#and i can technically get my mom on board with it so long as its not like insane. And they can probably make it work

[astradyke]

currently trying to mentally work out the logistics of if this backfires and they do tour while i'm at home me leaving my family to fly to [redacted american city] to where my friend lives to crash at their place for a few days despite the fact that their girlfriend is also a phannie and i know nothing about her so it would be the three of us as a trio which would be. something.

[berylcups]

haiiiii :3 could i perchance request some melone headcanons......... any kind of headcanons, that's totally up to you!! im in need of more content of my favorite purple haired freak :3

Melone HCs?! Now how can I say no to that? 😄 I’ve thought long and hard about this purple blorbo and squeezed all of my thoughts out on here! I hope you enjoy my interpretation of this adorable freak! 💜 Beryl

🍈Melone HCs🍈

CW: This IS Melone we’re talking about so…. Beware the lewdness!

Notes: this is technically number 2 in my list but I thought I’d send this one out first since it got completed first. And it will give you all something to nibble on while I finish up number 1 and start on number 3! 😄 I hope you all enjoy ! 💜 Beryl

This guy sucks at cooking. The most he can do is microwave ramen, Mac and cheese, and boil pasta. 😭

He genuinely thinks pineapple is an ok topping for a pizza. Not bad not great…just OK. The squad is offended and speechless about his apathy of fruit being on a pizza . But his rebuttal is-tomato is a fruit and it’s on a pizza. Someone needs to hold Ghiaccio back because he’s ready to THROW HANDS.🙌

He’s the biggest Anti-hydro homie ever. He HATES drinking plain water. 💧 He only drinks coffee, tea, soda, energy drinks, juice, and alcohol. How does he have clear skin?! He uses lots of trendy face creams and just has good genetics. Lucky bastard.😩

He thinks cola and root beer is the nastiest drink imaginable. He calls it the “black bile” based off the 4 humors of the human body.

He forgets to eat…It’s so bad that he gets a little snarky and Ghiaccio kindly reminds him by saying “oi Melone! Quit acting like a cunt and go eat something for fucks sake!”

He stays up ridiculously late. If he’s not pulling an all-nighter, he’s going to bed by 4am.

He sleeps in his underwear…and it’s a thong. 😳 he used to sleep nude but he also sleeps walks occasionally and nobody wants to see his junk so the team forced him to AT LEAST sleep in underwear!

Believe it or not, his natural hair color is purple! He only dyed it blonde to disguise himself for a mission.

He lost his tonsils from getting too many strep throat infections as a kid. He wanted to keep the removed tonsils but his mom said no. 😞

He’s not hairy but he does wax his entire body. No razor, no hair removal creams…just good ol wax. Ouch. 😬 his skin is as smooth as a dolphin.

His perfume/cologne smells like cucumber melon, green tea, and a citrus blend. Mmm…He’s fruity smelling!

He has a insane 4-5 step system when he washes his hair. He’s used to the warm water going cold on him in the middle of his showering routine. He must put up with the chills in order to have the best hair in the squad! …illuso totally isn’t seething with jealousy btw.

Melone was born and raised in Venezia with Ghiaccio as his best friend growing up. His venetian accent isn’t heavy like Ghiaccios.

He’s 25 years old and identifies as nonbinary. Melone is pretty lax with his pronouns but identifies as they/them it/its and he/him.

His sexuality? It’s yes please! 😄 He’s on board to get down with anyone! He has no preference when it comes to gender…you just need to have an open mind! Although, there are bonus points to be given out if you’re physically able (and consenting) to bear children. If not, he definitely won’t hold it against you! He’s DTF and ready to sweep you off your feet!

This guy has no ass but he can dance like he has one. Twerking and grinding his way at the club hopefully into someone’s pants. 😳

This inhuman human can swallow a banana WHOLE. He has no gag reflex, the dentists love him. Take that information for what you will.

He absolutely HATES snakes. Just the sight of them will make him gag 😭. He’s cool with other reptiles though. Just keep snakes away from him. 🐍

He can’t tell what he likes more-cats or dogs. He likes cats because they are independent and clean but…they like to scratch. He likes dogs because they’re loyal and friendly but… they can poo everywhere. It’s a difficult decision for him to decide! He’ll settle with a reptile like a chameleon. 🦎

He went to university for Botanical studies. He has a hobby for horticulture and beekeeping.

He also dabbles in astrology and reading fortunes through palm reading. (Usually by licking your hand 😬)

He has shaky hands. He doesn’t have great dexterity due to all the caffeine he drinks. He wants to paint his nails but it always looks messy. 😬 so he’s stuck using clear nail polish unless he has enough money to go to the nail salon. 💅

He’s an avid video gamer. His console of choice is the PC, but isn’t interested the console vrs PC wars. If there’s a game he likes and it’s only available on a certain platform, he’s going to get it. Ghiaccio, Formaggio, and Pesci are welcome to his consoles but they need their own controller. He doesn’t want no cheeto hands in his squeaky clean controllers! (This is mostly a rule for formaggio since he snacks and plays.) And no touching Melones laptop! That’s his baby—Babyface. And there’s cursed things you might find on there. 🥴

He’s the best at rhythm games while Ghiaccio is the best at racing games. They both rival each other when it comes to puzzle games.

🔥 Spicy HCs 🔥

According to him, the first time he ever got an erection was when he saw a high heel shoe ad in his moms Vogue Italia. He stole that page and “discovered “ himself. 😳 his mom did catch him and she tells this embarrassing story to her friends and family and social gatherings. Yikes 😬

This guy eats ass/pussy like groceries. Like a man who hasn’t eaten in DAYS. He’s a part of the clean plate club if you know what I mean. 😏 you don’t? Well uh… he good at oral idk 🤷‍♀️

Majority of the time he is a bottom. He’ll dom if you want him to. He’s a slut he’ll do ANYTHING you want.

His top kinks are feet, latex, body worship, and breeding (giving and receiving).

His favorite position is doggy, reverse cowgirl, and the classic mating press. This goes for him and his partner.

His favorite times to do it is shower time and when you both wake up. There’s just something about lazily screwing you from behind as he spoons you. It’s his drug and reason for living.

Despite his promiscuous demeanor he doesn’t have one night stands often. He much rather find his soulmate.

He prefers to only use surrogates for babyface that he deems “human trash “. The most toxic of the toxic cruelest ueterus havers. He would never use a good person as materials for his stand. He doesn’t have the heart to believe it or not. His apathy only extends to violent cruel people.

When he finds someone he’s interested in he falls hard. He does want to fuck them ASAP but he wants to treat them like the monarch like they are.

King of aftercare! He’s going to talk sweetly to you and cuddle with you. He’s gonna tend to your bruises, Make a bath for you, clean his fluids off of you, make you something to drink…anything you want 💜

More than likely you will probably be bruising him since he loves being your bottom, but he will still try to give you aftercare after you rode him for over an hour straight. 😅 Be firm and tell him no and give him the same care he gives you. You’ll melt his heart!

[tea-earl-grey]

Get to Know Me!

tagged by @lostyesterday (thanks for the tag <333)

Last song: based on my phone – Everything's Here And Nothing's Lost by Snow Patrol but technically my last song is about two lines from Intros & Narrators by Bastille which i've been listening to on repeat for a few days while editing my Janeway fanvid.

Favorite color: purple!

Currently watching: just finished watching Only Murders in the Building which i enjoyed more than i thought i would since i'm not a huge fan of murder mysteries but it's fun! also the musical numbers in s3 slapped and i'm looking forward to the rest of s4.

Last movie: i genuinely have no idea, i haven't been watching a lot of movies lately so it might be Star Trek 2009??? which i rewatched over a month ago i think.

Sweet/spicy/savory: currently sweet because i'm currently eating some freshly baked chocolate chip cookies :)

Relationship status: single and happy.

Current obsessions: (glances around) i mean you're on this blog so i think you can put two and two together here. aside from Star Trek & Doctor Who, i've been getting back into cross stitching which hopefully won't absolutely fuck up my hands this time (i mean... they will, i'm just trying to be better about only doing it for an hour a day and wearing my elbow brace & compression gloves)

Last thing I googled: "best toasters" ok. so earlier today i fucked up my toaster beyond belief and i do need to tell the story now because it's still absolutely baffling to me. (under the cut because uh. it got long.)

tagging: any of my mutuals! sorry i'm so bad at tag games.

toaster story:

i was having a late lunch (toast with some leftovers) and sliced my bread a bit too thin (not a big deal, happens all the time, right? right?) i popped the toast up a little early because i didn't want it to get burnt but it got stuck. not a problem. i'll get some (non metal) tongs. whoops! it fell out of the little toast cage because of how thin it is and now it's more stuck. okay well i'll unplug the toaster and just turn it upside down. nope. it somehow falls to the bottom where the crumb tray is. ok well i'll just flip it back around, take out the crumb tray and it's fine, right? i flip it around and the toast is simply not visible anymore. "well that's weird," i say, "surely if i shake it some more, it'll come out, right?" it did not. i start to question whether the bread is even in there anymore because where could it go???? before spotting it with my flashlight and seeing that it somehow migrated to the wall between the food/toaster part of the toaster and the circuitry part of the toaster. i have no idea how it happened but it should be easy to free it if i just undo the screws that attach the bottom panel of the toaster and i can do a good deep clean of everything. i take five screws out, no problem and it's starting to pry off. i get to the last screw and... it's completely stripped. i have a pretty comprehensive toolbox with one of those multi-piece screwdrivers that has like 50 different heads. usually with stripped screws, you can find something that sorta works well enough to get it out but nope. nothing even close to fitting. at this point i decide to text my mom the situation because surely i was missing something obvious. my mom comes over laughing a bit at me because i'm known for overlooking easy solutions and surely it's not possible to fuck up making toast this much. it was. another hour passes and we definitely can't get out the screw without destroying the toaster and we haven't been able to shake the toast out. any sane person would probably just think that maybe the $30 toaster had served its purpose and is a lost cause. but a new strategy emerged! we managed to shake the bread to the unscrewed side of the toaster and could pry it open about three quarters of an inch. the bread somehow managed to get behind a circuit board so we just needed to be able to navigate it around and theoretically pull it out. after a few attempts, i finally managed to grab hold of the bread (that was somehow still entirely intact?) with my weirdly skinny fingers and i pulled it out victorious! however we did completely bend the plastic base that we were prying up and during a brief test to see if the toaster still worked it definitely started to smell like burning electronics so. rip. but we got the bread out just to prove we could!! and frankly i think i would have had too much of a grudge against that toaster to keep using it even if it did work.

so yeah. therefore googling "best toasters".

[greenlikethesea]

OK SO DROP THE TOO 5 PASTA SHAPES BC ITS SO IMPORTANT TO ME

hahahahahahaaaaaaa i'm SO glad, it's also very important to me. a topic of intense debate amongst me and my top tier blorbos. i fear that this may be the post that gets me angry anons and/or hordes of people unfollowing me. i have to stand my ground. i must speak my truth!

you also caught me at a talkative moment when i just completed the arduous task of driving home from visiting a friend, so have fun hearing me babble (reading me babble?):

so, for a long time, i didn't think i liked pasta. it was something we ate on sundays, something to eat that we could all semi-agree on, a conduit for my mom's sauce, which is still my favorite sauce i've ever tasted, even if it's not technically the best. turns out that my parents severely overcook their pasta, which is why i hated it so much. i generally cook my own portion separately from my family's portion when i cook pasta for the group of us now.

i have preferences! a lot of it is sensory. for example, i don't like spaghetti noodles, but i also do not like lo mein.

here we have my top five pasta shapes, definitively, for largely arbitrary reasons:

cavatappi. the ultimate, the only, my one true love, i will buy seventeen boxes of these when they are on sale. especially if it has ridges -- a textural delight! goes well with any sauce! hearty without being overbearing! so pretty! an aesthetic and culinary delight. tens, tens, tens across the board.

elbow macaroni. i'm seven years old at heart and one of my favorite foods is macaroni and cheese, and i think it is in its proper form when it's elbow noodles. i think they're fun! they are rainbow shaped. you can shovel a lot of them into your mouth at once. they hold sauces really well! you can fit a lot of them into a bowl!

tagliatelle. love a long, flat, broad noodle -- ya boi loves a rice noodle equivalent as well. it has that satisfying slurp without being too chewy. works well with a creamy sauce, one of my favorite ways to have pasta. great fresh or dry. i will also accept its lesser cousins, fettuccine and linguine, but i think this type is truly above the pale imitators.

penne. people love to hate on this regular girl, but i think she works wonders, especially if she's got ridges. a solid choice all around -- an al dente wonder! penne vodka is a god tier dish and is a staple at any catering hall in my area, so just from weddings and the solid two years i attended sweet sixteens in the mid aughts, i've probably eaten more penne noodles than any other type of noodle combined.

fusilli. economy pasta. filling. feeds an army. interesting, crunchy aesthetic. the starring pasta of a story i like to tell about my former long term partner's mother, in which i learned she had absolutely no idea what pasta salad was, which taught me so much about why he was the way he was. so it's a noteworthy pasta in my eyes.

[scartale-an-undertale-au]

So as an Israeli, the time thingy is simply called Israeli time XDXD either we're hella early or extremely late. My Bnei akiva Baka anthem had a line that was literally 'getting to every place two hours late'. Or in weddings, the chuppah is almost never starting on time unless we're at sunset and everyone literally is scrambling to begin at time.

We have so, so many puns, but israeli Hebrew is basically full of words that are basically combos of two words (rakh-bah-l = vehicle + rope = the cars on the strings, can't remember the word in English XD) or army language (looz = table/board+time = timetable)

If you know someone by their english name, you have to try hard not to hebrewise their name XDXD (rachel - rah-kheh-l) but then you cannot remember if they use their hebrew name or just their English name (if they have one so at least most of the time its not an issue).

Or instead of english name, everyone decided to nickname someone with his family name. So now youre calling that person by his family name for so long you dont even remember his first name and at this point you're too terrified to ask. And when you meet his family members... Oh boy.

Jewish mom absolutely exists in everyone

So not as neurodivergent on diaspora jews, we do have a high number of adhd ppl. I just thought it was the trend XDXD

I would say technically its true israelies and jews have higher numbers of those with anxiety, but is it really anxiety if theres actual threats and danger against us? (Also according to research, jews have higher risk towards schizophrenia, but again, its probably hard to diagnose because most of the symptoms sound just like what a jew/israeli can experience daily)

Funny things about being in jewish culture™

You absolutely cannot expect jews to (1) stay on a topic topic or (2) be concise. The notion of "having a topic" to talk about is merely a suggestion (apparently, this includes me)

Jewish time means you're transported into a universe where time doesn't exist. Every shul has to have a portal to a different plane of oblivion - it's as important as having the scrolls in the ark

You might only know someone by their hebrew name and consider if they will look at you weird if you call them by it outside of shul

There is a latent jewish mother hiding in everyone and that mother will arise like a sleeper agent if someone has deduced that you aren't eating enough during any potential communal meals

Why so many puns

Why are all of you as sarcastic as me...

The one person who's actually fluent in hebrew flexing their superior language comprehension (diaspora)

Celebrating having a minyan

Singing prayers to popular children's songs

It's surprisingly normal to ask about someone's bris if it comes up

There are seven people in the building, yet I thought there were twenty

[backuparguelles]

Emmie Becomes a Wraith

Based on ���100% Molly McGee” I decided to make Molly and Darryl’s cousin Emmie Suksai McGee’s weekend visit special, as a pink wraith ghost. With special guest Libby.

Libby: so your uhhhh… Emmie McGee? U look like your Molly’s lil sister so does the face. Emmie: nice to meet ya Libby, I know Molly like u since u guys met here. And your a book lover too? Libby: yup and turtles too. I got a few to hold. Emmie: they’re so cute!!! Darryl: Hey Emmie since u and our uncle discovered our ghostly secret. Maybe me and Molly spend a weekend even better both here and in the Ghost World. Emmie: wait, I can be a ghost? Molly: well not quite dead yet but there’s a loophole called a “wraith”. Your ghostly form keeps your emotions and energy but your body is nearly boring and dull. Emmie: how we gonna know we’re going to the Ghost World. Darryl: pretend that we’re in the attic napping. Emmie: okay! (attic door open) Hey dad, uncle, and aunt; we’re just taking a nap for several hours before dinner. Alright he’s cool with. Scratch: alright kids get ready to cross zap twice jump. Get ready to rip your souls!!!

And that the bodies of the McGee kids and Libby zapped and became quite soulless and boring. But their emotionally main souls are in their ghostly wraith form in yellow, lime green, pink, and mint green. Emmie: oh my corn, eeeeeeeeee!!! I’m really a pink flying cutie RAAAAAAAAAAGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!! Libby: sweet corn she did it! Scratch: wow nice pink and some red lava color tones. But the scare-off with be after dinner in my Ghost Council as the Chairman of the afterlife. Molly: it’s a kinda long story tho but technically we’re not dead yet. Libby: alright we leave them the bed, bean bag chairs, and plushies without knowing we’re dead. Darryl: hold on tight ladies and Scratch because there’s no sunlight in the Ghost World but we can be a scary freakshow ghouls in an instant. When they enter the Ghost World, Emmie: oh my corn! Look at that place Wow!!! Weeeeeeeeee!!!!!! Emmie says hi and shakes hands to many ghosts as they can until they approach Geoff. Geoff: hey hey Scratch, McGees and Libby!!! Your the girl cousin McGee right? I’m Geoff that G-E-O-F-F not to be confused with my long time partner Jeff that’s J-E-F-F. Emmie: does he do that every time we meet them. Molly: it’s confusing but yes. Darryl: there’s Jeff with a J as described by Geoff with a G, Reggie an assistant to Scratch, Sally Tugbottom the real hero and founder of Brighton despite she has a little evil bro named Ezekiel Tugbottom, Blair: who works at the video store and a horror movie fan, The Barrister Ghosts aka Scratch’s board members consisting of Bartholomew, Sir Alister, Lucretia, and Grimbella; Howlin’ Harriet a singing salami selling woman that once have no toes, and Sonia Davis a former pro-skater and the other ghost with legs. Blair: oh hi welcome to the Ghost World, I know Molly so well u want some stale popcorn? Emmie: no thanks, that’s sour. Bartholomew: hope this visit is more special my dear McGee. Emmie: That’s Suksai McGee sir Bart. Darryl: my dad and his Irish older sibs aka Billy and Jilly are the McGee side of my family while my mom, his brother, and my mother’s mom aka Grandma Nin represents the Suksai part of the family. Sir Alister: so technically its Suksai McGee u say. Reminded me of Molly’s best friend Libby. Sonia: awwwww!!! Your family is getting bigger by the minute. Reggie: your really look like Molly, u almost like sisters! Emmie: u look like Scratch’s lil bro!!! Scratch: hey Geoff, I got fiery snacks that Emmie and his dad bought. Extra hot seaweed chips!!! Hey Jeff, Sally, Reggie, and many others. U need to try this chips, I tried but I survived the burnout. Good luck with your purple tongues!!! Geoff: even we’re not alive but really, how I’m gonna be afraid of a bag of sea chips made out from underwater? “CHOMP!” Oh my ghost, it’s hotter than lava in a volcano!!! Jeff: cough cough!!! What kind of organic chips is this? That’s from the ocean??? Sally: yeow! It’s a burning sea plant without burning the chips y’all!!! Reggie: my glasses are burning wildfire!!! Blair: wow, I need a soda here or water or milk!!! Darryl: should we get milk now ? Molly: oh boy there goes the supply of cows! Hold on guys!!!

