#and that's okay i bear that fact with absolutely zero shame

[prentissluvr]

ever insult yourself because it's fun and only you are allowed to insult yourself

[thekeeperof-thefandoms]

You guys can't tell me Adam is not accidentally an ally. Is he sexist, absolutely. He doesn't know shit about women and he's never really had a reason to learn because no one has ever called him on his bullshit.

But, all his exorcists were women. Meaning inherently, he recognized that women were not only dangerous but capable. He has zero reason to believe a woman couldn't kick a man's ass if she wanted to and had the right training to do so.

Does he not understand periods? Yes

Does he think men are still supposed to be the protectors and provide for their women and kids? Yes

Does he maybe have issues with body shaming women? Probably? I think it's more because of internalized dislike for how he's gained weight and changed though.

Does the show ever indicate he doesn't think women are capable? No. In fact it implies the opposite.

It's why I firmly don't agree with people saying he would be abusive or SA a women. Even when he's telling Charlie about the girl he fucked that almost chose the drummer, he's whining about it, he's bitching about his ego, but aside from him saying he was annoyingly persistent and perhaps verbally harassing her he doesn't indicate in anyway he'd have put hands on her.

Verbal harassment isn't okay either, but, again, no one's had the balls to correct Adam. The original Dick. I think if someone one genuinely sat his ass down and made him understand what women go through (the man or bear question) he'd shut the fuck up.

Would he change? Maybe?

At the least I think he'd be more aware of how he comes across. Adam's not a good person, but he's not a monster either.

[sweetlikehoneystingslikeabee]

Can I get Riddlers with Henchwoman crush, who isn't too bright but still doesn't ask questions because she doesn't want people to laugh at her.

"Sweet as honey, dumb as..." Riddler party x F!reader

Absolutely! I figured I'd go directly for "she/her" rather than "you" for this one. Maybe I'm wrong but I'm getting oc vibes!

TW: None

Gotham

He figures it out within a few times of meeting her and is very actively not saying anything about it. She's pretty, she listens to his instructions, and she's nice to him! What else could he ask for besides her staying out of his plans?

He might get a little frustrated that she doesn't know the correct answers to his riddles but if she actually tries, that's already a step above others pre-criminal career. Even Oswald was kind of a jerk to him at first! But if people are mean to her... kill bill sirens.

The truth is, he knows his genius plus neurodivergency makes him a bit of an odd figure to others. Awkward and gangly. He tries to fit in, well, the TRIED to fit in. Seeing someone he cares about struggle to do the same thing because they don't feel enough hurts his heart. He'll help her fix it...

60s

He honestly didn't notice at first because, obviously, the reason she's so quiet is a silent reverence for his brilliance. Lots of people don't get his riddles anyways! Except the boy blunder and that thorn in his side.

Anyways, he likely only notices when another henchperson is giving her guff about being dumb. Cornering her when they think he's not around to bully. Edward is quickly behind them, chastising, "Oh, and you think you're so clever?" Rattling off riddles and quiz questions until they shirk away in shame.

"Pretty thing, is that why you haven't been speaking up? Such a shame to miss the sound of your voice simply because others are jealous you have my eye." That's what it is. Of course. That's how he'll phrase it. It's okay she doesn't need to be a genius for him, he'll do the thinking for both of them <3.

Zero Year/Capullo

He notices rather quickly. Her cute, puzzled looks but the way she keeps silent. The way he rambles on about certain topics and she gives a nervous smile and a nod.

of course he's going to fuck with her. Privately.

Tells her some long, theatrical version of Perseus and Medusa- Asks her how it relates to his current crime and what she knows about it. Come on, no need to be shy. He's waiting...

Aw, she doesn't know? It's alright, let him tell you all about it. Funny, he was willing to wipe out a whole city because they couldn't best him. Yet, he can't bear to lose her. She'll just have to be his prized caged bird, favored by the Gods.

BTAS

Genuinely, he's used to it? Most if not all of his henchpeople are pretty... eh, in terms of intelligence. They're there for MUSCLE and BRAWN. Surely, if Edward is there, they don't need anyone else thinking for them, anyways. Even Query and Echo weren't the brightest at moments!

It's more that she's choosing to not even ask questions. Everyone asks questions! Tim, the dumbest rock of them all, asks all his questions and Riddler is amazed the man knows how to breath and talk at the same time! Just... ask.

Also it's totally fine that she needs to ask him things and croon about how intelligent he is, that revs his engine. In fact, it's kind of ideal, in a way. Gain a little more confidence, stay devoted, sweetheart, and the world is your oyster! He'll make sure of it!

Telltale

There was some friction at first. Silent and stupid doesn't suit him. Condescending questions, "Did you actually understand all that or are you trying to save face, girl?" It's a good thing she's patient or she'd be scared off.

Anyone else laughs at her, though, and it's on. There's blood in the water and he's the shark. Only HE gets to be a shit to her, thank you very much.

"Ask your questions. Now. If you mess up my carefully articulated plans because you didn't bother to ask, I'll be much more cross than if you looked a certain way."

The affection develops from her genuine kindness and passions. Maybe she's not bright, but he sees her value as a person in other ways.

Arkham

In fairness, he already thinks everyone besides him is an idiot so it's not exactly disproving that theory. She's just more quiet about it. In some ways, it's pleasant. It means he doesn't have to listen to moronic whining all the time.

Yet, and he's not sure why, he feels this sort of longing in the pit of his stomach for her to not die while helping set up his traps. If he sees her on camera about to trigger something, he's shouting at her to stop! Stop, What Are You Doing-

It's quite distracting. She's going to have to stop being that kind of henchwoman immediately. Perhaps a position in the "office" with him, where he can keep an eye on her. Yes, surely this will have no consequences whatsoever and he can stop worrying about her safety or person.

2022

Probably the most "forgiving" of any of them. He's quiet himself so he just assumed his new henchwoman was matching his energy. Yet it's when she gets one of his direct orders wrong and he loses his temper... She's in tears and babbling about not understanding and the lightbulb goes on.

The mask is coming off and he's comforting her, "Shh, shhh, it's alright, it... People make mistakes." It doesn't hurt he's still been crushing on her for ages now so getting her to lean on him is a good feeling. He tells her it's alright, that if anyone makes fun of her, he'll take care of it personally.

He actively encourages her to ask him if she doesn't understand. It doesn't mean she's dumb it just... maybe she needs a little bit of help sometimes! It's okay!

[uselessheretic]

Okay bear with me as I try and pick through this, but something I've seen over the last few months in ofmd fandom, and more often as of late, is the idea that "Izzy's Revenge" is meant to act as a reference to "Montezuma's Revenge" as a clever way of aligning Izzy with a colonizing force facing retribution. Which I just think is bullshit I'm sorry 😭

Montezuma's Revenge is a term used to refer to "Traveler's diarrhea" where the basic definition is:

The idea is that "Izzy's Revenge" is a reference to it, and specifically that this is a way of showing that Izzy is a colonizer facing consequences due to his racism. I feel like I see this brought up most often in convos explaining why Izzy is a racist?

My issue with this is that like,,, this kinda just straight up ignores the fact that Montezuma's Revenge isn't a clever joke created by Latines to mock colonizers, but is a lowkey racist terminology white people use as a way of saying that other countries' foods will give make you ill. Like just absolutely zero acknowledgment of this in any capacity!

The term first showed up in the 1950's and was used by white people as a way of presenting Mexican food as unsanitary.

Other forms you see the term in are: the Aztec two-step, Gandhi's Revenge, Delhi Belly, Bombay Belly, Gyppy Tummy (Egypt), The Cairo Two-step, Pharaoh's Revenge, Mummy's Tummy, Bali Belly

Like are we noticing a theme here?

It's completely nonsensical to suggest that it's an anticolonialist term, and it feels like a reaffirmation of racist stereotypes to assume that this is what Izzy's suffering from.

One explanation of the racial implications behind it that I thought was well explained:

Javiar Cabral actually references it explicitly when discussing the internalized shame he felt around Mexican food as a child:

(Also, weirdly enough, found it on a list of a character's top 25 most racist jokes??)

Idk! It's so weird to me to see it brought up multiple times, completely decontextualized and pushing this fake "legend" as a way of coding a character as a colonizer facing comeuppance for his imperialism, and furthering the normalization of the term.

Really the joke can just stay as "sounds like an intestinal condition" since "food comes back to hurt you" is a pretty straightforward explanation without having to do some weird fake woke thing of explaining how this is actually a harsh criticism of Izzy as a colonizer.

[obsidiansong]

Okay, I managed to get a few things in order; considering how even I don’t understand Byleth’s standards, sometimes, it takes a lot of time to sort through the way she is with sexuality and romance. But I got some things out of the way for sure -

First and foremost, as mentioned elsewhere, Byleth is incredibly demisexual, to the point where it’s easy to mistake her for asexual until she meets someone she’s romantically interested in. Her libido does exist, but it has absolutely no bearing on her behavior, nor does she feel any drive to satisfy it. If a normal person’s libido is like an itch, one that can be scratched for relief but potentially ignored if you have the willpower, then Byleth’s is like a faint headache - annoying to deal with, a bit distracting, but easily ignored.

As a result of the above, Byleth has zero experience with an actual sex drive, as once she starts feeling romantic attraction to someone, her libido practically kicks into overdrive, and she’ll begin exploring her body more, fantasizing about touching and being touched by the object of her affections, all the while being very confused by these new feelings. She’s gotten the talk from Jeralt and other mercenaries, so she’s not blind to the idea of sex nor that it’s how one has kids, but considering she’s never felt this sexual drive before, she’ll have no idea what’s going on and may even consult someone - most likely Manuela, if possible.

You might think Byleth’s inability to express herself well would make things awkward in the bedroom, and... well, you’re partially right. On one hand, while she’s perfectly receptive to tenderness and softer loving from her partner, unless they know her inside and out, sexually, she’s probably not going to emote much from less stimulating acts. On the other hand, it serves as a much easier gauge to tell when you’re doing something right, because the moment you find a sweet spot, she’s going to get very expressive - exploring her body until she actually emotes is a very good way to find her most sensitive erogenous areas.

Once she can actually get into doing the deed with her lover, Byleth will actually prefer to keep as much clothes on as possible during the act - even though her partner is someone she typically trusts implicitly, she still feels uncomfortable bearing her chest and back scars while in such a vulnerable state. Trying to consistently undress her all the way during sex will eventually drive her to lose the mood and back off entirely for a few days. It’s only once she feels comfortable bearing them to someone entirely that she’ll accept being fully nude during the act.

Byleth doesn’t really have any preferred positions, and will, in fact, often learn to prefer whatever positions her partner enjoys. Her sexual preferences are easily molded by her lover - if they’re a sub, she’ll learn to be dominant. If they’re a dom, she’ll sub in an instant. If they’re a switch, she’s just as eager to take on the opposite role they’re feeling. Does her partner prefer a certain position? Enough times in it, and she’ll start taking the initiative with it. One thing that is consistent, though, is that once she starts feeling more confident with her sexuality and her partner, she likes to tease, due to the mischievous side of her personality that awoke at Garreg Mach. If she’s in the mood, her partner will know because she’ll be doing her best to rile them up in turn.

Kink-wise, Byleth is almost as malleable as she is position-wise. She’s comfortable trying a lot of things with/for her partner, but there’s a few things she likes and dislikes immediately. On the likes side, Byleth will quickly discover that she finds it easiest to get going when outdoors; due to spending much of her time in camps or in the wilderness, Byleth feels most comfortable getting down and dirty out in the open, likely much to the shame and embarrassment of her partner. On the dislikes, she will instantly realize the moment that they try that she hates any form of bondage - even just tying her hands to the bedpost will make her uncomfortable and too antsy to get into the act.

