was enough. “Bring the squad together and back me up. Whatever happens, I'm not going down without a fight.”

______

By nightfall, members of the AMMO squad returned to your home and prepared this attack from different corners. 

“Watch the house, Terry.” You offered brief yet vital instructions. “That's all we need from you.” 

“Yes, Ma'am. Be careful.” Armed himself, Richmond focused as you rolled out with everyone and silently waited for more. 

******

“Have Armando take henchmen, Mike!” Marcus yelled out loud while steering another motorcycle and neon lights painted streets. "Don't let him catch Zway!” 

“This is a battlefield, Marcus!” Lowrey moved among blaring engines. “No more rules. I am not responsible for Armando tonight.” 

“What about his redemption, Mike?” Marcus still attempted to be logical. 

“If Rook dies, Armando's second chance won't even matter.” Lowrey gritted his teeth over your chance to live. “Let's go!” 

______

Zway Rodriguez punched speed without fail as racing motorcycles caught up. 

Glancing past his shoulder, Zway quickly realized that someone lifted their firearm while still directing the motorcycle. 

No! Only one person crossed missions through anger four years ago. 

Armando returned. 

“It's Aretas, move faster!” Zway attempted to warn other goons. 

While Zway prepared to dodge Armando, he didn't even notice that your motorcycle joined this fight. 

“Here's payback.” You pulled this trigger and immediately spiraled Zway's route, dashing to escape between shadows. 

“Zway's dead!” Armando turned near you without removing his helmet. 

“Follow back to my house! We gotta check on Terry.” You would return home as expected. 

******

No targets, only silence. 

Terry Richmond heightened awareness while keeping watch in your home. Even distant sounds located for the neighborhood matter at this point. 

When engines revved out loud to line up vehicles this evening, Terry knew that signal. 

The AMMO squad returned. 

“Open the door, T!” You hurried to run inside with everyone else. 

“C'mon!” Terry almost pulled the doorknob this time. 

Kelly and Dorn entered first, no longer hiding in that surveillance van. 

Mike and Marcus pulled through next as Rita stepped up before long. 

When you and Armando reached this house, pain nearly dampened Terry's face. 

Regardless of the plan, it's still a miracle that you're alive. 

Just when this group would settle with relief, lights shut down as the home turned pitch-black. 

“Stay armed and keep watch here! No friendly fire.” Terry warned you and the AMMO squad. 

Within seconds, glasses shattered from rear living room windows as bullets rattled, searching for carnage. 

“Look out!” You screamed, trying to defend yourself while every moment prompted chaos. 

Yet when lights returned for the living room, everyone else glanced around, realizing that Armando and Terry no longer battled here.

“Be careful while searching for them. We gotta move!” Lowrey stepped over countless bodies while instructing all of you. 

Where did y'all go?! Your thoughts rushed as panic heightened even more. 

______

“No corras!” Rasping Spanish once more, Aretas warned enemies not to run. Seconds later, vengeful bullets sparked through lethal fire. 

“I hear Armando's voice in the garage.” Kelly finally noticed echos. “Go, go, go!” 

Scoring the garage, you found absolute carnage here. Even Terry moved forward and disarmed other goons.

“Listen! Either deal with me or I'm throwing you to him. It's your choice.” Richmond still warned targets about Aretas. 

As bullets raced, fear struck combatants every single time. 

“Give me your weapons and leave.” Terry gritted without hesitation. 

While still fighting others, everything slowed down when this bullet pierced time. 

You fell back and toppled against the hard floor right now. 

“Dammit, she's hit. Armando!” Terry barked through shock. 

As blood spilled with each passing moment, you wince despite the guard of your own vest. 

Footsteps rushed to your aid as you still recognized Kelly and Dorn. 

“Call paramedics!” Dorn hurried. 

Rita, Mike and Marcus kept fighting elsewhere in the house, not realizing your injury yet. 

“T….” You struggled, grimacing without assistance. 

“We'll handle this, all right?” Terry still planned to help right now. “Keep your eyes open.” 

Soon enough, Footfalls dashed to reveal Armando's presence. 

“Move!” Slightly accented English pulled more feelings when Aretas shoved Richmond out of his way. “What the fuck happened?!

Entering the garage themselves, Mike, Marcus and Rita stood flabbergasted on sight. 

“Aw, shit!” Mike grilled everyone over your accident. “She's losing too much blood past the vest. Where's medical?!” 

“I already called for help!” Dorn shouted with an explanation. 

“Well, medics better hurry up and reach that bullet!” Marcus exposed his anger. “My niece is dying.” 

Just when you trembled near deadly pain, sirens wailed outside once more. 

******

While beeping sounded, fluorescent lights almost blinded your vision as you woke up in the hospital. 

“Hey, Rook.” Detective Mike Lowrey joined your bedside this morning. 

“H-Hi...” As you struggled talking, exhaustion replaced that cheerful voice. 

“Just take it easy.” Mike cautioned. When you sat up, different wires aided. 

“Terry and Armando?” You looked for Richmond and Aretas. 

“You got it. I'll get 'em right now.” Mike pointed between you and the door. 

_____

“She's awake, c'mon.” Crossing the lobby, Mike updated Terry and Armando as you wished.  

“Made it. How are you doing?” Before long, Terry knocked first and held flowers, showing this rare yet great smile. 

“Tired.” You attempted.

“Better than nothing. You're still here.” Terry joined the bedside chair and sat down. 

“What happened?” You couldn't help asking questions despite everything. 

“We barely reached the hospital and experts took out your bullet during surgery.” Richmond never lied. 

“Thank you.” Your pained voice expressed gratitude once more. 

“You're welcome.” Terry said. “Have you eaten yet?” 

“I can't stomach anything. Maybe later.” Even your throat seems uncomfortable. 

“Okay.” Richmond took notice. Let me know and we'll help out.” 

Knocks resumed and Armando stepped in, no longer wearing tactical gear. 

“Hey, sorry.” Aretas walked closer. “I got some water for you and the vending machine held up.”

“Thanks.” You tried. 

“We just found out that you'll be discharged soon.” Armando revealed. 

“How soon?” You questioned. 

“Tonight or tomorrow.” Armando nodded.

“Thank you.” It's a habit just to repeat that kind phrase. 

Even while you smiled through fatigue, your mood  brightened again. 

*****

Given permission to leave that hospital, you could finally return home, but wouldn't handle work until further notice. There's no other choice this time. 

Headlines soon revealed that the coffee shop became defunct. This establishment pulled too much drama following Zway's dark investigation. 

During your recovery, even Armando helped on a regular basis and only slept from his downtown apartment when working at the police station. 

Sooner than later, Mike Lowrey and Marcus  Burnett had planned another special cookout for the department. Friends still invited you today. 

Planning to leave with Armando, you both signaled the group chat first. 

“Where's Terry?” Moving near that driveway, you haven't heard from Richmond yet. 

“I don't know.” Armando finished packing this car as you joined the passenger seat. “He might've gone to the park early or something.”

Just before Aretas would drive, another vehicle pulled up. 

Richmond turned down the driver's seat window of this brand-new SUV.  

“What are y'all waiting for? Let's go!” Chuckling through joy, Terry guided your route toward the public park. 

This happy ending could shine at last. 

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for telling an old man to kill himself on his birthday?

btw this has transphobia homophobia racism in it so yeah be aware

i (cisM22) have a trans girlfriend (F23). we live in a relatively liberal area and, not to say that she isn't beautiful, but she doesn't pass all the way. but she has long hair and she was wearing a dress that day, so she looked very feminine.

we were on a date at a relatively fancy restaurant. we had reservations and everything. we sit down at our table and next to us as these six white old people having a fucking ball. they were loud as shit and obviously drunk but my gf and i just ignored it for a while because we wanted to have a good time.

one of them had a birthday cake set down in from of him and their drinks were topped off. and then, loud as shit, these wrinkly fucking ballsacks start spewing conservative hate. something about the florida anti-trans bills and how they should just round them together and shoot them. my girlfriend looked visibly uncomfortable so i called for a waiter and asked if we could get a table far away from them.

i guess they heard me and one of the old women looked at my girlfriend and murmured, "i guess he just couldn't handle the truth." and i felt nothing but rage, so i said, "what truth? that her tits are better than yours?" and from there it just went downhill.

i honestly can't remember much of the argument. it only lasted thirty seconds but in those thirty seconds, my girlfriend and one of the waiters were trying to calm us down. i had six crusty ass white people dogging on me, calling my girlfriend slurs, calling me slurs (i'm mexican), and i was saying shit about their dementia-ridden asses are gonna die alone in a nursing home cause they kids probably don't even talk to them cause "where the fuck they at gramps".

eventually the birthday bitch called me a faggot and i was like "this faggot is telling you to fucking kill yourself sir, shove that walking stick up your ass" and by that point they got security to escort me and my girlfriend out.

my girlfriend was in tears and really overwhelmed after that. she didn't say anything the whole ride home until we got there. she said that while she appreciated me defending her, i just caused an unnecessary scene, and telling that man to kill himself was too far. i apologized to her, even though the only thing i really feel bad about is making her cry, and i promised i wouldn't do it again.

i don't regret anything i did honestly. i just feel bad about ruining our date and making her cry. i don't think we should've been the ones to get kicked out of that restaurant either. i don't know if those old fucks got the boot, but i'm praying they break a hip or something.

aita?

What are these acronyms?

[scheodingers-muppet]

TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT (Stranger Things Version)

i have no clue why it took me this long, sorry guys

Fortnight: Jopper. “I was supposed to be sent away but they forgot to come and get me” “What about your quiet treason?” Joyce dating Bob. The references to spouses, “turned good neighbors”

Tortured Poets Department: Jancy. First part is from Jon’s pov. “you left your typewriter at my apartment” is such a Nancy line. “you’re in self-sabotage mode…but i’ve seen this episode and still love the show” Nancy self-sabotages a good bit, like with Steve or by fighting with Jonathan, etc. Second verse is Nancy. “You smoked than ate seven bars of chocolate” “I’ve read this one, where you come undone. I chose this cyclone with you” Both of them have seen each other at *lows,* spiraling and just doing bad, but they stick together and love each other

My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys: Mileven. Mike and his Wheeler Self Destruct Button (ie closing himself off) “he saw forever so he smashed it up” forever not even as like, them being together forever but even the fear that she’s always going to be connected to the upside down. “once i fix me, he’s gonna miss me” reminds me of El and Max at the mall

Down Bad: El. “just to do experiments on” “everything comes out teenage petulance” she is soooo teen girl. this one is mostly vibes, honestly

So Long, London: Mileven, from El's POV. "I saw in my mind fairy lights through the mist" "Pulled him in tighter each time he was drifting away" "Wet through my clothes, weary bones caught the chill" "I didn't opt in to be your odd man out" El being excluded in season 3. "How much sad did you think I had in me? How much tragedy?" "You swore that you loved me but where were the clues?"

But Daddy I Love Him: Steddie. The imagery of people seeing the singer (Steve) as socially above the love interest due to him being "crazy" and "chaotic." The town being against him, like in season 4. "I'll tell you something about my good name. It's mine alone to disgrace"

Fresh Out The Slammer: Jancy. "Fresh out the slammer, I know who my first call will be to" "Splintered back in winter," (Fall but) "Silent dinners" and Nancy breaking down over Barb in season 2, which is part of what led to her and Steve splitting up. "He didn't understand me" but Jonathan did

Florida!!!: the Bylers leaving Hawkins. “Little did you know your homes really only a town you’re just a guest in” Will and Jon were never really accepted, outside of a few people. “You pack you’re life away just to wait out the shitstorm back in Texas” Hawkins in this case, and Flordia would be California

Guilty As Sin?: beginning of Jancy, from Nancy’s pov. “this cage was once just fine” her relationship with Steve. the whole song is about wanting someone else while in a relationship.

Who’s Afraid Of Little Old Me?: El. “my bare hands paved their path” “crash the party like a record scratch” “i was tame, i was gentle til the circus life made me mean” the circus life being the rainbow room. “they say they didn’t do it to hurt me, but what if they did?” “you wouldn’t last an hour in the asylum where they raised me” “I am what I am cause you trained me”

I Can Fix Him: Steddie, from Steve’s pov. "They shake their heads saying 'God help *her*'" the entire town hates Eddie. "His hand, so calloused from his pistol, softly traces hearts on my face" Eddie's hands would be literally calloused, from the guitar, but also it's a good metaphor for him having to be tough due to his circumstances, yet still being soft and gentle with the person he loves.

loml: Jopper, from Joyce's pov before they had Hopper back. "Who's going to stop us from waltzing back into rekindled flames?" "Thought I better safe than starry-eyed" "I wish I could un-recall how we almost had it all" "Should've let it stay buried" "you're the loss of my life"

I Can Do It With A Broken Heart: Nancy and El. "I'm a real tough kid, I can handle my shit" El has the more breakup-oriented side of things, but Nancy's broken heart stems from losing Barb. The second verse hits for that. "I keep finding *his* things in drawers, crucial evidence I didn't imagine the whole thing" "all the pieces of me shattered while the crowds were chanting 'more!'" works for both.

