#and she digs too far

[moominpopzz]

Thought about Suntrip jrwi….. thought about Jades disappearance and Summer trying everything she can to find her……. Thought about what if Summer found out what really happened to her… who happened to her……

[brekitten]

The Therapist

There's a new therapist at school.

Normally this wouldn't really bother Peter at all, since he's never gone to see a shrink in his life and doesn't ever plan on it, but there's something... off about this woman.

She seems unassuming enough at first glance. Red hair, green eyes, bright red lipstick. But there is something in her eyes, something that Peter can only describe as a predator looking at its next prey, when she looks around the school at all of the teenagers milling about. Heck, even the way she walks makes her seem as if she is a predator stalking her prey.

It could always be some kind of power move, Peter reasons. He's met people like that before, who try to intimidate everyone around them into thinking that they are superior, that they are the apex predator and anyone who dares to cross them would pay for it dearly.

But his Spidey Sense went crazy around her.

He tries to brush it off as paranoia. He'd pulled an all-nighter last night in the lab with Tony because neither of them had been able to sleep, and he hadn't been sleeping well even before that. (Funny, how it had all started the night after he first bumped into the new therapist in the halls.) So his Spidey Sense is probably out of wack because he's tired. Simple as that.

But it seems like everyone in the school is depressed. Even Ned, who can't even muster up the energy and enthusiasm to talk about Legos or Star Wars or even the weather. It worries Peter.

Because it all started when that therapist came to the school.

He can't ignore it forever, he knows that. There is only so long his Spidey Sense can tell him that she is danger danger danger before he finally listens. He has to do something to help everyone.

So he researches.

And he falls into the rabbit hole of ghosts and ectoplasm and secret government organizations and the little, unassuming town of Amity Park, Illinois.

He doesn't sleep that night.

When he comes to school the next morning, Dr. Penelope Spectra looks him dead in the eyes, and smiles.

[bistaxx]

I"m not caught up yet at all but I'm gonna make a Bold claim...

... I could fix her...

[silviakundera]

today's random snippets of strangely established relationship moments in the Story of Kunning Palace novel. wherein our girl is grieving for You Fangyin.

//

But today, she didn't say or do anything, yet Xie Wei seemed to know what she was thinking.

She did want to talk to someone.

It's just that after realizing that he knew everything, she kept in silence, and it seemed that there was no need to say any more.

Jiang Xuening sat down quietly on the small wooden bench next to the stove, watched Xie Wei put the chopped diced into the ready-to-cook porridge, took a spoon to stir it slowly, and finally said: "I haven't really killed people."

Xie Wei stirred it well, and put the lid on the pot again.

He also sat down by the stove, next to her. His eyes fell on the red-hot coals, and he was extremely calm: "There is always a first time."

Jiang Xuening slowly hugged her knees, leaned down, blinked, seemed to be thinking more, and did not speak.

Xie Wei was beside her.

After waiting for a while, when the outside was completely quiet, he poured some porridge into a bowl and served it to her. The two of them didn't bother to move an extra table, they just sat by the stove and ate a half-hot bowl in this slightly cold frosty night.

Xie Wei sent her back to the house, knowing that she was not in a very good mood. He tucked her into the bed, kissed her on the lips, and said: "We won't practice the qin tomorrow morning, you can sleep late."

[... Some Time Later...]

Zhou Yinzhi gritted his teeth, stared at her, and his voice came out of his throat like dripping blood: "The girl promised! That letter! You clearly promised, as long as I am willing to help the insider, you will forget the past, forgive me."

Jiang Xuening looked at him with pity: "So you actually believed it?"

At this moment, Zhou Yinzhi's face turned ashen.

But Jiang Xuening just raised her head, looked at the city gate that had been opened wide, thinking that the world is ridiculous, and said slowly: "That's right, in the eyes of Mr. Zhou, a person like me is considered good and easy to deceive."

She thought, it's getting late, and it's better not to delay the army from entering the city.

So she stretched out her hand to the swordsman beside her.

Jianshu handed the sword to her.

She has almost never held a sword. The sharp long sword was pulled out of the sheath, as if the weight of human life was pressed on the blade, and it fell heavily on the human wrist. When the sky shone, the cold light glistened!

Zhou Yinzhi was struggling.

But there were soldiers on the left and right who came up and held him down.

Jiang Xuening was struggling to hold the sword.

Xie Wei stepped up, covered hers with his palm, helped her hold the sword tightly, only directed it towards Zhou Yinzhi's neck, and smiled softly: "I'll teach you."