Byleth is monogamous as fuck - not because she necessarily dislikes or disagrees with the idea of polygamy, but rather that her insecurities will not let her be comfortable with the idea of a polyamorous relationship. She might even feel romantic attraction to multiple people at once before she’s in a dedicated relationship, but if her partner so much as even suggests the idea of polygamy, prepare for her to get incredibly worried and paranoid. Her self-doubt will spike, she’s going to get very concerned that she’s not doing enough as a partner very quickly, and may even break down in their arms, begging to not be replaced. Byleth’s insecurities just simply don’t allow for anything beyond monogamy.

[musette22]

is it weird that I can't even look at their pics right now (seb and chris) because I can't help but feel icky and disappointed? the recent evens reminded me that they are truly two rich and privileged white men who are so dumb just cos they wanna get some. I'm out. Maybe in a year or so I'll check what their projects are. maybe never. I just can't right now. what a shame.

Okay guys, I’ve been debating over whether or not to “open my big mouth” about this (as one anon so sweetly put it once), but I’ve been getting quite a lot of messages like this one and I think I do want to share a few thoughts with you all. I’m going to put them under the cut because this is a long one, and I don’t want to clog up everyone’s dash ❤️

First of all, let me just make it clear that I am fully aware of the severity of this pandemic, especially in some places, including in the US, and that I am in no way trying to make light of any of it or undermine how serious this situation is for a lot of people around the globe right now, many of you included. It’s a terrible situation, and it’s far from over. I’m also not aiming to be an apologist for the bad decisions of privileged white males just because I have a crush on them, because that idea is abhorrent to me, but I’m aware some of you might still feel like I am, and that’s your right.

Having said all that, I am getting a bit worried about all the posts I’ve seen about how people are angry and disillusioned with Sebastian and Chris’s behaviour. I’m not trying to invalidate your disappointment, because it’s totally fair to wish they’d made different decisions, more akin to the decisions you yourself presumably would have made. And if that disappointment goes deep enough then it is absolutely fair if you want to unstan them and stop following or supporting them (that does not extend to sending them hate though, that is not in any way acceptable, no matter how disappointed we are).

But, as anon rightfully points out, the fact of the matter is that they are privileged white male celebrities. This is not news. They (especially Chris) have been successful celebrities for a long, long time, and with celebrity come certain privileges. They can afford massive houses in LA and big apartments in expensive areas in New York City, for instance. They get to go to cool parties, they get free stuff, everyone kisses their ass. They get paid exorbitant amounts of money (Chris much more so than Seb of course) that bear no direct relation to their work and responsibilities anymore, at this point.

And that’s not to say they don’t work hard, they do - but so do most of us, and we’re not getting paid nearly as much as them. It’s inherently unfair, but that’s what celebrity culture (and capitalism) are. Now, I’m not saying everyone has to blindly accept the status quo and just ignore how unfair it all is – far from it. In some ways, I wish more people would denounce celebrity culture, because it is in some senses terribly toxic and unfair. But listen, if you want to stan celebrities because it brings you some joy in this fucked up world, then I think that’s also perfectly understandable. That’s what I’m doing too. And to stan celebs (at least of the calibre of Chris and Seb) we need them to be famous, otherwise we wouldn’t even know them and we would get no content to consume. They are famous because they are in Hollywood movies, and they are in Hollywood movies because they play the Hollywood game - to some extent, at least. Playing the Hollywood game means everything from flying all over the world for movie premieres and leaving a huge carbon footprint, to going to glitzy parties where there a are lots or questionable people present, to “lying” in interviews because of contractual obligations - and sometimes it also means playing along with fake PR rumours or relationships, even if it’s bad PR.

I know people are worried about Chris, and especially Seb, being “bought” by Hollywood and its money and temptations, and losing his integrity and that he won’t be that sweet, soft-spoken, well-read boy who loves his mom anymore. I personally believe that so far, both Seb and Chris have managed to maintain an impressive level of integrity throughout it all, and I’m still hopeful that that isn’t going to change (much).

But it’s not realistic to have the same expectations for them you would have for your loved ones for instance, because they’re not. We have zero relationship to them as people, and they owe us nothing. They give us movies and pictures of their pretty faces, and occasionally good advice or lovely hugs at comic cons, but that’s all we’re gonna get from them. They are not our friends or potential partners. They’re human of course, and in that sense just like you and me, meaning they have feelings and thoughts and a right to privacy and they make mistakes, but their circumstances are wildly different from most of ours. They’re surrounded by the Hollywood circus. They are PART of the Hollywood circus, because they’re actors and if you want to be a successful movie actor you have to play the game to some extent. Sebastian cannot be expected to be home all the time and decline going to parties because he prefers staying in with a good book even if he did prefer that, because that way he’d never be noticed by the people who matter, and who could get him where he wants to be. He said it himself, he’s an ambitious guy. He wants bigger roles, bigger challenges. And he’s not going to get them if he doesn’t do some annoying, dumb shit sometimes, unfortunately.

In my view, that doesn’t make him a bad person who doesn’t care about anyone but himself, but it does make him a privileged human. Being a privileged human also entails some responsibilities, though – if you don’t want to become corrupt, you have to make sure you also use your privilege for good. And in my opinion, both Sebastian and Chris do that. They use their voice and their money to help people less fortunate than them. That’s part of that integrity I was talking about. Some of you may disagree, and that’s fine, but this is how I view it.

As for everyone who is upset with them for traveling to Europe during a pandemic and not wearing a mask in public: I completely understand your frustration, and I am frustrated too. This is literally a deadly virus and it has to be taken very seriously, and unfortunately, they’re not taking it very seriously right now, and that kind of sucks. But the truth is, neither of them are breaking any rules and neither of them is being more callous than the majority of people in the countries they’ve been seen in are. The situation in most of Europe is stabilising (not everywhere, and the UK isn’t doing all that great to be fair), and governments are reopening their countries and facilities. Wearing a mask in the street is not mandatory in either Spain or the UK, except for in specific situations such as public transport or if you’re in certain professions. The rules here are different from those in New York etc. because they have been adapted to how each country is faring. 

I live in the Netherlands, and no one here is wearing a mask in the street, not even in the hospital or at the doctor’s, and yet the situation continues to stabilise (I hope to god it stays that way, but that of course remains to be seen). From my friends in Spain and the UK I have heard the situation is much the same. Yes, Sebastian is acting differently from how he did in New York, but he’s in different circumstances too, so that makes sense. Moreover, both Chris and Seb will have been tested before traveling, because they’re privileged celebrities who have access to testing even where lots of normal folks unfortunately don’t.

Now, I’m not saying both guys shouldn’t just have stayed put and not left the country (especially a country where the virus is still rampant), because they should have, and they’re both dumbasses for not doing so. I am definitely disappointed that they’re not being smarter and more considerate about this, but I recognise that my disappointment in part stems from the fact that I put them on a pedestal that I shouldn’t have put them on in the first place. And I know a lot of you are mad at them for flying to Europe “just to get some”, but that is disregarding the fact that both Sebastian’s holiday and Chris’s trip to London seem to be at least partially for PR reasons, most likely pushed and arranged by their agency. The exact extent of how much of it is PR is still a little unclear to me at the moment, but I think it’s fair to assert at this point that they did not just fly to Europe to “get some.”

I know this is ridiculously long, but I have been thinking about all of this a lot these past few days and wanted to get those thoughts out! I hope most of you can understand where I’m coming from here. Love you guys ❤️

[boop-le-snoot]

PARTY FAVOURS | A MYSTERIOUS INTERLUDE

first time reader click here

This is a scrapped chapter. Originally, I was planning to 1) give Reader a longer, more intense destructive streak before her ending up with Tony. I planned three or so chapters that involved an abusive Quentin Beck, but, ultimately decided that to be too cliché. 2) I had planned to write at least 30% of the fanfic in Tony's/third person POV. This chapter would have been number 11/12 - Tony would have rejected her advances in the lab & she would have got hooked on Beck's charming facade.

Why am I publishing this? It seems like a waste if effort to shelf it, plus, it's Tony's POV. You can skip it since it has no relation/bearing on the current story. Just a tiny "what might have been" tidbit.

It was a moment's notice. One second, they're standing in a group, laughing, soaking in the warmth from the fireplace, chattering amongst themselves, telling tall tales and sipping their liquor. It all goes black briefly, and then they are surrounded by darkness - it's nearly impenetrable, so thick that their voices echo in it.

Tony's body was encompassed by the nanotech suit immediately after his eyes and his brain adjusted to the rapid change of surroundings. His teammates, too, had their skills honed on an instinctive level - the faint thump of Mjölnir in Thor's hands, the golden-green glow of his brother's magic, whirring of Barnes' prosthetic arm. Steve's shield stayed tucked behind the living room couch but his enhanced physique and readiness to fight 24/7 has him covering the unenhanced Clint and Natasha in mere seconds.

Tony was mostly angry rather than afraid. The team was having a good time at his party and the chance encounters of weird shit like this had been reduced to nearly zero percent possibility thanks to Friday's screening process: supervillains, Hydra agents and the likes strictly prohibited on Stark-owned premises.

It was a strange coincidence Banner had to take a break to check up on one of his experiments not even five minutes before the rest of the team was experiencing the strange change in scenery. Speaking of Strange, the sorcerer also was nowhere to be seen - Tony distinctively remembered seeing Stephen ten feet away from the bar, engaged in a hearty debate with the lead of SI's Medical Engineering department.

"This is not magic," Wanda piped up from behind him, confused. "I don't feel anything on the usual frequency. It sounds more like Friday humming in the walls, like electricity."

Good to know, Tony thought. It was nice having someone who was familiar with the undiscovered side of science - after all, Tony had always considered anything 'magical' to be science he had not personally understood yet. Wanda's most redeeming quality in Tony's eyes was the fact that more often than not she seemed to be as clueless as everyone else when it came to her powers and didn't act so high and mighty as some other people. Cloaked people, and horned people, for example.

"The fuck, man? I was hoping, just one evening, one normal evening with my beer and wings," Clint whined. Tony could hear Natasha huffing in annoyed agreement.

"Mr. Stark, what are we going to do?" His very own spider-child, on the other hand, sounded distraught. Peter's voice has this funny thing it does when the boy is upset but tries to hide it: it quivers on the vowels, wobbles slightly.

Tony had to blindly grope the air for a moment before his arm found Peter's shoulder. The boy was shivering and took the offered comfort eagerly, folding into the older man.

"Okay, whoever is pulling this stunt, my advice is: don't," Tony sighed, 12 000% Done With This Shit™, exclaiming loudly. "If that's a prank, stop it or speak up. If you got beef, then you got some nerve doing this in my tower. Show yourself."

He could feel the fine hairs on his neck stand up as the team tensed next to him, readily gearing up to pounce. Peter was vibrating in Tony's arms and the billionaire suddenly remembered the curious side-effects of Peter's powers, the spidey-sense. It must have been going absolutely haywire - the kid nearly hyperventilated himself into a heart attack.

"Stark, I must apologise for the uncomfortable circumstances. Believe me, it was a necessity - you always demand attention, whereas I need people to pay attention to me for a moment. Don't worry, you'll get yours when the time is due."

The voice was vaguely familiar. Male, slightly nasal but quiet and creeping. Insinuating. It lacked the usual boisterous bravado of a mid-grade bad guy, Tony had to take an educated guess that the owner of the mysterious voice was well-off, white. Privileged. No hint of desperation in it, as if the man was pitying everybody.

"The fuck? Q, is that you?"

Oh shit, Tony realized in muted horror. She must've been hanging around somewhere in their vicinity - which wasn't unusual, the girl usually orbited around Barnes, Wanda, Peter or Bruce. All of whom were present at the party. Tony had forgotten about her, to his shame, somehow having had automatically assumed she trotted out of the room on Bruce's heels. His science bro and her acted like conjoined twins when it came to their scientific ventures.