Later they McGees learn to cook Thai food on top of the Ghost Council mountain, then dinner is finally served. Sir Alister: alright everyone a feast is about to begin! Oh wait I got some ice from Sonia. Molly: we got Thai food but we put some flags on it whether it’s spicy or not. I’ll get the non-spicy ones. Jeff: wait Molly, u got fire powers without eating spicy foods. Molly: it’s powers not food Jeff. Scratch: u want cola, root beer, lemon-lime, citrus, orange, strawberry, cream soda, ginger ale, cherry, grapefruit, and grape. Darryl: got milk too? Scratch: oh yeah!!! No one ever misses a drink. Geoff: wait there’s grape and grapefruit? Molly: they’re different fruits Geoff. Sally: great golly wild west! That’s a spicy shrimpy with bbq y’all! Reggie: so does the noodles and veggies. Oh my that’s a spicy beef! Wow that’s hot!!! RAAAAAAAAAGGGHHH!!! Blair: I got it on tape Reggie!!! Jeff: wow a dragon blaster! Nice! Geoff: this is much better than Molly’s house. Molly: I learned it from Grandma Nin. Darryl: hey guys, I heard that story sprite says what’s for dessert? Emmie: Mango ice cream!!! Grimbella: wow! It’s fascinating style of long strings sipping on a pink tongue. Sir Alister: pass me the baos and paos. Spicy beef please. Scratch: alright everyone a toast to a new regime, say easy peasy McGeesies!!! Geoff; got any more milk. My purple tongue still sparks. Darryl: chocolate anyone? We got strawberry too! Geoff: oh boy, so much for the flamin hot seaweed chips! Ugh still burning here in my mouth. Emmie: I think I gonna like this place! Muahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!! Sally: whoa whoa!!! Easy there Emmie my dear!!! Darryl: we been there before but hey, don’t fool the cuteness unless if a bad guy approaches. Blair: I’m new to the ghost world months ago but hey scary is scary!!! And I got it on tape!!! Lucretia: oh my now that’s a horror movie u say my Blair dear.

After the dinner a scare off is on the top of the rock of the Ghost Council mountain.

Scratch: after a weird and burning dinner party. I want to have another human friend make a great scare. Meet Emmie McGee!!! Dead or alive may the best fight win!!! Molly: sure lemme try first, ahem hissssssssssssss!!!!!! raaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!!! Darryl: really watch this ladies and gentelmen, guuuuuuaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!! and also braaaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!! Libby: lemme think about my scare I taught oh wait here it is now yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Emmie: beginners luck but can u try this? RAAAAAAAAAGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!! Jeff: dang girl. She needs a family partner to keep in touch even if their far away between Brighton and New York. Reggie: can I take her to New York? Scratch: sold!!! Reggie gets a human friend for Emmie and his dad!!! Emmie: finally I got a ghost friend!!! This is the best family visit ever both in Brighton and the Ghost World!!! Geoff: she grew up so fast so does Reggie!!! Molly: now we never gonna be apart with just a portal away even we’re just ghostly wraiths since we can’t let human bodies in! Darryl: if u even need us, Just need Reggie will ya so does a video call. Emmie: I love u all the ghouls especially I overcome fear of ghosts. Scratch: oh btw, keep this three wanted posters in your room. One has a scythe another are bubbly but tearful runts who are evil opposites to the council plus a green blowhard show-off and yeah I’m talking about Tug the Tornado. Keep an eye on those 3 baddies besides since I’m the Chairman of this realm there’s some nasty revenge on me and the McGees. Emmie: sure sir I won’t let u down!!! Libby: so if we come home as humans I can tour my mom’s bookstore for some shopping and learning. Emmie: can I read your books? Libby: a ghost journal might recommend u and I have a copy for free. Emmie: oh thanks Libby, your a great friend to Molly!!! Libby: hey uh anymore hugs. Darryl: ugh Scratch!!! Your chairman’s robe is squeezing us hard!!! Molly: Okay now we go home as humans. See ya later my afterlife friends!!! Sally: I knew Molly is the best human we ever met! Geoff: me too. It’s a simple love and fun. Blair: hope u see us again! Byeeeeee!!!

The end

[cocochannel00]

The Azoff Family: A Case Study on one of the Music Industry’s Most Connected Families

(ft. a breakdown of the Grammy voting process and problems)

This is very long so I will try and split it up into categories for everyone (sorry I got carried away- I spent like 2 hours writing this) but enjoy!

*Disclaimer: I want to preface while the majority of this is based in research, some parts may be speculation. I don’t know the family personally so I can’t tell you what goes on behind closed doors but I can tell you how parts of the entertainment/music industry work. I’ve had 5 internships in the industry (one in marketing at one of the big record labels) and the rest of my work is publicity (what I enjoy) and events and a former advisor used to run in the same circles as Irving Azoff (and he spilled some tea last year) I’m not out here to diminish the hard work of any artists or their teams, I’m simply here to showcase parts of the industry that aren’t always shown.*

Please also see: Story Time: How Fan Pages Directly Impact Columbia Records Decisions and Harry Styles Image

IRVING AZOFF: NEVER STOP THE GRIND

Let’s begin with the great business man himself Mr. Irving Azoff Irving Azoff is the literal posture child for connections and power in the music industry (he was also inducted into the 2020 rock and roll hall of fame class which is like a huge fucking deal for a manager to be inducted so you know he's the real deal)

In conclusion, I love Irving Azoff and his drive.

Irving Azoff: Early Years Run Down:

He came up middle class (dad was a pharmacist, mom a bookkeeper) in Danville, Illinois

He dropped out of college to run a small Midwestern concert-booking empire and managed local acts in the era

Opportunity came knocking and he got the chance to manage the Eagles and the rest is history

He's one of the best negotiators and has negotiated business on behalf of stars like Stevie Nicks, the Eagles, and Jimmy Buffet

Azoff has been an incredible manager and his drive to always advocate for his clients while basically not giving two sh*ts about what people think of him has gotten him the incredible reputation he has today.

All of Irving Azoff’s Major Job Positions:

Former President MCA (major label)

Former CEO of Ticketmaster and executive chairman of Live Nation Entertainment, the behemoth formed from Ticketmaster’s merger with Live Nation.

In 2013 he and Cablevision Systems Corp. CEO and New York Knicks owner James Dolan formed a partnership, Azoff MSG Entertainment (Currently still CEO)

----> Azoff also ran the Forum in Inglewood under Azoff MSG Entertainment after MSG purchased it in 2012 (it was sold in 2020 to the owner of the Clippers) — why do you think Harry played the forum for the Fine Line show? Azoff connection

Azoff MSG Entertainment encompasses all of the other companies including Full Stop Management, Global Music Rights (performance-rights org), and the Oak View Group (arena developing company)

He also is the co-founder and manager of the lobbying group Music Artists Coalition, a group that helps lobby for artists-rights issues such as royalty rates, copyright issue and healthcare insurance (see he's not all bad)

Essentially what I'm getting at is this man knows anybody who's anybody. He's the man you want on your team to help promote your music, plan your tour, and get you on that Grammy nom list.

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

JEFFREY AZOFF: THE CHILD OF NEPOTISM

So for those of you that don't know, Jeffery Azoff is Harry's current manager and the son of Irving Azoff (the third of four kids). He's currently a partner at Full Stop Management, the company owned by Irving and the one artists such as Harry, Haim, the Eagles, Kings of Leon, and Meghan Trainer are signed to.

Jeffrey graduated from the University of Colorado's Leeds School of Business and started working fresh out of college at his father's old Management company (Frontline Management) working under Maroon 5's manager Jordan Feldstein (the only way you get that kind of internship/job as a 21 year old fresh out of college is if your family or family friends gives it to you). He worked here for 5 years.

Direct Quote from Irving Azoff to Jeffrey (really tells you a lot): "Listen carefully, because I’m going to say this one time. You have a phone and you have my last name. If you can’t figure it out, you’re not my son."

After working for his father, Jeffrey moved on to the talent agency CAA (Creative Artist Agency) where he worked for roughly 3 and half years before joining his dad in forming Full Stop Management in 2016.

While he was at CAA, Irving moved over clients like Christina Aguilera and the Eagles to the talent agency to help with tour booking instead of doing it internally through LiveNation (he was CEO).

Even though I'm sure Jeff has had to work somewhat hard to get to where he is (or at least to mess up his dad's work as he doesn't seem like the type to take laziness well), the door into the industry and every job was basically handed to him on a silver platter.

Not to mention if you watch episodes of keeping up with the  kardashians (like myself) you can actually see Jeff hanging out with kendall and the rest of the fam at their Palm Springs house (you know you're a nepotism kid if you have an in with the Kardashian crew). Invite me next time Jeffrey!!!

Think of the Azoff's as the mafia family of the music industry, you don't mess with the mafia

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

THE GRAMMY AWARDS: STUDENT COUNCIL ELECTIONS ON STEROIDS

Ok so here's where we’re going to get into a bit more of the speculation/grey area. I don't need to tell you that award shows are corrupt (See the Golden Globes Emily in Paris scandal) and the Grammys are not an exception. Think of the Grammys as one big student council/government elections where despite the fact the teachers tell you six times to vote for the best candidate, you're still going to vote for your friends even if they aren't the best.

A simplified break-down of Grammy voting:

1) Recording Academy voting members (artists, producers, musicians- anyone involved first hand with the creation of music; All voting members must have been producers, performers or engineers on six or more tracks of a commercially released album (or 12 or more digital tracks) and record labels will submit nominations in various categories to the grammys (songs need to be released commercially between October 1 of the previous year and September 30th of this year). You can also become a voting member by either winning a grammy or being endorsed by a current voting member (hint hint)

2) Once received, the recording academy with have the academy of trustees and its reviewers organize them and approve any changes to the 30 categories/fields (aka they can add new categories or remove old ones; so no best ukulele album of the year -- this is where things get funky)

There's speculation that during this stage when these special groups of 8-10 people are organizing genres, there's an "unwritten rule" that you need to be careful what album you green light (especially for famous artists) if you don't want them to win) (Rob Kenner said this- he used to be on one of these committees). Famous people tend to get more votes from clueless or lay Academy members that don't know the specialized categories or don't care enough to listen to songs that aren't radio trending.

3) After the nominations occur, Voting members begin their first voting. Members can vote for the four general categories of record of the year, album of the year, song of the year and best new artist and a maximum of 15 categories, all within their areas of expertise. Now the interesting thing is that while these are the guidelines there is literally nothing stopping them from voting in whatever categories they want (i.g. a rapper voting in the opera category despite not listening to opera). Theses ballots are all tallied and the top 20 entries are determined in each category (funky moment #2)

In 12 of the 84 categories those top 20 go to the ballot and it's done; for the rest it’s not like that. 59 categories including the big four go to a "nomination review committees" (identities are protected so they can't get lobbied... sure) who take a look at the top 20 and narrow it down to 7 or 8. (these are the special committees the Weekend talked about when he was snubbed). They're supposed to choose the nominees "based solely on the artistic and technical merits of the eligible recordings" which lets be real if that was the case Watermelon Sugar (along with most of the others in the category) I don't think would have been nomimated as they are very generic pop (none of them are special... sorry to the WM lovers out there).

This committee is basically held to THE HONOR CODE SYSTEM... I mean tell me when the last time the honor code system worked in literally any scenario (literally wtf). Don't take my word for it though the former CEO of the Academy Deborah Dugan (a queen) filed a complaint against the Recording Academy basically claiming that the nomination review process was rigged (she was fired after 5 months on the job).

Quote from Deborah Dugan "Members of the board [of trustees] and the secret committees chose artists with whom they have personal or business relationships... It is not unusual for artists who have relationships with Board members and who ranked at the bottom of the initial 20-artist list to end up receiving nominations."

These review committees can also exploit there power by adding up to two nominees that don't appear on the top 20 list to the final voting ballot (except in the 4 big categories - which watermelon sugar that one wasn't nominated for)

They also have craft committees for like non performance stuff (like album notes, engineering and arranging) that don't even get voted on by the academy voting members

4) After all of that fucked up mess, the grammy's decided is ok, the ballots go back to the voting members for the final vote. Deloitte (an accounting firm) then counts all of them, seals them in envelopes, and delivers them to the Grammy award show.

** The Grammy's just announced this year they're removing the "secret committees" so let's see how things shift in the next couple of years**

So obviously I'm not saying this to discredit Harry's nomination or his win as Fine Line was in the US top 20 albums for the majority of 2020, however, we must acknowledge privilege. Harry has a big name to him and a huge following, and while all of that shouldn't be taken into account, it does. He also has the Azoffs, a very well connected family with friends in lots of places that would be able to put in a good word here and there to get support behind Harry. Harry won best pop solo performance for Watermelon Sugar in a category with Doja Cat, Justin Bieber, Billie Eilish, Taylor Swift, and Dua Lipa. Look at the names there, the songs (ya'll can try and remember them cause I'm too lazy to write it out) and tell me that those top names with all of the music produced didn't get there through some connections.

Do with all this information what you will and if you are interested in learning more about the entertainment industry on your own Endeavor (owners of WME, a big talent agency like CAA) is hosting a free online program called the Excellence Program to help guide the future generation of industry executives. The program is a-synchronous and starts on July 12th. Highly recommend giving it a go if you're interested!!!

Alright ya'll that's it. Feel free to message me with your thoughts!

Extra Sources if you'd like to read:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkdndn/how-grammys-voting-actually-works-and-where-the-alleged-corruption-lies

https://www.grammy.com/grammys/awards/voting-process

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2020-11-05/irving-azoff-eagles-manager

https://celebrityaccess.com/caarchive/jeffrey-azoff-exits-caa-to-launch-new-management-company/

https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/features/grammy-awards-secret-committees-945532/

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/grammy-awards-eliminate-secret-committees-voting-changes-1163887/

[sassypotatoe1]

I have things to say about this someone bring me back in like 2 hours

You fuckers didn't bring me back but anyway! There is no concept of theft in communal property societies. Nada. That shovel happens to be stored on the farmland you happen to occupy and utilize, but it's everyone's shovel. Because it's everyone's shovel, it gets returned to its spot, people take care of it and when it breaks whoever broke it gets a new one. There's no need to steal it and keep it for yourself because the act of taking and using it isn't criminalized, so there's no incentive to hide that you took it or keep it to yourself.

In a private property society you have to put a markup on food you grow so you can cover costs and pay your workers and have extra profit for emergencies and maintenance (ideally). In a communal property society everyone benefits from the food, so everyone that can contributes to the growth, harvesting and transport of the food. The incentive isn't perpetual growth and profit, it's feeding everyone, and it's everyone's incentive so everyone pitches in. You as the farmer just happen to facilitate it and provide the knowledge and store and maintain the equipment.

If a private farmer's tractor breaks he has to buy a new one or pay a ton of money to fix it. If a communal farmer's tractor breaks the community mechanic fixes it because he benefits from the food production and that's the skill he provides towards the production of the food.

I'm not being idealistic I had a friend who was raised in this type of society. The proverb it takes a village to raise a child literally comes from societies like this. My friend's mom was a drug addict, and she somehow ended up in the care of someone in this village, but the entire village raised her. All of them. They took care of her school fees, uniform, boarding and lodging, civvy clothes, medical care, and when she went to university they all contributed to her tuition and other necessities. She got a job to cover what they couldn't.

Legally the one person was her guardian but technically the whole village took care of her. And each other and their own kids. They also don't have a concept of private property. The shovel example I mentioned above? That was an actual story from my friend about how things work in the village.

It's been working that way in many non-european cultures for a very very long time. When Europeans settled in south africa they waged bloody wars against the native people because they "stole their cattle". White people in south africa today still believe that the natives (in this specific case the Zulu tribe) were being malicious and stole the cattle.

The Zulu tribe was to my knowledge a communal property tribe. They had no concept of "this is mine, that is yours, if I take yours or you take mine it's bad". They saw cattle, needed cattle and took the cattle. Then the Europeans slaughtered a bunch of them over it, thinking the Zulu tribe was doing it to starve them out.

Private property for the most part has never made sense to me. It's just things, and if everyone had equal access to everything, no caveats, if you lose a thing you need you can just get another one.

my fav thing abt studying philosophy is how many white male philosophers will go “guys private property is Good it’s the Only Way guys guys get look look over here at thsi historical example!!! see all of them DIED because they didn’t privatize :((( see that’s why we need it they clearly didn’t die for any other reason in fact we’re ALL gonna die if we don’t private property haha there are no long term consequences no hey look over here!!!! private property good :) any other situation bad.”

and then you will never read any rebuttal of private property and it’s like. babygirls why are they so defensive.

[eternally-writing]

chain reaction | jjk

genre: fluff and angst

rating: PG

pairing: Jungkook x reader

theme: college!au , enemies to lovers, series

word count: 1.3k

warnings: light swearing

synopsis: A semester with your mortal enemy, Jeon Jungkook, as your lab partner was bound to be an experience to remember.

banner by me!

A/N: hey everyone! This is my first series that I’m writing and I’m so excited to share it with all of you! If you want to be tagged in future parts, reblog and mention that you want to be tagged in the caption, or you can send me an ask!

--♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡--

“You’re late”

Swinging your backpack onto the lab bench beside you, you glare at your lab partner.

“Shut up Jeon, it’s only 8:04am and our TA hasn’t even finished introducing the lab yet”.

Introduction to Organic Chemistry was all set up to be your favorite class. You were a chemistry genius in high school, your professor had amazing “rate my professor” reviews, and the class fit perfectly into your schedule, finishing right at 2:00pm so you could walk back to your dorm under the radiance of the afternoon sun.

It was all going well until you walked into your 8:00AM lab and found that due to budget cuts, all labs would now be done in pairs. And you had been paired with none other than the bane of your existence, Jeon Jungkook. As if doing an amide reduction wasn’t hard enough on its own, you had to do it alongside the biggest thorn in your side.

You couldn’t quite pinpoint exactly what it was about him that irked you so much. Maybe it was the way the girls tried to flirt with his constantly over the open flame of a Bunsen burner, or the way that he sucks up to your extremely old TA in order to get full marks on his procedural skills, or maybe it’s the fact that he somehow managed to look effortlessly put together at 8am on a Tuesday morning, while you looked (and felt) like absolute crap.

Either way, you were counting down the seconds until this semester would be over and you wouldn’t have to look at Jeon Jungkook again, but time seemed to be moving extra slow today.

“Late and spacing out today? Wow, lucky me to have you as a lab partner.”

Scoffing at him, you adjusted your protective glasses and readied your labware for today.

“180 minutes until I’m free. That’s it,” you thought to yourself.

“Technically it’s 170 minutes now, but if we don’t get started someone soon so we can hand in our product by 11am, we’re going to be here for a lot longer than that.”, snapped Jungkook next to you, already starting to mix chemicals together in a beaker.

Well, looks like your habit of accidentally saying things out loud gets worse when you’re tired.

“Let’s just try and get through this lab today without stepping on each other’s toes Jeon, okay?” you said, trying to catch up to Jungkook in the lab.

There was one part of chemistry labs you disliked the most. The waiting time. In some labs it was only 30 minutes, while in other labs it had taken almost an hour, but the constant in all of the situations was that waiting made it feel like time was passing at an infinitely slower rate. Taking out your laptop would violate lab safety protocol, and you couldn’t do any further steps in your lab until your reaction in your solution was done progressing under the fume hood. Since there were no other options, the only other thing left to do in moments like this was talk to Jeon Jungkook.