[brekkie-e]

Why be mad that Teia is not nearly as curvy as promised in Eight Little Talons when you can laugh because it just means Vi is down so bad that he takes this girl:

So much as looking in his direction and turns it in to this in his head:

[chikinan]

been going through the analysis posts on the tag and it's fun but I've noticed there's two kinda funny things most people seem to be missing:

1) Betty did all this willingly. Yes, it was not a very good choice, but it was her own. Even when she recognized her life would've been objectively better off without meeting Simon, she still chose to keep going down the same path, happily so. This is not because of Simon, it's been her pattern since before they met. She'd rather jump into the path of a hundred snakes out of her own volition rather than be told to wait patiently.

2) Betty would not be upset that Simon hasn't moved on. In fact, with what we know about her, she really would've loved to see him unable to forget her and go crazy. For funsies.

[shitty-check-please-aus]

the problem with trying to remember songs from girl scout camp is that you end up googling insane shit because there are about a billion slight regional differences between different groups of children

[clumsycapitolunicorn]

it's been nearly 6 months since the ted lasso finale and im still pretty much:

[unhingedlesbear]

Jaime having feelings for Linda pisses me off so bad 😭

[cuteniaarts]

Behold, my latest and most enamouring new obsession:

Malina, Lady of the Chief of the Northern Water Tribe. As if Red Lotus child OCs weren’t niche enough

[applesafterlife]

ooc post

I....

I............

I DON'T WANT A LOT FOR CHRISTMAS

THERE IS JUST ONE THING I NEED

I DON'T CARE ABOUT THE PRESENTS

UNDERNEATH THE CHRISTMAS TREE

I DON'T NEED TO HANG MY STOCKING

THERE UP ON THE FIREPLACE

SANTA CLAUSE WON'T MAKE ME HAPPY

WITH A TOY ON CHRISTMAS DAY

CAUSE I JUST WANT YOU FOR MY OWN

MORE THAN YOU COULD EVER KNOW

MAKE MY WISH COME TRUUEEEEEEE

ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMASSSS IS YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

[zhuoyichenpretty]

Today I am thinking about how hilariously and artfully FoF has continued to equivocate on the nature of ZYC's feelings towards WX

[noivern]

horrendous dirt thing

[monsterkitties]

glados doesnt hate humans. she resents that she isnt one

[bunnyb34r]

Trying to undo the damage of Facebook w/o risking your relationship with a loved one is like defusing a fucking bomb sometimes I stg

[theserpentsadvocate]

Flipping The Script (Jade/Eli)

I promised @feeisamarshmallow that I would work on my depressing longer project all weekend and then I wrote this instead. It's my first fic for this fandom so I do take concrit, but, like, accompany it with hot chocolate or something.

Summary: Jade gets her mother's car fixed. She meets a guy.

*

All Jade wanted was to get her mother’s car and drop it off with enough time to get to the library before it closed, and since the library was open late on Thursdays and she’d stopped to pick it up at 4 PM, it hadn’t seemed that difficult. But somehow it was starting to seem impossible that she would make it, because she’d spent the last seven hundred years staring blankly at the high-school-age garage employee while he badly flirted with her by implying she was a car thief, and that meant the library was definitely closed.

“I mean, not that I really think so,” he said, laughing at his own joke. “But you could sure get away with it! Nobody would suspect you.”

She forced a pained smile, cursing herself internally. Her coworkers said she was just the sweetest, because she was too nice to ever say the kinds of things they did about annoying guys or bitchy guests. Really, it only meant she got just as pissed off on the inside, but she’d had ladylike manners drilled into her so deeply that she always ended up standing there and letting it happen. Three years in customer service didn’t help either, any more than the fact that she was used to dealing with this kind of thing from the other side of the counter.

One day, she thought a little hysterically, she was going to become some kind of crazed murderer, stabbing every guy who came onto her while screeching “That’s not polite!” And on that day, she might actually get her mom’s car.

“If you could just check?” she asked for what had to be the fourth time. “I know she spoke to someone about it.”

“Sorry,” he said, not checking. “There’s nothing under Jade.” A smirk. “But I–”

She cut him off before he could say but I could be and make her actually throw up. “Did you try ‘Gutierrez’, because–”

“Listen, we got these policies for a reason,” he went on. “I know it’s a pain.” The condescension was almost worse than the lechery. “Maybe you call your mom and let her know she’s got to come in herself, but hey, if you need a ride somewhere, I could take you. I’m off soon.”