"Stop talking," The man growled, the voice suddenly coming from a very different direction. Tony heard a distinctively feminine yelp, albeit muffled. Peter violently jerked in Tony's arms. The engineer put the superstrength of his suit to use, holding the teenager down.

"Aw, hell no!" She yelled, the indignant shrieking followed by the sound of a moist palm slapping something glass...y? "What the fuck? I am asking you again. Are you... Oh my God, are you wearing a fishbowl on your head? Ow, motherfu-" The rest of the sentence is muffled, garbled. Whoever this "Q" was, she obviously knew him and he had silenced her. And, apparently, Q had an uncanny choice of headwear.

Tony was sure the rest of the team had followed his lead on doing a spit-take. They've fought enough supervillains with more than questionable fashion sense but a fishbowl? That was new.

"Be quiet, baby. It's for your own good. I don't want to hurt you if I can help it," The Fishbowl chastised her.

Tony's confusion once again returned to irritation at the frivolous way the villain addressed his science buddy. Peter's friend would have been more accurate but Tony had put her into the 'science bro' category not too long ago. They were close, as much as they could be, with the age gap and totally different interests and... The immense amount of guilt Tony felt for his attraction towards the girl. He was a dirty old man and she was barely an adult.

Every damn day Tony did his best to avoid making a shiny, big, new problem. Yet her brains and her wit and the uncanny ability to pull anybody into a conversation had a firm hold on his attention.

"Leave her alone," Stark angrily declared, powering up a repulsor. "What do you want? Party crashing isn't allowed in my tower anymore."

"What I want, Stark, is for you to give credit where it's due," The man answered simply, giving Tony just enough time to shove Peter behind him towards Natasha and take a tentative step forward.

The soft glow emanating from the repulsor illuminated barely two inches around his hand. The darkness surrounding it seemed to swallow the light. Tony moved on quiet feet towards the voice, easily avoiding furniture. His memory was good and he knew his tower, his home, better than anyone else.

"Did I hear that correctly, you're accusing me of plagiarism?" Tony tried for indignant, hoping to provoke the man into an inevitable, drawn-out speech where he lists all the wrongs Tony ever did him, giving the team precious time to regroup and form some semblance of a plan.

"Yes," Q simply answered, pausing for a second. "I hope you enjoy your next adventure. It certainly will show you the potential of my creation."

Tony shared a muted sound of confusion with the rest of the team.

"Q, I am very disappointed," To Tony's horror, th girl stared talking again. She sounded somewhat breathless, and closer to him than before. "Stop it with the dick measuring contest, you're a grown ass man. Go work for OsCorp, or Hammer, drink your sorrows away." She sounded so tired. And even closer to him.

"This is not a dick measuring contest!" Q roared suddenly and wow, that man was unstable. "This was my life's work, my creation, he insulted, berated and threw away!"

"I get it, I really get the whole 'being discarded and thrown away' thing," She replied, somewhat sarcastically. "But you know what? I'll be damned and I'll be fucked if I give some piece of shit any more of my undivided attention. They don't want me? Fine, they can fuck off and take their complaints with them." Her speech was periodically interrupted by shuffling noises.

Tony didn't dare to interrupt, seeing now the possibility of Q being actually calmed down by a teenager (probably) quoting some teen drama TV show.

"But going full Joker? You're a brilliant man, Quen, I wouldn't even look at you twice if not for your brains and your baby blues, however I don't fuck with the bad guys. That shit kills," The hand that rested on the wrist cuff of Tony's suit unmistakably belonged to her. She had the remnants of some sort of wire around it, sleek and quicksilver-shiny, irritating the tender skin under it. "And I want to live. You've gone and pissed off an entire crew of supers and I don't know what to do. I don't know what to think, Quen," There was genuine sadness in her voice.

Tony stood silent in confusion.

Whoever this Quen was, they obviously shared a close relationship. Tony's brain ran through the list of her friends, her relatives - there was nobody named Q, Quen or even remotely similar. Natasha had mentioned a possible boyfriend at some point but the man sounded too old for that, he was at least thirty. Or maybe? Tony wouldn't put it completely past the girl, if judging by the blatant way she flirted with Bruce. With himself.

"Baby, this is not about you. I don't want to hurt you," Quen replied, a hysterical edge to his voice. Something began flickering in the distance, attracting Tony's attention to the shape of a man with a round sort of helmet and a red, billowing cape (hello, 2012-Thor!).

"Too late, Quen. You've tied me up and you went on to attack my friends. I've already told you that if you yell at me one more time, I will leave you. So I guess this is it," Her voice broke at the end, pitiful sniffles following the statement.

Tony watched the exchange, mildly uncomfortable and very concerned. The man yelled at her? That was absolutely unacceptable, however, what else could one expect from a maniac with a flair for the dramatic?

The girl bodily placed herself in front of Tony, standing, doing nothing but rubbing her wrists. It was then that the engineer noticed Q nearing them, the shape becoming distinctively closer. And - yep, there it was - the fishbowl on his head. It completely obscured him, making his face invisible, unrecognisable.

The man seemed rather fixated on the girl standing in front of Tony. He floated in front of her, ignoring Tony, taking her bound hands in his own. A brief click and a hiss later, her wrists were released and the contraption fell freely to the floor where it landed with an oddly heavy thud. Tony hoped there was no lead in that thing - supervillains were dangerous but lead poisoning was cancerous and fatal.

"Baby..." Quen timidly touched her face with a leather-bound glove. "I didn't mean to yell at you. I'm sorry." Tony took the chance to examine the man's costume. If anything, it looked somewhat steampunk-y? There was a lot of bronze, and the chest brace had some sort of glowing lines on it. Power storage units?

She stared up, towards the man's hidden face. "M'sorry, Quen," She mumbled, going in for a hug. Or that's what Tony thought. The majestic cape that billowed behind Quen was unceremoniously yanked from his body as the girl ducked, covering herself with it, yelling: "TONY, NOW, SHOOT, SHOOT!"

Tony did just that, shot Quen flat in the chest and the man stumbled backwards, tripping on the cape - such a stupid, unexpected thing. But Tony knew, his girl was clever and resourceful. Pride swelled in his chest as he shot the man again, Rogers running out from behind him blindly, body-slamming Quen into the ground for good measure. Two hundred pounds of supersoldier later, the battle was over before it even started.

"No!" The villain shouted as Steve pressed and popped the hilarious glass contraption on his head. The accessory was no match for the Captain's super strength. Tony immediately recognised the man as his former employee, Quentin Beck, and it clicked for him. It was totally a personal vendetta.

"This stuff is tough, plexiglass, maybe," The Captain remarked, pointing at the scattered shards around Beck's head. "It appears to be augmented too, some kind of tech, I don't know. You're good at this, Tony," Steve chuckled humorlessly, roughly turning Beck around and securing his hands with a pair of vibranium-reinforced handcuffs. God only knew where he'd gotten those from.

"Good at what? Making enemies?" Stark couldn't resist the self-depricating joke.

"Stop it, Tony," Natasha's gently admonishing voice interrupted Steve's incoming lecture. Tony, for once, was thankful that the Widow interrupted. He was in no mood to listen to another one of Steve's speeches.

"Who do you work for?" That deadly gleam in Natasha's eyes was terrifying and Beck was only a man.

"I don't work for anyone but myself, thanks to Stark," He spat venomously.

Natasha cocked an eyebrow in Tony's direction.

"Fired him years ago, this guy was going nuts. Brilliant but crazier than a bag of cats," Tony replied, feigning nonchalance. He could feel a mild headache begin to gnaw at his skull. "We worked on a project together, he got upset that I refused to weaponize it. We had a falling out. End of story." With that, Tony stood up, retracing his suit to only leave the gauntlets on his hands, gathered the various pieces of tech the good captain had removed from Beck's persona and made way towards the nearest table.

Or where he thought it was. All of them were still surrounded by the uncanny darkness. The anxiety that Tony forcefully shut down reared it's ugly head as soon as he lost physical touch with his teammates. He stumbled, his foot catching onto something on the ground.

"Ow, motherfucker!"

"Buttercup, I haven't fucked your mother nor I plan to," He snarked back automatically, flooded with relief at the sound of the familiar voice.

"Hope so. She'd probably bite your dick off if you try," A hand was groping his calf and then she stood up in front of him, still clutching the ridiculous cape. It appeared to be a source of light, which was very strange. The girl looked positively demonic, illuminated by red light, face scrunched up, eyes puffy, and clothing in disarray.

"You good?" Tony managed to choke out, confusion and worry and anxiety making his chest tight.

"Balmy. My boyfriend is a homicidal maniac with an inferiority complex," She sassed, an edge of panic to her voice. "Oh, and he tried to kill one of my best friends. I am fine and dandy."

"Your boyfriend?" That was the only thing Tony heard. Bat-shit crazy Beck, his babygirl's boyfriend? There was no way in Hell he'd allow such a thing...

"My ex-boyfriend, I guess," She sighed, removing the cape from her persona. Refusing to meet his eyes, fiddling with the hem of her top. "Here," The girl abruptly thrust the cape at him. "This is a funny thing, it's like a hologram but you can actually touch it. You should, uh, probably disinfect it, or something. I've been on-uh, around it many times," It was so unlike her, the fumbling, the embarrassment, Tony wanted to wheel her straight to medical to check if she's gotten concussed again.

Then his brain caught up and all he saw was red. Figuratively and literally - the cape was still in his face, loosely hanging from her outstretched hand. She must've seen the look on his face.

The step she took back was quick and worrying. "Forget I said that, I don't know why I said that. Oh, god."

"What were you thinking?" Tony inhaled a solid lungful, prepared to make his opinion very clear. "Getting involved with a lunatic! For a second I actually thought you were smart, there isn't a chance you missed that the guy is short of a few marbles," His voice was quiet, the one of a calm fury. His words cut deeply and he could see the hurt, the shame in her eyes, on her face. Tony knew he'd regret it later however his brain insisted it was a necessary evil. He continued ranting until he ran out of breath. "Not to mention he's, what, twice your age? And he yells at you and tells you to shut up? It didn't ring any alarm bells in that pretty little head of yours?"

"Tony, stop," Steve's hand landed on the engineer's shoulder and he simply shrugged it off, staring at the quivering girl in front of him.

She was crying, silently, few tears pooling in her eyes and streaming down her cheeks, leaving ugly streaks in her make-up. Tony expected her to sass him, to argue back, to yell obscenities like she usually did when something or someone upset her but he was met with hurt, stunned silence. His worst fear came true when she looked away, shrugging.

He'd seen this sort of dejected shrug the time her father drugged her and... She just took it. She expected it, even, his outrage, his disappointment. Being hurt and mistreated was the norm for her, Tony realized belatedly. There were too many parallels between them both that made him uncomfortable deep inside. His chest felt tight, regret washing over him like a tsunami wave.

"I'm turning on the lights, close your eyes for maximum comfort," Strange's voice announced suddenly, causing everybody to jump and shudder. Tony complied begrudgingly. The sudden influx of light was painful even from behind closed eyelids. His headache became a full-on dull throb.

"What happened?" "Are you okay?" "Is everybody alive?" Resonated across the room. Tony spied several small drones smoking and crackling next to the exit door, Stephen Strange closing a portal he must've used to evacuate the civilians.

The puddle of red holographic cape on the floor. And her hastily retreating back. Damn.