The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived: Max about Billy. Hear me out. "You tried to buy some pills from a friend of friends of mine" if Billy was still alive i just KNOW he would try to buy from Eddie. "I just want to know if rusting my sparking summer was your goal" Billy was awful to Max. "Were you sent by someone who wanted me dead?" "In 50 years will all this be declassified, and you'll confess why you did it" "You deserve prison but you won't get time" "You are what you did. I'll forget you but I'll never forgive" I think it's safe to say Max has very complex emotions about Billy, still loving him for what he could have been, but still being really hurt and effected but his actions that cause a weird grief that I think this song conveys rather well

The Alchemy: Lumax, from Max's pov. This is gonna get kinda cheesy, stick with me. "The hospital was a drag, worst sleep I ever had" "Haven't come around in so long, but I'm coming back so strong" Max has been distant with Lucas but we finally see her starting to warm back up before Vecna gets her. The sports metaphors also fit. Wrong sport, obviously but ya know. "The sign on your heart says it's still reserved for me"

Clara Bow: Nancy and Karen. I think Karen was once a lot like Nancy. (i have not seen anything about the musical so I have no clue if that's canon but) and I think she sees a lot of herself in Nancy. The constant comparison to the women that came before you and you being the next great thing. Knowing someone will come after you, too. "Only when your girlish glow flickers just so do they let you know it's hell on earth to be heavenly"

The Black Dog: Byler, from Will's pov. "I move through the world with my heartbroken. My longings stay unspoken" "You said I needed a brave man then proceeded to play him until I believed it too" Mike was the one who spearheaded saving Will, even when he was scared. "Remember how my rain-soaked body was shaking"

imgonnagetyouback: Steddie. Why? I decided. The tension of "I hate you but I want you" and not being able to decide which one is stronger is so them

The Albatross: El. "She's the albatross, she is here to destroy you" "Locked me up in towers but I'd visit in your dreams" "I'm the albatross, I swept in at the rescue"

Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus: The Byers about Mike. "Hands in the hair of somebody in darkness...and I just watched it happen" Will about Mike, watching him get with El. "If you want to break my cold, cold heart, just say 'I love you the way that you were'" Mike confessing to Will would rock his world, and vice versa, but they've both been changed so much. "You said some things that I can't unabsorb" the “it’s not my fault you don’t like girls” “too impaired by my youth to know what to do”

How Did It End?: joyce after hopper “died.” “lost the game of chance, what are the chances?” “guess who we ran into at the shops, walking in circles like she was lost” “my beloved ghost and me”

So High School: it could be stancy, but i like it being jopper. a lot of it can be applied to any of the couples during their good moments, but i think since joyce and hopper are *out* of high school and actually look back on their flirting in high school as nostalgic, it adds to it

I Hate It Here: karen. HEAR ME OUT. i think karen used to be *just* like nancy, with big dreams and ambition, used to be dedicated to her grades while still having a good social life, etc. and i think she misses that. “tell me something awful, like you’re a poet trapped inside the body of a finance guy” about ted, who used to be romantic when they were teens. “i was a debutant in another life but now i seem too scared to go outside” “no mid-sized city hopes” “only the gentle survived; i dreamt about it in the dark the night i felt like i would die”

thanK you aIMee: either el about the rainbow room or eddie about jason if he didn’t die and made it big

I Look in People’s Windows: jonathan. there’s the obvious joke, but genuinely. we don’t necessarily see him look for someone in specific, but i imagine this is how he felt after his dad left

The Prophecy: steve. both in terms of him finding love and breaking out of the jerk-popular-guy role/getting the upside down closed forever. mainly in the bridge for the latter.

Cassandra: el and joyce. verse one is season one joyce. “that’s where i was when i got the call” with will going missing. “when the truth comes out it’s quiet” the imagery of not being believed and being treated bad by the town. second verse is el, about the rainbow room. “in my tower weaving nightmares, twisting my smiles into snarls” “what doesn’t kill you makes aware but what happens when it becomes who you are?” bridge is both. “bloods thick but nothing like a payroll. bet they never spared a prayer for my soul” about the people working the rainbow room and the government keeping everything quiet.

Peter: byler, from wills perspective. “in closets like cedar preserved from when we were just kids. was it something i did?” “promises, ocean deep but never to keep” “a natural scene stealer” “life was always easier on you than it was on me” the BRIDGE

The Bolter: robin. i can’t really explain why but it is

Robin: nancy about holly

The Manuscript: joyce. once again, can’t fully explain it. but it is.

[super-ion]

Aug-UST Day 17 - From rival factions

Some original fiction of character ideas that have been rattling around in my brain for a while now, based on a prompt from @thepromptfoundry

---

I heave against the barn door and in a horrible cacophony, it grinds closed. It's still cold as hell, but at least we're out of the wind and snow.

I should probably place wards on the doors... and windows... and...

I glance up at the roof of the barn where wind whistles through more than a few holes that need patching. Yeah, no amount of warding is going to make this place defensible. Honestly, it's probably better not to use any magic at all, lest we give away our position.

That and I'm completely exhausted, I very much doubt I have any effort to spare for a half decent ward.

Getting eaten by zombies on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain was not how I imagined myself going out.

A hiss of a match brings my attention back to the here and now. Katerina is stooped over a glass lantern that shortly casts a sickly yellow light over the room. For a moment, I get that same brief impression of too many shadows around her. Spending a week with her has done little at temper the strangeness of her magic to my senses, that blend of traditional Eastern European craft and whatever the hell the Soviets have been dreaming up.

She straightens, bearing the lantern aloft and peering around the room as she carelessly brushes the curtain of her dark hair behind her ear. The flickering lamplight casts her bony features in sharp relief, and it really isn't that hard to imagine her as some witch living in a hut in the woods that walks around on chicken legs. There's something hard yet beautiful about her. She's...

"Elizabeth, you are bleeding," she says cutting through my thoughts.

I raise a hand to the wet spot on my temple.

"It's just a scratch," I reply. "It looks worse than it is."

She frowns and strides towards me.

"Let me see," she demands.

"It's nothing," I insist, probably sounding petulant, which is not at all my intent.

"It is not nothing if those beasts hunt by smell."

Damn, she's got me there.

She sets the lantern on the ground and takes my head in her hands. Her touch is surprisingly gentle as she makes her examination.

My heart speeds up at the touch.

Get it together Liz, I tell myself. She's the enemy.

Is she though?

Only a few months ago, our two nations were bearing down on one another in the waters between Cuba and Florida. Even the mundane world understood how close everything had come to all going to hell.

Right now though? Here in this barn in the East German countryside? We are just two witches, just two women united against a common enemy.

She murmurs something in a language I don't recognize and a blessed warmth flows through me, centering on the cut on my scalp.

Her eyes meet mine, those dark pools of intensity captivating me. The gaze lingers. The gentle touch of her fingers against my cheek linger. Her eyes flicker to my lips briefly, erasing any doubt that she hasn't felt the exact same feelings that had been haunting me.

Unbidden, my breath hitches. We are so close, it would be the easiest thing in the world to close that distance between us.

This is...

This is a terrible idea. At the end of the day, common enemy or no, we are still agents of rival governments.

I watch as the exact same thought plays out in her head. Something in her expression closes off and she jerks her hands away.

"We should get some rest," she mutters. "We will both need all our strength in the morning."

"Yeah..." I agree reluctantly.

[rcdamancy]

˓   ᠀୧   ʾ   the moral of ' snow white ' is never eat apples .

her childhood smelled of apples and cinnamon, the aroma never to leave her, but such was expected for a child raised on an apple orchard in arkansa with an aunt and single mother and rotation of potential father figures, who in reality, wanted a piece both figuratively and literally of the apple pie fortune that was their orchard. and all the rest that was to be known? well that was tucked away in a keepsake box in the attic. right beside birthday cards from an oddly estranged uncle, her mother's high school yearbook and a photograph of who she believed must have been her father.

this would be confirmed on juliet's twenty-first birthday when she had finally gone looking for the man and arrived at his doorstep in palmview, flordia. strangely the same place her last birthday card had been sent from. and her father ... well, he certainly hadn't held up to whatever fairytale version of a prince charming her mother had told her about as a child. met on holiday to a sunny destination certainly seemed the only accurate part of it all and the fact that he was married now to a woman who put all the villainous step mothers to shame, at least by the standards juliet held.

slowly from then the aroma of apples would drift across to the sunshine state known for their oranges, beaches and appalling step mothers ... she'd stay only for a summer before returning to her mother and escaping the disdained glances that would return the next time juliet would arrive with a suitcase full of swimsuits, shorts and another birthday card.

but this, like most things in her life, from simply bad luck that could range from stepping on a wad of bubble pink chewing gum on the ground or crashing into a tower of hot coffee the moment she entered a coffee to shop what was to come served to be the start of a very unfortunate series of events. just shy of her twenty - eighth, the apple orchard had gone up in flames, said to be an accident by local reports but there were other suspicions.

her aunt in particular, a woman of desperation, had sought juliet's newfound connection with her father to regain what funds they might have lost. ' go to him, you need to get to know your father better than just a few summers. ' she would claim, and so juliet did. leaving three months ago for florida where she stayed but two a month at most before the search for somewhere else to live had been suggested by both juliet and her father's wife. step mother really did sound so contrived for the image she'd conjured up when telling others about the woman. but what did her mother know? her father didn't seem to hang expensive paintings on walls nor was he walking around with hundreds in his wallet, but just upstairs behind a painting in a room where the door creaked every time it was moved was a safe and in that safe an envelope and in that envelope a will with the name of his only child squarely on the claim of everything he held.

( this honestly got far too long, please ignore . )

tldr ; she has very bad luck, clumsy at times, innovative and inventive, working at the book nook after several visits to florida during the summer to visit the father she met for the first time at twenty - one, she moved to palmview three months ago, grew up on an apple farm that burnt to the ground recently ... the smell is never going to leave her she fears. and her step mother feels a little too likened to disney villains.

[pantpisser9000]

Combined Together, Chapter 4: Finally assembled

After work, Peso trudged back through the snowy terrain, and walked inside his house. He’d be enjoying all of this before he left. “Ma, I have a huge announcement for dinner.” Peso said, and she looked happy, though was that a hint of sadness in her eyes? Peso didn’t quite know. Physcology wasn’t his field of expertise. Pinto pestered him about it, and Peso just kept on telling him to “wait until dinner” which didn’t stop his insistence. 

Once they had sat down for dinner, they were all expecting Peso. “So, um.. I- you know that job, last night I mentioned?” he asked, and they all nodded. “I’m.. well, I- okay, I accepted it. I’m guaranteed to work there, now.” he said, and Pinto cheered. “Now you’re an adventurer! You better take me on your awesome adventure someday!” his mother looked at Pinto, “Maybe when you’re a little older, sweetie.” she softly said, which Pinto promptly ignored. 

“W-well I’m.. I’m still a medic. Just on a submarine.” Pinto didn’t care, his brother was on a submarine! His tail was wagging like a dog, (Peso honestly didn’t know Penguins did that, but the more you know, right?) and feathers were where ears would usually be.

“Good job,” Pogo commented, clapping a little. Pinata looked impressed too. “I think you’ve outdone yourself, Peso.” she said, agreeing with her twin. His mother looked to be tearing up a little. “I’m.. I’m so happy for you, Peso. Will you be able to call?” she asked, and Peso nodded. “There’s internet on the submarine” he said, which made Pinata’s attention perk up again. “..do you know if they have any open positions?” she asked. Peso guessed by how they were launching soon, they didn’t. “I don’t think so,” he said, laughing a little. 

She sulked a tad at that, and the table burst out in laughter, (she joined in, too) and Peso pushed the thought that said, You’ll miss them so much, is this really the best decision? 

But Peso knew it was, they’d all be fine without him. And he was ecstatic to be helping many many creatures. That night, he went to his room and packed. Pinto helped him, saying that he should bring over one of his comics so he “wouldn’t forget him”, and Peso laughed as he put it in his suitcase, saying, “I don’t think I’ll ever forget you.”

Though, there was one nagging thought he was trying to get rid of. 

What if the crew hates me?

If they did, he’d return. Though, then everyone would be disappointed, right? He’d just.. Not be a yes-man, he had a little more dignity than that, but just.. Stay out of any trouble. There were bound to be fights, of course, though Peso wanted no part in any of them. He wasn’t one to yell, and certainly not anyone to hurt anyone. He didn’t think he could even throw a punch without crying. 

—

The Captain was excited. The team was assembled. Dashi had managed to get to Florida for her last flight, so she was there. Tweak was obviously there, and Kwazii was as well. They’d be cruising over to Scotland, to pick up their marine biologist, Dr.Shellington and the Professor. Then, they’d be going to the arctic to pick up their medic, Dr. Peso. 

“Everyone,” the Captain boomed. Dashi and Tweak, who were talking, looked over, and Kwazii, who had been busy trying to figure out how many flips he could do in a row, steadied himself and looked over as well. “We have our marine biologist and our medic secured. We’ll be heading to Scotland to pick up the biologist and the Professor. Then, to the arctic, to pick up our medic.” 

“That is, if everything’s ready, Tweak?” the Captain asked, and Tweak pulled a carrot out of her pocket, taking a bite. “Everythin’ should be, Cap. Looks good. Dashi?” she asked, and Dashi looked at the screen. “Looks good to me as well.” she said, nodding. “Well, I think it’s time to board, then.” the Captain commanded, motioning for them to get on the Octopod.  

Barnacles watched as they all boarded. First, Tweak. She walked up the ramp into the ‘mouth’ of the Octopod confidently, with Dashi trailing behind her. Kwazii sauntered in after them, tail swishing excitedly behind him and ears perked. Barnacles boarded last, stepping up and pressing the button to lower the ramp. Once they were all in the hq, they were in their places. Kwazii was just kinda hanging out in hq, Tweak in the launch bay, and Dashi at her station. 

The Captain turned on the loudspeaker for all of the workers outside of the ship to hear. “LOWER US!” he commanded, and slowly, but surely, the Octopod was lowered. All of them were standing confidently, or at least sitting. Kwazii and Barnacles both had built up sea-legs, and working as a flight attendant helped Dashi get used to a somewhat similar situation. They didn’t have Tweak on the screen at the moment, she was checking on the gups. 

Soon, it entered the water. Tweak came in through the screens in the hq. “Launch bay filled and Octo-hatch closed.” she told him, motioning backwards. Captain Barnacles came back in through the loudspeakers, “Continue lowering!” he said, and his demands were met immediately. 

And soon, they were consumed by water. Kwazii had his hands pressed to the glass, looking outside. “I’ve never been on a sub before..” he muttered, in awe. Right, Kwazii had never actually been in anything like this before. Neither had Dashi or Tweak, actually, though Dashi didn’t seem as amazed by it. 