“So I was -”

“What did you -”

Yikes, add the awkwardness of starting conversation with Jeon Jungkook to the reasons you never talk to him.  You decided to pause and let him carry on with whatever he was saying, giving him a semi-pleasant smile to hopefully help distract from the embarrassment you were feeling.

“I was going to ask what you wanted to do our lab presentation on,” said Jungkook.

Your eyes widened at his statement. Looking at the whiteboard situated at the side of the room, you saw that in the 4 minutes you were late to your lab you may not have missed your TA explaining the procedure, but you did the big words on the board that said:

“FINAL LAB PRESENTATION: 3 weeks from now, worth 20% of your grade, done with your lab. 5-10 page paper and 10-15 minute oral presentation”.

Unable to contain your discontentment with the situation, you let out a groan and leaned back in your chair in frustration, almost falling off your lab stool in the process.

“Well aren’t you just little Miss Sunshine today? I’m not thrilled about this either, but I’d rather pull out my eyelashes than have to repeat this course again next semester,” scoffed Jungkook.

No morning ice coffee + Jeon Jungkook being annoying + a looming group project was more enough to make your head hurt.

“Can we just talk about this later Jeon? My brain can’t process this right now,” you pleaded as you put your head in your hands.

Leaning closer to you, Jungkook spoke at a whisper-level near your ear so nobody else would hear.

“Is your brain too busy processing my charm, sunshine? Don’t worry, I’ll try and tone down the charisma for you,” he joked with a smirk.

Your head went from being in your hands to plopping flat onto your (no longer sterile) lab counter at Jungkook’s comment.

First of all, ew. You don’t know how Jungkook was possibly picking up girls by talking like that. Second of all, charm and charisma were probably two words that you would NEVER associate with Jungkook, so his statement was definitely wrong.

A project with Jungkook meant that you would be spending a LOT more time with him, and the prospect of that happening made you wince internally. Group projects meant libraries, evenings, and , ugh, probably weekends with Jeon Jungkook.

You were snapped out of your internal despair by the sound of Jungkook’s voice.

“Hand me your phone.”

You froze. “Hm?”

“Well I don’t know what you think of me Y/N, but unless you think I can read your mind we’re  going to need to text to figure out when to meet.”

Giving in, you quickly tossed your phone into his open palm while grabbing his phone which was sitting on top of his backpack.

Glancing over his shoulder, you took a peek at your contact name.

“little miss sunshine? really Jeon?”

“Of course sunshine, i had to pick a name that encapsulated your positive and radiant energy,” he retorted, sarcasm practically dripping off of his words.

You definitely were picking your battles today, and one over a silly contact name didn’t seem to be worth it.

“You can do whatever, Jeon, but you’re sticking in my phone as “Jeon Boy” and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“We’ll see about that Y/N,” remarked Jungkook as he opened up his lab manual to read the next steps in the procedure.

Your mom had always taught you that the word “hate” was a very strong word and was only to be used in extreme situations. To this day, there were only 3 people in your life that you truly hated in every sense of the word: your ex-boyfriend, Jimin, your ENGL 101 Professor, Dr.Lee, and your neighbor’s cat, Mr. Whiskers, who chewed up your grade 8 science project the day before it was due.

You wouldn’t say that you hate Jungkook, but you were definitely getting close.

“Yknow, I don’t like you Jeon. Actually, scratch that, I really don’t like you.”

Glancing over at the timer on your lab bench finally reaching 0:00, Jungkook began walking over to the fume hood. Turning back to you, he smirked and started to speak.

“Well, the feeling’s mutual sunshine.”

Boy, this was definitely going to be a long semester.

--♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡--

If you want to be tagged in future parts, reblog and mention that you want to be tagged in the caption (or you can send me an ask)!

If you liked what you read, please write/follow! Thank you for reading♡

- Emily

[soupthatistohot]

Sk8 headcannons because brainrot pt. 2

- everything Reki has ever taught himself has been because of the wonderful world of YouTube tutorials

- Kojiro wanted to get his ears pierced in highschool like Kaoru, but he didn't do it because he was afraid of tarnishing his image (which is ironic when he gets a massive tattoo later in life)

- Langa doesn't like cats because he thinks they're mean

- there’s a stray cat that lives near Langa’s house and even though he doesn’t like cats, he leaves out milk and some fish for it sometimes because he feels bad

- Langa has never had a pet except a goldfish he won at a carnival once that he managed to keep alive for four years somehow.

- Kaoru technically needed glasses in high school, but he didn't wear them because he just didn't care at the time (until his vision grew poor enough that it affected his skating)

- Miya gets called a furry by Reki on the daily

- Reki has some knowledge in video editing and has considered starting a YouTube channel

- Langa has a diary, something he started after his father died. At first he didn't really know what to write, so he would just talk about his day, but eventually he got to the emotions part. The diary was especially useful during his fight with Reki in which he was trying to figure out his emotions (it was also useful when he realized he might have an itty bitty crush on his best friend)

- Joe is the biggest dad friend of the group in terms of doting on the kids and giving advice and stuff. Both Reki and Langa come to him often for advice, and Miya hangs around his restaurant a lot.

- Langa has one (1) succulent that he has managed to keep alive for three years. Its name is Gary, and it may not be the prettiest, but it is not dead yet!

- Reki never tells his mother when Langa is coming over and she's trained herself to just expect a lanky Canadian to be wandering around her house at any time.

- It took Kojiro a really long time to figure out his sexuality (and that's valid!!)

- Hiromi has been hopelessly in love with his manager for three years and has tried on multiple occasions to confess to her, but either something interrupts them or there's some sort of misunderstanding about it. Those are his more violent nights at "S".

- After befriending Reki, Langa and Miya, Hiromi is a little more careful about his tools of sabotage during beefs (and he lowkey feels guilty for injuring Reki in the beginning)

- Kaoru and Reki are actually closer than one might think. Reki ends up asking him for advice just as much as he asks Kojiro.

- Reki can't do something mundane without his ears being occupied. He ends up listening to music or podcasts a lot when he does chores or is working on a board alone (but if Langa is there with him, he'll talk his ear off instead).

- Miya's family isn't particularly bad, they're just a little distant. They assume everything is okay because Miya's so successful with school and skating, and they trust his integrity (which makes it very easy for him to sneak out to "S"). He doesn't really talk to them (or anyone, really) about his struggles.

- When Miya and Koyomi meet, he shows her all his video games and suddenly Reki's little sister is a gamer girl

- Langa almost wore a long-sleeved top to the beach and Reki had to go make him change before they left ("you'll melt in that, are you crazy?!")

- Kojiro knew damn well that Kaoru had a business trip and that the gang was going to the beach, but all other parties were unaware. He just decided to tag along as to not be left out.

- Kaoru trims his own hair, as he finds salons to be ridiculously overpriced for those with long hair

- Reki dogsits for his next door neighbor sometimes, they have a shiba named Onigiri (rice ball).

- Kojiro’s pennant was a gift from Kaoru and he wears it literally all the time except in water (so it doesn’t get ruined)

- Reki’s father is pretty absent, so Oka takes it upon himself to look after him

- Langa occasionally picks up odd jobs in order to help his mom out with finances

- Langa’s favorite animal is dolphins. He had a phase as a child where he read like fifty dolphin books and it was his entire personality for a few months. Despite this, he has never actually seen a dolphin irl

- Reki takes really good care of his nails and Langa… does not. He bites them and it annoys the shit out of Reki to the point where he’s just like “please… just let me file them for you” and Langa relents despite the fact that he hates the sensation of getting his nails filed

- Reki sometimes talks to Langa about getting depressed and one time Langa is like “yeah I getchu” and Reki is just like “heh?” And Langa says “I mean my dad died and I was in counseling for like months after that before I came here” and Reki is just like “oh”

- Langa is Reki’s bi awakening and it takes him a hot second to figure that out

- sometimes Langa pretends to be more oblivious than he is, either for shits and giggles, or to obtain information

- Kaoru knows exactly how to seduce women, and occasionally uses this to his advantage. It just sucks because he’s not into women.

- Reki is super observant, but whenever Langa does something that’s an indication that he likes Reki, he’s just like “WELL MAYBE IM OVERANALYZING THIS CANT BE REAL-”

- Langa (in general) doesn’t feel the need to be super secretive about anything. He’s honest (sometimes brutally so) and doesn’t always think twice before he says something. This can be both good and bad depending on the context.

- Reki doesn’t sleep a lot. He literally has to go to bed past midnight, he absolutely cannot fall asleep earlier. He gets up at 6:30am every day of the week, even weekends. It’s just how he’s programmed.

- Kojiro used to go to the public gym before Kaoru commented about how unsanitary that was. Ever since then he got freaked out about going to public gyms (especially as someone who works in food services) and cancelled his membership. He bought his own equipment and works out on his own now

- Reki knows how to do rainbow loom. His sisters had a phase with it.

- Kojiro drew on himself with pen when he was bored in school.

- Miya has a habit of eavesdropping on conversations he’s not meant to hear

[chickwiththepurpleguitar]

It is I, here to Officially Request™ absolutely chaos All Named Characters Molina Family Board Game Night because honestly? The chaos needs to be freed.

THERE'S SO MUCH CHAOS I'M NOT SORRY.

Have the official sequel to this fic because when @screamin-amuseum requested the first part as "the whole gang + boardgame" I took that to mean All Named Characters playing board games and so here's that continuation. It's so unnecessarily long. It's so unnecessarily angsty??? TW for mentions of Trevor with an eating disorder, nothing graphic though.

I don't know what else to say. This is really chaotic. I can't write scenes with more than two people in them and yet this fic has 13. Hope you all enjoy.

Read on ao3 here:

--

Unfortunately, the Molinas’ extensive board game collection does not actually include Pretty Pretty Princess (it was just a tad bit before Julie’s time).

But on the bright side, she knows someone they can borrow it from. Even if Luke’s not happy about it.

“Why’d you have to invite him?” he complains the second Julie gets off the phone with Nick.

“Because—” Julie barely spares Luke a glance as she passes him on the way to the living room. “We’re borrowing his little sister’s board game.”

“So? That doesn’t mean he has to play it with us!”

Julie rolls her eyes. “Luke, are you seriously still jealous of him?”

Luke lets out an indignant squawk. “I am not jealous . I just don’t like him!” He poofs out and back in again to cut Julie off in the doorway, and she stops out of instinct, never quite sure these days if she’ll end up walking through the boys or into them. “Julie, in case you’ve forgotten, we’re talking about a kid who was literally possessed by Caleb five minutes ago. And you want us to hang out with him? You want to bring him into your house? Where you live? To play Pretty Pretty Princess? ”

Julie gives him the most exasperated look she can muster, trying to ignore the smile threatening to tug at her lips. “Luke. First of all, Nick’s already been to my house, so that argument is invalid. Second, he’s not possessed by Caleb anymore, and the fact that he used to be is only more reason for us to offer him some extra friendship, I’m sure he needs it. And third, I already invited him, he’s on his way, and not even your pouting and puppy dog eyes can change that, so don’t even bother trying.”

Of course, Luke immediately breaks out the pout and the puppy dog eyes, but Julie doesn’t let herself so much as look at him. She pushes past him and continues through to the kitchen, shaking her head in amusement as Luke’s annoyed grumbling fades out behind her.

Her dad’s at the kitchen counter, just hanging up his own phone. He turns when Julie enters and offers her a small smile. “Takeout’s on its way. And your tía’s coming, with her own set of dice, so be prepared for those to be loaded.”

Julie giggles. “Well, I called Flynn and they’re gonna bring some sodas and snacks, and Nick’s bringing Pretty Pretty Princess since the boys were so excited to play it. It’s still cool that he comes, too, right?”

“Of course, mija.” Her dad looks at her for a second, and then away, busies himself with wiping down the perfectly-clean counter. “Did you, uh… Did you maybe want to invite Carrie to join us?”

Julie sighs. “Dad, you know me and Carrie aren’t friends anymore.”

“No, yeah, I know.” He scrubs harder at an invisible speck of dirt. “I just thought it might be a nice gesture.”

Despite everything, Julie finds herself considering it. Sure, she and Carrie are still decidedly not friends , but… they’re not quite enemies anymore, either. It’s hard to be enemies with someone who helped you save your shared ex-love interest from an evil jazz-singing magician ghost. Carrie knows about the guys now and didn’t expose Julie and the Phantoms as a fraud, and she hasn’t been as actively mean to Julie and Flynn at school the past few months.

Maybe someday, the three of them will be able to reconcile, officially. Julie might even want to. But that doesn’t mean she’s ready to have Carrie in her house so soon, doesn’t mean she wants to include Carrie in their first family game night without her mom.

“Maybe another time,” she says, offering her dad a soft smile so he knows she means it.

He smiles back, and there’s more relief and happiness in his eyes than Julie would’ve expected under the circumstances, leaving Julie to wonder why her dad would care about her relationship with Carrie Wilson so much.

An hour later, everything’s all set up, and all the guests—ghost and human alike—have arrived. They’re all spread out across the various couches and floor space in Julie’s living room, all ten of them—Julie, her dad, Carlos, Tía Victoria, Luke, Alex, Reggie, Willie, Flynn, and Nick. The four ghosts are all sharing one couch, the four Molinas another, while Flynn and Nick lounge on the floor across the room because the ghosts still make Nick a little uncomfortable (though Julie’s unsure if that’s because of his stint with Caleb or because Luke won’t stop glaring at him).

Knowing Game Night, the seating arrangements won’t stay as they are for long, as the various games require space or privacy or the occasional team-up. Julie’s certain by the end of the night, her friends and family will all be mingling and getting along.

Since there are so many of them, they can’t follow the usual Game Night rules—everyone picks one game and they play through them all. If they tried, they’d be here all night, and half of them have to go to school tomorrow. So instead, the plan is this: Everyone’s name will go in a hat. Whoever wins each game picks a name out of the hat, and that person gets to pick the next game. They’ll play a total of five, or until midnight, whichever comes first.

The only caveat to this strategy is that they’re playing Pretty Pretty Princess first, and since that was technically Alex’s choice, his name’s not going in the hat (a fact Alex seems perfectly fine with).

Game Number One isn’t nearly as much of a disaster as Julie kind of expected it to be. It’s only a four player game, so they play in teams of two and three: Luke, Reggie, and Julie playing for the purple jewelry; Alex, Willie, and Flynn playing for the pink; Nick and Carlos for green; and Dad and Tía for blue. The only fight that breaks out is when Luke takes the black ring on purpose and then refuses to put it back the next turn; otherwise, the teams work together surprisingly well.

Somehow, despite Reggie’s earlier insistence that Alex is a PPP master, the adults win, and then they insist on splitting their winning jewelry between them even though it’s all sized to fit five-year-olds.

Just as Dad and Tía are celebrating their victory, and Julie and Carlos are having a telepathic brother-sister conversation about how their aunt must have rigged it, the doorbell rings.

“Ooh, I bet that’s the pizza,” Dad says, hauling himself to his feet. He keeps one hand on the tiny plastic crown on his head so it doesn’t fall off.

He looks ridiculous, between the crown, the singular clip-on earring, and the ring just barely stuck on the end of his pinky finger, but Julie manages to hold back her laughter as she stands and says, “I’ll help carry.”

Her dad beats her to the door, only because Reggie holds her back and tries to convince her not to let Luke have any pizza (to which Luke gives another indignant squawk and immediately starts bickering), so by the time Julie catches up with him, Dad’s already got the front door thrown open, and whatever’s on the porch to greet him has left him staring, wide-eyed, open-mouthed, and pale.

Like he’s seen a ghost or something.

“Dad?” Julie starts to say, but the word dies in her throat as she steps into view of the open door and sees none other than Carrie Wilson standing on her front porch.

Carrie looks nervous, and just as pale, as she stares back at Julie’s father, a clutch purse held in her white-knuckled hands.

Carrie says something, quietly enough that Julie thinks she might have imagined it, that sounds suspiciously like, “Hi, Papi,” and then her gaze flits behind him to Julie and her eyes widen. She clears her throat, straightens her shoulders, says louder, “Mr. Molina. Julie.”

“Hi, Carrie,” Dad says after a weirdly long pause, startling like he’s been struck. “What are—I didn’t—” He breaks off and glances at Julie over his shoulder, his expression screaming, I thought you weren’t going to invite her!

I didn’t! Julie shoots back, then trains a painfully plastic smile on her definitely-not-a-friend-but-not-quite-an-enemy. “Carrie, what are you doing here?”

“Sorry to interrupt, I—didn’t realize you had company…” She glances toward the driveway next to the house, where Nick parked his car. “I can leave.”

“No, don’t—It’s okay,” Dad assures her, a little too quickly for Julie’s liking. “What’s—did you need something?”

Carrie shifts her weight awkwardly from foot to foot, looking back and forth between Julie and her dad like she wants to ask Julie to give them some privacy. Julie just plants her feet and crosses her arms over her chest. Like hell is she gonna leave Carrie alone with her dad when he’s already acting weird and she still has yet to tell them what she’s doing there.

Julie doesn’t even remember the last time Carrie Wilson stepped foot on the Molinas’ property. It’s all too weird, like Julie’s stepped out of Family Game Night and into some strange, confusing alternate universe.

“Um… Okay, so, Dad and I were at this dumb charity event at Schaefer’s, and on the way back, our car broke down.” Carrie waves a vague hand toward the street. “Gerald—our driver—called someone, but Dad doesn’t trust mechanics, and I think it’s supposed to storm later, so…” She trails off, blushes, and adds, “We were only a block or so away so I thought…”

Julie’s not sure she’s following. Her dad must catch up quicker because he says, “Oh! Oh, well—well, you’re welcome to wait out the storm here, we’ve got food coming, we’re having a little game night. Why don’t you join us?”

He turns to look at Julie, almost as an afterthought, his gaze somehow pleading and apologetic at the same time.

Whatever frustration Julie might feel at his eagerness to let Carrie interfere with their lives despite knowing how Julie feels about her is quickly snuffed out by the look on her dad’s face, and the equally anxious look on Carrie’s.

Julie doesn’t like this. She doesn’t think putting her, Flynn, Nick, and Carrie in a competitive setting together is a good idea. She really doesn’t think putting Luke, Alex, Reggie, and Trevor Wilson in a competitive setting together is a good idea. She can think of very few scenarios in which this whole night doesn’t turn into a complete and total disaster.

But reconciliation has to start somewhere, and she does, deep down, want to be Carrie’s friend again someday, wants even more to help her boys get their bandmate back.

She takes a slow, deep breath, prays she won’t regret this, and says, “Of course, Carrie. Come join us for Game Night.”

Carrie visibly relaxes, something like a real, genuine smile fluttering around her lips. “Okay. Thanks. I’ll, um—I’ll go get Dad. He wanted to wait in the car, in case you guys… turned us away…”

Awkward silence falls, and Julie can’t understand why her dad looks so sad all of a sudden, but before she can think of how to ask, Carrie spins on her high heels and starts back down the porch steps.

The second the door closes behind her, Dad says, “I’m sorry, did I overstep?”

Julie sighs. Her dad’s always been particularly good with boundaries. And she thinks part of him might miss the days when Carrie was over more often than not, playing dolls and singing with Julie and Flynn. So Julie can’t be mad. “No, it’s okay. But you get to tell the guys the pizza’s not here yet, and the guy who stole all their songs is.”

His eyes widen in horror, only adding to the absurdity of his bejeweled look, and Julie stifles another laugh as she heads back to the living room.