THE TAG LIST IS NOW OPEN! @another-stark-sub ​ @mostly-marvel-musings  @vozit ​ @littlegasps ​ @pilloclock ​ @shereadsinquiet @downeyreads ​ @hermione-grangers-wife ​ @individualistfem ​ @sleep-i-ness @capbrie @lillsxd @agustdowney @dee-vn @justanotherblonde23 @fanngirl19 @persephonehemingway @softie-socks @schemefrenzy @letsby @cutenessloading @romeo-the-cactus @jelly-fishy-babie

[sugarandspice-games]

Spicy take time (costarring Sugar): The Bros rated by how well I think their arcs/character development/relationship with MC was written and how much it makes sense. (Disclaimer: Our affection for these characters and how interesting, compelling, and lovable we find them has ZERO bearing on this list. ALSO, beware, here there be salt, IE, this is critical of the writing. It’s also long as fuck, so if you just wanna skim and read the bold parts, that’s okay too. You are also free to disagree with us as this is just an opinion, and keep in mind that we have only read to chapter 24 so if there are elements of the story we are unaware of... please be understanding of that and don’t spoil it.) Let’s get started, shall we?

1) Starting at the top is BEST BOI IMO: Beelzebub. So, yeah, in terms of character development and growth, he really doesn’t change all that much, aside from starting off not trusting MC to slowly opening up to them about his trauma. But putting that to the side, his relationship with them makes the most sense. After sharing a bedroom and helping him open up, as well as having the mutual goal of protecting Luke, and then even later going on to save his beloved little brother, it follows that he absolutely adores you afterward. Also, he doesn’t start off disliking you like some of the others. So, all around, he makes the most sense. He’s also one of the deeper characters with his backstory, even if I wish they’d give him other flaws than just being hongry (and playing his unhealthy eating habits/coping mechanism as a joke. Disordered eating should be taken more seriously, especially binge eating but that’s a can of worms for another day)

2) Second best is probably going to shock you, but Satan takes this spot. Why? Well, strictly in terms of arc progression, his relationship with MC starting out as one of manipulation and growing into something more genuine when they go on a heartwarming and wacky adventure together with his hated older brother which causes him to open up makes a lot of sense, at least more so than some of the others. While I wish they gave him more meat characterization wise, I think his arc was pretty well done in terms of story structure.

Okay, so, Sugar here. While I agree with Spice that Satan could use some more meat (and that we should be able to have some more information on Baby Satan because we all need that in our lives), I think that the progression of him and LUCI’S bond (not MC’s) could have done with more subtlety. While I appreciate him softening up, and see that progress, we don’t really get to see the tension of the newfound change and how he settles into letting things go/mellow out and I get it-- it’s a dating sim and the secondary relationships are well, secondary, but it would be interesting to see him and MC bond more through time.

3) Third place probably won’t be all that shocking, because this is where I’m placing Lucifer. He’s arguably one of the characters in the series who’s gotten the most love from the writers, having the most screentime, the most affectionate scenes with MC, and the most fleshed out backstory and characterization as well as fleshed out relationships with each of the characters. His relationship progression with MC also takes a nice, even pace, with him slowly learning to trust them and respect them, culminating in an almost-confession (I THINK. Unless I’m reading that part wrong) and then being shattered at MC’s betrayal, and then earned back in true Pixar-movie fashion by them teaming up for a common goal. HOWEVER. And this is a big however. I would love to see his unhealthy tendencies addressed and NOT fetishized. (Don’t come at me with that “BUT THEY’RE DEMONS THEY’RE SUPPOSED TO BE EVILLLLL” dude. If a demon being in a healthy relationship is where you draw the line in terms of believability, then why are you playing a fantasy demon dating sim anyway?) I love him, I stan him, I simp for him, but I wish he had at least apologized for his not-subtle threats of physical violence toward MC rather than jumping straight into the ALSO kinda violent “You’re mine and nobody else’s” gimmick.

Unlike some men (SPICE), I am actually not a Luci stan and while I do have a soft spot, and understanding of his place as an eldest sibling... I would also like to see the writer’s unravel the unhealthiness/coping Lucifer has in place and why/how it came to be. I feel like we get a sense that Luci has thawed since coming to the Devildom but we don’t really see how Lucifer in the Celestial Realm (and how his friendship with Simeon) has progressed. Luci has a lot of love from the writers but from a story stand-point, he is never really allowed to be weak and own up to his own flaws and how that has impacted/hurt MC.

4) Sharing fourth place is Leviathan and Mammon! I’m putting them in the same spot because the issues I have with them are the same, though I plan on addressing their good points individually. But since my beef is simpler, I’m going to start off with the bad. IMO, a good rivals to friends to lovers romance happens in STEPS. You start off from not getting along, to then finding some things in common, and gradually coming to respect each other, and then like each other, and finally love each other. This... doesn’t really happen with these two, and while we see the change from both tsundere boys starting off disliking you and eventually coming to love you, we don’t really get that inbetween that makes the payoff so much worth it. And if those inbetweens are there, the story doesn’t really tell us that, and it doesn’t show us their thought processes. Like, how much would it suck if in pokemon, your charmander evolved immediately into Charizard upon beating your first few gyms? It’s like that.

But as for the good, Levi’s arc makes sense because you’re the first person to really let him be himself and not shame him for the things he loves. You let him ramble about his interests and show interest in them yourself (AT LEAST IF YOU’RE NOT A FUCKING MONSTER. I’ll let Sugar talk more on him, that’s their boy.)

Whoo, boy. Here we go! For whatever reason, the otaku became my favorite and I love him, but as far as arcs go... He could have gotten a bit more screentime and progress. It makes sense that he would become attached to MC as his brothers are very, very... critical and patronizing about his interests. He is also by far the most skittish and introverted of the bunch, coupled with his sin and seeing all the ways he falls short (in his eyes) is a recipe for loneliness and desire for companionship/friendship. While I am not happy with the progression, for me, it makes sense and I would also have loved to see some breaking/softening of how much his Sin influences him when it comes to MC. I’m not saying erase it because demons are meant to give in to temptation but some reassurance and acceptance of that would be good.

(I also know that there is some disk horse about him guilt-tripping you about spending time with his brothers and while I agree it can be hard... It definitely isn’t on a painful level. Like, say... Ray’s in Jihyun’s route in Mystic Messenger. This also is a difference for players who are interested in one love route versus the many route and different strokes, but I digress.)

As far as Mammon goes, well, you’re his first. And he’s not only glad that there’s someone who’s kind to him instead of making fun of him, but also takes pride in having someone to protect. His puppy crush going to full blown love is adorable.

This blog is all about spicy takes, yeah? Well, here’s mine (Sugar): Mammon is lovable but not as lovable as he could be and before all the Mammon stans, come for me- let it be known I like Mammon but his introduction and how he comes to be soft is NOT an easy, or believable transition. There are ways to write a good tsundere and the writers just missed the mark by having Mammon be too callous and then slipping to lovable without that sweet slide into the other end. I will not deny he is very cute, and a good character, and a good brother (and also the most human, according to Satan’s home screen interaction) but... The progression and endearment factor is lacking because of the structure of the narrative.

5) Is another unsurprising one, but this spot is Belphegor’s. Solmare. My dude. Why did you do this. We could have had it ALL. It could have been great. But you screwed the pooch. You took anything good about this relationship out behind the shed and shot it like a lame horse. Let it be known that I LIKED Belphie and MC’s alliance to get him out of gay baby jail, and I adored that love he still holds for Beel... I thought he was going to be a fav of mine, in fact. But how they handled the... uhm... murder ruined it for me. I’m sorry, I just cannot believe that I’m supposed to suddenly be besties with the man who manipulated me and crushed me to death like, a week after it happened. What if I have PTSD from that??? Also... he claims that he loves MC for who they are and not because of Lilith, but that’s not believable when his whole turning point is finding out that they’re Lilith’s descendant. The change needed to be more gradual, and having a subtle, gradual forgiveness arc would have been AWESOME but we were robbed. ROBBED I TELL YOU!!!!!

Annnd... Belphie is actually one of my favorites FOR SOME REASON. I DON’T KNOW MAN. I agree that we could have had it and I’m like (Insert Hades red flaming hair gif here). The decision to not have a redemption arc ruined it for me and while I love Belphie and his softness/brattiness mixture with handling MC... It is underscored by a lack of believable affection and the payoff of struggle on both Belphie’s part and MC’s. Also, there is a lot of ‘You are not who I want you to be, but it’s good enough’ with MC regarding their lineage and connections to the brothers and how that plays out/color the relationships with maybe the exception of Satan and surprisingly, Mammon that irks me but again, another thought for another time.

6) Aaaaand last and also the least... Asmodeus. “YOU GET NOTHING!!! YOU LOSE! GOOD DAY SIR.” --Solmare to Asmo. The writers neglected him SO much, I like him but what the hell are they doing? There’s so much that could be explored here, and with anything involving Asmo they’re like “I do not see it”. His love for MC also isn’t really that believable when his turning point is realizing that they’re powerful. It doesn’t even fit with any of his potential conflicts. The Diavolo’s castle arc set us up to think that Asmo would have some deep seated insecurities with not being able to be loved or desired by everyone, or maybe some insecurities about not being an angel anymore, or some vulnerability issues or something, and they were just like NOPE. It doesn’t make any gotdamn sense! I just... Grrr. Asmo, I’m so sorry, sweetie. You deserve better.

Asmodeus definitely deserves better and I will stand by that until the day I stop playing this damn game. While I, personally, think that his intrigue with MC makes sense (because he is lusty-- probably not just for sex but in general), it makes sense he would want someone with power but while the set up is there, his character falls flat because there is no bonding moment, or turning point for him at all. His affection for MC is still that playful, carefree, flirty persona he carries and I would love to see it dropped and how his fall from the Celestial Realm really weighs on him and an arc where he and MC talk about vulnerability and the power behind being seen as someone attractive and the way it dehumanizes you at the same time. It could be good-- hell, it could be great-- but it was killed before it started and I will never not think that Asmo could have had some KILLER growth. As it stands, he has more connection/romantic potential with Solomon than MC.

Anyway, that’s all for now folks! Feel free to yell at us in the replies, you know you want to. If this post blows up enough, maybe we can rate the undatables (though they don’t have any story arcs so... that would be a challenge.)

[mister-brightside]

Oooo I would love to read your rant about the lovely bones

sorry this took so long anon, there’s just so much to unpack here. also please bear in mind that I read the book years ago so I might be a bit fuzzy on the details. but the fact that I can still go on about it speaks to the enduring nature of my vitriol. ok let’s begin

in case you’re still unburdened by the shitty experience of reading this book:

it starts off with a 13 year-old (white, american, middle-class) girl named susie being murdered. the rest the story is told from her ghost’s viewpoint in purgatory as she watches her family deal with their loss.

sounds interesting, hey? except it’s not. for the majority of the book nothing of note ever happens. susie’s murder is never solved. as you can expect, her family grieves then moves on. her parents split up for a while then get back together. her siblings go to college, get married, etc.

you know those young adult fantasy books where the protagonist is so bland, she’s clearly supposed to be a self-insert for the reader? yeah the lovely bones is like this. except you’re supposed to identify with this family, which has the combined personality of a white picket fence.

okay maybe it doesn’t sound too bad so far. but as you read on you begin to realise. there’s absolutely ZERO POINT in having susie tell the story. because the girl BARELY REACTS TO SHIT. like, she watches her murderer walk around like nothing’s happened and she barely feels any frustration. she watches her mother have an affair, and there’s no outrage. not even any embarrassment, at LITERALLY WATCHING HER OWN MOTHER HAVE SEX. that’s right, susie feels NO GUILT intruding on her loved ones’ most private and shameful moments.

also, have I mentioned? susie can READ PEOPLE’S MINDS. for NO GODDAMN REASON. again, she has no hesitation in violating other people’s privacy. you know what, I’m realising just now that this is (probably unintended) foreshadowing for the book’s crappy ending. but I’ll get there later.

my point is. a lot of the story just ends up reading like third-person omniscient. LIKE THE AUTHOR JUST FORGOT SUSIE EXISTED. people complain about one-dimensional characters in fiction, but I don’t think susie even qualifies for a single dimension. introspection? growth? what are those? there is literally no point in having her there.

my earlier statement that susie doesn’t react to shit is only half-true, she has no feelings UNLESS THE AUTHOR NEEDS IT FOR A PLOT DEVICE. and then it’s emotions galore. I’m sorry but the human brain just doesn’t work like that.

ok but what really rattles my bones, what really gets my gears grinding: oh god, let me talk about the terrible, terrible ending.

so back when she was alive, susie had a crush on a classmate called ray. years pass and he’s now grown up and hot. somehow, SOMEHOW, susie’s spirit is expelled from purgatory and she’s now possessing the body of another former classmate, a girl called ruth. and USING RUTH’S BODY, SUSIE GOES AND HAS SEX WITH RAY.