“Dashi, activate steering,” he commanded, “On it, Captain.” Dashi replied shortly, pressing the button and the Captain felt the ground under him heighten. “Shiver me whiskers..” was the last thing he heard as he was greeted by the wheel. He placed his hands confidently on it, and began steering. He’d be just getting them out of the port, and then automatic steering (with the assistance of Dashi) would take over. 

Weaving through, they got through without a problem. The Captain lowered himself, before commanding, “Put on the automatic steering, Dashi.” he requested, and Dashi once again said, “On it.”, and almost autonomously doing it. Suppose Tweak’s preparation programs worked well. Barnacles thought, hands behind his back. Kwazii walked up to him, standing beside him. He didn’t address him, for some reason. “Scotland, right?” he asked. 

“Yes, Kwazii.” Barnacles replied, which he nodded at. “I never have gone.” he commented, and Barnacle was slightly expecting that. “Where have you been, exactly?” he questioned, and Kwazii thought for a moment. “Well I’m from.. Uh.. well, wherever I’m from, all the oceans and seas, and now Florida. And soon Scotland.” he said. “You don’t remember where you’re from?” Barnacles asked. 

Sure, he knew Kwazii had a few.. Issues with remembering anything from before his pirate days, (that he refused to talk about more than just the stories he shared about sea monsters) the guy literally hadn’t remembered what a bathtub was. Of course, Kwazii never admitted that, though Barnacles could tell just by his reaction and the delay of turning it on and the clear confused shuffling around in the bathroom. 

Though Kwazii also couldn’t really read too well, (and while Barnacles had no interest in sharing that–Kwazii’d probably be incredibly embarrassed if he did, and also hold a grudge for a while) and couldn’t really do math either, at the very least the Captain had expected him to know where he came from. “Naw,” Kwazii said. He seemed unbothered, though it was a tad hard to read the guy. “Hm. Interesting.” Was all the Captain said, and to him, Kwazii looked like he was itching to say more, though he certainly didn't want to pry. Plus, this was his co-worker, and he didn’t think they were close enough for him to ask more. So they just stood there awkwardly for a moment, until Kwazii walked away, over to the Octochute. “Kwazii? Do you.. Know how to use it?” the Captain enquired, and Kwazii whipped his head back. “Uhh- aye.” 

Barnacles, an eyebrow raised, wasn’t quite impressed. “Mhm. How about I show you, just in case?” he said, and Kwazii, pursing his lips, reluctantly agreed. “Aye, alright.” The Captain jumped, and the chute opened as he was going down, making him pummel down the metal-slide-like thing. He arrived in the small room in between–it was about the space of a small elevator, or an American bathroom stall. 

Kwazii jumped out right after him, his stance wide. To be fair, he’d never done it before. “Me rooms.. Wait, Cap, that ain’t– me name is spelled k, w, a, z, i, i.. Not k, w, a, z, z, i..” he noted, and Captain looked at the sign on his door. “Oh. Apologies, Kwazii. I’ll get that updated soon. Just a bit surprisedj you.. Noticed..” he said, coughing to hide the comment. 

“Hey! Just cus I be unable to.. Read.. all that well.. Doesn’t mean I can’t recognize me own name!” he said, a little mad. “Sorry, sorry.” the Captain apologized, which Kwazii shrugged at. “It be alright.” 

Why was Kwazii so difficult to understand? The Captain thought briefly, but then he remembered Kwazii wasn’t raised regularly. He didn’t seem to remember much if anything before he got picked up by those pirates, (Barnacles was still unsure when and how that had happened-surely his parents had been worried, right?) and lived on a boat for clearly a very very long time. 

The Captain was unsure how long, of course, Kwazii didn’t even know his own age (which was a whole other can of worms) and while Kwazii had shared more personal things.. He really didn’t know much about the guy. He trusted him enough to be on the ship, (while Kwazii was less of an actual lieutenant/second in command at the moment, he was more so just a helper/assistant at the moment) and he knew he had a good heart but his pirate past was truly mysterious as hell. 

Kwazii stepped in his room, glancing around. Barnacles looked in behind him briefly. There.. Wasn’t much. Only one box. To be fair, Kwazii had bought a thing or two in Florida, so there was a tad more than what he had before. 

Barnacles decided to leave Kwazii to it though, instead opting to go to his own room, which had a lot more boxes. While he didn’t have too much control over it, as his polar-bear side came out just whenever he needed more strength or he assumed likely under intense stress as well, he could sometimes control it a little more. Grunting, he managed to get hands almost fully polar-bear like–at least enough so that his claws were out. (and his more Polar-bear like ears) Slicing his claw through the tape on all the boxes, he balled up his fist and the fur and ears went away. 

Opening up box by box, he put his other pajamas in his closet first, set up his small cubby-shelf thingy, putting his few books away in it. Hanging up his pictures near his bed, and decorating his room with the other things he had brought with him–he was just a tad surprised he had been able to finish so quickly. It was nice Tweak had the idea of asking everyone what type of wallpaper they wanted–for almost all the rooms, too. There were still a few unfinished things decor wise, though. Mainly just painting the GUPS and working on the helmets, which Tweak would likely start with once she was 100% sure everything was working. 

Stepping out of his room, the Captain launched himself down the chute, landing standing up, hands on his hips in the hq. “Dashi, is everything looking good?” he asked, and she swiveled back to look at him. “Yes, Captain. No storms or anything in sight, either.” the Captain nodded. “Wonderful.” he was very stern-sounding, or at least he hoped he did. As the Captain, he needed to be the most professional out of all them, by far. Besides maybe Inkling, but the guy was just professional by nature– no need to try hard.

The Captain decided to look at the Garden–they unfortunately, didn’t have anyone to do the cooking and gardening for them specifically, so the Octonauts themselves would have to do it. He.. didn’t know too much about Gardening, though he knew Tweak did. Luckily, at the very least, they wouldn’t have to worry about their clothes getting dirty quite yet. They hadn’t actually gotten their uniforms–he knew Inkling was actually working on them getting them made, while in Scotland. Tweak was making some sort of special collar (like a fancy shirt’s collar, not one for a pet) that would basically give them a bubble/helmet so that they could breathe underwater in an instant, as well as a radio. He knew that was her priority over painting the GUPS–he was a little worried if she could get it done before they got their last member. 

He then remembered he had to come up with a few things so that everyone could get to know each other–he and Inkling had both discussed a sort of name game, and Barnacles decided he wanted to narrow it down just a little more. There was one he’d done in Polar scouts when it had first started, Professor Natquik had taught it to them. 

Basically, everyone got in a circle, and the first person would say their name and then have a little motion, for example a clap. Then the next person would say their name and a new motion, then everyone would say the new person’s name and motion, then the previous person’s name and motion, and so on until everyone in the circle’s name had been said. He honestly liked that one–maybe it was because it was one he had familiarized himself with, though. 

He considered asking one of the other members, though part of him also wanted it to be a bit of a surprise, so he decided not to. 

Launching himself to the garden chute, he looked at all of it. He knew they had an automatic sprinkling system, so they didn’t need to water it manually, though they still needed to check to 1; make sure said system was working, 2; check to see if any of the crops were ready. Tweak had planted them herself, (Her father had actually came over to help her, he knew more about farming anywho) and Barnacles trusted that it’d work well. 

…It was a tad boring at the moment… 

Though Kwazii was bored at the moment, sitting in his new, nice, non-hammock bed, tossing his yarn ball in the air, he knew it’d up in action after their missions actually started, and they got the rest of the crew. He had only crashed a few times in that training simulator, but to be fair, he thought the fake-subs could maneuver quicker! He hoped that the real submarines, the ‘GUPS’ as they were called, could move faster! How were they supposed to do awesome tricks–er, save creatures, if the GUPS were slow! 

Kwazii knew they had to wait till everything was done and they had the rest of the crew, but that didn’t mean he didn’t wanna zoom around in a fast GUP everywhere, weaving through.. Coral, or something. As long as Kwazii had spent sailing, he honestly didn’t really know much about anything under the water. Besides the sea monsters, of course! That was one of the few things he had remembered from his childhood, (and one of the few things he would likely share from his pirate life) were the tales Calico Jack had told him about the fearsome beasts that laid just under the surface! 

Kwazii was excited to slay those foul beasties! He was certain he’d find at least one, even if that might mean sneaking out to find one. He had a feeling that the other members wouldn’t quite believe him, especially those more serious ones. Namely that dog girl and he was certain that the scientist guy wouldn’t… He might hold off on speaking about them until either they were actively relevant or he just knew the rest of the crew better.

Obviously, Kwazii knew he likely couldn’t ever trust the rest of his crew, after what had happened with Wo-.. him, Kwazii knew that he had to go by his gut. His own morals. Not let anyone tell him what to do, unless they had the same plan or ideas. He had a few goals while he was staying with the Octonauts, too. (it was entirely possible that while the Captain had accepted him, and the Professor, (who seemed a tad apprehensive during the interview, even though Kwazii was OBVIOUSLY a good pirate) had let him join, and those two girls he was with now at the very least didn’t mind him, that the others..? They might HATE him. So, therefore, they could get him kicked off, since it was likely that the others would believe them over a pirate like himself.) 

The main goals (some were more so just rules, not goals, but Kwazii didn’t care enough to distinguish those) were;

1: Encounter/slay/fight at least one monster

2: Not let anyone know about his lack in actual subjects like reading, math, and science and history too. 

3: Don't trust anyone. As nice as they might seem, Kwazii knew better than to actually trust people. He liked the Captain, sure, but he would never actually trust him. 

4: Do not let anyone know about the majority of his pirate life. He wasn’t sure if the Blackclaw pirates were infamous or not, so it was better just not to mention that he was a part of that crew, or him at all. He’d probably lie and say he wasn’t with a crew for most of his life. 

Now, he was still bored. Jumping back down the chute, he wobbly landed out in the hq. He took a glance out the window–unsurprisingly, it was just water. Disappointed there were no sea monsters, he pouted a little. Though, he supposed it was a good idea to get to know the ship, explore a bit if you will. So, he hopped in the chute, and popped out in a hallway. 

He looked, and there were three doors. One for the library, one for the infirmary, and one for the laboratory. He was glad there were pictures, not words, in all honesty. While he wasn’t.. Super interested in the library, he was a little curious on how big it was. 

“Shiver me whiskers..” he muttered as he wandered in, it was huge–larger then he was expecting, at least. He had no interest in reading any of the books, obviously, though that was partially because he couldn’t (or at least not well) and partially because he’d likely find all of those books boring. He walked out as quickly as he had walked in. He took a glance in the laboratory and infirmary, but they seemed a little… barren. Sure, there was stuff in them, but no decor, and certainly not as much stuff as he had expected. And, he didn’t want to touch anything in either room in fear of accidentally breaking anything. Walking back to a chute, he jumped down, landing in a large, spacious area with a pool of water. And he heard some tinkering sounds, so he followed where his ears took him, and they led him to an area with some pipes and that Tweak girl working on some stuff. “Aye, matey.” he said. He wasn’t really worried about bothering her–it wasn’t like if she was startled she would drop something that could hurt her or anything of the nature. She whipped her head back, blinking. “Heya,” she said, confusion littered across her face. “What’re you doin’ here?” she asked, and Kwazii shrugged. “I be bored.” he said, and she stuck out her tongue, thinking. “Y’know, y’ could help me paint the gups. I needed some help with that, anyways.” she said, putting down her tool and walking over to Kwazii. “I’ve already done the GUP A, so you can start with the GUP B.” she said, pointing at an almost sharkish-torpedo like metal structure. It looked fast. Kwazii smirked “Issit fast?” he asked, and Tweak grinned. “Fastest I’ve got. Proud of er. I have some paint cans ‘n brushes over by where I was workin, if ya wanna take em.” she said, and Kwazii nodded. He took a can of orangish paint, (and was very grateful the cans had their colors colored on them) and some white and black, and a few brushes. Tweak seemed relieved she’d be getting help with it. He sat down, in that one pose that adults told you not to sit in when you were a kid cus it was ‘bad for you’ (basically on your knees but with your legs spread out instead of next to each other) and dipped the paintbrush in the orange, beginning to paint the GUP. He was just happy to have a distraction. Tweak wasn’t one he expected to be for small talk, but he was open to it once she started. “So, how’d ya get selected?” she asked, still tinkering away. Kwazii snickered a little, “Well, ya see, I be on a.. Raft, of sorts. An’, when gettin’ parts or somethin’, he found me out on th’ open ocean.” he explained. “Why were ya on a raft?” she asked, and Kwazii was silent for a moment. He wasn’t a (extreme) liar, though he also wasn’t going to explain the real situation. “...just was.” he responded. He was grateful when Tweak seemed to get the hint and didn’t pry. 

“Howabout you? How’d y’ be selected?” Kwazii asked, and Tweak replied quickly. “I was workin’ for this repair company, an’ the Professor came in, wanting a engineer, and while my manager declined completely, I overheard and reached out. We discussed plans and ideas, and I ended up being the main engineer.” 

Kwazii, dipping the paintbrush back in the paint and making another stroke on the GUP, “That be pretty great. Wait,” Kwazii blinked, looking away from his work. “Did ya make ALL of this?” he asked, and Tweak chuckled. “Yup. The Octopod herself, the GUPS, everythin’.” Even to Kwazii, that was a massive feat. He wasn’t one to compliment most of the time, though that was certainly, “Impressive,” he said. He tried not to show too much awe. Didn’t want to give her the wrong impression.

“Thanks.” she simply said, before asking another question. Kwazii would obviously never trust her, but her talking to him was nice. “What color are ya paintin’ her?” she asked, and Kwazii replied “Orange. It’s the best color, after all.” he said, grinning. “Pft, right. Clearly green’s the best!” she said, and they both laughed. “Naw, naw, orange. I mean, it’s the color of me fur!” he said, and Tweak chuckled. 

“Well green’s the color of my fur–or, hair, I guess.” she bantered back, to which Kwazii playfully responded, “Well, I be better though, so,” and for a moment Tweak was silent, and Kwazii wondered if she was a tad less blunt and.. Able to handle that kinda thing then he thought, though that thought was proven wrong immediately. “Oh, right? May I remind ya who designed the very ship yer paintin?” she asked, jokingly. 