All things considered, it’s not nearly as much of a trainwreck as Julie thought it might be. Flynn loudly declares that she will not be on a team with Carrie under any circumstances, and the guys don’t take the Trevor news well , exactly, but a sharp look from Julie and a badly whispered promise from Willie to do some serious ghost pranking later keep them from actively pitching a fit about it.

When the Wilsons and their driver Gerald arrive, the tension in the room grows so instantly thick and awkward that Julie’s worried someone might actually explode. Carrie breaks it by stalking confidently into the room and plopping herself on the floor between Nick and Carlos like she belongs there. Gerald soon follows, claiming a chair next to Tía Victoria, and smiles politely at them all.

Only Trevor remains hovering in the doorway, pale and shaky, taking deep meditative breaths as his eyes rove across each person one at a time, lingering a little too long on Julie’s aunt, skipping over Luke entirely. Finally, he swallows, winces like it hurts, and says to Julie’s dad, “I didn’t realize you still did these.”

Julie frowns, unsure what that’s supposed to mean exactly, but her dad offers up no explanation, just waves Trevor over to sit on the couch with him. Luke lays a gentle hand on Julie’s knee, leans in close to whisper, “Hey. You okay?”

She gives him a grateful smile, nods. “Fine. How about you?”

Luke shrugs, glances over at Trevor, who’s still very purposefully not looking in their direction, and winks at Julie. “Let’s just cream this guy, shall we?”

And so, Game Night continues.

The three new guests’ names get added to the hat, and Victoria shuffles them around before pulling a slip of paper out.

“Carrie,” she reads. “You get to pick the next game.”

“Oh, no, that’s okay,” Carrie tries. “I just got here, someone else can pick.”

“Come on, Care,” Nick says, nudging her encouragingly. “Them’s the rules.”

“Your name came out of the hat,” Julie agrees, attempting a smile. It’s the closest she can get to a peace offering. “Pick a game.”

Carrie scans her face a moment, like she’s searching for any hint that Julie’s being mean or ingenuine. She must not find any, because she says, “Okay,” and gets to her feet, brushing invisible dust off her skirt. She peers into the game cabinet for a total of about five seconds before she says, “Oh my god, you still have Monopoly with the credit card readers? We are definitely playing that.”

“Dibs on banker!” Carlos shouts and jumps to his feet to dig the box out of the cabinet.

Julie grins at her little brother’s enthusiasm, and when she catches Carrie’s eye, her smile doesn’t fade.

Maybe they can do this. It’s as good a first step toward reconciliation as any, she supposes.

The pizza arrives while Carrie and Carlos are setting up the Monopoly board, so Julie and her dad bring it in and set up the stack of boxes on the kitchen island for easy access. The ghosts immediately descend on the food like a pack of rabid animals, Luke grabbing four or five slices at once and starting to stuff them in his mouth before Julie shouts, “Plates, boys! Plates!” and he deflates, grinning bashfully at her.

Once everyone who wants pizza has gotten some (Gerald takes a slice, Trevor and Carrie don’t—Julie remembers vaguely that the Wilsons were never big fans of take-out in general), they work out new teams, which leads to less bloodshed than Julie expected but takes way longer than it has any right to. Finally, they figure out a breakdown that everyone’s more or less happy with, despite now having an uneven number of players: Trevor, Gerald, Dad, and Tía; Carlos, Luke, and Reggie; Alex, Willie, and Flynn; and Carrie, Nick, and Julie.

It’s a chaotic game for sure, but no one outright attacks each other, so Julie counts it as a success. And her team wins, so.

The rest of the night goes like that, one game after another. Julie picks Willie’s name, Willie picks Mario Kart, Carlos wins. Carlos picks Gerald’s name, Gerald picks poker (“Oh my god, my driver’s a gambler,” Trevor sighs into his hands), and somehow Flynn smokes them all. For the last game, Flynn picks Luke’s name, Luke picks Candy Land because he’s actually eight years old, and Flynn and Carrie manage to eke out a victory despite being on the same team and bickering the entire game.

Luke and Trevor, also on the same team, don’t say a single word to each other, but Julie doesn’t miss how a smile tugs at Luke’s lips when Trevor makes a joke about Lord Licorice looking like their high school English teacher.

Gerald gets a call just as they’re finishing up and informs them that the broken down limo’s been towed away and one of his colleagues is there with a fresh car to take the Wilsons home.

“Perfect timing,” Dad says, clapping his hands together. “I’ll walk you out.”

Once they’re gone, Nick and Flynn soon follow. Julie thanks Nick profusely for letting them borrow his sister’s game and convinces him to take some of the leftover pizza home to his family. Tía kisses them all goodnight (including the ghosts, which leaves Reggie grinning and the rest of them bright red), and then she’s out the door too, and Carlos heads up to bed, and Willie poofs out, telling Alex they’ll catch him later, leaving just Julie alone with her Phantoms.

“That was actually really fun,” she says, leaning back into the couch.

“Next time, I think we should choose teams at the beginning and stick with them all night,” Luke suggests, slinging an arm around her shoulders. “More fun that way.”

Alex plops onto the couch on Luke’s other side. “But if we play Pretty Pretty Princess again, I’m not playing on your team, bro.”

“Yeah, man,” Reggie agrees, snuggling up under Julie’s arm. “We coulda won that game if you’d just put the black ring away. ”

“It made me look awesome!” Luke insists.

“And the purple one didn’t?”

Alex lets out a dramatic sigh as Luke and Reggie break into an argument over Julie’s head. She just rolls her eyes and tries not to giggle too audibly, though it’s hard when her boys are so lovingly silly.

When she looks up, her dad’s lingering in the doorway, watching the four of them and playing a little nervously with his hands.

Julie frowns, catches his gaze, and mouths, You okay?

He nods, smiles, but looks from her to the three ghost boys cuddled up next to her and back again. Julie instantly catches his meaning.

“Hey, guys,” she says, loud enough to be heard over Luke and Reggie’s bickering. They shut up right away. “I’m gonna help my dad clean up. Can you go wait in the studio for me, and we can rehearse a bit before I go to bed?”

“Oh, yeah,” the boys say, and “Yeah, sure, Julie,” and they all hug her and wave goodnight to her dad before disappearing with a gentle displacement of air.

Julie gets to her feet as her dad joins her in the living room. He sets his phone on top of the game cabinet and plays a Celia Cruz album her mom liked.

They work in companionable silence for a while, other than the music, counting all the cards and tokens and jewelry pieces to make sure everything’s accounted for and gets back into its proper box.

As Julie’s wrapping up the Mario Kart controllers, her dad says casually, “You have fun tonight?”

“Yeah,” she says, and finds she means it. “Yeah, you know, it wasn’t quite the same as playing with Mom, but I still had a really good time. Thanks for letting everyone come over.”

“Thank you for being such a good sport about Carrie. I know she wasn’t exactly part of your plan for how the night would go.”

“No,” Julie agrees, shutting the game cabinet. “But I kinda liked having her here. Although—can I ask you something?”

Dad grabs his phone to pause the music. “Of course, mija. What is it?”

Something’s been nagging at her all evening, but now that Julie actually has the opportunity to ask about it, she’s not quite sure how to put her question into words.

Finally, she manages, “When Mr. Wilson first got here, he said something like… like he didn’t know we still had game nights. But I don’t remember him ever playing with us when Mom was alive.”

Her dad doesn’t answer for a really long time. Julie knows him well enough to know she needs not be concerned—her dad, much more than her mom, has always needed to really take his time and think before he says anything, especially anything important. Finally, he sighs and says, “Honestly, mija… I’m not quite sure what to say. It’s not really my story to tell.” He sits on one of the couches and pats the cushion next to him. Julie joins him, hugging a throw pillow as she waits patiently for him to continue.

“Do you remember, when you were really little, Trevor and Carrie used to live with us?”

Julie’s mouth drops open. “What? No. When?”

“Only until you were about six,” Dad explains. “But for a while, we had a house together, the five and then six of us, once Carlos was born. Your mom and I, and Trevor, we all kind of raised you kids together.” He elbows her teasingly. “You used to call Trevor Daddy.”

“I definitely don’t remember that,” Julie says, eyes wide in horror.

His smile fades, face turning serious. “I think Carrie does,” he says softly, and Julie remembers when Carrie first got here tonight, how she called Julie’s dad Papi , so quietly Julie thought she’d imagined it.

“Anyway,” he continues, “before all that, before Trevor was even… Trevor … he lived with your mom and me, and he was going through a really rough time, had a lot of trouble with food because, well…”

“Because food killed his best friends…” Julie realizes.

“We used to play board games with him, after dinner, when things were hard. It kept him distracted, made it easier to keep things down. That was the real start of Molina Family Game Night.”

“Huh,” Julie breathes. “Well then, next time? I want to invite him and Carrie for real.”

--

Taglist: @whenweremarried @sunsethimb0s @pink-flame @penguin0613 @fighttoshine @sunsetcurvecuddles @apples-bees @reggiescrookedteeth @brightattheorpheum @queenmolina @jandthephantoms @lexilucacia @sapphossidechick @acnhaddict @shrimp-colours @sunset-bobby @lenacarstairspotterstewart @conversationaltreestump @burntchromas @shellydominique

[misscorn]

Day 7: Future/Post Confession

I can't believe yet another @takaritsuweek has come and gone so fast 😭❤ everyone in this Fandom is so talented and im obsessed with the nostalgia content 💘 please enjoy my last one shot for this week ☺

***

Onodera Ritsu was being weird, which could only mean one thing: something was wrong and he wasn't talking to Masamune about it.

Masamune had really hoped that things would go smoother after Ritsu confessed, but that was foolish. Masamune was so, undeniably happy, but they weren't perfect people. Both of them still had things to work on, separately and together. One of those things was more readily relying on one another. So, Masamune was determined to find out what was wrong.

Ritsu just seemed a lot more...spacey than usual. And anxious. And maybe a little gloomy? Masamune couldn't quite put his finger on it, but he knew that he didn't like it.

Currently, Ritsu was over at Masamune's apartment, helping to clean up the dishes as the two of them had just finished dinner. Ritsu was at Masamune's place quite frequently and Masamune always brought up the idea of moving in together, but Ritsu hadn't quite come around to it yet, mostly because he knew for a fact that it would affect any work the two of them brought home. Masamune got...distracted easily and Ritsu tended to get swept away. So, for now Ritsu was content with a lot of sleepovers.

Once they finished cleaning, Masamune led Ritsu into the living room by his hand. He sat down unceremoniously on the couch before pulling Ritsu down with him and on to his lap, making Ritsu's face burn red.

I kind of hope he never gets used to this, Masamune thought, loving the sight of Ritsu's adorably embarrassed expression.

"What do you think you're doing?" Ritsu asked, trying to sound scolding, but he only succeeded in sounding nervous.

Masamune wrapped his arms around Ritsu's waist. "I just want to talk and I figured if I have you like this you won't be able to run away." Like how you love to do.

Ritsu couldn't even argue against that logic, but he made a displeased face anyway. "Fine. What is it?"

"Is everything okay with you?" Masamune asked.

"Huh? Yeah, I'm fine." Ritsu said dismissively.

"You just seem like you've had something on your mind lately." Masamune said. "Making me worried."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to worry you." Ritsu apologized immediately.

"Don't say sorry, there's nothing to be sorry for, I just wanna know if there's something going on." Masamune said, trying to sound reassuring.

Ritsu chewed on his lower lip nervously before he spoke again. "I guess I have been thinking a bit..." He started vaguely.

"What about?" Masamune pressed gently.

"Well, my mom's gotten off my back about An-chan, but not about settling down. She's been trying to set up matchmaking sessions, introducing me to daughters of friends of hers whenever I visit, sending me info about singles events." Ritsu tried not to cringe at the thought of going to one of those. "And I just...I think maybe it's time I tell my parents about you. About us." Ritsu said. "I mean, I know we only started officially d-dating not too long ago, but I feel like we're both kind of in this for the long haul." He laughed nervously. They've both been in this for the past ten years, after all. It was hardly too soon to let his parents be in the know. "So, um, it seems only right to tell them..."

"If you want to tell them then you should." Masamune said.

"You make things sound so simple." Ritsu sighed. "It could go really, really wrong, you know?"

"I know. But the other option is keeping it a secret forever. Which, you can if you want, but it might be difficult to eventually explain to your parents when they visit why you have a longterm male roommate and you both wear matching wedding rings and share a room and take care of a little girl who calls both of you dad."

Ritsu's face flushed at Masamune projection of their future together, his heartbeat picking up in pace. "You want to have a daughter?"

"Someday, I think it'd be nice. But we're not even past the step of me meeting your parents, so I don't think they're going to get grandchildren anytime soon." Masamune planted a quick kiss on Ritsu’s shoulder.

"W-Wait, meeting?! I was just going to tell them, I didn't plan on having you meet them yet!" Ritsu said quickly.

"Ritsu, this is your mom we're talking about. If you tell her I exist she will track me down and interrogate the hell out of me whether you want her to or not." Masamune deadpanned.

Ritsu groaned and slumped against Masamume, knowing that he was right. "Maybe I should just test the waters first? It doesn't seem fair to throw all of us in at once."

Masamune hesitated to agree, subconsciously playing with Ritsu's hair. "I want to be there." He said firmly. "I understand you're worried, but like you said, things could go wrong and I want to be there for you if they do."

"You're only one door away." Ritsu said.

"Too far." Masamune insisted, pressing a kiss to Ritsu's forehead.

Ritsu rolled his eyes, trying hard not to smile. "You're absolutely ridiculous."

"Mhm. Besides, I can't charm the hell out of your parents if I'm busy next door worrying about you."

"Oh, is that your plan? To be all cool and suave until they can't possibly reject our relationship?" Ritsu asked sarcastically.

"Yes, exactly."

Ritsu shook his head before he refocused and took a deep breath. "How's this weekend?"

"I can do this weekend." Masamune said.

"I'll invite them to my place for dinner and hopefully it will be totally boring and uneventful and they won't care about us being together at all."

"Yeah, the woman who has hounded you about marriage for over ten years is going to not care about you being in a romantic relationship." Masamune said sarcastically.

Ritsu groaned loudly.

Masamune chuckled. "What about your dad? How do you think he'll react?"

"No idea, which is honestly worse."

"We'll handle it." Masamune promised and sealed it with a kiss.

-

"I can't do this, I think I should call them and cancel, tell them I'm sick." Ritsu said as he and Masamune cooked dinner together. Technically it wouldn't be a lie since Ritsu was feeling pretty nauseous.

Ritsu had spent all day yesterday making sure his apartment was spotless and then earlier today he and Masamune had gone grocery shopping together since Ritsu’s options for dinner had been a little slim.

"Oh, yeah, tell your mom that you're sick, I'm sure that will make her stay away instead of making her want to come over more." Masamune said sarcastically.

"You're no help."

"I thought I was being a lot of help, unless you wanna cut the onions." Masamune said, not looking up from the cutting board where he was working on the veggies.

Ritsu huffed and turned away to sit at the kitchen table, putting his head in his hands. He couldn't do this, he was such an idiot for ever thinking that he could. Introducing his parents to Masamune? He had never even mentioned liking men to them! And now suddenly he was going to announce that he had a boyfriend! There was only one way this could go: badly.

"Hey," Masamune said softly, abandoning his cutting station to sit next to him. "Its gonna be okay."

"You don't know that."

"I know, and honestly I'm kind of freaking out too. I don't think there's anything that could prepare me for meeting your parents. I want them to like me, I want them to think I'm a good fit for you because I know they're always going to be a big part of your life. Even if they can be a little overbearing, they love you, and it would kind of really suck if the people who loved you the most hated me." Masamune said. "But, either way I know that no matter what happens we'll still be together and for me that's enough." Masamune placed a comforting hand on Ritsu's knee.

"Even if my mom spends every single family gathering trying to drive you away? Even if she keeps trying to set me up on blind dates? Or, worse, tries to convince my dad to mess with your work?"

"Ritsu, the only thing your mom could do to keep me away from you is put out a hit on me."

"Don't joke about that."

"Oh come on, your parents don't have that many connections." Masamune said. "...right?"

"I really couldn't tell you."

"Jesus Christ." Masamune said, breathing through a laugh. "Look, the point is; we're gonna be okay."

Ritsu placed his hand on top of Masamune's and gave it a squeeze as he slowly nodded. "Okay...okay." He said. "Let's hurry and finish dinner then. My mom likes to get places early."

Masamune smiled softly and stole a swift kiss before happily helping Ritsu in the kitchen once more.

Eventually, there came a knock at the door. "I'll keep an eye on the food while you go get it." Masamune said. Dinner was just nearly done.

Ritsu swallowed hard and nodded, turning to leave the kitchen.

"Wait." Masamune grabbed his hand and kissed him quickly. "For good luck." He winked.

"Y-You're such an idiot." Ritsu scolded before quickly going to the front door and opening it.

Youko and Tatsuo Onodera stood side by side at Ritsu's door. Youko broke out into a smile and threw her arms around Ritsu before anyone could get a word out.

"H-Hi, mom." Ritsu smiled nervously as he hugged her back. "Hi, dad." He said to Tatsuo over Youko's shoulder as he was still being tightly squeezed.

"You feel skinny." Youko said as soon as she pulled away, pouting at her son. Ritsu was not surprised to be scolded instead of greeted, but he knew his mother meant well.

"Well, its a good thing I've invited you over to eat then. Come in." Ritsu said with a sheepish expression, attempting to play it off.

"It smells good." Tatsuo said.

"Ritsu, don't tell me you've left the food unattended for long." Youko said worriedly as they shuffled toward the kitchen.

"No." Ritsu's hands started to shake. "The foods being watched. Right now. B-by my b-boyfriend."

""Boyfriend?!"" Both Youko and Tatsuo exclaimed.

"How long has this been a thing?" Tatsuo asked.

"Oh...ten years or so..."

"Ten YEARS?!" Youko had heard enough, marching into the kitchen with her husband and son following not far behind.

"M-Mom, wait, maybe we should talk a little more-"

"You." Youko pointed accusingly at Masamune. "Are you my son's so called partner?"

"I am. My name is Takano Masamune, it's nice to-"

"Takano? I'm not familiar with that name. What's your family background?" Youko interrupted.

Masamune blinked, glancing between Ritsu and his parents, a little confused by the question. "Uh, my mother is a lawyer and my step father is a doctor, but I'm not on speaking terms with either of them."

"A boy with a troubled family history? Hardly seems like a good choice for a partner." Youko commented to Ritsu.

"Mother! That's incredibly rude!" Ritsu defended Masamune immediately. What was she even going on about?

"What do you do for a living?" Youko asked Masamune.

Masamune played along with her questions as he didn't know what else to do. "I'm the editor in chief for Marukawa Publishing's shoujo manga department: Emerald."

"Emerald? Onodera Ritsu, do you mean to tell me that you are dating your boss?" Youko said, putting her hands on her hips.

"I've heard about the great things you've done for Emerald, Takano." Tatsuo admitted. "But it does seem to be a conflict of interest to be dating a subordinate."

"I've been in love with him since I was twelve! Way before he ever became my boss!" Ritsu said quickly before a realization dawned on him. "Wait...these are the things you're upset about? His family and his job?"

"They're very important things to consider when picking a partner, Ritsu." Youko said. "You know, if you had told me that you were rejecting all those lovely girls because they were girls I could have been setting you up with perfectly charming and handsome men!" Youko pouted.

Ritsu wanted to laugh. And cry. And hug his mom and kiss Masamune and melt into the floor in total relief.