THAT’S RIGHT. YOU HEARD ME.

and as if that’s not disgusting enough: susie’s spirit is now able to leave purgatory and go to heaven. you see, she was only unable to move on BECAUSE SHE WAS SO SAD ABOUT MISSING OUT ON SEX AND ROMANCE.

*inhale*

alright, I could understand if this was a satire about society’s obsession with romance, but no. IT’S COMPLETELY UNIRONIC. that’s right, RAPE IS THE ANSWER. being so hung up to the point of violating another woman’s sexual autonomy is somehow supposed to be PROFOUND and MOVING.

there are legitimately no redeeming qualities to this book. it goes nowhere. the police never find susie’s corpse (you know, maybe that would’ve been a better reason for her being unable to move on). they never find her killer either, but he dies in a car crash eventually.

like I said, I’ve read worse. but with every other book I’ve hated, it’s like, you can see the author had heart. you can see why other people might find meaning in it, or why critics praised it.

I have no idea why the lovely bones got as much hype as it did. I’m honestly BAFFLED. it’s just so incredibly lifeless. you can’t even laugh at how bad it is. I wouldn’t ever recommend this to anyone.

that concludes my ted talk, thanks for your interest anon!

[nokomiss]

unprecedented times

title: Unprecedented Times

summary:   Stiles is handling quarantine like a champ, and is absolutely not pestering Derek at all.

Notes: For @lielabell, who requested sterek covid socially distancing fluff fic. Hope you enjoy!

***

Official Stilinski Mission Log: Day 2

It has been over forty-eight entire hours since having contact with the human world. Built a fort out of the toilet paper Dad commandeered from the convenience store. (okay, bought, whatever.)  Plan on living out of the fort until the world returns to normal.

Stiles was like, the best person ever to be quarantined. Like, seriously. He had an entire internet full of interesting information at his fingertips, and he absolutely did not miss Scott, and there was zero chance at all of him going all cabin fever-y and chopping through doors like Jack Nicholson.  

Zero. He was so fucking chill with not seeing or touching or being near anyone. He was going pull off this shit like The Martian. He wasn’t going to lose his shit at all.

Seriously.

*

Official Stilinski Mission Log: Day 3

Friends have abandoned me to my fate. No one is willing to rescue me from my boredom. Have tried calling most boring person possible and he managed to scowl at me over the phone. Not even video, just… an audio scowl. Probably should have recorded that for posterity,

“But you’re immune, right? So just come on over,” Stiles whined into his phone.

“We have no way of knowing that,” Derek said firmly.  Apparently he and Scott had been sharing notes, because that was exactly what he’d told Stiles, too.

“Uh, you’re a werewolf who has never had so much as sniffle? Dude, you’re invincible,” Stiles said.  

Derek sighed, and Stiles did his best to not memorize the way it sounded in his ear for replaying later on during Special Stiles Time. “Stiles. I’m not breaking quarantine just because you’re bored. It’s been two days.”

“Uh, it has now been three days, thank you very much,” Stiles informed Derek. “And I think that, if you look at the science, you’re wrong.”

“Goodbye, Stiles,” Derek said. 

“Wait! At least sing me a song--” but Derek hung up, leaving Stiles stuck in the wasteland that was his room, alone except for Netflix and Fort TP.

*

Official Stilinski Mission Log: Day 6

Fort TP has become a refuge in these troubled times. Have installed christmas lights and a Ouija board, but so far have been unable to contact any interesting conversationalists.  Had brilliant thought about creating a vaccine using werewolf dna, but realized that would infect people  with lycanthropy which potentially could cause even more problems long term.

Stiles, after suffering through an online class that was seventy percent his professor talking about the fact that it was an online class, thought he should treat himself,  so he video-called Scott.  

Scott was deemed essential, since puppies need to be fed and walked and taken care of, so Stiles got to take a tour of the vet’s office and make cooing noises at all the puppers that Scott introduced him to.  It was easily the highlight of his week. ��

After Scott introduced him to a particularly charming shepherd, Stiles casually asked, “So you’ve been in town the last few months… how’s ole grumpypants holding up? Still sad and alone?”

Scott looked up from the dog, and gave Stiles the exact same look he’d just given a beagle who had fruitlessly tried to steal treats from the counter.  “Are you asking if Derek is single?”

“Uh, no, I was asking after his mental well-being,” Stiles said defensively.

“He has the pack,” Scott said. He grinned at Stiles. “Single, though. He mentioned you called him.”

“I never.. I was just bored,” Stiles said and abruptly hung up the phone, even though it meant not seeing the shepherd dance with Scott.  

*

Official Stilinksi Mission Log: Day 15

Have new working theory that Beacon Hills is actually under a curse. Maybe i should learn magic to break the spell and return life to normal. Well. What passes for normal around here.

“So like, I’ve had so much time to think, and I realized that this is like freaking utopia for you,” Stiles said.  He had chosen to ignore Scott’s teasing and continued to call Derek daily, because Derek was sad enough, he definitely needed the cheering-up that Stiles could provide.

“Is it really?” Derek’s eyebrows did the thing that they do, like they’re emojis punctuating his sentences. Like billboards over Derek’s eyes flashing the eyeroll emoji.

“I mean, brooding, staying at home, not talking to anyone… you must teach me the secrets of your ways,” Stiles said. “It’s totally unfair how good at this you are. Look at you, my man. Lemme see what you’re wearing. Are those actual jeans?”

Derek shifted the camera to focus solely on his face. “Stiles, please tell me you’re wearing pants.”

“Of course I am,” Stiles lied, even though the first rule of Fort TP was No Pants Allowed. And actually, if he was British, he wouldn’t even be lying, a fact that he considered telling Derek smugly before deciding to let it drop.  Not his underwear, but the topic. 

Not that he would be opposed to dropping his underwear for Derek, but that was neither here nor there. And a topic totally under the purview of ‘things Stiles didn’t let himself think about while actively having a conversation with Hottie McEyebrows.’

Stiles was so desperately horny, was the problem though. It wasn’t that he had an active dating life at college, but he at least had contact with other humans and that somehow made jerking off in the shower less depressing.

And he didn’t regularly video chat with Derek while at college, either, which… possibly was a contributing factor. Derek’s face should be illegal, seriously.

“If you don’t have any more insults for me,” Derek said, “I’m gonna go now.”

“And do what?” Stiles said, hoping for an exciting answer. “Gimme some ideas, Dere-bear.”

Derek blinked a few startled times, looking more like a confused kitten than the werewolf he was, and then said, “I’m going to just. Go. Now.”

Stiles tried to stop him, but the annoying thing about video calls was that he couldn’t fling himself bodily in front of the end-call button.

*

Official Stilinksi Mission Log: Day 16

Is it normal to miss standing in lines? 

When Derek answered, his hair was wet and he wasn’t wearing a shirt. Water droplets rolled slowly down his pecs, as if in slow motion. 

Stiles made a sound previously only heard from Muppets and turned off his phone.

Mortified, he didn’t call Derek again for two days, even though he hovered his finger longingly over his name at least once an hour.

*

Official Stilinksi Mission Log: Day 18

A positive in all this: hiding your face in shame is so, so much easier.

Stiles kept replaying the noise he had made upon seeing Derek’s glistening torso -- and it wasn’t even like he’d never seen Derek’s shirtless body, seriously, sometimes it was like Derek was allergic to shirts, and when he did wear them, they were so stupidly tight that they might as well not even exist at all, and his reaction had been --

Well, his reaction had been what his reaction always was, only this time in his outside-voice.

Probably he was making it weirder by  not calling Derek for his daily dose of entertainment. Since Derek had to be aware of Stiles’s hormonal reaction to him. He was a werewolf. He could probably sense horny from a mile away.

Though that theory was shot down a bit by exactly how many teenagers Derek had spent prolonged amounts of time with. Stiles sent Scott a slightly panicked do werewolves smell boners text that he immediately regretted.

Scott immediately responded with an upside-down smiley face and  not through the phone.

Scott was easily the worst best friend ever. Easily.

*

Official Stilinksi Mission Log: Day Whatever

Fort TP is dwindling alarmingly. Must venture into the wastelands to procure building materials.

The grocery store, as it turned out, was still there.  Still just standing in the parking lot, lights on, shelves at least mostly full of food and essentials.

Not the essential Stiles was after, though.

He was staring woefully at the empty shelves when he heard the squeak of a cart turning into the aisle, then stopping abruptly.

“Hey, you’re going the wrong way down a one-way---” Stiles began, then stopped just as abruptly as the cart as he realized he was bitching at Derek.

Derek looked like he wanted to slink away into the shadows, but unfortunately for him, no shadows were to be found in the toilet paper aisle.  He was wearing a pink floral mask that looked absolutely precious with his leather jacket, and Stiles felt his mouth quirk up into a snicker.

“What?” Derek said defensively.

“You look cute,” Stiles said, which was true on oh so many levels, and he was so happy that his own mask (plaid and not nearly as festive) covered the blush that resulted.  Looking closer, he could see that it wasn’t a pink floral mask, but rather, a pink mask covered in tiny pastel chibi wolves.

“Cora thinks she’s funny.”  

“Cora is my favorite Hale,” Stiles said cheerfully, a total lie, but worth it to see Derek’s eyebrows veer together crankily.  

He edged his cart closer.  Close enough that he could tell that Derek, besides having put on actual jeans and leather jacket to venture to the grocery store, also smelled unfairly good. Stiles was pretty sure he smelled like Fruit Loops, and he was wearing sweatpants with a threadbare Beacon Hills t-shirt. 

Derek was absolutely close enough to smell him, and his conversation with Scott flashed through his mind like it was accompanied by the Kill Bill sirens. Whatever happened, he couldn’t let Derek know how desperately he wanted him.  

Their carts were facing each other, creating a socially responsible barrier that Stiles had never resented so fully until this moment.  “They’re out,” he said dumbly, gesturing towards the empty toilet paper shelves.

“Um, isn’t your little house made of toilet paper?” Derek asked. “Do you  really need more?”

“It’s a fort, thank you very much,” Stiles said with great dignity.  

“Sorry?” 

Stiles wondered why Derek always looked so wrong-footed when he was talking to him. 

 “It’s really nice to see you in person,” he blurted out, because apparently a side effect of never seeing people in the flesh was forgetting how to have a normal interaction with them.

But then Derek’s eyes crinkled in a way that showed he was actually smiling under his mask, and wow, Stiles hated that mask for obscuring that view, and said, “Yeah, it is.”

“Wanna shop together?” Stiles asked, because he was unwilling to walk away.

Derek nodded, and the next hour was the best Stiles had spent in months. Possibly ever, even though he never got to get any closer than six feet away.  An entire Derek length, he thought ridiculously. A prone Derek on the floor, that was the distance they had to keep.

Stiles bought way too much junk food and made fun of Derek’s basic groceries.  Leaving in separate cars felt like torture.