“That may be true, but I could beat y’ in a fight, I’m sure!” Kwazii bragged, and at first he thought maybe Tweak’d leave it at that point. Until, “Prove it.” she challenged. “Does that be a challenge?” he asked, and he heard the sound of a tool being put on the table, and Tweak walked out of the pipe room, readying her fists. “Yes it does.” she said, grinning. Kwazii placed the paintbrush back in the can, and stood up. “Let’s go.” he said, readying his own fists. “No claws, no serious harm,” Tweak said, which Kwazii agreed on. Especially since they didn’t have a medic yet. “Just fun.” she finished, and Kwazii nodded, and “3, 2, 1!” 

Kwazii pounced, hands on her shoulders, pinning her down (in a non-sexual way, just to be clear. These bitches are FIGHTING, and not in the ‘fighting with their tongues way’) and before he could declare himself the winner, Tweak butted him in the stomach with her knee, making him fall back a bit. “Yow!” was all he exclaimed, as Tweak stood on him 

“Hah! I won. Faster than ya could say buncha munchy crunchy carrots!” she said, triumphantly. Kwazii grinned, though a little embarrassed he lost. “I’ll beatcha once we get that medic,” he said, sharp teeth gleaming. “Sureee.” Tweak responded, hands still confidently on her hips and head tilted to the side. Kwazii actually looked at her now–he hadn’t really thought about what anybody looked like, but now he realized that line earlier implied her hair was naturally green. He certainly couldn’t judge her outfit though, (black tanktop and jeans) because one, he definitely didn’t have ANY sense of fashion, he was wearing some of the Captain’s old clothes, after all. Grey t-shirt that was way too large on his skinny frame, and jeans that would be quite tight on the captain that weren’t at all on Kwazii. 

“Wait, yer hair naturally be green?” he asked, genuinely, and she just nodded confidently. “Yup! Pretty great, yeah?” Kwazii nodded. “That be true. What, y’ part plant or somethin?” he questioned, and Tweak laughed. “Naw, rabbit.” she said, and confusion washed over Kwazii’s face. “Rabbits be green?” he asked, now even more clueless. “I don’t think any other rabbits besides me an’ me Pa are.” Tweak replied, shrugging. 

“Well, shiver me whiskers..” Kwazii muttered, and Tweak held out her hand, which Kwazii took, dusting himself off. “I.. I should be gettin’ back t’ painting.” he said, grinning. “And I’ll get back t’ makin’ our helmet-radio-neckcoverings.” she said, and before Kwazii could express his confusion she said, “You’ll see later.”

Kwazii pursed his lips–he wanted to know what the hell she meant by that, (and badly ) though even if his patience was practically non-existent, he had a feeling she wouldn’t let up. She seemed a lot more.. Well, patient. And very persistent. So, he walked back over to the GUP B, picking up his paintbrush and sloshing it in the orange paint, as he heard the twisting in of parts.

Tweak had her tongue stuck out–that wire just wasn’t getting in place properly, it was almost creating a little mountain of sorts of itself, so she gave it a little hit on the side and it was in well. That little fight she had just had with Kwazii was entertaining–she found it a little funny how full of himself he was. And the gall he had to say he’d win the next time! 

Though she appreciated him painting the GUP B, it would save her a little time later. She had the sneaking suspicion he wouldn’t help paint any other of the GUPS, though, since he already seemed infatuated with the GUP B. It made sense, he clearly wanted something to go fast (he had said that was why he had crashed in the simulation–he thought the simu-GUPS would go faster) and like she had said, the GUP B was by far her fastest. 

She was proud of it–it would be good for missions where someone needed to dive down and scoop something up, or evade someone dangerous, or just distract someone or something. It was good. She had a feeling it’d be wrecked by Kwazii often enough, so she was glad she had so much extra material. 

Eventually, Kwazii had announced he was done, and promptly (just like Tweak was expecting) he left, off to do his own thing. It was too bad, Tweak would’ve enjoyed some company. Tweak knew that Dashi girl was busy, doing checks and everything, though she wondered how the hell she’d be able to sit in that chair all day! Tweak always had to be tinkering, personally, or at least moving or something!Genuinely, she had no idea how that girl was able to keep that together. Though, she did appreciate the help with the wifi stuff and the ideas that Dashi had brought forward–again, mainly about the wifi, but still. It was a good idea, after all. Would make it easier to contact most of their families, (besides Tweak’s own Pa, old guy refused to use any ‘gadgets’ or ‘gizmos’ like Tweak did) and even improved stuff like the storm and creature tracking, plus some radio things. 

After popping one more thing into place, the helmet was complete! Well, not completely, it would obviously need to look a lot better, since currently it was metal, so she’d need fabric, but, other than that, it was done! She clipped it onto her neck, and decided it was time for a test run. Grabbing oxygen tanks and hooking them up seamlessly, she turned on the helmet. It covered her entire head, just as planned. Jumping into the water, it worked perfectly, no water got in. 

She swam around a little bit, (ignoring the annoying texture of wet fabric on her skin–she forgot she hadn’t gotten the water-proof outfit quite yet) and it was still working wonderfully, and when she resurfaced, she clicked the button and it went away in an instant. Perfect. She thought to herself, and then she decided to look over at the GUP B–it was actually surprisingly well painted. 

Yes, it was painted that orange color, but it was done well. She should’ve expected the eyes and teeth, too. She decided to go over it and make the teeth a little rounder at the ends–not enough that Kwazii would notice, obviously, just so hopefully nobody would be scared of it. She doubted they would be–it was clearly a submarine, not an actual animal, though she knew how stupid some people could be, so she didn’t want to take the chance.  

The rest of the week kinda dragged–The Captain, obviously, in his good heart came to visit her a few times, making sure she was alright, bringing her food, (he told her that once the whole team was together that they’d all be eating in the dining area for all the meals, just to make sure everyone was eating. Tweak wondered why anyone wouldn’t eat, though she also realized she was kinda a hypocrite for that thought. There were too many times where she skipped a proper meal in favor of engineering and instead snacking on carrots.) and just generally checking on everything. Asked if the development on everything was going well. 

Well, there was one time when Dashi came down. 

“Dashi?” Tweak asked, confused, paintbrush mid-air. (A drop ending up dripping on the floor, making a tiny tiny puddle) “Hello, Tweak. We’re very close to a hard-to-steer through area, and it’ll be dark soon, and the Captain doesn’t favor driving through that kind of thing in darkness, so we’ve stopped a little early.” she said, smiling.

“I appreciate ya comin’ down, but couldn’t you of told me over the speakers?” Tweak questioned, cocking her head to the side. “Oh, well, I was thinking I could help with the painting.” she offered, and Tweak grinned. “Lemme getcha a paintbrush.” she said, walking over to the astutely named ‘pipe room’ to grab another paintbrush, and some paint. “I’m finishin’ up with the GUP C right now, so if you wanna help with D, that’d be wonderful.” she said, and Dashi glanced at the color. “Yellow?” she asked, a little confused. 

“Yup. Figured, as it’s by far the most.. ‘Different’, of the GUPS, should have th’ most stand-out color.” she said, and Dashi sat down next to her, picking up the paintbrush, dipping it in the yellow paint and beginning to lather the GUP D in it. “How is it the most different? I will say, yellow is a wonderful colour, though.” 

Tweak, now focused again on painting the GUP C, responded, “Well, you see, it’s th’ only GUP that can really maneuver on land, fer starters. It has,” and she put the word in air quotes, paintbrush back in the can, “‘legs’, that can extend out when needed. It’s modeled after a crab, so it’s also the only GUP–besides the GUP C’s towline–that can really grab onto anythin’”, she said, accentuating the ‘grab’ both in her tone of voice and making a little grabby hand motion.  

Dashi nodded, making another elegant stroke across the gup. “Speakin’ of colors, though, what’s yer favorite, Dashi?” Tweak asked, tilting her head. “My favorite colour? Hm.. It might be a little basic–but pink.” she said, and Tweak thought that made sense. Dashi seemed like a classic girl’s girl in all honesty–Tweak had never been interested in any of that, in all honesty. Maybe it was because she never grew up with it–living a little more isolated made her.. While not antisocial, she thought she could hold up a good conversation in her opinion, she didn’t have much exposure to most girly things. 

Her Pa was–expectantly–never was interested in again, more feminine things. So Tweak was never exposed to things like makeup or more fem clothes (like skirts and dresses) or just really any of that. So, she was never interested in it, ever. But she assumed Dashi likely was–maybe Dashi’s mother liked all of that stuff or maybe Dashi just ended up actually being exposed to that through ads and stuff. It wasn’t really Tweak’s business to pry, any who.

“Oh, fair. I think it’s a fine color–it is the color of my headband, after all,” Tweak responded, which was true. It was the one thing that could even remotely be considered girly, at all, that her Pa had gotten her. Dashi laughed. “Looks good on you!” she said, and Tweak felt herself blush a little. It was nice to be complimented, after all. 

Their conversation was a good one–Tweak was glad she was bonding with someone, it really was nice. Eventually, after finishing painting those two and the GUP E, Dashi went off to bed and Tweak played games before tucking herself under the covers of her own bed as well.

The day after that, Captain Barnacles had everyone come up to the hq. “Everyone, the area we will be steering through next is.. Rocky, to say the least. I recommend putting anything that could more easily fall over in a more secure area. Along with that, by the time we get to the medic’s, we need you to fill out this form. It’s.. basically medical history, since he needs to know all of that incase if–and hopefully this doesn’t happen of course,--anything happens to anyone and either he needs to put you on anything or just in general.” 

Kwazii let out a groan, (and he did not care to hide his annoyance) to which Captain Barnacles said, “Kwazii, remember to include all intense injuries.” he said, and Kwazii pursed his lips. “...does surgery count?” he asked, and confusion washed over the Captain’s face. “...Well, I’d presume you should mention it, just not under injuries.” he said, and Kwazii nodded. “..Right.” was all he said. “Now, everyone, to their stations. It could get very difficult to steer through here, so we need to make sure everything’s secure. Tweak, head to the launch bay, and if she needs any help, Kwazii join her. Otherwise, you stay here with Dashi in hq.”

Everyone agreed, Tweak launched herself down the chute, and made sure all the GUPS were secured. They were, fortunately. She secured her games away, actually made her bed for once so her blanket wouldn’t fall off as easily, and did that dusting hands off motion. 

She felt the ship lurch to the side, and she grabbed onto the control panel to steady herself, knees bent to help with her balance. It lurched to the other side, and her cheek squished against the metal of the ship’s wall, and she decided to make a run for it to get a better grip on one of the pipes in that one room, and fortunately it didn’t end in her being chucked into the launch bay’s pool of water, and she managed to get over there, grabbing onto one of the pipes for support. It was one of the thicker ones–she knew it would have better support. 

Tweak was gripping onto that pipe for much too long–knuckles white from the intense holding. It lasted for about 10 minutes too long, and Tweak was sweating egregiously after the whole ordeal. Breathing in and out, she decided to go to hq, hopping in the chute and hopping out in the hq. “Howdy,” she said. 

Dashi was still gripping on her chair, pink nails digging in, but her face was calm and collected. Kwazii radiated confidence, though Tweak had a feeling it was a facade. When the Captain came down, he was.. Very calm. Not a hint of scaredness behind those dark eyes. “Everyone, did anything go wrong?” he asked, and Tweak shook her head no. “Nothin’. I had to grip onto some pipes–but no tools or GUPs got harmed.” she said, and Dashi nodded. “The chairs were.. Kinda sliding all over, but no one got hurt. Kwazii seemed to enjoy sitting up on the table.” 

Kwazii’s face went red. “Hey!” “Wonderful. I’m glad no one got hurt, especially without a medic. Speaking of, there’s some form everyone needs to fill out.” he said, looking at Dashi. “They should be on the computer, if you could print them out, Dashi?” he asked, and Dashi nodded sharply. “On it, Captain.” she swiveled back over to look back on the screen, tapped a few things, and it was printed out quickly. “It’d be better for everyone to do it now, but does anything they need to do first?” he asked, and Tweak thought before shaking her head. “I’ve got nothing.” Kwazii said, and Dashi similarly said, “I don’t have any pressing duties.” 

So, the Captain grabbed all but one from Dahsi and handed them to Tweak and Kwazii, and Tweak sat down at the table in the hq, pulling out a pen from the sealed pencil holder. Kwazii grabbed one too. Tweak.. Didn’t want to judge, or be mean, but Kwazii was definitely not holding the pencil the right way. 

He had his hand in a fist with the pencil stuck through, and he was very clearly writing with individual lines instead of each letter conjoined properly or using any sort of curves. Tweak decided to ignore Kwazii’s chicken-scratch writing, though, and decided to focus on filling out her own form. 

Her name and species were, obviously, incredibly easy questions. (Tweak Rabbitson and, obviously, rabbit)  She had no past major injuries, no surgeries, the only medication she was on was birth control (for period pains), she had no mental illnesses or physical ones (to her knowledge, at least) and she didn’t think there was anything else that would be relevant in a medical sense. 

She was a little curious on exactly how the new marine biologist, and medic, would act. The names never were mentioned, and she knew nothing about them. She just hoped they’d be good at driving the GUPS.

Shellington had all of his stuff packed up–he was actually staying in a hotel, as he wanted to get out of his dorm quickly. Inkling was actually still in Scotland–apparently they had decided on picking up him and the Professor in Scotland, then going to the Antarctic to pick up their medic. Shellington, obviously, didn’t mind though. He had said bye to Pearl already, as he wasn’t entirely sure exactly when they’d be arriving and just wanted to get it in just in case. Pearl was happy for him, clearly, and had only demanded he visit her(which really didn’t need to be said–he was obviously going to visit her at some point, and he was definitely going to talk to her over the phone at some point). Sure, he had to fill out this little medical sheet, but it was easy. He basically just had to put in his name, species, and then answered some variation of “no” or “none” to almost all of the questions. 