"I'm sorry, but I'll have to object to any matchmaking sessions." Masamune jumped in.

Youko frowned sternly at him. "Just what exactly makes you worthy of my one and only son?"

"I know I'm not the kind of person that you would normally want for Ritsu, but I love him. I've loved him for over ten years and there's nothing that could ever stop me from loving him. I will always, always take care of him and make him happy and if there ever comes a day that I don't then please feel free to come back and snatch him away from me because just like you I think Ritsu only deserves the best. I will always be loyal, reliable, and honest with him. And, if you'd still like to join us for dinner, I can show you that I'm not completely useless around a kitchen."

Youko did not move, nor did her disapproving expression melt away, but Tatsuo stepped forward to put a hand on his wife's shoulder.

"So, ten years huh? That's a long time. Why don't you tell us how this all started?" He smiled as he ushered his wife to sit down.

Ritsu beamed, tearing up a bit.

"Well, I was in our school's library..."

[catsplushellhounds]

favorite headcanons (and theorys?) of glee that i created

i was thinking if i really was going to write this, but im bored so lets go, this got so long and i am so sorry (not really it was fun and i liked it, if you like big metas you probably gonna like this)

*this can have some triggers for some people because i will be talking about bullying, abandonment, depression and violence*

(also i would like to say that most of this are things that i like to believe happened, and idk if the rest of the fandom agrees or if someone said it before and this is all blaine related, i left it glee on the title because it sounded better idk)

- blaine's dad is filipino and he left after blaine came out

i know that blaine said he was there in shooting stars, but hear me out

first of all, to me his name is tod anderson, dont ask me why it just makes sense and i like how it sounds.... so

in sexy, blaine tells burt that his dad tried many times bonding with him, but apparently that didnt work, because he also says "you think my dad built a car with me because he loves cars? i think he did it because he thought getting my hands dirty might make me straight." and after 4x18, he is never mentioned again? and he wasnt on his son's wedding too

so my theory here is that he never accepted that blaine is gay, and all of his "efforts of bonding" were actually because he thought he could "fix" blaine, and when that didnt worked he left, (that also explains blaine's abandonment issues) but he did came back im the shooting episode because he felt guilty for what he did, but after he saw it was a false alarme he went back on pretending he didnt have a gay son

to be really honest sometimes i pretend that his dad wasnt on the shooting day because i feel that it doesnt fit that well into this and i really like this one because its kinda obvious to me that blaine have daddy issues??? so usually i just put on my character-backstory that blaines dad left after he came out and never came back

for the first year that he was gone, blaine spended every night trying to contact him. sometimes he just texted, but most of the times he called and left a message crying begging him to come back and tell him what he'd done that made his father hate him so much, his dad never called or texted back

- blaine's parents

(im not sure if this is canon but blaine's mom is named pam)

i know that technically i've already talked about blaine's family when i was talking about his dad but that is so complex i felt i had to do a topic exclusive for that

i believe blaine has and always had a good relationship with his mother, yes she was usually gone because she works selling a really famous cosmetic line she created (to me the andersons are a really known name) that would explain how blaine could study in a school like dalton (he said so himself that dalton isnt a school that anyone could afford), and why she is never there

but despite her being busy with her job, she always tried to keep im touch with blaine, texting him, and calling and skyping

blaine always missed her, but he tried to not make her feel guilty about working too much, because she loves her job

sometimes he got really depressed, because he wished she could be there to see him sing with his friends, or just be there so that he could hang out with his mom like all of his friends did with their parents

his das was a businessman, i dont know why it just fits to me, also idk what kind of business because i dont understand any of it so thats up to imagination

before he came out, he and his dad were super close, sure his dad a lot of the time was busy but he was at home more than his mom, his dad was the one that introduced him to liking sports, and they always watched games together (cooper would join in too) and his dad always let him have a sip of his beer, blaine always loved those moments and his dad was like a hero to him, he was sure that coming out to him would be easy, because he would love him no matter what

all of the andersons have always been brodway babys, all 4 of them liked to sing, tod was a little bit more serious and didnt dance around the house like cooper, blaine and pam but he enjoyed seeing them having fun

the andersons were like the perfect family of the neirbourhood, all 4 of them are very good looking, talented and educated so yes everybody thought they were perfect

they all lived in the philippines until blaine was 5, and then moved to ohio because tod got a really good job offer there

after blaine came out, his parents argued A LOT. tod would ask himself and pam of what he had done wrong and pam would say its nobodys fault and thats just how blaine is

(to me that was the time tod was revealed to be an asshole and not long after he divorced pam and stoped talking to all of them, except for cooper, he and cooper still talked)

- blaine's bullying

the bullying blaine went through was a lot like kurt's, people laughing at him, shoving him around, beating him up, etc

he tried putting a brave face through it but he started losing all of his light, even more when all of his complains didnt matter at all

it only got sort of better when he met skylar (thats the kid he went to sadie hawkings with, i read in a fic that was his name and stuck with me so im calling him skylar)

skylar was going through the same thing he was, and one time blaine saw him getting shoved at lockers, and helped him pick up his books and thats were they started talking

maybe they liked each other, they never got to find out because after the bash, skylar never spoke to blaine again

blaine was in a 2 week coma after getting beat up, and the first thing he said when he woke up was "where's my dad" and his mom had to gently tell him his das was not there. that was when blaine realized he actually meant nothing to his dad and that broken him even more

he was bashed about 3 months after his father left him, and for the rest of that school year he was homeschooled by a teacher his mother hired

- blaine joining dalton and the warblers

so, since blaine is a year younger than kurt, in my head goes sorta of like this

he came out when he was 13, that was the time he was bullied, beaten up abandoned and homeschooled, and he joined dalton when he was 14, but to be a warbler he had to be a little older than that, so he had to audition to join (im guessing you dont have to audition to be a warbler, just to have a lead, i mean kurt didnt auditioned, right?) and and trent auditioned together, they became friends and were roomates (dalton is a boarding school DONT @ ME EVERYBODY KNOWS ITS TRUE)

it took blaine a while to take the step to audition, because he was still scared, but wes and david helped him and gave him a little seed of the confidence he pretends to have later on, but when he sang for the warblers for the first time they were all blowed away by how good was his singing voice even if he was only 14

after he felt comfortable in the warblers, he became friends with nick and jeff, and they were a trio of dumbassess, wes and david (usually the most mature of all the warblers) sighed everytime they saw nick, jeff and blaine doing something stupid

trent joined in sometimes but he always had been a really chill dude, and he saw blaine as a older brother (even tho blaine is younger than him)

jeff, nick and blaine pulled pranks on wes and david like hiding stuff from them and act all inocent when they asked if they saw said thing

the warblers had a bet going on how long would it take for kurt and blaine to start dating (and yes all of them shipped klaine, and even after kurt and blaine went to mckinley the warblers still kept hearing about them and seeing them on jacob ben israel's blog)

jeff, nick, trent, wes and david were the only real friends blaine had there

wes and david has already gratuated when the slushie happened, and nick, jeff and trent all apologized to blaine after that (even though they had no idea that was gonna happen) but their friendship was never the same

- blaine and cooper's relationship

as we know, blaine and cooper didnt got very along when blaine was growing up, cooper is 9 years older than blaine, and has always been really hard on him and thaat made blaine really dislike cooper, even tho he really wanted for them to be friends, he always has bitter feelings towards him duo to all of the pressure and expectation he was under because cooper was the oldest, and blaine felt like he had to be just as good or better than him, so he also had a lot A LOT of jealousy

but that started to change after "big brother", when they talk things out, cooper finally realizes how blaine feels, and starts doing his best to be best brother to blaine

they dont become besties immediatly, blaine helps him with his audition (which makes kurt really proud and happy seeing cooper being all excited talking to blaine, while blaine is trying to pretend like hes cool but actually hes just as excited), and they start to talk more and more after that

after finn dies is when they start getting actually close, after the funeral, he calls cooper but dosent say the reason why, he just says that he loves him and that he misses his big brother, they call and talk to each other a lot more after cooper finds out about finn

when cooper has a son, he and blaine teach the little guy how to dance and they play a lot of happy and fun piano songs to him

- the anderhummel family

blaine and burt are actually really close, they both like sports and beer so they watch games together and bet about whos gonna win, burt sorta of became the dad blaine lost, but in a non weird way, because they both agreed that blaine calling burt "dad" after he married kurt was just... weird

finn and blaine played a lot of videogames together, sam and puck played with them too, but when kurt was helping on dinner or more interested in a magazine or trying to convince carole to let him do a makeover on her, finn and blaine played videogames and maybe sometimes gossip about kurt and rachel (after he became besties with sam he did that same thing but hey playing videogames and talking about your s/o is fun!)

carole took care of blaine when he was in the hospital for the eye surgery, and when he was hangover at kurt's after biota she helped him with all the vomiting and headaches and all of that

pam met carole and burt when blaine got slushied, blaine was already like family to the hudson-hummels at that point, so when burt found out what happened he ran to the hospital, (carole was already working there anyway) and thats where they met, it wasnt ideal and all of them wete stressed and worried but they got along pretty well

pam, burt and carole werent really close since pam was usually out working, but the few times they sat down to talk to each other they really liked. pam thinks burt and carole are a sweet couple, that raised two wondeful boys and burt and carole think that pam is a sweet and funny lady, they all exchanged embarassing stories about kurt and blaine (that made them go "MOM DONT TELL THEM THAT" or "DAS STOP I WAS 7")

pam absolutely adores kurt, he was fascinated when he found out she had a line of cosmetics and spended hours talking to her about skincare routines

blaine can always make carole laugh, she thinks hes a sweetheart and usually keeps burt from bursting into the room when the door of kurts bedroom is closed ("i told them already, leave at least 2 inches open, is that really so hard??" "honey, relax they're just watching a movie" "im going in there" "no you're not leave the boys alone")

burt has walked in a few times on klaine making out on the couch and he always makes a joke about it to not make it awkward

burt was thrillled to know he was gonna be a grandpa, and he spoils tracy anderson to OBLIVION (blaine doesnt argues because he sorta of does the same thing)

even after both breakups, burt and blaine had always kept in touch, maybe it wasnt what it used to be when he and kurt were still mad at each other, but once they go back being friends, blaine is a little more comfortable in hangin out with the hudson-family

- blaine's depression in s6

i think is canon thay blaine had depression and anxiety during the whole show, right? it just got worse in s6 because kurt breaking up with him was sort of what pulled the trigger

it begun when his father neglected him, and it only got worse and worse, he was abandoned by his father and sometimes felt like by his mother and brother too, he had anxiety and it got worse after sadie hawkings, then kurt and him broke up for the first time, and he kept bottling it all up until it all reached the boiling point and it all exploded when kurt broke up with him

(side note, i think that when kurt started pulling away from him in s6, it reminded him of his dad pulling away too, his dad tried to bond with him but i feel that as harder blaine tried to make his dad stay, didnt matter and his dad kept pulling away until he was gone, that makes a parallel to s6 breakup, and why blaine was trying so SO hard to make kurt stay, because he had been there before, and he wasnt good enough for his dad, and he really wanted to be good enough for kurt)

so, after they breakup, blaine stays in a cheap hotel, not getting out of bed and feeling empty inside, his phone buzzed a little with missing calls from his friends but at some point the batery died and he just ignored, he only charged after 2 days because he probably had to let people know he's still alive

he went back to the loft in the afternoon, because he knew kurt wouldn't be there, he was going away and leaving nothing behind when kurt showed up, blaine was kinda of embarassed because he was probably stinking and his hair and clothes were a mess

im not sure if they talked at all after the breakup night, but i kinda feel that blaine might have said to kurt something like "you think i'm broken? when are gonna realize the problem here isnt just me? i should have known, everytime things get serious and scary between us you run, you're so afraid of something and honestly i have no idea of what, please just stay away from me" (i dont knooow he was angry and being all cold to kurt and shit i think that happened and maybe thats what made kurt go to therapy)

he got kicked out of nyada because he didnt left his hotel room for anything other than food, and he felt even more lost after receiving the email saying he was no longer a student there, thats when he decided to go back to lima

in lima, he barely left his room, he didnt ate for days and when he wasnt crying he was sleeping, his friends would call, text and sometimes try to visit him but he never texted back, answered the calls or opened the doors for them, sam was the only one that had some success because he was living in lima too and could go to blaine's house more often, sometimes he got lucky and blaine would open the door for him

at first he tried to do pep talks to help his bestie get better, but nothing helped so at one point he just sat there with blaine and did nothing with him, because at least like that he wouldnt be alone

one day blaine felt a little better and started trying to be okay again, it was never easy but he got a job at breadsticks, and even tho he would much rather be in his bed he kept working because at least like that his mind was busy with something

after he started therapy, he still felt empty inside, the world was still sorta of grey to him and he didnt felt like doing anything, so he had to take meds for that, and kept taking them even after kurt cane back (but as blaine was getting better they slowly became less and less needed)

when blaine started working at dalton, he was already in a much better place that he was when he came back, and throughout s6 he was still battling depression, and wasnt always okay, sometimes he would still want to just be alone and dont talk to anybody or do anything, and if that happened when he was surronded with people he would just be more quiet, that sometimes got rachel and kurt's attention, because they're not used to this "new" blaine and when they asked him if he was doing okay he would just say "yeah, im just tired" sam later on explained to them what that usually meant, it meant that blaine needed some alone time because he was draining himself a lot

- blaine at nyada vs blaine at nyu

soooo i have a good theory about this one, at nyada blaine was constantly surronded by people who would probably kill someone to get at the top, to be the best

and was such a competitive place, that ended up being toxic for blaine. i used to think that he didnt fit there because he always was one of the best in show choir and dalton and he was always *that* guy, but now i think he didnt fit there because actually he dosent like competition that much

okay, sure, playful competiton with your friends its fun, show choir competiton is fun, fighting with tina, mercedes, rachel, santana and unique about solos was fun because it was serious but he was with his friends so okay, whatever

but the competition they had at nyada was just SO MUCH, and lets agree nyada is kinda of a toxic place in general, people made fun of kurts face and clothing there, rachel's "friends" ditched her when she lost the diva off to kurt and started kissing up to him, and (im not sure about this one but like 99%) people laughed when blaine lost to kurt at combat's class

my point is, in nyada, people only like you if you do well in classes, there's a lot of lying and backstabbing going on and c'mon blaine pratically grew up like this with cooper

always not good enough, always behind, always made fun of, never being great at anything, so maybe thats why blaine felt so stressed at nyada, and why he gets so insecure in 5x16, seeing kurt being praised and getting all of that attention might have reminded him of the years he and cooper didnt get along so well

he didnt found himself at nyada, mostly he was there because it was said to be the best school and rachel and kurt were there, so great, right?

but i get the feeling that at nyu things were a little lighter, not easier, but lighter, it didnt had so much toxic people, it wasnt a place where it was kill or be killed, people helped each other when needed and yes there was still competition, obviously but (almost) nobody made fun of people for failing

(i said almost there because im sure there was some douchbags there too, they're everywhere, but i hope you got my point)

- blaine's friendships

i am almost done i am so sorry this is so long i've been here for like 2 hours

i have some small headcanons about blaine's friends, because we did NOT get enough of his friendships (im leaving kurt out of this one because maybe one day ill do a meta/hc/theory about klaine....... maybe)

mike and blaine were besties on s3

they both like to dance and sometimes they+brittany would do a dance number together, sometimes for the glee club to see, sometimes only to themselves because thats fun

mike talked with blaine after the its not right but its okay number to see what happened and if he was okay (actually it was mostly blaine just venting about it "AND THEN HE SAID HE WANTED TO MAKE KURTS VOICE HIS RINGTONE I MEAN WHAT THE FUCK????????")

blaine talked to mike about mike's dad because he knew what mike was going through and they both agreed thay family sucks sometimes

after mike graduated he and blaine kept têxtil each other and sometimes sending gifs or videos of dance moves to each other

santana and blaine were actually really good friends

after the glee club found out about what santana's grandmother had done when she came out, when they were alone blaine told santana about his dad, even tho he was afraid she was gonna tell everyone because he doesnt like talking about it, just so that she would know that shes not alone and its not her fault, santana never once teased or told anyone about this, she always sorta of liked him and thought he was nice but that moment she started seeing him as a friend

while preparing for the new directions vs warblers in 3x11, santana tried helping blaine bring out his inner bad boy, she helped him pick his outfit and they planned together the whole performance

(im stealing this one from a post i rebloged i guess a day ago? i didnt found the blog to tag but this is the post) > santana and blaine are friends on facebook, and follow each other on twitter and instagram, and they always spam on each others profiles because they're comfortable to do that with each other

santana kinda sees blaine as a male version of brittany, so she has this need of protecting him (which is kinda why she was super invested in getting him justice for his eye)

speaking of his eye, when he was at home before surgery, santana went there and told that she was gonna make sebastian confess what he'd put on thr slushie, blaine asked her how she knew where she lived but she cut him off, she also came back there after and told him everything, and she and kurt asked him what he wanted to do about it

brittany and blaine really were sunshine twins

they always liked each other, blaine didnt get her at first, but he got used to it

she always talked to him about cats, and what lord tubbington was up to, she tried inviting him to fondue for 2 but he knew that she would ask some really private questions so he always came up with an excuse

after he almost went back to dalton, she (alongside with tina, sam and marley) tried to make him feel as welcome as possible

when she was dating sam, sometimes the three of them would go to her house after school and cuddle in her bed with lord tubbington while watching a movie

when britt was planning their weddings, she asked blaine to try up some suits (with the excuse that she wasnt sure the one she picked was right), but she asked him that like a day after he kissed kurt at rachels party so she could tell he was kinda sad and asked him why, he told her and she said it was gonna be okay because their love was magical (it was weird but it did made blaine feel good, so...) she was also the only person he told that

blaine and britt always have ideas like "we should totally put glitter in the entire room to celebrate our wedding aniversary!" kurt and santana shut down the idea at the same time

blamtina were like 3 chaotic brothers

sam and blaine would have a dumb idea that would result in absolute chaos (but funny tho) and tina always plays along with them even if she thinks its a bad idea

the three of them are completely harry potter nerds, sam and blaine are hufflepuffs while tina is a ravenclaw, in a halloween party in s4 they went as the golden trio

after graduation, sam and blaine still skyped tina and told her all about ny, and she would tell them all about her collage

sam kept his promise of sending his imitations to tina and blaine sometimes would call her to vent about a fight he and kurt had

blaine read all of the harry potter books to sam

after sam talked blaine into staying at mckinley, sam and tina would always be with blaine, always talking to him, and spending time with him, thats how the 3 of them got so close

marley and blaine were good friends

when marley joined the new directions, blaine was one of the first to make her feel welcome

when blaine almost left for dalton, she tried make him see that she liked him in the nd too, and would randomly start talking to him so that he wouldnt feel alone

she would rant about jake to him sometimes, like how he wanted to have sex but she wasnt ready, and blaine told her she should do it only when she felt comfortable

after she got suspended, he apologized for yelling at her because of the performance, and remembered mr schue that she was recovering from an eating desorder and that he shouldnt be so hard at her

unique and blaine were "frenemies"

they started off not liking each other, since they both wanted it to be the new rachel, even after blaine won, he and unique still were kinda competitive with each other

but eventually they became sort-of-friends, they sang together sometimes when no one else was there, and they liked to pretend to not like each other but yes they did and it was just their thing

sometimes marley would do a sleepover and she would call blaine, unique and tina, while marley was talking about jake or tina was talking about missing mike, blaine would braid unique's wig and she would try to convince him to let her see his hair without gel

when the whole plot of unique and the bathroom happened, when mr schue told everyone he couldnt give up twerking, blaine stood up for unique saying that wasnt fair and mr schue should try harder to help her, he also held her hand (alongside with marley) when she was scared of having to go to the bathroom again

blaine and mercedes talked to each other more than twice :O

lol ok im not sorry for that title

mercedes and blaine LIVED together people, she used to be kurts best friend, and sams girlfriend are you telling me they barely talked to each other? no

in fact, they really like each other's company, blaine is kinda of a goofball and mercedes thinks its funny

he would ask her to talk to sam when blaine wanted something from him, and mercedes did the same with kurt

sam and blaine would do stupid things together (like dance around their house in their underwear) just to make mercedes laugh, they swore to never tell anyone, and they never did

sometimes at 3 am when no one could sleep they would all have a little dance party until they got tired

blaine and mercedes are junky food addicts, they eat healthy and stuff but they love some cake at 5 in the morning

one time when kurt and mercedes were arguing about the tots, blaine sided with mercedes and told her he agreed that tots are delicious

[jenanigans1207]

What You Gave Me

A chill creeps down Reki’s back as another breeze blows by,

He can see Langa glancing at him out of the corner of his eyes, can see Langa watching as Reki tries his absolute hardest to stifle the shiver that threatens to wrack his whole body, The sun was high in the sky, brilliantly bright and not doing a damn thing to warm him currently. It was one of those deceptive days— the ones that looked beautiful and warm and were actually far colder than they had any right to be. It had been so nice the last few days, too. Reki had just assumed that today would be nice too, another day filled with balmy breezes and the warmth of the sun soaking through the back of his shirt.