Oh, God. “I really need to pick it up today.” She leaned on the firmness in the way that always surprised guests who thought being pretty and polite meant she had no backbone at all. “I know she cleared it with someone, so could you get your boss, please?”

“Fred’s not in on Thursdays,” he said blithely, and Jade could have screamed.

“Then could you call him? Or just get a supervisor, maybe?” She forced another smile so he wouldn’t think she was trying to get him in trouble. “If they authorize it then you’ll be in the clear, right?”

“He doesn’t like to be bothered at home.” The man eyed her up and down in a way she would have objected to even if he wasn’t barely legal. Jade took a deep breath, trying to prepare herself to go around the whole carousel again, but –

“Mike, what the hell are you doing?”

One of the other employees was frowning at them from the side door, annoyance plain on his face. “I need you on that Camry; Luis is busy with the bikes and we already told the owner he can pick it up tomorrow.”

“I’m helping a customer!” Mike insisted, seeming to actually believe it.

“For almost an hour? Is it a flying car?” Her saviour came a little closer, and Jade could see he wasn’t as old as she’d initially thought, maybe her age – one of those young guys who shaved their heads, rather than a thirty-something with unfortunate follicular genetics.

“She wants to pick up the car, but it’s not hers. I’m trying to explain it, but, you know…”

Only her utter disbelief prevented Jade from saying something really terrible that she would have regretted later. Was he really suggesting that she was stupid?

Mike winked at her. “I bet she doesn’t get a lot of people saying no to her, and I mean, can you blame them?”

His coworker – his boss? – stared at him in a way that blessedly reminded her that sanity existed. “Are you kidding me?”

“What?” Mike indicated Jade’s entire body with a wave of his hand, as if she was Exhibit A, and she felt her face burning in spite of herself. How was she the one embarrassed right now?

“You know we can’t give out the cars to just anyone,” he went on, and then turned back to Jade, seemingly oblivious to the other man’s incredulous displeasure. “But since I gotta get back to work, maybe I can trade it for your number, beautiful?”

“I don’t think so,” Jade told him stiffly, but it went unnoticed, since his coworker chose that moment to exclaim, “Are you fucking serious?”

It wasn’t very professional, but she decided to forgive him, especially when he followed it up with, “You can’t fucking talk to the customers like that!”

He took a couple steps over and dragged Mike out from behind the counter by one arm while the younger man protested the injustice of being denied whatever opportunity he’d somehow thought he had. Jade was polite enough to pretend to look elsewhere, as much as she desperately wanted to gawk, but even with several feet between them for the illusion of privacy she could hear the resultant conversation.

“What the hell, man, you’re not my boss!”

“Yes, I am, you dumbass. That’s why it says supervisor on my uniform! You think I’ve been chasing your ass all day for the hell of it?”

“Look, just because you’re always sucking up to Fred–”

“Fred’s not here, genius, that’s why he made me a supervisor, so he could take a fucking day off! Do think you just have no boss on Thursdays?”

“Man, you’re gonna screw things up for me here, will you quit it? I don’t have to listen to some loser who never finished high school.”

Jade risked a sideways look at them, and she saw Mr. Supervisor take the kind of deep breath that was an alternative to punching someone.

“I finished high school,” he snapped. “In fact, I’m about to teach you something. Listen up. Number one, you never had a chance with that girl because you are a dumbfuck who couldn’t even get into an automotive course and is about to get fired from the only shop in town that does on-the-job training because he doesn’t do his goddamn work and hits on the customers, and she is someone who wears pantsuits to work. Number two, you wouldn’t have had a chance with a girl like that anyway because she’s…” He inclined his head in a much classier version of Mike’s wave, which Jade probably should have been offended by, but wasn’t, “and you...” He snorted. “Number three, if you lived in some fucked up universe where she was somehow into you, you still don’t ask for her phone number, because you’re on the clock and it’s un-fucking-professional. Stand still and don’t say anything while I try to fix your mess, and you better watch closely because this is how you speak to every goddamn customer until Fred comes in on Saturday and fires your worthless ass.”

He took a breath, forcing his shoulders back and clearly trying to put the Customer Face back on – Jade had done that particular shoulder-roll enough times that her back straightened in sympathy even as she looked away for real to give him a moment of privacy. This man was her new favourite person and she had no intention of making him pay for Mike’s crimes, but he didn’t know that, so she could at least make things easy for him.