Well, he did say that he slightly suspected he wasn’t neurotypical. But other than that he didn’t really need to write any other letters other than “N” “O” “E”, again not including his name/species. He was curious about the crew, though Inkling insisted on everyone meeting each other being a surprise of sorts. Shellington didn’t see the point, though he supposed he could deal. All of his stuff was packed up, and even though Inkling said that he’d be provided with supplies and everything he needed, Shellington still wanted to bring his own stuff. For two reasons–one, he wasn’t completely sure exactly what Inkling thought he ‘needed’, and two, he didn’t really have anywhere to put his stuff. He’d prefer not to bury it or force it on his sister, so it was better to take it with him. 

Shellington was also ecstatic when he found out his room was also part of the lab–wasn’t that wonderful? If he wanted to research something or test something in the middle of the night, he could without worrying about people hearing him creep through the halls of the ship. It was wonderful. Something he wasn’t as excited about the fact that he’d likely have to help with gardening, and god forbid cooking. All Shellington knew how to make was pasta, (and that was barely!) and he had somehow managed to burn that. 

To say the least, he wasn’t exactly the best cook or baker. He was glad when he found out Inkling would be doing a lot of the cooking, or at least helping with it, since he didn’t really have a secure role. Unlike Shellington, who had a role as a marine biologist, he mainly just chilled in the library. He had obviously wanted to go on the expedition, he just.. Wasn’t interested in doing everything. 

While Shellington had to admit he wasn’t super interested in the ‘protect’ and ‘rescue’ aspects, those seemed a little too high action for him, the ‘explore’ bit was right up his alley. And he was sure he’d be able to do so much research! Living underwater in a submarine that’s constantly traveling around the ocean meant he could research so much! And, Inkling even mentioned how they could head into the deep cavernous trenches of the ocean, which would let up so many research opportunities. 

Basically, TL;DR, he was excited for this. And the rest of the crew, (the rest of the Octonauts , he realized) was likely going to be there either tomorrow or the day after. 

—

The Professor had called him at 4pm that next day. “Shellington, the ship’s here. Come to the port,” he had said, and Shellington scrambled, grabbing everything. He had already checked everything about 7 times over, and he glanced around his hotel room to make sure he had everything–fortunately, he did. Walking out of his hotel, walking to the port, and he saw Inkling. And he saw it. As he approached Inkling, he asked, “Is that.. It?” And Inkling nodded. “Quite wonderful, don’t you think?” he asked, and Shellington was speechless. 

It was beautiful. It was clearly modeled off of an octopus, before the whole hybridization thing. The ‘head’, which its mouth doubled as a sort of opening hatch, (that currently had a ramp attached) and four arms all with large rooms attached. He could see a garden, a sort of play room with a ping-pong table, and two that seemed to have bedrooms. Inkling smiled, looking at Shellington, before motioning with his head to go up. Shellington walked up, bag rolling behind him, and as he walked in, there was a ladder. 

A woman with mint green hair and a pinkish headband waved to him from the top. “Sorry, this is usually filled with water–ain’t right now, though, obviously. Just leave yer suitcase–we’ll get it, and just climb up the latter.” she instructed, and Shellington nodded, still in awe. He clamored up the latter, and looked around. “Mind waitin fer a moment?” she asked, and Shellington gave a thumbs-up. “I don’t mind.” 

“Great.” she said, looking back down the empty bay. “Prof, can you climb up the ladder?” she asked, and he probably nodded or something because she said, “Great” again, and soon Inkling had climbed up the latter too, and Tweak pushed over a box. “There’s a much better chair in hq. You’ll see.” she said, grinning. “But, while I grab yer guy’s bags, do you mind showin’ Dr…” she looked to Shellington. He didn’t say anything for a moment, before realizing she was asking him his name, discreetly. “Just Shellington.” he said, and she nodded. “Do ya mind showin’ Dr. Just Shellington how to use the chute?” she asked. Shellington almost corrected her, but decided there was time for that later. 

“I can do that,” the Professor said, and pointed towards the chute. “As you can see, this is a chute–it’s attached to tubes, that deliver us where we need to go. I’ll demonstrate, and you just follow right after.” he said, and Shellington blinked, a little surprised, before saying, “Fascinating.” 

Just then, the Professor catapulted himself down the tube, and once he couldn’t hear the Professor, he shrugged, and launched himself down it as well. He landed flat on his face in the hq–where the other crew members were. He looked up, and the Professor seemed to have a sort of hovering chair, that must’ve been what she was talking about, he thought, and he looked at the others. A clearly cat-hybrid, with long-medium gingerish hair, cat ears (one with a little nip in it) and tail displayed, an eyepatch, and his face littered in freckles. A man with dark skin, white buzzcut, and a squarish mustache who he assumed was the Captain, and oh my goodness was that- “ DASHI?” he exclaimed, who immediately swiveled around, a look of confusion on her face. “Shellington?” 

“You two know each other?” the white haired man asked, to which Shellington got off the floor, dusting himself off, and nodded. “Yes, we met at a cafe a little while back. I didn’t expect this to be the job you mentioned,” he said, looking around now. It was circular, like he was expecting from how it looked on the outside. There were some screens and a LOT of controls, some chairs, a table or two as well. 

“I was wondering if you two would meet.” Inkling said, and Dashi and Shellington both looked at him. “I should elaborate, yes?” Both nodded, and everyone else was still at least a little confused. “Well, I was in Scotland because I know there was a school that taught marine biology there, and also because Dashi was heading there on account of being a flight attendant and was able to get me a slight discount. So, I knew you two were both there. Therefore, you could hypothetically meet.” he concluded, and now that Shellington was thinking it over, it made sense. 

“Well, either way, everyone meet Dr. Shellington–who hasn’t already, I mean.” the Captain said, and Shellington clarified quickly, just as the woman from earlier was coming up through the chute, “Oh, you can just call me Shellington,” he said. She looked a little embarrassed, (probably because she accidentally called him the wrong thing) though didn’t say anything. 

“Though, everyone should introduce themselves. I’m Captain Barnacles,” the Captain told him, and Shellington was glad he assumed right on that aspect. “I be Kwazii,” the Cat said, grinning. He thought silently, He must be a pirate or something. I doubt Inkling would hire one with a criminal record, though, so he’s probably a former one or one who didn’t actually do anything bad. He concluded. The woman spoke up, one hand on her hip as she took out a carrot. “I’m Tweak–the engineer.” she said, and Shellington nodded. That made sense. He was a bit curious about her affinity for carrots, though didn’t want to pry. 

“Tweak, can you start filling the launch bay again so we can set for the Antarctic?” Barnacles asked, and she nodded. “Faster than you can say buncha munchy crunchy carrots–er, actually, it might be a little longer than that..” she seemed to contemplate silently as she jumped back down the chute. Shellington was just impressed she was able to land upright–he certainly couldn’t. 

The Captain turned to Kwazii. “Kwazii, since you’re not doing anything, can you show Shellington around?” he asked, and while Shellington was a little silently disappointed that it wasn’t Dashi, he knew she was busy. “Aye!” he turned towards Shellington, a grin plastered on his freckled face. 

“C’mon, where do you wanna see first?” he asked, and Shellington thought for a moment. “The Laboratory, of course.” he decided, and Kwazii shrugged. “Aye, then. Follow me,” he said, walking to a chute and motioning for Shellington to follow. He did a front flip before jumping in, exclaiming “Yeow!” and Shellington jumped in, bracing to get launched out. Kwazii landed on his two feet, and Shellington managed to at first, but then stumbled and fell onto the carpet. Confusion washed over his face. Carpet? Shouldn’t we be in the lab? He thought silently, looking up. Oh. A hallway. He quickly stood up brushing off his knees. 

“You’ll get it eventually, matey.” Kwazii reassured, which Shellington silently appreciated, and Kwazii walked over to a door, which automatically opened. “Well, this be the ner-” he coughed into his arm, stopping himself. “Lab. Enjoy yerself.” 

Ignoring the obvious accidental Kwazii calling him a nerd, (which, to be fair, he kinda was) he looked around. It was wonderful–the wallpaper was what he would’ve loved, and it was primarily green, his favorite color! He set his stuff down to his bed, glad that his suitcase had already been delivered there. He looked around the room–it had some things he hadn’t previously, like a microscope and once he looked in a few cabinets, an unholy amount of test tubes, which only added to his happiness. 

While he was tempted to start organizing everything, he figured he should see the rest of the ship. “I’ll… let’s look at some other stuff–I’ll come back and organize later,” Shellington said aloud. Kwazii grinned. “Good. No offense.” he said, and Shellington took no offense. (he kinda ignored the comment entirely, actually) Kwazii walked out, motioning to the infirmary. “That’s the medical place. I don’t think we be allowed in, yet.” Kwazii said. 

“That’s logical.” Shellington commented, and Kwazii nodded, motioning to the library. “It’s real big. Lotsa books. Personally, not interested.” Kwazii said, shrugging. “You don’t seem like the one for books,” he said, and Kwazii looked a little nervous. “Somethin’ like that.” which added to his suspicion, but he honestly didn’t care enough to really pry. He took a glance inside, and damn, Kwazii wasn’t lying. 

There were a ton of books–Shellington assumed the Professor had a lot, but not this many! He glanced around, seeing that there were books on marine biology–a decent amount of them seemed to be, actually. He walked over, skimming them, not noticing the annoyed Kwazii in the background. It was all topics he knew, of course, so he didn’t read any at the moment, though he decided if he felt he needed to freshen up, he would come there. He looked to Kwazii, who was tapping his foot impatiently and gazing off into space. “Kwazii, is there anything else in the hallway or…?” 

Kwazii, a bit surprised, looked back at Shellington. “Huh? Uh, naw, I don’t think that be. I’ll show you th’ kitchen, garden, and dining area next.” Kwazii said, motioning for Shellington to follow him, which he did. Kwazii launched himself down the chute, and Shellington followed after. He ended up crashing INTO Kwazii that time, (which he could argue wasn’t his fault, honestly) making them both fall over, Shellington on top of Kwazii’s back. “Shiver me whiskers..” was all Kwazii muttered, as Shellington spooned out apologies, before he shrugged, stretching, and then motioned to the room. “The dinin’ room and kitchen! Garden be upstairs.” he said, and Shellington nodded. “Makes sense.” 

The dining room was nice enough–it was a plasticy yellow table, and the kitchen was honestly larger than Shellington expected. Though, it was just kinda an average kitchen, nothing special. (besides the fact it was on a submarine) Kwazii didn’t honestly seem to know what the things were called, and as he was motioning to everything, he just didn’t say anything about the stove or anything. 

He decided not to really take note of it though, it was likely just him over-analyzing, after all. Kwazii showed him up to the garden, and Shellington looked over the array of fruits and vegetables. It was nice that he would certainly be eating a much better diet then his (now former) college years. Instead of instant noodles, (both of ramen and mac n cheese) he would be eating meals with actual nutritional value behind them! 

He was sure there was some type of artificial meat stored away as well, but that wasn’t really his taste anyways so he decided not to press on to where that was. Kwazii showed him to the ‘fun’ room, which was complete with a small tv with beanbags, and a ping-pong table. “Ey, Matey, wanna play me?” Kwazii asked, grinning. “No, I’d like to get the tour all done so I can organize,” he said. Kwazii was clearly disappointed, (he didn’t seem to be good at hiding his emotions, honestly) though didn’t protest like Shellington expected. Instead he grumbled, jumping down the chute. 

“The other bits are me, the Captain’s, uh, hers, and probably be the medics,” Kwazii said. “Oh. I don’t really need to see those then. Thank you, Kwazii.” he said, to which Kwazii responded, “Yer welcome, matey,”  and Shellington launched himself down the chute, stumbling and face-planting into the carpet. Walking into the lab, he grinned. He wanted to talk to Dashi later, but for now, it was organizing time, babee. 

Speaking of Dashi, she was currently manning the ship–they were on the way to the icy terrain known as the Antarctic. Apparently there had been some problems with the Octopod and the cold before, but Tweak had come up with something that could hopefully keep it warm for the most part. Especially since it was just a quick stop–unfortunately, they couldn’t really do what they had done at the port earlier though. 

Given the risk of the whole ship freezing and everything shutting down, they instead opted to just drive out the GUP C (Tweak said that it’d likely be best equipped if something did go wrong, plus while it wasn’t specifically designed to deal with the cold, it was the best suited for it) to grab Dr.Peso and head back to the Octopod. Plus, that way, they wouldn’t have to empty the launch bay, and instead could just let them in through the water. 

Dashi honestly wanted to talk to Shellington once more–she considered him a friend at this point, and genuinely wanted to talk to him more. But, at least for now while everything was being set up, she simply didn’t have the time to do so. Especially given that Shellington was probably busy setting up all of his scientist stuff. 

She was a bit curious about the medic, though. She had been told that Dr.Peso was part penguin, and that led her to think about something–wouldn’t he, (and the Captain, given how he was part Polar Bear according to his last name. Dashi might’ve done a little snooping around in the files of everything, though to be fair it was part of her job, wasn’t it?) overheat? Sure, being part human and primarily presenting as such probably helped.. Though she still wanted to know. 

At the very least, shouldn’t they experience heat stroke more often? That would likely put them, and everyone else, in danger, wouldn’t it? She seriously had to ask about that. She’d phrase it as less of her just being mildly curious and more of like, a genuine concern, though.

And almost as if Meomi themself was answering her prayers, the Captain approached from behind her. “How is everything looking, Dashi?” he asked, and Dashi astutely nodded. “Good, Captain. We’re perfectly on course–heading at a steady pace to the Antarctic.” she said, professionalism lacing through her voice. To be fair, she just kinda did naturally sound like that–her voice was a bit monotone, for lack of a better term, at times and she tended to say things factually. 