He had been wrong. Very wrong.

The shiver wracked its way down his spine.

“Reki.” Langa stops walking, his board tucked under his arm as he turns to look at Reki who continues to fight— and lose— a valiant battle against the chill that’s trying to sink all the way to his bones. “You’re cold.”

“I’m fine,” Reki says, despite the fact that he clearly is not fine at all. 

Langa sighs and it’s all the response he really needs to give. He fixes Reki with one of his patented stares— one of the patient ones that mean he’s absolutely willing to wait for Reki to break and just admit what’s going on. Unfortunately for Langa, Reki is well versed in this look by now, having received it from him plenty of times in the months they’d been friends, and he wasn’t about to crumble underneath it. Making his point, Reki plastered a broad smile on his face and met Langa’s gaze directly, holding his shoulders tight so the cold didn’t ruin the image he was trying to project. With a roll of his eyes, Langa relents. But he sets his board down and then drops his bag next to it, leaving Reki to just stare in confusion as he finally pulls his own jacket off and holds it out to Reki.

“Here.” 

“I’m fine,” Reki repeats, gently pushing the jacket back towards Langa. 

“You always say that,” Langa lectures, stepping close enough to Reki that he’s able to sling the jacket over Reki’s shoulders without any fuss. “And you’re always lying.”

“Why does everyone always say that?” Reki laments as the jacket settles across his back, warm to the touch. Already he can feel the chill of the early spring air dissipating, dissolving away under Langa’s touch, the softness of his jacket, the tenderness of the gesture. 

“Because it’s true,” Langa replies. He takes a step back and resumes staring pointedly at Reki.

“I’m just a little cold. But that doesn’t mean I’m not fine.” Reki concedes finally as he reaches for the collar of the jacket, intending to pull it off and offer it back to Langa. “Besides, I don’t want you to be cold, too.”

“Reki, I’m a snowboarder.” Langa’s hand shoots out to cradle Reki’s wrist, stopping him from removing the jacket. “It gets much colder than this in Canada. I promise I’m fine.”

They stare pointedly at each other, Langa’s hand still warm but gentle against Reki’s wrist. Reki wants to protest further but he knows that Langa has a fair point. In fact, it’s rare that Reki ever even sees Langa in a jacket at all outside of the one required for their school uniform. In all the time they’ve known each other, Reki really doesn’t think he’s ever seen Langa cold. It takes a long moment before Reki finally sighs, pulling his own bag off of his shoulder before slipping his hands through the sleeves of Langa’s jacket. Langa is taller than him so the jacket hangs loosely off of his frame, but it’s comfortable and warm like an embrace and Reki finds immediately that he likes the feel of it. The fit of it is even better than the fit of his own jacket and he thinks he’d gladly wear Langa’s jacket forever if he could.

And then he promptly cuts that line of thought off, ducking his head as he grabs his bag off the ground again, hoping the dusting of pink he can feel warming his cheeks can pass as a result of the cold air still biting as his exposed skin. “Thanks, Langa. It’s just colder than I expected today.”

“I see that.” When Reki shoots him a look, the corner of Langa’s mouth quirks up into a smile. “I was starting to think you didn’t actually have arms since I’d never seen them.”

“I don’t always wear a hoodie,” Reki interjects, both of them slinging their bags back over their shoulders and resuming the walk to their classroom before the final lunch bell rang. “I do have other shirts.”

“You do,” Langa agrees mildly, the smile still firm on his lips. “You just wear them over your hoodies.”

“You’ve definitely seen my arms before,” Reki replies, shoving Langa gently away.

Langa returns to his side immediately, like a magnet pulled back to its opposite half. He’s barely even gone and then he’s suddenly back in step with Reki again, the edge of his smile turning a little smug. Reki still likes it, though, and tries not to think about that fact while Langa is teasing him mercilessly. “I’ve seen you in short sleeves, but your arms are usually covered in bandages then.”

“I’ve broken my arm once!” Reki splutters as they head down the stairs, their shoulders brushing as they stand close enough to allow other people to pass on the other side of the stairs. It’s not technically true, he’s broken his arm more than once, but only once while Langa has known him.

Only once where Langa has had the chance to delicately bandage his arm for him, lecturing Reki the entire time about being reckless and not properly caring for himself. Only once where his fingers skimmed the inside of Reki’s wrist, right over his pulse, before the bandage followed, locking that touch in. Sometimes, like right now, Reki can still feel the electric jolt of that touch, the way it was filled with so much concern. He tries not to think about it often but it’s becoming harder with each passing day. Ever since they had repaired things, ever since Langa had really found his voice and started saying all the things that crossed his mind, Reki found himself unable to think about things that weren’t related to Langa in one way or another.

“When I met you, you had your arm broken,” Langa replies, reaching for Reki’s wrist again and holding his arm up between them as if that could possibly prove his point. Reki swallows, the inside of his wrist tingling at the memory of Langa’s fingertips.

Reki pulls his arm back out of Langa’s grasp and slides his hands into the pockets of Langa’s jacket, the tingling shooting all the way up his arm. “It was probably not broken anymore by that point.”

“Just how fast do you think bones heal?” Langa laughs, shaking his head. A few of the longer pieces of his hair fall into his eyes when he glances over at Reki, but they do nothing to block the brilliant blue of his eyes or the fondness that’s there, mixed right in with the affectionate exasperation that Reki is so used to seeing.

“My bones are very strong,” Reki says stubbornly, but he knows that he’s smiling, too. He sinks into the moment, lets it surround him and wraps him in a warmth that far exceeds that of Langa’s jacket. It’s been a while since Reki felt this at ease with anything— even himself— and he relishes in the fact that Langa is still here, still teasing him, still laughing at him but with absolutely no bite whatsoever. The only mark his words leave behind is a faint blush on Reki’s cheek. All the cracks that have been in Reki’s heart lately are completely repaired as Langa smiles back at him, his eyes sparkling with that mischief that Reki has found very intoxicating since the first day.

“That’s probably because you break them so often,” Langa replies, and he’s already pulling away to try and get out of Reki’s reach, his smile broad now. 

They round the last corner and by the time Reki is jamming his elbow into Langa’s ribs, Langa is already laughing again— a quiet huff under his breath that’s far more pleasant than the day outside. Reki’s so caught up in it, in his own laughter that comes freely, he doesn’t even get a chance to dodge Langa’s elbow as he returns the favor, nudging Reki in the ribs. And then they’re tripping over each other, falling together instead of apart, and Reki is nearly breathless by the time they finally stumble through the classroom door, the entirety of the class glancing up at their arrival. Reki doesn’t notice, his entire focus wrapped up in Langa as they finally manage to separate enough to sit down.

“You’re the worst,” Reki says as he slides back into his seat, depositing his board and bag on the ground at his feet.

“Ouch.” Langa slides into his own seat, his smile betraying the fact that he puts absolutely no stock in Reki’s words. 

It only takes a second for Langa to dig his notes out of his bag and straighten up and suddenly the two of them are dissolved into their own world again, completely oblivious of the things around them until class starts. So, if the rest of the class exchanged glances at Reki in Langa’s jacket, at Langa’s brilliant smile that they don’t get to see nearly as often as they should, well Reki doesn’t notice. He’s too busy leaning across the aisle that separates their seats and doodling something in the margin of Langa’s notes.

—x

The sun is barely still in the sky by the time Langa drops him off that night.

Reki climbs off the back of Langa’s bike, exchanging goodbyes quickly before hustling through the door because he’s definitely late for family dinner. Reki had tried to plead with Langa, to get him to attend family dinner too because there’s no way his mom could ever be mad at Langa, but Langa had already promised his own mom that he’d be home tonight for dinner and didn’t want to leave her alone. So, Reki’s only choice was to try to sneak through the door quietly and pretend he’d been there the whole time, distracted by something else and definitely not running around town with Langa until the sun was almost completely below the horizon.

He opens the door as slowly as he can, glancing over his shoulder at Langa who nods at him in good luck before taking off towards his own house, shrinking until he’s a speck that’s faded into the few remaining tendrils of red and orange that still paint the horizon in a beautiful picture. Reki creeps through the door, kicks his shoes off, and is just about to shut it behind him when he hears footsteps in the hallway that tell him he’s absolutely busted.

“Where have you been?” Reki doesn’t have to look at his mom to know she has her hands on her hips.

He lets out the breath he’d been holding and hangs his head, “I”m sorry mom, I—“

“And what are you wearing?” She asks, more kindly this time. Reki still isn’t looking at her, but he can hear the smile in her voice and the edge of something that he can’t quite place his finger on.

Startled, Reki looks down at his outfit only to realize that he’s still clad in Langa’s jacket. 

Langa had been right, he was perfectly fine in the cooler temperatures, and skating after class had certainly only warmed him up. A brief image of Langa, flushed cheeks and chest heaving as he cheers for Reki when he finally lands the newest trick he’s been practicing flashes through Reki’s mind, but he tries to stifle it. The point was that Langa hadn’t asked for his jacket back once and Reki hadn’t even considered giving it back because Langa hadn’t looked cold and— well, he’d actually completely forgotten he was wearing it. It was so comfortable that somewhere in the middle of class, Reki had forgotten that he wasn’t just wearing his own hoodie. Sure, this hoodie smelled like Langa and now that Reki was alone in his own home, he really realized just how true that was. But he’d been within a few feet of Langa all day long, he hadn’t really realized—

“Oh.” Reki glances up at his mom and hopes that he isn’t blushing, hopes his expression doesn’t betray all of his thoughts, He’s been having so many of them lately that he’d like to think he’s getting better at hiding them but he has a sneaking suspicion that he’s actually getting worse at keeping his thoughts off of his face. “I forgot my hoodie today so Langa let me borrow his jacket.”

The way his mom smiles in response is very fond and far too knowing and if it weren’t for the fact that Reki could tell just by the tilt of her lips that he was no longer in trouble, he’d hate whatever he thought she saw in his statement— or perhaps written across his face. “He’s a very kind boy. You should’ve invited him in.”

“I did.” Reki finishes shutting the door finally, just to have a reason to stop looking directly at his mom. He tries desperately to school his expression into something neutral and puts the questions he has about his suddenly racing heartbeat to the back of his mind, He can wonder about that later when he’s alone. Wondering about it now when his mom can see everything is a dangerous game that Reki has no intention of playing. “But he had to get home to his mom.”

“Well, let’s hope you didn’t make him late to his family dinner.” The bite is gone from her chiding and Reki knows he deserves it anyway so he just mumbles another apology and trails his mom into the kitchen, sliding into his spot at the table and not meeting any of the glances she throws his way while they eat.

—x

Once dinner finally ends, Reki escapes to his room as fast as he possibly can, barely putting the last dishes away before he’s all but sprinting to his room to get some distance from his mom and the looks she’s been sending him. He shuts his door with as little force as possible and finally flops down on his bed, letting out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding all night. His heart continues to thunder away in his chest, racing with just the mere thought of Langa and whatever dots his mom seemed to be connecting. He didn’t really have to work hard to dissect the meaning of his mom’s looks— she’d been sending them to him for a few weeks now, and only when he mentioned Langa. 

And yeah, okay, Reki knew what she was implying and if the way his cheeks constantly heated up under those looks was anything to go by, he’d say she was right. And if that wasn’t a good indicator, he could certainly look at the way he felt around Langa— the tingling in his wrist that he could call up at any moment with just a mere thought, the buzzing he felt throughout his whole body whenever he made Langa laugh.

He remembers it clearly— and often— the night at the skate park when they had finally reconciled things and had a chance to say their peace. When Reki had sat up, his body aching from the impact with the ground, only to find Langa laughing bright and brilliant, laughing in a way Reki had never seen before— well he had felt the entire world shift, then. It was like something inside of him had changed, like something had clicked into place and suddenly a lot of the answers he had been looking for were there in Langa’s laughter, in the kind words Langa said, in the touch of his hand. All the things Reki had been seeking, missing, longing for, all of it was there in Langa.

And it wasn’t that those things hadn’t been there before, but that Reki just hadn’t really realized it. 

So yeah, he knew what his mom was implying every time he said Langa’s name, and her eyes softened at the corner. He knew what she was thinking when she told him to invite Langa over more often, to let him get to know the family. It was a pretty clear line she was drawing and Reki couldn’t even deny it. The most he could ever do was duck his head and tell his mom that Langa was busy, but that he’d promised to come over as soon as he could. And then he would bring Langa home on days when they had homework to do instead of skating, or days when they were too tired or sore to stay out all night. And his mom would greet Langa at the door as if she were just greeting a second son as if he already had a solid place in this family— and he did. Reki’s sisters loved him and Langa was unbearably great with them, listening to their stupid stories that had sixteen detours before they got to the point. He’d ask questions, too, giving them a chance to say more. And when one of Reki’s sisters had given Langa a picture she’d drawn, Langa had taken it like it was the most precious thing he’d ever been offered and then later sent Reki a picture of it hanging on his wall.

It wasn’t just Reki that had these— these feelings about Langa, it was his whole entire family. 

It was like Langa just belonged here, right next to Reki. In that time that they’d been fighting, when Reki had felt entirely lifeless, nobody really asked him what was wrong. They saw the Langa-shaped hole in his life and they had all the answers they needed to why Reki had been behaving the way he was. 

Reki sighs and digs his phone out of one of the pockets of Langa’s jacket, clicking into his conversation with Langa out of habit more than anything else. He can agonize over these thoughts later, it’s not like they have a deadline. He’s been agonizing over them for weeks now anyways. 

Sorry, I forgot to give you back your jacket.

He sends the text to Langa and then closes his eyes, dropping his phone and waiting for it to thump onto his chest. It does, but it comes with the distinct sound of his phone hitting something else and suddenly Reki feels two things pressing into his chest instead of just one. 

Confused, he sits up and unzips the jacket, patting it down. Sure enough, over the left side of his chest, there’s something rectangular. Thin enough that he hadn’t noticed it all day but now that he’s aware of it, he wonders how it didn’t catch his attention sooner. Reki checks the outside of the jacket but there’s nothing there. Carefully, he pulls the jacket open and sure enough, there on the left side is a zipper practically hidden in the seam— a secret pocket. Confused and concerned that he damaged whatever was in here, Reki opens the pocket and reaches inside.

He hears his phone ding from where it’s now resting next to him on the bed, but he doesn’t care for the time being. His hand closes around cold metal and then he’s pulling Langa’s iPod out from the pocket and looking down at it. He remembers when Langa had first found his old iPod again. He’d been so excited to show it to Reki, offering Reki the second earbud as he played through the songs of his past and told Reki some of what those songs meant to him. He had an entire snowboarding playlist that he used to listen to on the slopes and when Reki listened to it, he loved every second of it. The entire feeling of the playlist was how Reki felt when he was skating next to Langa— the heavy beat of his heart, the weightlessness of going fast, the freedom, and the joy of sharing it with someone else. That was Reki’s favorite thing that Langa had shown him. And sometimes in the morning, when Reki first met up with Langa, he’d see Langa pull the earbuds out of his ears and tuck them away before raising his hand in greeting.

So really, it doesn’t surprise Reki to find this in here.

Smiling, Reki picks his phone back up and glances at the text from Langa.

It’s okay, you can keep it as long as you’d like.

Warmth blooms in Reki’s chest as he drops his phone without replying. Instead, he picks the iPod back up and reclines against his pillows, unlocking it and hopping into Langa’s playlists. He knows Langa won’t mind if he finds out that Reki was listening to his snowboarding music. Plus there’s one song in there Reki keeps asking Langa about and Langa can never remember the name of it. 

Reki’s smiling to himself, nestled in Langa’s jacket, the scent of Langa surrounding Reki in his own bed, the intimacy of that thought not lost on him, as he clicks into Langa’s playlists. He starts to scroll down by default, knowing that a snowboarding playlist has to be something Langa made a long time ago and therefore would be lower down on the list when something catches his eye. It takes Reki’s mind a second to register it and then he’s scrolling back up to the very top.

And there it is, staring back at him.

The first playlist on Langa’s iPod.

The playlist that’s titled simply: Reki.

Curious, and with his heartbeat in his throat, Reki clicks on the playlist. It opens up to a list of songs, a lot of which Reki recognizes as songs he’s mentioned loving before. He sees his top three favorite songs right at the start of the playlist, and that makes sense to Reki. Maybe Langa had just made this playlist to get to know Reki better or to help remember the kind of things Reki liked. It would make sense, and Reki couldn’t deny that he kept a similar mental list of all the things Langa had mentioned liking in passing.

But as Reki continues to scroll down the playlist, the songs start to change. Now he’s staring at a bunch of songs he’s never mentioned— some of which he’s never even heard of— but the ones that he recognizes all have one common theme: love songs.

For a moment, everything freezes and Reki thinks he must be seeing things. His finger trembles as it hovers over one of the songs, one earbud already in his ear. He can still feel his pulse in his throat, but now he can feel it in his fingertips, too, in his toes. Each breath feels like it’s shaking him apart completely. Carefully, he clicks on one of the songs.

And yeah, that’s definitely a love song.

Reki can feel his face turn as red as his hair as he listens to the warm melody of the song, as he lets the declarations wash over him. He closes his eyes, burying his face in the front of Langa’s jacket, and just listens, wondering how these singers managed to find the words for these feelings when they’ve been expertly eluding him for weeks now. How do people get up the courage to say these things? Reki thinks he’d never have the guts for that, thinks the mortification of it would be the sort of thing he’d never survive. 

But still, there’s something tempting about it. There’s something so honest and raw in these songs, something that strums all of Reki’s heartstrings and makes him ache. Just listening to them would’ve had him thinking about Langa anyways because he hears all of his own deepest desires, his most secret thoughts spoken aloud to the beat of these songs. But knowing that Langa picked these songs and put them on a playlist that was titled with. Nothing other than his name makes Reki feel— he doesn’t even know. But it feels pretty close to that mortification he was imagining earlier but it’s mixed with happiness and maybe a little giddiness. He suddenly feels like he could skate laps around the entire town and it would do nothing to dull the energy he feels pulsing through his veins.