*

Official Stilinksi Mission Log: Day 19

Contemplating trips to the grocery store in hopes of bumping into… someone you know… is not socially responsible. Don’t do it, Stilinski.

“Stiles, you realize it’s only been a few weeks, right?” Lydia said.  He could hear the tapping of her fingertips on a keyboard in the background, and of course Lydia was still motivated enough to do schoolwork, even when talking to someone as brilliant and entertaining as Stiles.

“Lydia. You’re a genius, you know perfectly well we’ve been at this for 456 agonizing hours.”  Stiles was honestly disappointed; he’d thought that Lydia would understand his plight.

“I know, I’ve actually had the time to thoroughly research my final paper,” Lydia said happily. “I’m thinking of trying to get it published.”

“Yeah, I totally am doing that with my papers, too,” Stiles said, which. Theoretically he could, as none of his final papers had been written yet. Probably he could make a scientific breakthrough if he really wanted to.

“Uh-huh,” said Lydia, who knew him entirely too well. “So what’s your quarantine hyperfixation been? Please don’t say that tiger guy.”

“Nope,” Stiles said. “Not a tiger guy.”

“A wolf guy maybe?” Lydia’s voice was sly.

“What did Scott tell you?”

“Nothing,” Lydia sing-songed. “Allison, on the other hand, mentioned that you’re mooning over Tall, Dark and Moody.”

“I am not mooning! I have never mooned in my life,” Stiles protested.

Lydia’s silence was pointed and devastating.

“Okay,” Stiles said, because she had a fair point. “Maybe I’ve been known to moon gently over someone. But. I mean. You’ve seen him. You know what a trainwreck of precious proportions he is. I mean. I can’t help it!”

“Oh, sweetie,” Lydia said gently. “You’ve got it bad.”

Stiles couldn’t even argue.  He was so fucked.

*

Official Stilinksi Mission Log: Day 27

What a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

Stiles practically skipped down the stairs, awash in his own brilliance. Building a pantry onto Fort TP was something he couldn’t believe it took him nearly thirty days to come up with.

Well, maybe he could. Things were starting to get a little fuzzy. Probably he should be putting more effort into his schoolwork.

He heard voices as he turned into the living room, but didn’t think anything of it until the couch and table came into view. Well, more notably, his father’s open laptop, full-screened onto an image of Melissa McCall with her shirt flung open.

“Oh my god,” Stiles said as Melissa echoed him and jerked her shirt closed.

“Oh my god,” said the Sheriff, and while his shirt was blissfully on, his pants were clearly unbuttoned, belt hanging open. “I forgot you were here.”

Stiles clamped his hand over his eyes, but his mind traitorously kept replaying the one-second image of Scott’s mom’s tits. “Where else would I be?”

There was a telling silence, and okay, maybe Stiles’ brain wasn’t the only fuzzy one around here.

“I’m just gonna…” Stiles kept his hand over his eyes resolutely as he backed out of the living room towards the front door. “Leave. Now.”

“You don’t have to--” his dad said, though even to Stiles’ ears it didn’t sound sincere.

“Bye,” Stiles said, flinging himself out the front door and finally removing his hand from his eyes. Then he remembered, oh yeah, keys are a thing that exist, and knocked loudly before opening the door again and grabbing them.

Stiles drove aimlessly around town, drumming his fingertips on his steering wheel, full of nervous energy. He thought about calling Scott, but he didn’t trust himself to not blurt out something about how great his mom’s tits were, so he decided that only one of them truly needed to be traumatized this day. Things were rough enough as is.

Eventually, aimless driving lead him to the parking lot outside Derek’s loft.  Stiles sat in the Jeep for a few long moments, trying to decide whether this was a good idea or not, before deciding, fuck it.

He went inside.  Knocked on Derek’s door, like that was a normal thing he did all the time. And when Derek opened a few moments later, a confused look on his face, Stiles further added to his confusion by flinging himself forward.  His rough plan had been to hug him -- it had been so long since he’d had physical contact -- but apparently his body didn’t quite get that memo and instead he kissed him, full on the lips.

“Mmrph?” Derek said into his mouth, which -- okay, that made it even better.  Derek seemed to think so, too, as the kiss lasted way longer than an impulsive greeting-kiss between friends ought to. Probably included more tongue, too, but who was Stiles to say that wasn’t normal.

When they broke apart, panting, and Derek looking almost preciously confused, Stiles said, “Hey, now we have to quarantine together. Neat.”

“What?” Derek blinked at him a few times.

Stiles pushed his way into Derek’s loft, glorying in how different it was from his own room, and said, “I’m just gonna hang out here until the plague’s up.”

He headed over to the sink, washing his hands like a responsible houseguest as he explained the situation. “And they were doing that right there, in front of my Twizzlers!” he concluded.  

Derek just said, “Everyone’s a little frustrated right now…” like he thought that the Sheriff had every right to have sexy video meetings right there in the living room.

“Of course we are!” Stiles exclaimed, inadvertently flinging soap across the room. He finished rinsing his hands as he said, “but we keep that shit to our bedrooms and the shower, right?”

There was a faint flush to Derek’s unfairly beautiful cheekbones, and -- oh, okay, so maybe Derek didn’t. Stiles cast his eyes around the room and felt a montage of Derek having Special Derek Time in various spots around the loft flash before his eyes. Probably now Derek wasn’t the only one blushing.

“Well,” Stiles said. “I mean.” He looked around again. “As your houseguest, I grant you full permission to do… whatever you like… in the living room.”

“Gracious of you,” Derek muttered. Then he looked back at the door. “Wait, houseguest? You don’t even have bags.”

Stiles didn’t. Stiles decided to brazen it out. “Where we’re going, I won’t need bags. Or clothes. Hopefully?”

Derek blinked at him again, and Stiles decided that meant to go for it, so he kissed him again, this time with intent.

“Yeah, okay, it is unprecedented times,” Derek mumbled into his mouth. “Clothes are very much optional.”

Stiles didn’t need to be told twice.

[a-tardis-at-downton]

A/N: It’s two in the morning and I don’t have the gumption to do any more editing. Inspired by REO Speedwagon and Nicholas Rush, the prickliest teddy bear in the world.

In which Belle French deejays for the university radio station and enjoys REO Speedwagon way too much, Rush is her grumpy college professor who just wants her to succeed and encourages her in his own way. Belle, as always, sees the best in him because really, Rush did mean well. He’s just awful at emotions.

Belle French was nose deep into Steinbeck’s To A God Unknown, a personal favorite and occasional re-read of hers. The headphones were looped around her neck, the bulky earpieces providing a perfect perch for her chin as she passed time in the silence of the radio station. The sound box was to her left, within arms reach, and the computer awaited her next queue up, blinking steadily as the final strains of U2 faded out. Belle’s focus was pulled away from her book and she popped her headphones on, patching the mic through.

“This is Belle French, the only lonely DJ here at ZZUX, and here we have our next request. Bob, if you’re listening, U2 is the band for ultimate broken-hearted jam, so, well chosen, my friend.”

She was tired, and if it was unprofessional to clear her throat on air, there was no one around to say otherwise. All she had for company is Joseph the fortunate farmer and the steady flurry of snow outside the studio windows.

“Up next is a personal favorite of mine. Let’s take a moment to appreciate REO Speedwagon’s Keep On Loving You,” Belle nearly grinned at that. It was something of a personal joke of hers, considering her and three other people listened to the university’s station at three in the morning. What’s the harm in playing the same song five nights in a row?

Kevin Cronin’s vocals, high and smooth, filled the air, and Belle shifted in the ridiculously uncomfortable office chair she’d roped from her boss’ office. What Keith didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. Returning to her novel, she pressed on, eager to discover the fate of Joseph and his paramour, as if she hadn’t read it a thousand times. The words began to blur in front of her, and she blinked blearily. Belle rubbed her eyes, and at that, nearly missed the blinking light of the telephone, and sighed.

Slipping off her headphones, Richrath’s amazing guitar solo faded as she answered the phone. 

“Hello,” her voice chirped, saccharine and kind, despite her annoyance at being interrupting.

“You know, I’ve been listening to this station for some time, and quite honestly I enjoy it. What I don’t enjoy is hearing REO Speedwagon five nights in row,” A unfamiliar brogue grunted out over the crackling line, shaking and unclear. Belle cast a look towards the window, mind drifting to her early morning walk back to her apartment.

“I’m— sorry?” she said after a moment, brows knitted together in confusion.

“Yes, well, see to that, if you will.” Click.

“I— Oh, my god, he hung up on me.” Belle glowered at the phone, jamming it down on the receiver and scowling at it as if the inanimate object were at fault. Her mood had been sullied by this mysterious caller, and she ground her teeth, jaw jumping with irritation.

“It’s three in the morning, prick!” Belle shouted. To absolutely no one. Because she was alone.

God, she was tired.

Heat suffused her cheeks, and a blush of shame erupted across her features.

“Fuck.”

Her head dropped to her hands, and she frustratedly rubbed at her temple. Her physics final was next week, when class resumed after break, and she had no idea where to start, she’d offered to take Mulan’s shifts for the next month, and she was royally screwed after the disastrous Thanksgiving row she and Gaston had gotten into. He’d been a bit awful, honestly, as far as boyfriends went, but she’d thought that perhaps, with a little attention and some more of her time, he might see that they could be well-suited. That hadn’t gone over well.

Instead, she’d been bulldozed by every class she’d had this semester, and her only hope of passing her physics course was by the grace of God Almighty, or Doctor Nicholas Rush, as it were. Rush was everything Belle despised in professors; arrogant, too casual, and cruel to those he perceived as beneath him, which apparently was everyone, he annoyed Belle and she could not wait to pass his exam, though with her luck in that course, she’d have to dredge through it for one last semester until he pitied her and passed her through simply for the joy of never needing to see one Belle French again.

Belle French was an utter failure, and she felt very little joy in passing off the headphones and studio duty to a bright-eyed Fred later, who, bless him, had thought to bring Starbucks. Belle’s walk home was slow and meandering, her eyes squinting at the dappled rays of sunshine that burned through the slate of grey clouds above. Her bag was heavy, and she stopped to readjust the straps a time or two. Augusta was a small town, with a main road blinking out advertisements from shop windows that boasted New Tech! IPA here! Town meeting at four!; it was certainly smaller than Portland, Maine, and as such, the sleepy town was rarely witness to her morning journey home. Today, more than ever, she thanked the unknowing residents, because she had slipped on the unsalted sidewalk no less than three times in the three block walk to her apartment, the snow and ice making travel difficult, and her heels, chosen prior to the unexpected weather, making travel impossible.

A good twenty minutes later, Belle stumbled noisily into her home, hissing out a no as her keys clattered on the table far too loudly for— she studied the clock— six in the morning.

A door squeaked, and Ruby poked her head out from behind, her long hair tangled with sleep and her eyes still shut.

“’S okay?”

“Yes, Ruby, I’m sorry, everything’s fine. Go back to bed.”

Belle plopped onto the couch, staring forlornly at her backpack, it’s keychain winking in the pale morning light. She groaned, guttural and long, and reached for the remote instead.

The next night found her similarly busied, and she thought very little of the caller who had demanded so callously that she stop playing REO Speedwagon. Classic, she thought, and anyone who says otherwise is a complete idiot.

Complete Idiot did, in fact, call again when the opening strains of Don’t Let Him Go played, the steady, staccato drumbeats filling the air.

“Please, stop playing REO Speedwagon. Maybe Def Leppard, Journey, or if you like trite favorites, and you seem to have taste limited by that, try Aerosmith.”

This time is was Belle who hung up.

She played Take It On the Run next.    

By the time dead week was over, she’d run the station’s entire music selection through twice, and not a single person was the wiser for it.