She’d been called blunt once before, though she could certainly hold a casual conversation, she just sounded a little less… ‘friendly’, again for a lack of a better word. “Wonderful, Dashi.” the Captain said, and before he walked away, Dashi decided it was now or never. “Captain, I have a question for you,” Dashi said, swiveling back. She knew there was nothing in their way for the next 15 minutes at the very least, and let’s say something came out of the blue, the ship’s auto steering could handle it. 

The Captain, now twisting his body back to face her, “Oh? What is it?” and Dashi cleared her throat. “You.. in all respect, you are part Polar Bear, correct?” she asked, and the Captain was a little confused, and for a moment Dashi worried she had gotten something wrong, until the Captain said, “Well, yes, but.. I don’t quite remember telling you that,” he said, confused. “Oh, I.. I saw it on the files.” she said. It wasn’t a lie. She just wasn’t saying that maybe she was being a tad nosey and was purposely trying to find information. (She will say, she was a bit weirded out how that pirate didn’t seem to have a last name. Kwazii, was it? All she knew is that he was hired and was very athletic, and was part cat. Though that was obvious just from looks) 

“Ah. I see. Well, you’re correct, about that. Is that all?” he asked, and Dashi shook her head. “No, just clarifying. What I wanted to ask was.. I’m a bit confused on how you aren’t overheating–and how our new member, him being a Penguin and all, won’t either. I’m just worried it could cause some sort of damage or problem.” she again, wasn’t lying. Just not displaying the full reason–she was more so curious if anything. 

“Ohh, yes, I suppose I should explain that. You see, I have a cooling suit–it’s.. Well, don’t tell, but it’s actually pajamas. Once we pick up the new uniforms though it’ll be incorporated into those. It basically just cools down my whole body, and Dr.Peso will get one too, on account of him also being used for frigid temperatures, “ he said. “I see. That’s all, Captain.” she said, and Barnacles nodded sharply before walking away. That’s right–they would be getting proper uniforms soon. They had sent in forms of any sort of preferences they wanted–Dashi only requested that a skirt be compatible. Inkling had (albeit a tad secretly) shown her the main colors, and she had a pink skirt that she thinks would be wonderful with it. Currently though, she was wearing a sweater. She hadn’t gotten the chance to wear it, even if it was cute, in Australia as.. Well, obvious reasons.

But now she had the perfect chance! They were heading somewhere frigid, after all. And again, it was adorable, plus once the uniforms got in she doubted she’d really have a chance to wear it again. Soon, they would be landing. As trusty as the auto steering was, it was better to just stop. Apparently they had considered shifts, but it was vetoed quickly. 

After another few hours, it was ‘night’ completely. It was a bit hard to find out given the timezones, though most of it was planned (partially by the system) and not something to worry about. Dashi scanned for creatures, and fortunately there wasn’t any in the area like she was hoping. Beginning the landing protocol, she stretched, and stood up. In all honesty, she didn’t mind sitting all day. She imagined other people would hate it, though she really didn;t mind. Especially with the wonderful views of the ocean… that she hadn’t been able to take any pictures of. With that, she sighed–she knew she couldn’t go out yet, especially without the suit and the oxygen and everything, but.. She still wanted to. 

Though, she decided in order to cure her utter boredom, she would visit Shellington. She knew where the lab was, or at the very least she was sure she could figure it out. Of course, she got it right on the first try, swiftly entering the hallway and peeking into the lab. There was Shellington, and hell that was a lot of stuff. “Shellington?” she asked, and his head turned back, not dissimilar to an owl. “Dashi?” and his confusion faded when he realized he was right. “Hi–what’re you doing here?” he asked. It was phrased a little rudely, but Dashi presumed that likely wasn’t the intent. “Wanted to see how you’re doing, since the Octopod’s landed for the night.” she said, and Shellington looked surprised. “Wait, it’s–nighttime?” he asked. “Almost, yes. Tomorrow we’re getting the medic in the GUP C.” 

“.. oh. I have so much more to organize–” he muttered, and Dashi decided to offer. “I could help?” “Oh, really, thank you- I appreciate that,” and just as she thought he was going to accept her proclamation, “though, no. I need everything exactly where I want it, and you clearly don’t know where all of it goes, so , uh, yeah.” he looked back to his stuff. “Make sure to sleep though. You’ll have time tomorrow, especially since you’re not going to pick up Dr.Peso.” she said, and Shellington nodded. “Oh, right, sleep. Yes, I’ll- yup. I’ll sleep. Later.” 

Dashi had a feeling he wasn’t quite in the mood to talk more, so she shrugged, deciding to retreat to her room despite her mild worry that the guy would get little to no sleep. She changed into her nightgown, (though she had a feeling she would just start sleeping in her uniform once she got it) brushed her teeth, took a quick bathroom break, and her nightly rituals were primarily done. Putting in her headphones, she laid down, curling up under the covers. She was glad she had her music with her–she and Koshi surprisingly had pretty similar tastes, so whenever she listened to said music it reminded her of her little sister. That next morning, she got up bright and early. She had a very fortunate ability to just think of a time that she wanted to wake up at, and she could do it as long as she wasn’t unendingly tired and wanted to wake up early. And that wasn’t usually a problem. Stretching out her arms, she put back on a sweater. She launched herself down the chute after brushing her teeth, landing upright. 

To little surprise, the Captain was already up. “Dashi, hello. Good morning.” he said, and Dashi nodded back, “Good morning, Captain,” she greeted. She sat down in her swivel chair. “Starting launch, sir,” she said, pressing some buttons and the Octopod was ready to launch. “Go ahead.” he said, giving a sharp nod of approval. She pressed the final button, and the Octopod shook for a moment, before it propelled itself off the seafloor and they were now floating. “Turning on auto-steer,” she prompted, tapping the button on the screen, and the Octopod went into action, sailing for the Antarctic. 

“When will we arrive, Dashi?” the Captain asked. “In about a hour at the most.” Dashi said, not turning to face the Captain and instead prompting to continue to look at the screen. “No large schools of people or storms, Captain.” she said. She was surprised they were so lucky–she’d honestly been expecting at least one storm or roadblock somewhere. Things were going.. Shockingly smooth. 

And the trip itself was also surprisingly smooth, they got there without any complications–Dashi just hoped the luck would keep up while they were picking up the medic. She landed the ship, after making sure there wasn't anything that could possibly be damaged there, and then a face came on screen. The captain in his buzzcut + squarish mustache glory. “Everyone, report to the Launch bay.” he said, and Dashi hopped out of her chair and into the chute, launched herself down and landing in the launch bay. 

The GUP C–a GUP complete with a tow line that was lightly based off a whale, (it was certainly the one with the least obvious resemblance) was the one chosen. It had also been decided that the Captain, obviously, along with Kwazii would go. Inkling approached with some fish biscuits–seriously, those things were SO good, Dashi wondered what the hell they were made of–as a snack for the ride. 

Barnacles, of course, accepted the gift. Kwazii was exhilarated, excited to finally be going OUT there. And then, Tweak granted him something. “I don’t have the fabric, so it’s not technically done, but.. These helmets work. Just put 'em ‘round yer neck and press the button, and y’all will be sealed away from the water.” she said, and again clarified, “Again, not technically done. They’ll be prettier when I get the fabric.” she said, and the Captain nodded. 

“Thank you, Tweak, Professor.” he thanked, and turned to Kwazii. “Ready?” he asked, and Kwazii, wide stanced and fisted balled up in utter excitement nodded. “Aye, matey!” he exclaimed, sharp teeth barred in a grin, tail swishing back and forth rapidly behind him. Barnacles got in the GUP, Kwazii front-flipped into it after him, and they set off after clipping on the helmets Tweak had given them, along with putting air tanks in the gup. Maybe a few too many, it was really just a precaution if anything. 

“It’s going to be a long ride, Kwazii,” the Captain said, glancing slightly worriedly. “No worries! I be able to… deal!” Kwazii said, clearly someone forgot to think through the sentence before saying it, Barnacles thought, chuckling a little to himself. “What be so funny?” Kwazii questioned, pursing his lips. “Nothing, Kwazii,” Barnacles reassured. 

Kwazii, tapping his still somewhat long nails, had his tongue stuck out and Barnacles just knew he was bored out of his mind, and suddenly Barnacles noticed as he stopped, shrinking away a little and he would be lying if he said he wasn’t a tad worried. “Kwazii? Are you alright?” he asked, and Kwazii looked back up at Barnacles. “Uh, aye.” he said, and Barnacles knew he was a liar at that moment. “Mhm,” he mumbled, unconvinced. “I just….was thinkin’ about.. Me old crew.” Kwazii said. 

Oh. was all Barnacles thought. “I see. Would you.. Like to talk about it? It’s quite a long ride, anyways.” Barnacles said. It was his job as Captain to help his crew members–and even if he wasn’t super close with Kwazii yet.. He wanted to offer something. He hoped to be the first one his crew came to when they had any struggles.

“Aye.” Kwazii said, nodding a little. “Y’ see, I… the old–well, I’m sure he still be the Captain of the old crew, but he.. Helped me out when I was younger. Offered me t’ join his crew–and I didn’t know most pirates be bad.” he told him, and it almost looked like he was struggling a bit. Though Barnacles figured it was probably good to let it out now, not later. “They helped me with a lot–cut those lumps off,” I wonder if he got an infection or something? Not sure quite else he’d mean by lumps, the Captain thought, “Get the things, trained me t’ be a good pirate–thoughI didn’t know.. How terrible they could be. Cus, one day, I was told it was my first time on a proper pirate mission.” 

Ah. That must’ve been where everything went wrong. The Captain thought. “I thought it be to celebrate. But, alas, no. I assumed we were killin’ vile beaties. We weren’t.” That was all Kwazii had to say about that–clearly, he didn’t want to elaborate. But Barnacles didn’t pry. He was pretty sure he knew what happened. 

“Twas a party afterwards–o’ course, I didn’t have any fun. Snatched some essentials–rum, catnip, food, drinkin’ water, me things.” he said, leaning back against the wall of the GUP C. It was concerning to Barnacles how alcohol and cat-weed were listed above drinking water and actual food, (or honestly that those were even listed at all) though he figured it wasn’t best to try to psychologically examine Kwazii. He wasn’t qualified.

“Then I met ya.” Kwazii said. “Can I be honest?” Kwazii asked, and Barnacles would be lying if he said he wasn’t a tad worried about what Kwazii was going to say next. “I don’t think I would’ve lived if ya hadn’t showed up.” he said, and Barnacles figured that made sense. When he found Kwazii, he had been battered and bruised, clothes practically falling apart and little to no food and water left. “I’m glad I did, then.” Barnacles said, and Kwazii smiled.

“I be more so just happy y’ didn’t find me while super drunk” Kwazii said, shrugging. “You don’t have a drinking problem, correct?” Barnacles asked. A little invasive, but it was info that he needed to know. “No, nothin’ like that. Just… wasn’t doing good. ‘Gain, kinda thought I be damned to death.” Barnacles nodded. Sure, maybe not the best thing that he had turned to alcohol and weed, but to be fair he was stranded in the middle of nowhere. There wasn’t much else he could do. 

And, now he had.. Some sort of support. He wasn’t alone. Barnacles had a sinking suspicion he’d have trust issues for a while. “I suppose that does make sense.” Barnacles said, still front facing to the windshield of the GUP. Kwazii, sitting at the back of the GUP, put his hands behind his head. “What ‘bout you?” he asked, suddenly. Confusion overtook Barnacle’s face. “What exactly do you mean?” he questioned. “Well, I mean, I know nothin’ bout you. Besides.. Like, yer a Polar bear, yer the Captain, and I know yer personality n things…” 

Oh. That was true, he hadn’t really told anything about him. Sure, he shouldn’t be expected to spill his guts just because Kwazii did, though he figured it was good to at least talk a little about him before this whole Octonauts thing. “Well, I lived in the Arctic for years. Me and my twin sister, both. We were a part of this small organization, the Polar scouts. We basically just had little badges–for things like helping specific creatures, completing courses.. Everything like that.” he said, and he admitted it was a little nice to talk about it. He did miss his sister, after all. “Huh. Yeah that.. That be sensical.” Kwazii said. “Presumin’’ that was all fine ‘n dandy.” Kwazii assumed, and Barnacles internally debated telling him. “Well, not quite.” he said, and he practically heard Kwazii’s ears perk up. I decided to bring it up. It’s only fair to tell. He said, and sighed. “One time, me and the other Polar scouts decided to venture through a ice cavern–or cave, I suppose. We all often did it, so we thought it would all be fine.” he took in a deep breath. “It wasn’t. I fell into the ice, into a very cramped space down under. I was stuck in there for hours.” he shuddered. 

Kwazii didn’t say anything–clearly intently listening. “Fortunately, of course, the other scouts found a way to get me out. Ever since then, though, I’ve had claustrophobia.” he said, and he just knew Kwazii’s face was scrunched up in confusion. “... Don’t act like I know big words like that.” he said, crossing his arms. “It’s basically a.. A aversion to tight spaces.” he just hoped Kwazii knew what ‘aversion’ meant. 

“Oh, I see.” Barnacles would’ve said fear, but.. He had a hard time admitting he was scared of anything, he was a big, strong, leader–he shouldn’t be scared of anything. “Can’t blame ya. That must’ve been wretched.” Kwazii said, and Barnacles nodded lightly. “We are almost there.”

Barnacles knew Kwazii wouldn’t want what he had told him to get out to the crew, and he trusted that Kwazii wouldn’t tell anybody about his Claustrophobia. “Kwazii, maybe stay at the back of the GUP. I.. I think it would be better if I was the one who made the introduction.” he said, and Kwazii grumbled, but seemed to agree, sitting at the back of the gup. Barnacles honestly just hoped Dr.Peso was ready for them.

Peso had all of his things all packed up and ready to go, he had two suitcases. One was one of those ones that doubled as a backpack. He had been told that the whole submarine wasn’t coming–instead just one of the smaller ones, since they didn’t want to risk the bigger one freezing. There was another penguin who he didn’t have the name of who had all of the other crew member’s uniforms. Peso already has his own uniform on, as it had a cooling mechanism in it. 