He tries to calm himself down, tries not to let himself hope but, well— Langa’s a pretty direct guy. He may not have always been great at communicating his thoughts but the things he’s said, he’s always meant. And the fact that he would create a playlist like this, the fact that he had to hand-select these songs to be on here couldn’t mean nothing. It just couldn’t. Langa didn’t do or say things that were untrue or deceptive. If he crafted a playlist under Reki’s name and filled it with Reki’s favorite songs and love songs— that was deliberate.

Blown completely away by this, blown completely away by the fact that he didn’t see this, either, even though it was objectively right in front of his face, Reki can’t stop the smile from spreading across his face. 

It was just like with his own feelings— they had always been there but it had taken Reki a long time to see them. Langa and his feelings had always been there, too, and Reki sees that clearly now. He remembers all the things Langa said to him, thinks of the times Langa has worried after him and his injuries. Reki remembers the touch of Langa’s fingertips to the inside of his wrist, feels his pulse spike at just the thought of it, and immediately, he knows what he has to do.

—x

It’s Saturday, but that doesn’t stop Reki from getting up early and heading out to meet Langa. They have the whole day they can spend at the skate park and Reki absolutely intends to do just that. His fingers tremble as he slides his arms into the sleeves of Langa’s jacket, zipping it up over one of his T-shirts. His whole family is still asleep so he sneaks out the window, the wind whipping at his hair and his exposed neck as he rides down the ramp and heads to their usual meeting spot. 

As soon as Reki turns the last corner, he can see Langa already waiting there for him, dressed in his usual short sleeves. Reki tries to swallow around the lump in his throat, tries to hold onto the conviction he had found last night while listening to Langa’s playlist for him. It turns out it’s much easier to be confident in his decision when he’s alone in his room under the blanket of night. Because now, slowing to a stop so he can look up and meet Langa’s blue gaze, he feels all of that courage shriveling up.

What if he misread everything? What if Langa knew someone else named Reki?

“Good morning, Reki.” Langa smiles at him, raising his hand for a high five and Reki knows that he has to do this.

He raises his own hand, completing the high five, and offers his own smile that he knows is wavering a little around the edges. “Good morning.”

Langa scans down Reki’s body and Reki knows that he’s looking at the jacket. That’s the key to Reki’s plan, the lynchpin for how he’s going to bring up what he needs to bring up and Langa is taking the bait perfectly, “Keeping the jacket?”

“Yeah. Can’t let you know I have arms.” Reki jokes, his voice feeling unsteady. If Langa notices, he doesn’t say anything, but he does laugh at Reki’s joke and it’s just the right amount of encouragement Reki needs to follow through. Carefully, he reaches into the jacket and opens the secret internal pocket, pulling out Langa’s iPod. “But I’m not keeping this. I figure you’d probably like it back.”

“Ah,” Langa accepts his iPod, glancing at it. “That explains why I couldn’t find it this morning.”

“Yeah, sorry. I didn’t mean to take it from you.” Langa shrugs in response, clearly unbothered by the whole thing, and goes to put the iPod in his pocket. And this is Reki’s moment, he knows that it’s his moment and yet he’s practically paralyzed by fear. 

What he has with Langa is too precious to him to ruin. Maybe it would be better if he just swallowed his words and left them unspoken. If Langa really felt the way that playlist implied, Reki could leave it to him to say something first, and then he could just kiss the confession off of his lips. That would be easier, and significantly less terrifying. But Reki had known he was a coward when it came to feelings last night and he’d put a failsafe into place, something to force him to act today. 

He reaches out and catches Langa’s wrist before he can finish putting the iPod away.

Langa looks up at him, the edges of his hair catching the light and making him look like he’s glowing. His beauty has always been ethereal, but it’s never been more true than this moment. “Reki?”

“I, uh—“ Reki swallows. The words stick in his throat. He needs to say something because he can’t risk Langa finding out on his own. He can’t let Langa just discover it and leave him with all these questions. The words are out of Reki’s mouth before he has a chance to overthink it any further. They come out clumsy and a little slanted, but he says them nonetheless and that’s what matters. “I also made a playlist on there.”

Langa’s eyebrows rise in surprise.

And that�� that was Reki’s failsafe. He had made his own playlist and filled it with his own love songs. And he’d titled it with nothing other than: Langa.

It was the existence of that playlist that spurred Reki on. Because he really couldn’t let Langa find it when they weren’t together, when Reki didn’t have a chance to explain. And there was no hope that Langa wouldn’t find it at all. It would last until tomorrow at the latest before Langa went to listen to something and found the new playlist staring back at him. And he’d have a million questions, Reki was sure of that. Reki had been sure of that last night, too, which is why he’d made it. Because he knew it would be the only way to guarantee that he didn’t brush this off or try to avoid another conversation about feelings.

Because conversations about feelings scared the shit out of him and made him feel like hiding under a rock for a week, minimum, but he knew what he wanted— Langa— and he knew the only way to get it was to suck it up and talk it out. 

Langa pulls the iPod fully out of his pocket again, the movement dislodging Reki’s hand from his wrist. As Langa lifts the iPod to look up the playlist, Reki looks down at their feet, his cheeks burning, He hasn’t even said anything yet, Langa hasn’t even seen the playlist, and already the mortification is so strong that he wishes the ground would just open up underneath his feet and swallow him whole. 

Feelings have never been Reki’s forte.

Reki hears Langa’s intake of breath and then there’s a pause that lasts the length of three racing heartbeats. And then, finally, Langa says, “Reki?”

And now is the moment that Reki needs to explain, to lay it all on the line, to tell Langa what he probably should’ve told Langa that day in the skate park when they’d made up and Langa had said so many of the things that he needed to say. Now it’s the moment where Reki gets to tell Langa that his life changed for the better the day Langa picked up his skateboard, the day their paths officially intertwined. He gets to tell Langa that everything hurts when they aren't together and that Reki’s life is only complete when he has Langa by his side. He gets to tell Langa that his family loves him, that he loves him, that all he wants is to never be separated from Langa again.

Except, Reki’s not a singer or songwriter and words are not that easy. So he starts simple and really hopes he just gets enough momentum to say the rest.

“I’m sorry.” He starts with and he’s not sure if it’s the right or wrong way to begin this sort of thing. “I found your iPod last night and I went into it to find that song I’m always asking you about and then I found your playlist— the one with my name and all the— all the—“ love songs, Reki doesn’t say because he doesn’t think he’d be able to without losing whatever thin shreds of sanity he still had left. “And it just made me realize that maybe I really have been stupid this whole time because I—“

Oh god, Reki, come on. Just say it, just say the rest of it. Put an end to it and just put the words out there. Reki tries to encourage himself, tries to force the words to dislodge from where they’re trapped between his ribs but everything fails him. His sentence trails off into nothing, the meaning he’s trying to make clear hanging invisible between them, and Reki wishes he could kick himself.

The silence stretches on and pulls taut between them. One wrong move and it will shatter completely.

“I’m sorry, Reki,” Langa says finally, and there’s something in his voice that has Reki snapping his eyes up to Langa’s face, despite the overwhelming fear he feels about what he’s going to find written into the lines of Langa’s expression. “I never told you because I didn’t want to burden you with it. If you want to make fun of me, I understand.”

“Make fun of you?” Reki feels like he’s falling, like he has nothing to catch himself on. He feels dizzy. “Is that what you think I’m doing? You think I’m making fun of you?”

“Well, you made the playlist—“

“To try and tell you I feel the same way!” Reki cries, throwing his hands into the air. “I made the playlist so you would know that I feel all those things too!”

And, well, that’s one way to do a confession, Reki supposes, It’s a lot clumsier than he’d intended for it to be, absolutely no nuance whatsoever, but at least the words are out there. At least now, if nothing else, he knows that he was honest, even if it was a bit blunt and rough around the edges.

Langa is looking back at him, eyes wide. Reki stares back at him but all he sees is blue. Brighter than the sky, deeper than the ocean, the kind of blue that he’d let himself get lost in. The kind of blue he has already let himself get lost in because that’s the real truth of the matter— he’s been wrapped up in Langa since the first day they met.

Langa showed up in his life and filled a vacancy Reki hadn’t even realized was there. Langa had shown up and completed all the parts of Reki’s life that didn’t seem like they added up perfectly. It wasn’t until he met Langa, until he first saw Langa tape his feet to a skateboard with all the reckless abandon that Reki himself was known for that he realized all those parts of his life had been off balance because they’d been needing someone to complete them. All this time, Reki needed someone to jump into crazy adventures with him while also looking out for his safety. He needed someone to listen to him ramble on forever, someone who asked questions and added to his thoughts, someone who shaped him into a better, smoother version of himself. And Langa had shown up and done all of that without any hesitation, like it was what he was meant to do. Langa had done all of those things so naturally that Reki hadn’t even realized it was happening. 

“You—?” Langa is still staring at him and Reki still doesn’t have any additional words.

So, he does the only thing he can do, he repeats himself and hopes that Langa will read between the lines the way he always has. “I feel the same, yeah. And I— I didn’t know how else to tell you.”

Reki isn’t quite sure how he expects Langa to react to the confession, but he knows it’s not the reaction he gets. Langa’s free hand reaches out and tugs Reki forward by the collar of Langa’s jacket that Reki is still wearing, meeting him in the middle with a searing kiss. Reki tries to kiss back, to pour everything he needs to say into it, but before he gets much of a change, the board under his feet shifts with his changed stance and suddenly he’s tumbling into Langa and Langa is falling backward and they’re crashing to the ground together, a pile of limbs as Reki lands halfway on top of Langa. 

It takes a long second of groaning and throbbing elbows before they’re able to disentangle themselves enough to actually look at each other. Reki meets Langa’s gaze again, just in time to watch Langa erupt into laughter, throwing his head back and blinking his beautiful blue eyes closed as his shoulders shook with it. And then Reki was laughing too, full, deep laughs that took away all of the tension he had been feeling. Because this whole thing had been a certifiable disaster but it had also been perfect somehow, and even though his elbows still hurt, he found that he wouldn’t change a single thing about this moment. 

“Langa,” Reki says when they finally tone their laughter down enough to get actual words out. Langa opens his eyes again and Reki finds that this time, the words finally fit, finally come to him the way he’s been begging for them to. “I really like you.”

This time, when Langa reaches for him, Reki knows what to expect. He goes willingly, leaning in until their lips are practically touching, feeling the shape of the words as Langa whispers, “I really like you too, Reki. So much.”

And somehow this kiss is even more searing than the last as Langa pulls Reki down the remaining distance. With solid ground underneath him, Reki is able to actually lean back into the kiss, to pour everything into it that he’d been trying to put into the first kiss. This kiss is arguably so much better than their actual first kiss, but Reki doesn’t care. He loves both of them equally because both of them give him Langa, warm and solid pressed against him, Both of them give him Langa’s hand warm on his cheek, Reki’s fingers tangling into his hair, the racing heartbeat beating against his ribs like drums. He loves them both because both of them mean that Reki didn’t misinterpret the signs.

It may have taken him a while to get here, but he got here regardless and when he did, all he found was Langa waiting for him with open arms. 

When they finally separate and haul themselves off the ground, Reki dusting the dirt off of Langa’s jacket, the world feels different and yet exactly the same. Reki isn’t sure how to phrase it, but this time he doesn’t think he really has to. He’ll still spend a bunch of nights pondering over it though, he figures. For now, he’s happy to just climb onto his board again, to accept the earbud Langa offers him, and to listen to the playlist he made to express his emotions as he skates perfectly in sync with Langa to their favorite place, the place they share together. And as the day progresses, he’s happy to steal some kisses between tricks, to feel the brush of Langa’s fingers against his cheek, his neck, his wrists. 

For now, Reki’s just happy. And he’s pretty confident that he’ll stay that way for a long, long time. 

[bluerosesburnblue]

I hope you don't mind this ask, but... Any theories / speculations about the most recent story update for KHUX?

Oh, I don’t mind at all! I’m glad you asked, actually, because I’ve had some thoughts, though not many new theories of my own, unfortunately. That being said, I can definitely go over how some of my old theories and some of the fandom’s hold up and my thoughts on a few of the new theories I’ve seen floating around

One thing that I’m consistently proud of is how my old guesses about Darkness’s true nature just keep ending up almost right barring some slight details. I made the claim back when Re:Mind first came out that Darkness could be a hive mind of entities that plant bits of themselves in others, and then refined that back in July of 2020 by likening it to a parasite that worms its way into people’s hearts and incorporates itself into them to control them. This past update confirmed that the Darkness we’re fighting is one part of the hive mind that wormed its way into Ven to force him to act out, and that by doing so it detached itself from that hive mind and became incorporated into Ven’s being (which Ven can then shape). So I gotta say I’m pretty pleased about that part

All that’s left to be seen from the July post is if Darkness has a connection to Verum Rex/Quadratum, but I doubt that that will be touched on by the KHUx finale. Though I will say that it’s pretty interesting that the Master of Masters tells Darkness about “a world [he] can’t even conceive,” which seems like it could easily be referring to Quadratum, which also means that Darkness knows about it

That’s pretty much all I have to say on the Ventus/Darkness/Vanitas connection, but there’s still more to cover in this update

One thing that I’ve been trying to figure out is who the cloaked figure right at the start of the update is, Luxu or the MoM. Measuring the sizes and my old guess based on the KH3 Secret Reports both say Luxu, but this brings into question “when,” exactly, the True Dandelion scene takes place as it doesn’t have the dark haze around the edges that they give flashbacks, but is clearly the real-world set of pods as they’re not destroyed AND it’s missing the pod that Maleficent already used. The True Dandelion scene has a lot to unpack, but this scene at the start does make me wonder if Luxu and/or the Master have a way in and out of the datascape that doesn’t involve the pods, otherwise the numbers don’t add up

Also related to the post of mine I just linked is the idea that the Black Box is the datascape. I believe that this might still hold true. It’s interesting to note that they show the scene from Back Cover where Luxu is given the box in the first place just prior to the reveal that using the lifeboats to escape starts the process to seal it off and have the real Daybreak Town fall to darkness, and the Master’s “hint” to Luxu involves this very process. Why would Luxu be forbidden to open the box? Quite possibly because it contains the infected datascape meant to seal off the vast majority of the Darkness hive mind. And several Dandelions. It is both the “hope” mentioned in KH3 through those Dandelions, as well as a trap to keep Darkness out of being able to interfere for quite a long time

Now, the questions that I’m sure are on everyone’s minds are “who is the True Dandelion,” and “who are the ones who use the lifeboats?” Let’s start with the True Dandelion, as there’s far less moving pieces involved in that one

I won’t take credit for coming up with any of these options, I’m just going to discuss the logistics of them. So the candidates for the True Dandelion in, what is in my opinion, the least likely option to the most likely option, are:

Kairi: I’ve seen this one floating around and... honestly don’t believe it at all due to the sheer amount of logical contortions that you have to do to make it work. To wit:

Where the hell would she even come from if it was Kairi? As can be clearly seen with Ven, is stated to be true with Subject X, and is implied to be true of Lauriam/Elrena, those who travel to the future using the pods will regenerate their bodies at the age they were when they used the pods. Which would make Kairi at the oldest a four-year-old. Four years prior to KHUx was when Brain was told that he was a Union Leader. So she either would have been just born immediately prior to the war and was just... stolen or something? And we never saw? Or just after the war, where she would probably have to be the child of a Dandelion that got teen pregnant because they’re supposed to be both kids and the only survivors? Or Luxu and Ava’s kid somehow? Like, what? The timeline is just insane with that

If she was born before the war... you would assume that the True Dandelion would be, you know, a Dandelion. Which would mean that Ava handed a Keyblade to and recruited a literal toddler. This would also retcon Aqua being the one to accidentally pass the ability to wield a Keyblade down to Kairi and I refuse to make theories predicated on “the author will retcon this.” You just open up a huge can of worms doing that

The body wrapped in white looked a hell of a lot bigger than a four-year-old to me

I am sick to death of “this character was secretly from the Age of Fairytales~” being employed by the narrative. It’s happened at least three times already (four if you count Luxu). Enough already

Ventus: Ven has some hints, though some notable contradictions to it being him

On the one had, the sheet that the True Dandelion is wrapped in is extremely similar to the one that Xehanort wrapped him in when planning to leave him on Destiny Islands in BBS and there’s a possibility that Xehanort may have found him in that very sheet if he regenerated wearing it

On the other hand: Ventus might not have even been a Dandelion in the first place (he definitely wasn’t a Union Leader, but I don’t know if it was ever said whether he was selected as a regular Dandelion or not), and there’s the timing of the scene that I mentioned above. It’s definitely after Maleficent used her lifeboat but before anyone else used theirs (when you would expect Ven to remain with his friends) and, since the scene doesn’t have the flashback effect, it’s implied to be happening concurrently with everything else, so Ven should still be fighting Darkness in the datascape while it’s happening and eliminating him from being this particular person

Strelitzia: Oh, boy, have we got some nice old hints to Strelitzia, but still a few logical contortions, just like Ven

The white sheet is coming back up again. Namely, the fact that we still have an unexplained scene where Strelitzia appears to Lauriam in a dream wrapped in a white cloak, though it’s of a different style than the one that the True Dandelion is in. That scene also featured flower petals being blown into the wind, much like a dandelion seed (though, notably, the petals that are blown aren’t Dandelion seeds)

The question is, yet again, one of timing. How would Luxu get her body? While she was only introduced in KHUx, her scenes are all flashbacks to before the war, so we know that she was struck down in the real world, not the datascape. We see her body dissolve into light and her heart be released. Now, technically you only need a heart to time travel (actually, a heart is the only thing that can time travel), but Luxu is clearly seen putting a body into the machine. A machine that only allows for time travel because it destroys the body. If he had her heart, he wouldn’t need to use the lifeboat because she’s already in a state to time-travel on her own and this eliminates the possibility of him putting her Nobody into the machine, because without a heart it would just evaporate her body leaving... absolutely no heart to go to the future with

Now, Luxu theoretically could have grabbed her heart. We know that he was hanging around Daybreak Town at the time while observing thanks to his fight with Ava, but Strelitzia is struck down just after the fight with Ava starts so it’s very likely that Luxu was too preoccupied to retrieve her heart before it was gone. Speaking of Luxu’s fight with Ava...