The morning of her final dawned dark and gloomy, and Belle thought wryly, that it was fitting really. The physics study session she’d had with Ruby had been largely unsuccessful, especially since Ruby had taken the course over three years prior. Belle tried not to think about how she’d wished she’d done the same.

Pulling on her leggings and a crisp, blue pencil skirt to match her blue buttoned blouse, she shoved her boots on before lumbering out of her room. The clatter of a plate on the counter had her furrowing her brow.

“Ruby?”

Belle cocked her head, watching as her friend pointed to the clock.

“I thought you left, like, an hour ago. Dude, you’d better grovel now.”

8:45.

Her physics final was supposed to start at—

No.

“Nononononononononono!” Belle shouted as she sped down the stairs, swaying wildly as she peeled out onto the street, running as fast as her boots could take her.

Eight and a half long minutes later and out of breath, she tugged nervously at her hair, scuffing her boots on the shiny marble tile outside of Doctor Rush’s office. She was fully prepared to prostrate herself at his feet, offering up whatever she could— which wasn’t much at all, she knew— in exchange for a chance at the final. Without it, there was zero chance of her passing Rush’s class. An hour had gone by, and rather than bore herself to tears when she was so close to them already, she opened her novel and immersed herself in the dusty California farmlands.

A grunt interrupted her, and she looked up to see Rush fishing in his pocket, his keys jangling as he stuffed one into the lock on his office door. Her book snapped shut, almost of it’s own accord, and Belle sprung to attention, her full height drawn up the length of her spine. She stood straight as he walked into his office, unbothered, it seemed, by her presence. She may walk away defeated, but she could still be pro— no, no, there was no pride to be had here. Not when her entire future lay on the temperament of an ill-mannered professor.

His office door was ajar, and the soft light from the single lamp beckoned her. Still unsure, she gave a tentative knock at the doorjamb.

“Enter,” came his voice, and he was quieter today, less firm, somehow, and though she’d never say it aloud, and certainly not to him, he sounded soft. Bristles of silver stood out on his cheeks, and he sucked in a breath and let it out in a long suffering sigh.

“I s’pose you’ve come to grovel now, aye?” His glasses glinted in the warm light of his reading lamp, even as he sat, the leather of the chair groaning as he settled. Belle gulped. Bravery, that is key.

“Y-yes. I— really… I had a late shift, and…”

“I’ve not got all day. Out with it, or you can leave and see me next semester.” Rush leafed through the sheaf of papers on his lap, pulling a few out here and there, seemingly at random, his dark gaze focusing on his task.

“You’re a horrible professor, you know.” She hadn’t meant to say it, really, but she was running on three hours of sleep and no coffee and dear god, if the earth could just open up and swallow her now, that would be amazing.

His long hair fell forward limply as his head snapped up, and Belle’s eyes widened, her mouth open to offer any apology for her gross misstep. Instead, a sharp noise jolted her from her stupor, a loud crack filling the air, and then another, and another.

He was— clapping?

“I’m—”

“Miss French, you astound me. Not only do you fail to grasp the most simple of concepts, but you manage to insult me and tell the truth at once. Well, half-truth,” he leaned forward, his lips pressing tightly together as he studied her, and she had never felt more exposed, “You see, I’m not horrible at teaching. You are horrible at retaining what I’ve taught, however,” he considered her once more, “however, I’m not a complete bastard, as some in the rumor mill would suggest. As such, I will let you take my final. I want to see how much you’ve learned.”

Belle’s eyes blistered with tears of thanks, but before she could offer a watery gasp of contented and heartfelt apology, his eyes traced her knotted and mussed hair, her disheveled clothing, and bid her sit. Any further arguments from her would wait until her grade had been submitted and she was out of his class.

“But that final will be taken here and now, Miss French.”

Dread crept up her spine and she dropped into the seat across from him. Rummaging in his bag a moment, he brandished a copy of the final in front her, before handing it over.

“I assume you came prepared?”

Belle searched her bag, but it was with a heavy heart that she remembered lending Ruby her last pencil before heading out for her late night shift the night before. Flushing, she couldn’t bear to see the smug grimace on Rush’s face, instead taking her time selecting a pencil from his proffered canister.

The clock ticked away the time, and an hour and thirteen minutes after she’d begun the exam and fifty-seven questions into the blasted things, she noticed. A gentle hum of a tune had begun, struck up by the man across from her. He had barely moved, except to cross the short distance to his small coffee maker and pour two cups earlier, one of which he had quietly placed next to Belle— unexpected, the coffee filled her warmth. At least, she told herself that it was the coffee and not the act of kindness itself that made her grin. But now, his foot tapped out a beat, soft against the plush carpet of his small, cramped office, and the beat was vaguely familiar.

The bassline for REO Speedwagon’s Keep On Loving You. Suddenly, realization crashed in around her, as though she’d been doused with cold water.

“Yes, well, see to that, if you will.” The snide tone, the deep brogue that demanded so much of her. A brilliant blush of scarlet bloomed across her cheeks, and she was thankful that Rush didn’t look up. Her heart seemed to beat out a thunderous dance in her chest, and she swallowed her nerves. Surely he knew who she was, of course he had. He had to! Belle studied him then, perhaps seeing him for the first time. His blazer was crumpled where it lay on his sidetable and his navy teeshirt had a few snags, and a slight stain, she assumed from coffee, even as he absently lifted his mug to his lips and let a drop dribble from the corner of his mouth.

“Shit!” he hissed, scrambling for the box of tissues that was perched very haphazardly at the edge of his desk, “sorry,” he placated, as though remembering he had company as he blotted at his stubble. His brown eyes found hers, and she allowed a grateful smile to brighten her face, and Rush attempted one, it seemed. His lips quirked into something of a half-grin, loose and unnatural, and for a brief moment, Belle wondered if Rush had many reasons to smile often in his life.

She busied herself with the last of her final then, and with only two questions left, Rush’s voice was clear and pronounced as he called, “Time!”

Belle set the final in his outstretched hand, and Rush nodded.

“Go.”

Though she’d been dismissed, Belle took her time gathering her things, and offered a last smile.

“Thank you, Doctor Rush, really. Thank you.”

She pulled the door shut and went on her way.

Three weeks later and well into her last semester, she spotted him crossing campus, coffee thermos in his hand and files balanced in the crook of his opposite hand. Belle grinned, and started for him.

“So,” she caught up to him, and Rush startled, “why do you hate REO Speedwagon so much?”

Rush paled, and the way his skin drained of color almost had Belle laughing, but she grinned good naturedly instead, and his cheeks soon pinked.

“I—”

“No half-truths this time, Doctor Rush.”

“I don’t, not really. You,” he straightened, drawing to his full height, and his glasses perched awkwardly at the tip of his nose, reddened with the January air, and he coughed, “you were lonely. I thought maybe I would call. You said you—”

Belle’s heart flew to her throat, and her lips parted. Her lungs squeezed out her last breath in a puff of white, and her hands found purchase at the lapels of his blazer. His lips were soft beneath hers, pliant and unsuspecting, and his stubble scratched into her chin and lips and cheeks as he moved with her, pressing close, as if he wanted to be as near to her as he could.

He tasted of coffee.

A shuddering gasp for air parted them, and Belle was unsure which of them had broken their embrace.

“Call me Nicholas, please.”

“You’re an idiot, Nicholas.”

Belle grinned.

Three and a half months later, Belle’s last shift at the university radio station had begun with Nicholas plying her with a new book and a very large coffee, earning him an eager kiss.

Sometime later, nose deep in her novel and with the beat of Seven Bridges Road fading out, the phone rang.

“I’d like to hear Can’t Fight this Feeling,” the caller requested, Nicholas’ voice soft and low over the crackle of the phone line.

“By?” Belle nearly laughed at the long suffering sigh, audible over the line.

“REO Speedwagon.”

[ivyfics]

With me - Chap 3

One second he’s ready to do the ghost version of flinging a toaster into a bathtub and the next he’s flinching, yelping out an enraged, “Hey, nothing here is little!” 

Read on AO3

Pairing: KuroTsuki Rating: M Chaps: 3/7 (May change in the future) Additional Tags: Ghost!Kuroo, Haunted!Tsukishima, Tiniest bit of crack, Future angst

PREVIOUS CHAP   - NEXT CHAP  - INDEX

He’s not quite sure how or why the things that happen next happen the way they do. There’s a disconnect between what the situation really is, how Tetsurou should maybe react to it, and what he ends up doing.

One second he’s ready to do the ghost version of flinging a toaster into a bathtub and the next he’s flinching, yelping out an enraged, “Hey, nothing here is little!”

Kei glares at him harder and tilts his head back to also be looking down his chin at him. It’s not an expression Tetsurou’s seen on him other than when trash day comes around, the comparison making him want to squirm where he floats.

"Pathetic."

Tetsurou climbs down from the wall, coming in as close as he can to Kei. There are four hundred separate trains of thought running around his head. The loudest and most pressing one wins mouth rights, spraying out with a high pitched squeal of, "Pathe —You weren't supposed to know!"

After that visceral reaction purges most of his agitation, two things come to Tetsurou’s mind. One, his hand is still stuck between the energetic representation of the running shorts he was wearing when he keeled over—and what a fate that is, to not only have to die in unwashed, borrowed running shorts but also have them become one of the only two articles of clothing to represent him forever. Tetsurou is damned to an eternity barefoot —and two, Kei can see him.

Kei, the bookish, quiet, tall nerd that lives in this apartment, Tetsurou’s apartment, and who Tetsurou was, in the most basic of definitions, spying on to the point of voyeuristic enjoyment, can see him.

Let’s back up a step, do a timeline of how he got here:

Death.

Panic.

Ghost.

Panic.

Acceptance.

Chilling.

Watching Betty, La fea for the first time.

Almost making Mrs.Smith have a heart attack.

Rewatching Pasión de Gavilanes.<\em>

Accidentally triggering Mrs.Smith’s stroke.

Seven tenants.

Haunted Teddy bear.

That one asshole he locked out whose name he never learned because every single one of his friends was always stoned out of their mind and only called each other dude.

Watching Ugly Betty for the first time.

Tsukki moving in.

Las Rosas del Desierto premiere.

Trying to beat his metaphorical meat in the same room as Kei.

Getting caught trying to beat his metaphorical meat in the same room as Kei.

Kei can see him.

Not only can Kei see him, Kei can talk to him.

There, where he stands in front of Tetsurou with his arms on his waist and nothing but those cloud socks and a pointed glare, Kei licks his teeth at him. "Well? Are you going to try and defend yourself or are you just going to stand there and gape at me?"

"You can see me," Tetsurou parrots.

Kei rolls his eyes and holy shit it’s so real , "Yes, I thought—"

"You can see me, and you can hear me," Tetsurou repeats, dumbfounded. He shakes himself out of it when his brain gets to the part where Kei is not, let’s say, freaking out, his voice going high as it can, "Wait, have you been able to do that all this time? Since the beginning?"

Kei huffs, still mad, “Yeah.”

Tetsurou yanks his hands from under his shorts with viciousness, feeling the layers snap back into place along with his outrage and yells, "Why didn't you say anything?!"

For a long moment, there’s nothing between them but the racking cough of whoever lives in the apartment above them. They’re coughing up a lung, clearing their throat and making wet sounds no human being should be able to do, much less with their mouth-related pieces. It stops, and Kei opens his own mouth-related pieces to offer Tetsurou what better be the explanation of a century when another bout of lung-expulsion commences.

With the tiniest curve of his lip Kei’s lips seal shut again, politely waiting for the noise to die down.

Infuriatingly well-mannered little prick.

When the air is devoid of icky sounds, Kei simply shrugs.

"Seemed like a hassle."