His whole family was there.(besides all of his cousins and aunts and uncles who lived outside of this area of the antarctic) His mother, his brothers, his sister, his aunt, his uncle, his cousin that lived there, and his grandma. 

“ Mi hijo– I’m really going to miss you, okay? Call us sometimes, okay?” she requested, holding Peso’s face. “Don’t worry mama, I will,” and Pinto raced up to him, holding onto his leg. “Peso! You better call us, okay? Yeah?” Peso nodded, laughing a little bit. “Of course, Pinto.” he said, and his older brother and sister didn’t say much. “I’m happy for you, Peso,” Perita said, and her own twin, Pogo, nodded. And as if magic, a blue, ship looking thing arose from the water. It was round at the bottom, flat at the top, with a tow line attached. The windshield opened. “H-hello-” Peso greeted him. He, with his white haired-buzzcut, mustache, and dark skin seemed like the Captain. There looked to be someone else at the back, but in all honestly, he couldn’t tell. “Hello, are you Dr.Peso?” The presumed Captain asked, and Peso nodded. “Y-yes! I am.” 

The man hopped out of the submarine, and motioned for Peso and the clothing guy to hand him the things. Clothing guy handed it to him first, and then Peso handed him both suitcases, which he easily took. Peso was a little surprised at how strong he was. “Do you.. Need help getting in the GUP?” he asked, and Peso presumed the ‘GUP’ was the submarine. He looked at it, a little worried about getting in. “I um.. I think.. Maybe?” he said, and oh no i’m making a bad impression. 

The man held out his hand, and Peso grabbed on, and he was basically just put in the GUP. Peso might’ve been shaking a little. The Captain closed the windshield, and Peso waved, and the rest of his family waved back. And then the GUP dipped under the water, and Peso shook more. “Dr-” the Captain started, and Peso shook his head. “J-just Peso, please.” he said, and he nodded. “Well, Peso, I’m Captain Barnacles, and..” he motioned back, and a man with a eyepatch, ginger hair, cat features, and freckles thrown on his face revealed himself from the back of the GUP. “Ey, matey! I be Kwazii!” he said, grinning. 

Peso couldn’t really stop his reaction–he was a little if not completely terrified. Sharp teeth, pirate speak, plus the eyepatch, this guy–was he a criminal or something? “H-h-hello” and he cringed internally at his stupid stutter, it was so bad and he hated it. Kwazii, who seemed.. Not really hurt, just a little annoyed at most, didn’t seem harmful. Though Peso had certainly heard most pirates were liars, so he really didn’t know.

“We’ll be heading back to our ship –the Octopod, now. It’s basically our home base,” the Captain said, steering around glaciers and navigating the icy water. Peso nodded–he knew some of this already. He was nervous around Kwazii, though he had no reason to actually hate him. Hate and terror are very different feelings, after all. 

“How long will the ride there be?” he asked, and the Captain thought for a moment. “About thirty minutes.” he answered, and Peso didn’t know if he would be able to get through all of this. He was stuck in a small, in-escapable, submarine with a (potentially) dangerous pirate and a seemingly nice guy who he’s never as much as seen before. He’d be fine, surely.

A few minutes later, he wasn’t exactly fine. It had been primarily quiet, besides the pirate tapping his nails on the walls. “Oh, D- er, Peso, those forms you wanted everyone to fill out will be waiting in the infirmary.” Peso blinked–he’d honestly forgotten about that. He’d made those for some basic info. Incase if anyone got hurt, those were the things he needed to know. Especially if they were like, knocked unconscious or something. 

“O-oh- that’s wonderful, thank you,” Peso said, fidgeting with his hands and looking down. He just hoped this wouldn’t drag on much longer.  

Eventually, after that.. Utterly torturous ride, they arrived, and Peso’s mouth gaped open in shock. Octopus looking, and he couldn’t really make out the rooms, but they looked nice. Looked like there was a garden… and was that a ping-pong table in one of them? He wasn’t completely sure. 

As the ship maneuvered its way into the other, bigger, ship, Peso’s awe certainly didn’t lessen. The room that he would come to know as the launch bay later on was bigger than he thought it’d be, and even if he had a little trouble getting out of the GUP C. The three of them were greeted by a woman named Tweak, who was apparently the head engineer. 

“Howdy, you must be Dr.Peso,” she had said, grinning. “I’ll take y’alls bags to your room, and I’ll meet back up in the hq,” she said, grabbing Peso’s two suitcases and launching herself down some sort of tube. The Captain seemed to notice Peso’s utter and complete confusion though, so he clarified. “That’s the Octo-chute, it’s a system of tubes so that we can get around.” the Captain said, and Peso nodded. “H-how easy are they to use?” he asked. “Shellington–the uh, science guy–kept fallin. Everyone else be able to use ‘em just fine though,” Kwazii jumped in. Peso nodded, still somewhat-to-completely terrified of the guy, so he was shaking a little. At least if he failed horrendously, someone else was, too. “Kwazii, do you mind showing him?” Barnacles asked, and Kwazii nodded, grinning and launching himself down the chute. 

Barnacles then motioned towards it. “Your turn now,” he said, smiling. Peso didn’t think he could really refute that–this was the Captain, the leader, after all. Nodding, he hesitated before hopping in. But, after a few moments of waiting from the Captain, who looked a little concerned now, Peso (shockingly) sucked it up, and hopped in. Surprisingly, it was actually pretty easy–it was a lot like bodysurfing, which was one of the only things he was good at. He sucked at sliding down hills, but bodysurfing was genuinely easy for him. He landed upright, with a bit of a wobble, and all of his presumed Crew members were there, He walked away from the chute, and the Captain shot out from behind him, and he put his hands behind his back. “Crew, this Peso. Our medic. And, we have also got everyone’s uniforms, which we will hand out in a moment.” he said, holding up the bag with all of the clothes. “But, as we wait for Tweak, everybody introduce themselves.” 

He cleared his throat, putting down the bag and walking to what Peso assumed was the front. “I know you all know me, but I will introduce myself again. My name is Captain Barnacles PolarBear. You can refer to me just as Captain, or a abbreviation of such, if you prefer.” he said, then motioned over to a woman with looped cornrows and hair-clips. “Oh–um, yes, hello. My name is Dashi Daschund–though you can certainly just call me Dashi. I’m the I.T worker–I’ll be helping with steering and managing the ship and its systems.” she said, utterly and completely professionally. Peso just hoped the others wouldn’t speak like that, because then it’d be expected of him. 

The next person in the arbitrary ‘line’ had short, shoulder length hair and didn't seem to realize he was next. Dashi rolled her chair over to him, giving him a bump with her elbow. “Oh! Apologies. I’m Dr. Shellington Sea-otter. It’ll be wonderful to meet you all. And, just Shellington is quite alright, I should mention.” he said, smiling.

Next was that older fellow, the Professor. “I’m Professor Inkling. I’m sure you all know this, though I’m sure I ought to clarify. I’m the founder of this organization, and I’ll primarily just be helping out or reading in the library. I will be preparing or helping to prepare many meals.” he said, smiling and bowing his head a little. 

Do we not have a proper cook? Peso wondered, though didn’t say anything. 

Then, the pirate. “I be Kwazii!” he said, grinning. Peso blinked–did he not get the memo they were supposed to say their last name, and at seeing everyone looking at him a little confused he cleared his throat, continuing. “K-Kwazii, uh, Kitten!” he said, and in all honesty, it was obvious he made it up on the spot. Peso doubted it was on his medical form. 

Suddenly then, the woman who Peso had assumed was Tweak, jumping out of another Octochute. “Oh, we’re introducin’ ourselves, yeah? Well, I’m Tweak Rabbitson.” she said, smiling, and everyone looked at Peso. “Oh– I’m.. I’m Dr. Peso Penguin, though just Peso is fine,” he said, hands intertwined nervously. 

“Wonderful, then.” the Captain said, picking up the bag. “I’ll hand out all of your new uniforms, now. Peso, I’ll show you around in a minute.” the Captain said, and Peso nodded. 

Sure, this whole thing was certainly nerve-wracking and a little less than terrifying, but yet Peso was very excited about what was to come. He was going to help people, more than he had ever imagined before this. 

[theygotbitchesinmedia]

ask dump

i have a couple dozen unanswered asks on this blog, most of which i believe are media recommendations, so i'm going to go through those now in a batch!

if you haven't seen it already We Are Lady Parts would be a fantastic recommendation for this blog. I started it last week and really love it. It's about a struggling punk Muslim girls band who recruit the extremely anxious, goody-two-shoes Amina to be their lead guitarist. It balance its moments of drama really well with the comedy and all of the women in the band get to be deeply weird in different and endlessly charming ways. My favorite is Amina because of her very relatable habit to have elaborate silly daydreams about anything and everything. Good show with some really good women!

I've heard good things about this one! Adding it to the list

I can't remember if you take recs for things in progress or not but the webtoon Katlaya Rising is currently the high point of my week, the art style POPS and it is jam-packed with girls and girls who love girls

I will always read things in progress 👍 I honestly in some ways prefer getting into stuff before it's finished. Like an animal with one of those food bowls that stops you from eating too fast. Added to the list.

Please read Villain Initialization!!!! The female characters are really good!!!!!!!!!

Looking at the cover and description for this one it seems like most of the female cast is gonna be side characters. i'll add it to the list but itll probably be reallllly back burner unless someone wants to go to bat hard for it and sway me

if youre taking recommendations bittersweet con panna is a cute yuri manhwa and hacks is an insane tvshow about millenial comedy writer who got cancelled on twitter and a beautiful old standup comic about to lose her vegas residency.

added both! never heard of bittersweet con panna but my sister has been going really hard for hacks and i feel like i owe it to her to watch that sooner rather than later because of all the media im always trying to force onto her

"Kevin Can F*** Himself" on AMC is fantastic and has some really interesting female protags, I recommend. Might be a similar vibe to On Becoming a God in Central Florida actually!

Already on the list!

i'd like to second the rec for no home, probably one of the greatest webtoons of all time

one moth ago anon i can safely say you were correct about this it is certainly one of the greatest webtoons of all time. i do think its not really About women but i get why you all wanted me to read it enough to push it

@whatasmoothgardener Reccing a short manga I've been reading recently called Is Kichijoji the Only Place to Live. Its a manga about twin girls who run a small real estate company in Tokyo from the POV of their clients. It has a unique art style, its female character focused, and it teaches you about the different places in Tokyo. However its kinda episodic.

I don't mind episodic at all. Cool to see female manga protags who arent stick thin! added to the list

@phoenixfangs i got into a webtoon the other day called nevermore and considered recommending it to u, but i second guessed myself like oh what if its not worth recommending and its stupid actually, BUT i had a dream last night that u were talking about it so i think i have to at least put it on ur radar, if it isnt already xD what happens if u take edgar allen poe stories and make it about lesbians? u get the webtoon nevermore ❤️ theres an actual Plot to it too im not trying to sell it based on tropes, i just cant describe it better than the actual synopsis/description on webtoon, so id say its worth a glance!

At first glance i'm not sure how to my personal tastes this owuld be but i feel like i have maybe been unfairly biased against popular webtoons in that front. added to the list !

@counttwinkula listen i know your "media to get around to" list is forever long but i reread the haunting of hill house (the book) for my podcast and eleanor and theodora just. won't stop touching each other. some of the most classic toxic yuri imo. also the 1963 film adaptation (the haunting) is so good

ill always appreciate a horror recommendation from one of my learned Horror Mutuals. added both!

if it changes anything, you can find the main stories of arknights and limbus company here and here respectively without downloading the game: [retcons dot github dot io slash limbus-storylogs] [akgcc dot github dot io slashcc slash story dot html hashtag main] (sorry it wont let me send links) i totally understand if u think its too much trouble, but i do think both games have very good female characters

I'm sorry... i just cant go down this road.... it's a path i'm not willing ot walk. if i was going to read the stories for a gacha game i wasn't playing i would just go read shoujo kageki revue starlight re:LIVE. which i havent been able to make myself do. so its just not gonna end up happening

have you heard of tangle tower… it’s a relatively short murder mystery click and point game about two families & their secrets. the art is gorgeous + the game is fully voiced, and the protagonist + his assistant have a dynamic that reminds me of the classic ace attorney ‘lawyer + weird girl’ duos. the majority of the cast are women, and the game features some of the Girls Of All Time. highly recommend, esp since you’re an ace attorney fan

Added to the list!

if you’re trying to flesh out the book section, i’d like to recommend three parts dead by max gladstone! admittedly it’s been a hot second since I’ve read it so i can’t speak on the quality of the writing itself, but the plot and the worldbuilding had some interesting stuff. the novel follows tara, a necromancer in a world where doing magic is more akin to being a lawyer, who’s hired to resurrect a god. the book is the first in a series, and the books that follow have some other interesting female protagonists + canonical queer women if you enjoy it o7

Sounds neat! Added to the list

ok i still have some more from back in fucking April that i didnt manage to get to. but im getting distracted now

[qqueenofhades]

i truly can't decide whether i want orange fuckface to be locked up (or dead. dead works too) and not be able to get the nomination so it, presumably, goes to florida hitler (who hopefully loses anyway because people hate him and/or they write dump truck's name in anyway) or if it would be better if orange guy gets the nomination and dems can use that as fuel to get people out to vote. do we think if the nominee is anyone other than the big orange felon, this will have any effect on the fascist turnout? or will they just fall in line for the next dictator no matter who he is?

Honestly, I don't know. Either way, the GOP nominee will be Trump or DeSantis, and it is absolutely CRAZYMAKING to me that the choices will literally be "solid, competent, and incredibly experienced Democratic president who has presided over unprecedented job growth and infrastructure investment, most progressive since FDR, nominated a ton of judges to reverse Trump court-packing, but is admittedly an old white guy" vs "literal deranged racist fascist authoritarian traitor charged with 60+ different felonies who probably couldn't even hold a security clearance if he was elected and a lifetime cheater, sexual abuser, business fraud, and cult leader" AND IT WILL BE A VERY CLOSE RACE DECIDED BY A HANDFUL OF STATES IN THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE. Like. I can't. That is boggling. This country is so beyond fucked up in so many ways.