Ava is my current top pick for the True Dandelion candidate due to the sheer number of questions it answers and how few it raises

Ever since KH3 came out, the question of “where the heck is Ava?” has been buzzing around as a major mystery. Her last chronological point of appearance is the same as the other Foretellers: the Keyblade War itself, where she’s shown leading her Union to battle. Notably, she seems resigned to her part in this, and this is the first and only time we see her after her battle with Luxu where he reveals to her the Master’s true plans. Melody of Memory seems to imply that the other Foretellers managed to skip to the future by going to another world, Quadratum (or at least this is the most likely explanation as there’s not enough pods to send all four of the other Foretellers AND the characters that we know end up in the future to their destination). However, Ava isn’t with them and Luxu knows what happened to her

It would be easy to write this off as them trying to drop Ava from the narrative or her not being important, but her chess piece is included in the “Eraqus and Xehanort foreshadow the next saga” chess game on the far right of the board and Nomura confirms that they represent the Master’s six apprentices, i.e. the five Foretellers + Luxu. So, Ava is necessary in the upcoming saga and yet, she didn’t get to the future the same way as any of the Master’s other apprentices leaving her open to get there via a lifeboat

Ava is the very founder of the Dandelions, who all of the others look up to and defer to and was spoken of heavily in the scene just prior to the True Dandelion reveal. That’s grounds for being called the True Dandelion if I’ve ever seen one

Luxu would very easily be able to ensure that Ava would be able to make it to the future. Just like with the Master of Masters, he already has the memories necessary for her to use to regenerate a body, and either her Keyblade or her mask would make for effective mediums that wouldn’t be too difficult for Luxu to take. If he put her in the white cloth, he probably took her mask off already

Ava hasn’t been around for the events of KHUx, so there’s no timeline discrepancies if it’s her

So, now that we have an idea of who the True Dandelion could be, let’s talk about the rest of the lifeboats and how they might fit together. For the purposes of this discussion, let’s assume that the True Dandelion can’t be one of the Union Leaders and that their battle with Darkness is taking place at the same time as Luxu is sending off the True Dandelion. I’ll be referencing an old theory of mine, while making additions now that it’s clear that there’s two sets of lifeboats: the Data Set and the Real Set

Right now, there’s an equal number of Real Pods and Data Pods: 5 each. For the Data Pods, of the seven that we started with, one was used by Maleficent and one was damaged in the battle between Maleficent and Lauriam. As for the Real Pods, one has been used by Maleficent, and one has been used by the True Dandelion. This leaves us with five each.

We can narrow this down further by eliminating people that we know end up in the future. These are:

Ventus

Subject X, who is most likely Skuld based on her description

Lauriam

Elrena* (of note with Elrena is that we actually have no idea where the hell she is at the moment or how she’s going to get into the pods. Furthermore, while every other lifeboat user sans Maleficent has been shown to have amnesia upon waking and Lauriam/Marluxia directly indicates as such applies to him, too, in KH3, Elrena/Larxene’s KH3 scene and character file short story both indicate that she recalls Lauriam and possibly Strelitzia, though she also seems surprised at the idea that she’s part of an ancient Keyblade legacy. I won’t deny that there’s a possibility that she doesn’t use a lifeboat and ends up in the future by other means based on the discrepancies)

So with three confirmed cases, we’re left with one ambiguous case in Elrena and three more possible candidates: Ephemer, Brain, and Player. Four people, and two pods

I want to make it clear that despite what I brought up against Elrena, I do think that she’ll be using one of the lifeboats if only so that KHUx has narrative consistency. They introduced Elrena, they made her part of the investigation on Strelitzia’s whereabouts, so it only makes sense that they need to show us where she ended up for a satisfying conclusion. So let’s slot Elrena in for one of the lifeboats. That leaves one between Player, Ephemer, and Brain

My best guess is that Player won’t be using a lifeboat at all. Not only are they a create-a-character that would be a HUGE pain to try and incorporate into future entries in the series without making a “canon” version and thus ruining their appeal as an avatar, but we haven’t seen or heard mention of them at all in the games set in the present-day. There’s zero indication that they made it, which makes them the most easily eliminated as a lifeboat user

That leaves Ephemer and Brain, and I still believe that Ephemer will be the final lifeboat user, and for the same reasons as stated in the theory I linked at the start of this section. Not only does Brain have the same facial sprite as Eraqus, but he wields the Master’s Defender which will be later passed down to Eraqus and I believe that this eliminates him as a time traveler, despite the fandom’s popular opinion that it confirms it

Because I don’t believe that Brain is Eraqus’s grandfather, but rather his distant ancestor who inherited the No Name and passed down both Keyblades through the ages

So let’s resolve some plot threads taking everything I’ve stated and linked to above into account

My Big Guess for the KHUx Finale

Ventus will use the fact that Darkness is tied to his heart now to give it a physical, but still mostly amorphous form that he, the Union Leaders, and Player can finally take down. Darkness will be sealed inside Ven’s heart, where it will lie dormant until he reaches the future. Eventually, Xehanort will extract it in the form of Vanitas and it will follow Vanitas’s life cycle, ending in him being reabsorbed into Ven at the end of BBS. Darkness, now back in Ven’s heart, will make brief contact with Sora during the events of Re:Mind

Lauriam, upon learning that the world will be sealed with the use of the lifeboats, will attempt to rescue his partner, Elrena. Both will take lifeboats out of the datascape and into the future, whereupon they will be recruited into Organization XIII by Luxu’s current incarnation, Xigbar, likely to keep an eye on them. I believe there might be a squabble among Ephemer, Skuld, Brain, and Player among who will use the final lifeboats (each person nominating others besides themselves), but ultimately they will settle on Ephemer and Skuld

Skuld will wind up amnesiac in the future Radiant Garden and is discovered by Ansem the Wise and his apprentices and dubbed Subject X. She becomes Xehanort’s favorite test subject due to the similarities in their amnesia and possibly some lingering memories that he has that don’t quite belong to him (KHDR Xehanort certainly seems to want to meet his “old friends” very badly)

Ephemer’s heart will wind up in the Keyblade Graveyard as I mentioned in an old theory, unable to manifest a body due to the lack of a medium present. Through this state of being just a heart (and possibly related to those old talks about him being “unchained”), he will be able to enact the Light of the Past moment from KH3, and may very well be revived for future events in the series

This leaves Brain and Player behind in the datascape. However, you may remember one detail that I brought up, but neglected to fully expand on until now. There is a difference between the Data Pods and the Real Pods. While all of the Real Pods have been used up at the time of my proposed sequence of events, the Data Pods have not been. One was never used, only damaged. This leaves open the possibility that it can also be repaired (Also, I’m just gonna say it. Player’s met someone recently who has a magic hammer that can repair anything... might not come back but also totally could). Brain and Player could then repair the final pod and, in a callback to when Player was sent to Game Central Station, have them both agree once again that Player is the more expendable person in the scenario. Brain will take the repaired pod, leaving no way out of the datascape for anyone else, while Player stays behind to be sealed away for the time being (this could also be a callback to the original KHx, where Player also stayed behind to take part in the war instead of fleeing with the Dandelions, as they refused to leave their party behind)

When Brain escapes, however, he will be met with a Daybreak Town with no Real Pods left, as Luxu used one on the True Dandelion. Now that the seven pods have all been used up and the real Daybreak Town is falling to darkness, Luxu will take a corridor out as the Master instructed, but bring the newly appeared Brain along with him (either that or Brain emerges after Daybreak Town falls, either is possible) and bequeaths the No Name onto him. Brain, stranded in the past while all of his friends have been sent to the future, will be Luxu’s new apprentice and rebuild the fallen Daybreak Town as Scala ad Caelum, then pass down both of his Keyblades: Master’s Defender to his biological descendants, and No Name to his apprentices

As for the Master of Masters? I think he’s already taken an eighth lifeboat (you’ll note that there’s space right in the center of the cluster where one more could theoretically fit) and had done so before the start of the original KHx. He’ll be revived at some point in Xehanort’s young adult life to goad him into his insane plans as seen in Re:Mind, then duck into Quadratum to hang out until the next arc in the franchise, as hinted at with his appearance in the KH3 Secret Movie

(He is most definitely not Sora. He’s clearly bound to the same rules of time travel as everyone else which means that Sora couldn’t go back in time to become him as that would be long before the point in time where Sora was born and that breaks KH time travel rules. Not to mention that the Master talks about Quadratum in this update like he’s never seen it before until it came up in the No Name’s range of vision. Sora is literally in Quadratum right now, he’d definitely know what it was already if he was the Master)

And I do believe that should cover everyone’s whereabouts by the end of the game and into the next arc of Kingdom Hearts with minimal plot holes

This is just my best guess, putting together details that I’ve been accumulating for the past year and a half or so into what sounds like a coherent sequence of events that bridge the gap between KHUx and KH3 and beyond. There may be some details I get wrong, obviously. Nomura has been known to be... unpredictable. But I think, based on the evidence we have at hand, that this is the most logical series of events to end the game on and I’m really interested to see how close this gets to the actual finale we see

[angrylizardjacket]

guardian as a title {Machine Gun Kelly}

Summary: Casie's not technically your kid, but as you think about your future with Colson, maybe that won't always be the case.

A/N: 2512 words. I keep seeing fics about having a kid with MGK, but there's a lot of folks who can't have kids or don't want to have kids, but they shouldn't be excluded from having fluffy family fics!! And hes already got a kick ass daughter, so here. Written on my phone so potentially buggy. I just kind of love writing MGK who's so loving and protective of his daughter okay??

----

It took a long time to meet Casie. Colson had been hesitant; if you met his daughter, that meant whatever was going on between the two of you was real, was serious, and he'd been burned too many times to make that step so easily. Of course she knows about you, but she understands her father's hesitation, and the two of you unknowingly share patience, waiting for Colson to feel ready.

So you and he had been dating for almost a full year before you finally meet her. He picks a fancy restaurant for the three of you, and as you're making your way there, you realise you're actually nervous. By now you know where you fit in Colson's life; his friends like you, even his management team likes you, but Casie? You have absolutely no idea how she feels about you, but you know without a shadow of a doubt, that if she ends up not liking you, you can kiss any sort of future with Colson goodbye. To him, Casie hangs the stars in the sky, and he'd choose her every single time, not that you'd ever expect anything different. 

You get to the restaurant first, and the reservation is under his name, so you head on in and nervously start on the ice water they bring to your table. About five minutes later, you hear Colson call your name, and you look up from your phone, eyes wide, and stand abruptly. Casie looks nervous too, all of seven years old in a pair of dark blue jeans and a pretty blouse, and you smile at her as they approach.

"Hi," she's quiet, looking you over and evaluating you, and after a moment you offer your hand. She shakes it, grip surprisingly strong for a seven year old, and she tells you its nice to meet you.

"Its nice to meet you too, I've heard so much about you," you tell her, and she gives a little smile at that. Colson pulls out her chair for her and she thanks him. She's so proper, making a show of putting her napkin in her lap as you pour her a glass of water.

Its awkward at first, of course it is, but then Casie asks what you think of the album Colson's about to release, and the tension breaks. Your enthusiasm for his music goes a long way to reassuring her it seems, and its suddenly much easier to relax into the conversation. 

After dinner, you suggest swinging by McDonalds for milkshakes, and Casie practically cheers. You graciously slide into the back seat before any confusion arises, and when Casie's putting on her seatbelt, Colson looks over his shoulder to you and gives a warm, grateful look. Its going better than he'd hoped.

Its still a little strange; you practically live with Colson, though previously you've been crashing on a friend's sofa whenever Casie's come to visit, so its strange to wake up in his house on a Saturday morning, and find the two of them eating waffles and watching cartoons. It's… endearing. 

Casie's staying for two weeks this time, and on the third day of her stay, Colson's called away for a meeting about his album that was releasing in a few months. He says it'll only be a few hours, but you need to watch Casie. Its easy enough to keep her entertained; after lunch she pulls out her DS, and sits next to you, not really paying attention to the Spongebob rerun on TV.

"What are you playing?" You can't help but be intrigued at the strangely familiar music coming from the device. She turns the screen towards you and you see a little dog panting happily. Nintendogs. A wave of nostalgia hits you. "That game's so old," you say with a gentle smile, but Casie just looks confused. Its turns out to be Nintendogs + Cats, but the premise is still the same. She's surprised that you take such an interest in the game, and is more than excited to show you the tricks her dogs can do, and tells you very matter-of-factly that you can walk the dog to the dog park, so long as she supervises. By the end of the day, the two of you are acting like old friends, and Colson comes home to the pair of you curled up on the sofa trying to decide which dog she should get next in the game. 

She names it after you. Its far more touching than you realised it would be.

For the next few months, whenever she visits, she makes sure to tell you how Y/N The Dog is doing, right up until she gets Animal Crossing: New Leaf and lets Nintendogs fall to the wayside. 

You love her dad, and you take a genuine interest in her, and after several months and a few meetings over coffee, her mom trusts you to look after her when Colson's away doing press for his album and his new tour. Thats all that matters to Casie. 

You start to think the world of her; she's an incredible kid, bright and fun, but strangely sensible at times, and effortlessly cool. You find yourself thinking that if you were ever to have a kid, you'd want them to be like her, though you know children of your own aren't on the cards for your future. You'd known that for a while now, and so did Colson, though neither of you try to dwell on it much. 

Whatever chance Colson takes to support his daughter, you're there too. Recitals, public speaking contests, science fairs; if you're able to be there, you'll be there, making a conscious effort to befriend her mother along the way. Its clear you intend to stick around; you're good for Colson and you're good for Casie, and that's the mpst important thing.

As your year with Colson turns to two, to three, to four, the two of you start to consider what your future together would look like. 

He proposes quietly over dinner at the same restaurant he took you and Casie all those years ago. Of course you say yes. Of course you both FaceTime Casie the next day and she cheers so loudly her mother's dog starts barking in the background. 

"Can I help plan your wedding? Please, please, please?" She begs, and it hits that oh, that's right, a proposal leads to a wedding. You had been so caught up in the moment that the reality hadn't quite hit you. You were going to marry Colson Baker. Your smile widens at the very thought. 

"We'll talk about it when you're next here," Colson tells her with a grin, his hand in yours, fiddling with the engagement ring. Casie is over the moon, and her mother peers into the video chat wearing a warm smile, congratulating you both. 

After the call ends, you're quick to start peppering him with kisses.

"Do I take your last name?" You ask, breathless, straddling him.

"If you want," he shrugs, easy smile on his lips.

"Y/N Baker." There's a kind of awe in your voice as you say it, and Colson reaches out to cup your cheek in his hand, and you turn and press a kiss to his palm.

"Y/N Y/L/N-Baker," he suggests softly, and your expression lights up as you lean into to kiss him again, a giggle escaping you.

"I hadn't even considered hyphenating!" You say with delight. 

Casie helped pick the wedding colors, and was quick to start a pinterest board for inspiration, and seemed more excited than ever, bursting with ideas and always eager to help, always asking questions.

"So you're gonna be my step-mom?" She asks, and you make a thoughtful noise in the back of your throat. You're on your phone looking through wedding dresses, and she's playing Breath of the Wild on Colson's Switch, and she pauses the game to look at you. "Do I have to call you that?" She sounds dubious, and you laugh lightly.

"No way," you assure her, "only call me your Step-Mom if I start acting like a Disney villain, okay?"

Casie snorts a laugh and agrees, going back to her game, but something about the interaction sits with you. You keep thinking about it, keeping coming back to it, and you're not quite sure why until the day she breaks her arm trying to skateboard in the driveway. 

Thankfully its Summer and you're home, but Colson's on set filming The Dirt when you hear her start to cry. You get her to the hospital quickly and call Colson, and he says he's on his way. The nurse approaches you, looking at the paperwork you've filled out.

"I'm so sorry, ma'am," and that's never a good sign, "we really need a parent or legal guardian here to fill out this paperwork for her."

"I'm going to be her step mother in less than a month-" you tried desperately, giving a crestfallen look to where Casie was being administered pain medication. The nurse gave a deep sigh, and you already know that almost step mother isn't enough, "her dad's going to be here in fifteen minutes." You tell the nurse, and she gives a patient smile, somewhat reassured.

Colson comes in his full Tommy Lee getup, and rushes to wrap Casie up in as much of a hug as he can without hurting her. Its a heartwarming sight, and just having him there eases the rest of Casie's anxieties.

"They wouldn't let a doctor see me because Y/N's not my legal guardian," she whined, a little out of it from the pain medication, "she takes such good care of me; everyone here's a dick," she grumbles, and Colson laughs gently, sitting beside her in the hospital bed, casting you a grateful look. He won't admonish her on her cursing, not here, not now. There's a warm fondness blooming in your chest at her words, a protectiveness that you hadn't realised you'd been harbouring until today.

Casie stays in the emergency department overnight, with you and Colson by her bedside the entire time. You call to inform her mom, who's just glad that you got her to the hospital quickly. The next day, she's released with a cast and pain medication, and is entirely too grumpy for her usually sunny disposition, though she cheers up quickly when you tell her she can have whatever she wants for lunch and dinner.

"I'm gonna have a cast for your wedding!" She bemoans the next day, reading over the instructions the doctor had given you.

"And you're gonna look fantastic regardless," you tell her, but she just throws herself onto the sofa with a huff. Eventually she rolls onto her side and switches on the TV, occupying herself while Colson calls you into the bedroom.

He's sitting on the edge of the bed, fidgeting, looking surprisingly serious. When you enter, he looks up, expression pensive.

"Everything okay?"

"I just hate to see her in pain," he admits with a sigh, but you can tell that's not all that's on his mind. You won't push him, will let him work up to whatever he has to say, and so you just sit on the bed beside him and wrap an arm around him.

"So I've been thinking," he starts, "and Casie's been thinking it too, and we ran it past her mom, because we wanted everyone sort of on board before we brought it to you," and you're not quite sure where he's going, but your heart is in your throat, "and yesterday just made me think we should have talked to you about it sooner -"

"About what?" You ask, voice quiet.

"What do you think about becoming one of Casie's legal guardians?" A bright warmth floods through you at his question, and your at a loss for words, so he continues, "you do take care of her, and you know, you're family, and she adores you, and it means there won't be anymore shit like what happened yesterday at the hospital -"

"She'd sort of be my kid too?" You ask, quietly hopeful, and Colson goes quiet, takes in your smile and realises what he's implying. Slowly, he nods.

"She'd be your kid too."

"And she- you're all okay with this?" 

"Casie and her mom both love you, babe, you've made it clear that you put her safety first; her mom wouldn't have agreed otherwise."

"And Casie… wants this?" 

Colson nods sincerely, pulling you in close to him.

"What do you think? I know its a lot of responsibility -" he starts, but you cut him off, grinning.

"I'd kill for her; honestly I couldn't ask for a better kid," you tell him, and he's trying and failing to suppress and enormous grin.

"She's is gonna roast the shit out of me for taking so long to ask you," he admitted, and you snort a laugh, "I had to talk her down from a proposal of her own, though I will say, she designed a pretty sick banner. Ask her about it, I'm sure she'd love to show you." He chuckles fondly, before growing quiet and contemplative, "I'm so happy about this, babe."

"You should be," you huff out a laugh, but there's a disarming sincerity in his eyes when he looks at you.

"No, I mean it, before I met you, I was always so fucking worried that the girls I met would be put off by me having a kid, or they'd get jealous of the attention I give her, but she's my fucking daughter, man, and I knew if I met someone who loved her even half as much as I love her, I'd have hit the jackpot," he paused, giving you a warm, appreciative look, "and here you are."

"Oh," and you feel tears pricking your eyes, unable to stop smiling at the sentiment, "you're a good fucking dad, you know that?"

"I hope so," he says softly, before his expression brightens, "you wanna go tell her the good news?"

You head down to the living room while Colson collects himself, and you find Cassie drawing on her cast with sharpie. 

"Hey, you mind if I float you an idea?" You ask, sitting beside her. She hands over the sharpie and offers her cast for you to sign.

"Is it about the wedding?"

"Not really," you say airily, avoiding her intrigued gaze, "what would you say to me becoming your legal guardian?"

Casie cheers before you can even finish the question, and before you can finish signing your name, she's wrapping her good arm around you. 

"You're gonna sort of be my kid, is that okay?" You hear yourself asking, and she rolls her eyes, grinning.

"No, I'm cheering and hugging you because I hate the idea," she snickers, sarcasm dripping from her words, but she gives you a sincere smile, "dude, I love you, I'm pumped to be your kid, can you not tell?" 

My kid, you think to yourself with a smile, the best kid I could ever ask for.