“Excuse me,” he said with a straight face, replacing his coworker behind the counter. “Unfortunately we had a miscommunication. Let me see what I can do for you, ma’am.”

The painstaking professionalism felt incongruous coming from someone who had dropped at least five F-bombs in the last two minutes, and all the more so when they both knew he was blatantly lying, but it was also pretty delightful after slogging through all of Mike’s nonsense, enough so that she even forgave him calling her ma’am. It was about making a point, anyway.

“Thank you,” Jade said graciously. “My mother brought her car in on Monday, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to pick it up, so she arranged for me to get it for her. She told me she spoke with the owner, and it shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Absolutely,” Mike’s boss returned, almost brightly. It felt a little like having a conversation with an exaggerated version of people who did her job at places like the Grand, who spent all day honing their obsequiousness on rich people, except that the concierge was a Latino guy with neck tattoos and slightly wrinkled coveralls that said – she squinted for a moment – Eli. “If I can just get your mother’s name, I can access our file and see if there’s a note attached.”

Points to him for saying access the file when there appeared to be one oversized notebook planner and a lot of loose paper on the desk, and no computer at all.

“Certainly!” Jade said, matching his tone with the same enthusiasm she’d use on a particularly stubborn guest. She thought she saw him hide a smile. “It’s Rita Gutierrez, and the car is a Fiat Cinquecento.”

“One moment, please.” He flipped open the notebook, paging through with enough purpose that it had to be organized in some coherent way; Mike had only shuffled the loose pages around. “Gutierrez, came in on Monday. Oh, yes!” He said the last part with such overacted eagerness that she had to bite her lip to keep from laughing. “There’s a note right here.” It was a sticky note; Jade knew this because he peeled it off the page and held it up so that his coworker, still sulking where Eli(jah?) had left him, could see. “From the owner. ‘To be picked up by daughter Jade Gutierrez’ – do you have identification, Miss Gutierrez?”

“I do.” She’d had her driver’s licence ready since she entered the building and finally handing it over was a relief. “Do you need anything else?”

“This should cover it,” he said, actually looking at the ID and at her face. Then the ultra-professional façade slid back down. “I have the breakdown for you here –” He removed one of the papers Mike had been sliding around and handed it to her. “Your mother paid our estimate when she dropped off the vehicle, so there’s only a small amount outstanding. It’s in good shape for being ten years old.”

“She has it serviced regularly,” Jade said with affected gravity, skimming over the details. Forty-eight dollars and sixty cents over what her mom had already paid, mostly for also changing the serpentine belt as well as the alternator, which was a relief. Her mom always spun out about car repairs, and she’d had Jade half convinced they’d be demanding a few more hundred dollars.

“I can take care of the balance right now,” she told him. Her mom would probably insist on paying her back, but it was worth it either way. The first forty-five minutes might have been torture, but the catharsis of seeing someone actually yell at the creep, paired with some appealingly collaborative back-and-forth with, honestly, a pretty attractive guy – she’s noticing right now that he has very nice eyelashes, which is almost as appealing as the tattoos – has been satisfying enough that it might have actually raised the tone of her evening. She’s definitely calling Trish and hashing the whole thing over later, and she’s actually looking forward to it.

Mike sighed and huffed as Eli(as?) ran her card, thanked her with elaborate courtesy, and asked if there was anything else he could do for her.

“No, thank you so much,” Jade said, taking the keys from him – and then, halfway to the door and wanting to do something to show just how much she appreciated all this, wanting a little bit to piss Mike off, and definitely wanting for once to be the kind of person who did that kind of thing, instead of thinking wistfully about it later, she doubled back, heading him off before he could re-engage with his less-than-abashed coworker. “Actually, excuse me – I’m sorry, I know this is inappropriate, but since I’m not really the customer, and since the transaction’s been concluded – I was wondering if I could get your number?”

Mike produced an outraged squawk that made them both avoid eye contact for a moment, trying not to ruin the moment by laughing. Then Eli(ott?) cleared his throat. “You know, I think that would be okay, just this once,” he told her, grinning, and if she wasn’t sure a moment ago how much of this was about proving a point, well, that was definitely coming in a distant second now.

She waited for him to write something on the flipside of one of the business cards on the rack, took it with a smile, and strode out before her nervousness could catch up with her. She didn’t look at it until she was safe in her mother’s Fiat.

Eli Navarro, 555-3407. No frills, no flirty message underneath, and it seemed like his name was just Eli.

She liked it.