Unlikely as the possibility may be, the idea of either Trump or DeSantis actually becoming president (in Trump's case, again) is so existentially terrifying to me that I don't let myself think about it or picture a future where it happens, because it is so utterly devastating. If Trump goes to jail and/or is somehow disqualified from running, DeSantis will be the nominee, but Trump's cultists will hate him for not being their felonious orange messiah. That might hurt him, sure. But even with Trump (who is still far and away the likely nominee), there are still 75 million Americans who voted for him last time, and we don't know what the impact will be, even after all of this. Cultists won't change their minds due to logic and/or facts. Indeed, the narrative from the right wing and compliant mainstream media has so overwhelmingly been "poor innocent Trump being persecuted unlike the evil Biden crime family" that it could shore up his support from wavering Republicans who hate him but hate any conservative accountability via the legal system more. We just don't know.

Either way, it's not a good situation (understatement of the century, etc) and you'd really fucking HOPE that either way, Team Blue is motivated to get out the vote. If we work hard and we do that, we will win. And yet again, as will be the case until this malignant MAGA cancer is removed from the American body politic, there is really no choice or moral option except to do everything we can to make it so.

[kristiemewisstan]

The Tortured Poets Department Unhinged First Listen Review:

Fortnight-

NEEDS MORE POSTY, we love a “I wanna kill her”, this one MIGHT BE about Matty Healy lol “I touched you for only a fortnight”

The Tortured Poets Department-

“WHO USES TYPEWRITERS ANYWAY” YOU BITCH ITS YOU LOL, Charlie Puth name drop 🤨 oh god so many name drops, THIS BRIDGE, not the wedding ring…

My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys-

THERE WAS A LITANY OF REASONS WHY WE SHOULDVE PLAYED FOR KEEPS THIS TIME my jaw literally dropped the entire last verse

Down Bad-

“Everything comes up teenage petulance” this one is cringy but in a way I love, Taylor Is Very Much A Down Bad Girlie

So Long, London-

this song is tachycardic I PROMISE I MADE THIS JOKE BEFORE “STOPPED CPR”, two graves one gun I SWORE THAT YOU LOVED ME BUT WHERE WAS THE CLUES damn she’s really sad to lose London huh

But Daddy I Love Him-

this would have a cool music video “she’s was chaos he was revelry” this is if red and the 1975 had a child that’s the vibe

Fresh Out the Slammer-

Okay so this is the “I just realized how bad this relationship truly was and thank god I’m out of it”, okay the weird slow down stuff wasn’t my favorite thing

Florida!!!-

I’m cackling, THE FLORENCE VERSE IS SO GOOD I think that this is just a Florence and the machine song it sounds so like them

Guilty as Sin?-

Okay this is the first one I’ve been like “oooooo I really like this one” “what if I roll the stone away, they’re gonna crucify me anyway” DAMN some religious imagery will always get me right in the trauma

Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?-

This one has a lot of the brain scratching pauses “don’t you worry folks we took out all her teeth” oof this song is just really angry

I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)-

Cowboy Like Me but they don’t end up happy, okay “good boy” made me giggle so apparently in a 12 year old boy

loml-

PIANO! WANT IVE WANTED THE WHOLE TIME “still alive, killin time at the cemetery, never quite buried” I’m getting a gun and flying to London, I swear “TALKING RINGS AND TALKING CRADLES 🤨” JOE ALWYN FOUND DEAD IN A DITCH “THE LOSS OF MY LOVE” COUNT YOUR DAYS JOSEPH 💀, this should’ve been track 5

I Can Do It With A Broken Heart-

hello production that is giving Barbie movie/80s vibes, this is the first one I’m certain was written recently like it was definitely written on tour, the peppy “cause I’m miserable!” Hurt Me but also same

The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived-

THE BREATH ahhhhh PIANO! “I don’t even want you back I just want to know if rusting my sparkling summer was the goal” okay back half of the album is eating, THE PICKUP, SPEAK NOW VIBES BUT MOM IS OLDER AND MADDER

The Alchemy-

ok ok ok “I circled you on a map I haven’t come around in so long but I’m coming back so strong” fucking meant,👌 touchdown mention lmao, okay this is SO ABOUT TRAVIS 🥹🥰

Clara Bow-

Best production on the album in the first 10 seconds, BEAUTY IS THE BEAST THAT ROSE, WAIT WHAT????? “You look like Taylor Swift” yeah queen because you are lol, It’s so people can make the audio of her singing all the album names lmao

First Overall Listen- 7/10

I was getting nervous in the front half but the back half more than made up for it

The vibe was just off at the start and honestly that’s probably a me thing and will get better with further listens

The lyrics were amazing as always

Production was okay, some of the songs were perfect and some had me going 🤨

Charlie Puth

Top 3 in no particular order (apparently I like songs that hurt me):

Guilty as Sin?

loml

The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived

[tayloralisonswift]

hello there, sorry this took me a while!

my boy only breaks - your reasoning makes perfect sense, thank you! i gasped the first time i listened to this song and the ken thing came up. i was like, oho, a callback to universally-beloved hits different!! plus there's the fun little connection between the sand castles and sandlot in my boy only breaks and the sand hurting her feelings in hits different (although i think the latter is probably more tongue-in-cheek).

my boy also gets a bonus gay point from me because the first time i listened to it i thought 'i'm quee-' was going to end in a different consonant and almost had a heart attack lol. just one of a few gay jump scares in this album!

thank you for googling and confirming the provenance of the imaginary rings! this is a song i skip every time, so um i think we can leave it there and leave the analysis to those who enjoy this song. good for them!

florida!!! hahaha i relate so much to what you said. for four minutes we saw a world where we were ttpd fans. one hell of a drug indeed.

the performance was just? so? gay?? it's been a month and a day and i still haven't fully processed it. like. girl, were you planning on gazing at florence for the duration of the song and dropping to your knees in front of 92,000 people or was that a spontaneous thing???

so yeah, it turns out i'm a florida!!! convert! i guess it's about two women murdering their cheating husbands and skipping off to live happily ever after in florida now?!

bdilh aggravates me because it's a song that i think i would enjoy if i didn't have any of the context, but unfortunately i do have the context because it's not even a little bit subtle! racist jokes can't be chalked up to chaos and revelry! it's grossly disrespectful to try to characterise them that way and then to criticise anyone who raised an eyebrow at her association with that guy! but anyway, moving on!!

imgonnagetyouback - i am not familiar with olivia rodrigo's work so i only realised that the two songs were similar when people posted about it here! not a good look. fun song though and it seems the consensus is generally that olivia's version was better lol.

peter and the closets like cedar! i just found your peter post. your mind, dude*! the seven/peter/dorothea links are so good. i can't recall your face (except of course i can because i see you on the tiny screen all the time). you're my lost fearless leader. i've still got love for you. you said you were gonna come find me. i'll never know if you're the same soul i met under the bleachers.

(* gender-neutral; please let me know if you'd prefer a different term!)

okay, for two people who don't like this album very much we managed to do some good gay analysis i think. yay for rubbing our queer little hands all over this! imagine what we could have done if we'd liked this more, lol.

oh, lover! we were so blessed. and reputation!! shall we discuss that one next? in my head the gayest albums are lover, reputation, evermore and folklore, but i need to work out the ranking. and shout-out to red because i've been in my swiftgron feelings lately because of that one sapphicscience fic lol.

take care, friend <3

@sapphicscience mention <3 yay!

and i love being called dude!

i agree with everything you’ve said but want to just take a moment and lose my mind because she literally got on her knees for that woman. me too honestly, but also i’m a lesbian. idk man maybe florida is a state of mind. maybe when she says she’s going down to florida she means goi— sORRY SORRY.

we’ve done our time (i think that’s a fresh out the slammer lyric) so yes, let’s go on to reputation!!!! here’s a question for ya: are there any songs on it you feel are about someone other than ms kloss? a contentious question in gaylorism but there is no judgment here !!!

mwah mwah!!!

[iwasforcedtomakethisbytum]

As a former homeschool kid there are sometimes characters that i see in a different light because of my personal experience and with wttt there are 3 characters i personally see aa having a homeschooled vibe, there's probably others but quite frankly i don't care about most characters outside of the main six

Firstly Florida for starters speaking complete full sentences but being unable to read (at least in English, he might be able in Spanish but that's hc to my knowledge honestly) and that's not necessary impossible for a non homeschool kid to be unable to read especially with a reading/learning disorder but homeschooling doesn't typically make it much better, and plenty of kids I've met have learned to read later in life because their parents simply didn't care to teach them, i think he'd have less issues with overly strict parents, and more with his parents just being neglectful, so i feel he would be just allowed to do whatever outside all day so maybe he'd be waiting for his friends to get out of school to hang out so he might be slightly more socialized

It could also explain how he acts in meeting, seemingly unable to talk in any formal manner for the most part, from my experience i didn't have much experience with formal conversation and i didn't really learn too much about formality aside from being nice to strangers honestly until i was a bit older sure it probably doesn't matter too much considering barely anyone speaks formally in the series but him especially is informal most of the time like most other characters seem capable of formality

California is the second one I'm listing here and i think he would get a fairly okay education, he'd learn how to read at an acceptable age and maybe know the most basic math, i personally like to think that his issue with homeschooling would come with religious shit and isolation, hence why he'd stop reading the Bible i personally would think he'd stop as an adult after realizing what actually happened when he was growing up i do imagine his church was quite fucked up

And his behavior in meetings, he's stated to not be friends with anyone even if he talks to them assumingly on a regular basis, he's fairly nice (i mean in comparison to others) but he is overly self righteous and I'd argue a bit uptight and thinks he's better than others, and it's not like they're the worse traits ever but yeah, that's not really fun to hang around without other traits to make up for it, which i cannot really think of anything i mean I'm sure there is but i just can't think of anything tbh

And lastly texas he's probably in a tie for most well adjusted with califlower (i simply just can't decide who handles their adulthood better) he's a jackass i mean what else can i say? I mean he could also be unaware of how to act in formal situations but yeah that's not as interesting as everything else

I personally think his religious trauma would be less extreme than California so he'd still be religious but he's probably gone no contact with his parents honestly, he does have a stronger accent and although i know it's really just an exaggeration of the real thing but i do think the idea of him only having his relatives teaching him how to speak would make a bit of sense because in our generation people typically in the us speak pretty similar (with a bit of difference but often not much) especially since the internet was invented and i could imagine his parents not liking it and banning it. Of course i would believe there was physical or emotional abuse, i could also see child labor a line a remember, i think it's an interesting concept, honestly overall he might see his parents as horrible people but not the fact he was homeschooled as horrible idk i just don't think he'd fully realize his trauma maybe somewhat but not fully

Thank you for reading this, what do you think?

also I'm not that old I'm just in highschool, i just wanted to clear any miscommunication about it

[orcinus-veterinarius]

https://aqua.org/stories/2023-06-26-sanctuary-state thoughts? I really don’t like this. THE National Aquarium has fully embraced the ARA rhetoric around dolphins in captivity, saying that their own dolphin exhibit is “patronizing” and “for human entertainment”, despite the fact that they’re a scientific aquarium that is clearly leaps and bounds better than any of those cheap tourist trap dolphin swim places. The “Whale Sanctuary Project” has clearly stated on its website that they want to put an end to all wildlife in captivity, so it honestly makes me sick that National is partnering with them. They’ve turned their backs on all their colleagues in the AZA that have dolphins and slandered them. I hope they lose their AZA accreditation over this.

Thank you for this ask. I read National's statement a few weeks ago, and it made me sick to my stomach. I didn't post about it because honestly I was unsure I would be able to speak on the issue without becoming overly emotional, but you have expressed basically everything I feel.

At this point, it isn't that National is moving their dolphins to a sea pen that bothers me. We've known this for seven years, and since they're an AZA facility, I had to at least have a little faith that this was for the animals' wellbeing. I've met several trainers and veterinarians who left the National Aquarium at least in part due to their handling of the dolphin situation, but I never imagined it was this bad until now. This world-renowned aquarium is repeating activist rhetoric pretty much verbatim. They're partnering with an anti-zoo organization that works against everything they stand for as an institution. They're publicly slandering their colleagues. If I didn't know better, I would think this was a thinkpiece by PETA and not an official statement from an AZA institution. I also find it incredibly disturbing that they claim the "success" of SEA LIFE's Beluga Whale Sanctuary (and the non-existent Whale Sanctuary Project??) serves as their example, when it has been... slightly less than successful.

If I could ask National's CEO one thing, it would be this: Are the other animals in your collection not entertainment? What makes them different? What makes them "education" but your dolphins "exploitation"? Elasmobranchs, for example, are a staple of public aquaria, but they present their own host of issues. Reproductive disease, nutritional imbalances, musculoskeletal deformities. Why are you giving up on your dolphins but not them? Will you let an activist group take them next?

I'm afraid I must agree with you... they do not deserve to remain in the AZA. Not if they're going to brazenly accuse their fellow members of animal abuse while allowing anti-zoo organizations to dictate their own animals' care. I'm really, really scared of where this is going, and I would love to see the other AZA aquariums housing cetaceans (Brookfield Zoo, Disney's Epcot, Georgia Aquarium, Indianapolis Zoo, Marineland Florida, Mystic Aquarium, Shedd Aquarium, Texas State Aquarium, the SeaWorld parks, and numerous international members) release a joint statement on the issue affirming their committment to ex situ conservation, research, and public outreach. And I deeply hope none of the "10 other dolphin-holding institutions" mentioned are AZA facilities.

I wish the best to Beau, Foster, Chesapeake, Bayley, Spirit, Jade, and their caregivers, who are losing the animals to whom they've devoted their lives to a situation in which they have no say.

I do also wish to share this statement from Jason Bruck's lab. Dr. Bruck is a PhD animal behaviorist specializing in dolphin communication and cognition both in the wild and in human care.