He can’t believe this. It doesn’t compute. Tetsurou sounds the words out, trying to make any sense of them and the person standing in front of him. "Telling the ghost that's haunting your apartment that you can see him seemed like a hassle."

Kei nods at him like this is a completely normal situation for either of them to be in, “See, you get it."

And Tetsurou, in that very moment, gets it. Boy, does he get it. Not unlike the vehicle that killed him, he’s hit by just how much he fucking gets it.

There’s no scoreboard.

He was never meant to win.

Tsukishima Kei is a god amongst men, mortal or otherwise, alive and dead, and Tetsurou always stood exactly zero chance to ever win in every dimension unfolding from their irrelevant, unimportant point in time and space.

He’s rudely—offensively interrupted by Kei’s alarm filtering through his back pocket from continuing to stand and stare and do absolutely nothing else other than basking in the full understanding of the last three months of his not-life. Kei is unaffected, as usual, while the current of white noise always in the back of Tetsurou’s head swells until he can see it.

Usually, this is the part where Tetsurou walks him to the door, makes a comment or two, wishes him a nice day while asking Kei to please not be weird when outside of this apartment. Today, he’s rooted to the beige carpet he can’t feel while his fake brain implodes at the knowledge that Kei has heard every single farewell, every single comment, including ‘ and your ass looks incredible today so don’t just sit somewhere and read, walk around, do a good deed and let the people see the goods!’

Kei gets dressed in something, he guesses. Tetsurou never thought he’d say this, but Kei’s wardrobe is the last thing on his priority list right now.

"I have to go. Whatever you were going to do just," Kei’s hand flings randomly as he grips the brassy doorknob, "don't do it in my room."

The door shuts with a click, caramel colored wood mocking Tetsurou silently. He’s still minutely floating above the same spot when not ten seconds later, it opens again and Kei peeks from the side.

Tetsurou hopes with whatever might be left of his soul that Kei is merciful with whatever comes out of his mouth.

“One more thing. What’s your name?”

The ceiling hasn’t changed in the past hour that Tetsurou has stared at it. The cracks running through it are the same no matter how many times his eyes run through the branching paths, the stains from when the apartment above them had a leak remain just as faded brown as they’ve always been. Circular and brown, oval and green, opaque and not, they look down on the previous three months and lay witness to Tetsurou’s plight.

Embarrassment and something that comes close to what must be shame are still flowing through him, foreign and uncomfortable. They spike with every passing memory of something he’s done since Kei has been living in the apartment that was not meant to exist in the presence of others. Fleeting snippets of conversations meant only for himself thrown in the air, snapshots of inappropriate comments. They leave him charged to the point where he feels bubbly and partly phasing through the couch. His leg sinks in and blends with the navy fabric, making him flinch and pull back out only to have to go through the same thing over again forty seconds later.

Tetsurou is a big ‘ol messy glitch.

It’s...not great.

Emotions when you’re an entity are this weird convoluted energy thing that Tetsurou has not a lot of experience with; so much is obvious by how he’s handling the ghost version of a blush. The only constant a ghostly tenure provides is the fact that you’re alone to do whatever the fuck you want to do (within certain boundaries he’s not going to get into because they’re not relevant right now), and not have to tell anyone about them. Up to an hour ago, he didn’t think he could tell anyone about them lest there was some sort of seancé or Tetsurou got really creative with lipstick.

There’s the first time he tried to go through the wall and bounced back so hard he and his overly charged body shattered a mirror. Or the first time the tried to turn on an electronic device and promptly fried the whole thing. Both of those things ended up with people moving out and him learning the ins-and-outs of being a baby ghost, but there wasn’t anyone to see him be a complete loser.

Kei changes the rules of the game completely.

When he first woke up here—in the messy, unkempt version of this place he first saw—there was nothing to do, nothing to be. He was a mass of unending open nerves, fizzing and crawling over every line, thread, and current of open energy. The transition from body to no-body is not so much violent as it is sudden. It leaves you reeling and relearning how to be now that you aren’t.

Also a lot violent, if he’s being honest.

Imagine you’ve been a fork all your life, then suddenly you’re a stress ball. Not the most poetic of examples but it’s accurate enough.

Terrifying.

Becoming a ghost isn’t as glamorous as the media portrays it. It’s a lot of isolation, confusion, and fear before you get a grasp on what’s possible. When, after painstaking trial and error, Tetsurou became Tetsurou he spent hours and hours doing nothing but saying his name out loud.

My name is Kuroo Tetsurou and I am—was human, I lived with Bokuto and Kenma, and Bokuto’s parrot Captain, my mom’s name is—

Over and over until it lost meaning. Until words became nothing but monotone, meaningless gibberish in a world made up of one.

Kuroo Tetsurou?

Okay, Kuroo. I’ll be back at six. Please get out of my room.

Tetsurou?

Kuroo. Tetsurou.

Okay, Kuroo

Okay. Kuroo.

Kuroo.

A wave swallows him whole, hands vibrating in and out of being, and leaves him shivering in a mess on the floor. He phased right through the couch and half into the floor. Tetsurou stares at the worn springs that live inside the guts of their couch and does nothing but think of how his name sounds coming from someone else's mouth. Then, he thinks of whose mouth that is and the sparks come back, excitement instead of embarrassment this time around.

He has so many questions.

Kei, true to his word, comes back home at almost six on the dot. Blinking red light from the clock on Tsukki’s nightstand shows a square 6:02. Light still streams from the living-room window, it’s rays strong and orange but fading into gray as the afternoon sun starts its descent. Tetsurou’s had a lot of time of time to think about what happens next.

Kei already knew the apartment was haunted when he moved in—something Tetsurou still has a hard time wrapping his head around because what the hell kind of sane person moves-in to a place that’s haunted? Willingly . Proactively . Kei is literally paying money to sleep with a ghost—so Tetsurou being around isn’t an issue that’s going to trigger a melting panic-attack and make Kei leave. Kei is pretty cozy shacking up with the undead.

(Tetsurou has always wondered if that’s a correct term, or if it only applies to beings of the corporeal variety: zombies, vampires, so on and so forth.)

Tetsurou isn’t sure how he feels about that— the whole Kei mostly seems to like the arrangement thing — in particular, but he’s been actively avoiding thinking about it since he accidentally put half his form in the wall between the bathroom and the kitchen. The inside of his not-mouth still tastes like dead.

The click from the door alerts him from where he “lays” on Kei’s bed. He chose to lounge there and not on the couch simply out of defiance. Tetsurou vanishes from his spot on the bed, sinking into the line that runs by the whole of the apartment and popping out in front of Kei, who instead of jumping like Tetsurou hoped he would just stare at him impassively.

Kei wears one of his favorite outfits, a mix of his and Tetsurou’s invention, created when Kei pulled out a pair of old sweats and was genuinely planning on leaving the house wearing them. Kuroo might have yanked them out of his hand and almost made him trip. Along with that memory resurfaces a jab of the glitchy feeling, the line he’s riding spiking in brightness before returning to a steady hum around him.

Tetsurou wants to make him look presentable outside and Kei likes to be comfortable. That outfit is the perfect compromise. The pants he wears are the fancy version of sweats, black and wooly. Tetsurou didn’t think a single person could own so many pairs of joggers instead of actual pants but surprises with Kei never end. He has black and white canvas shoes, along with his white, black, and maroon “Me? Sarcastic? Never” hoodie.

He looks good, like he always does when Tetsurou intervenes, but that is not what he cares about right now. Later.

Tetsurou minutely glitches again before he starts talking, “Oh, hey, hi roomie, glad you’re here, let’s talk about you, and wow, you can see me and I can see that you are not ignoring me anymore so I was wondering if we could talk about that because that's, like, super fucking weird, and how can you do it? Are you a psychic? Oh shit, are you like, a medium? Like that lady with the short blonde hair? Ohmygodisitablondething—”

Kei’s nose scrunches up as he takes a step back, tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth in distaste. “Jesus lord dude, calm the dick down,” he swats at Tetsurou before bypassing him completely and walking to the couch. He pulls the strap of his crossbody book bag over his head and drops it on the corner of the couch. “At least let me settle in.”

Tetsurou skinks back in the line to appear in front of Kei. “I can’t calm down! This is, this is—it’s! It is!”

“Tch, fine! If I answer your questions, will you stop popping up out of nowhere?”

“No! Yes!”

“Okay.” Kei sighs. “What do you want to know?”

Tetsurou flounders for a bit, trying to contain his excitement. “Can your whole family see ghosts? Is it like, hereditary or something?”

Kei sinks next to his bag. “No. Just me. My brother only gets a weird feeling.”

“Oh. You, ugh—” Tetsurou’s hand comes up to scratch the back of his neck—“saw that, didn’t you?”

“I did. Your face was priceless.”

“Hey, I wasn’t expecting to be swatted at.”

“There’s a lot of things you don’t expect, apparently.”

Embarrassment at this morning flows through him again. It catches him off guard and breaks through that fizzy feeling of having someone respond when he talks to them. There’s so much he wants to know but the blonde looks really uncomfortable, avoiding Tetsurou’s eyes as much as he can. Kei has gone from zero willing communication to being grilled in the span of 12 hours.

And Tetsurou was a total creep.

He clears his not-throat to catch Kei’s attention.

“Yeah, about that. I’m sorry. It was a very creepy thing to do, I won’t do it again.” Tetsurou withholds the 'but I’m not used to having to interact with anyone anymore and being held responsible for my actions' that threatens to follow because he’s not trying to justify making Kei uncomfortable in his own home. Pride fills him at the fact that he still knows how to apologize, followed by more shame at the fact that he has to.

Big day for Tetsurou’s emotions and growth.

It’s been a big day for both of them.

Kei is not going anywhere. Tetsurou can slowly suffocate Kei with his presence and learn all he wants to know in time. There is one last thing he’s dying to know right now.

“One more question—It’s really stupid—What are you studying? No, that’s not—Why the hell did you move into an apartment with a ghost?”

Kei doesn’t hesitate. “Rent is really cheap.”

Tetsurou looks around the room. Yes, full rent on a place like this is pretty good. Yes, Tetsurou’s constant need to prove that he still exists in the form of uncaringly revealing himself to the tenants has probably driven down the price to the point where it’s a bargain, but at what cost?

“But...ghost.”

“It's like having an alarm system, but you don’t have to pay for it.”

“Were you not worried about getting murdered? Or—or possessed?

”By who? You? No,” Kei chuckles.

Tetsurou bristles, too amused for it to have any sort of heat. Kei’s relaxed a bit, shoulders not as tense. “I could be a really bad ghost, like all boo and shit. You’d have to go Ghostbusters on my ass.”

Feeling Tetsurou’s retreat for the dismissal that it is, Kei stands up, stretching lightly. After his bag is slung over his shoulder, he answers. “I know what a bad ghost feels like, if I had felt a bad ghost I would have gone somewhere else. Is that all?”

There’s a shred of normalcy about it all, Kei talking about ghost-this and ghost-that with a nonchalance that makes it seem as if this is actually an everyday thing. Just a dude and his ghost roommate, shooting the breeze. “You are so fucking weird,” he says because he might be dead but he knows weird when he sees it.

Kei yells in his direction before the door to his room clicks shut. “I don’t want to hear that from someone who watches television while hanging from the ceiling.” 

Later, Kei bursts in from his room, earphones dangling from his neck. He rushes over to where Tetsurou is watching Las Rosas del Desierto and slams his hands down on the dull padding of the couch with the most emotion Tetsurou has ever seen him manifest.

Kei changed out of his clothes. He’s wearing the gray sweats that Tetsurou vetoed as going-out clothes and a green knit sweater two sizes too big that swallows his frame whole. A quick peek at his feet show matching snail socks.

He looks bright-eyed, cozy, and unfairly cute.

Tetsurou mutes the commercial for laundry soap right before Kei rushes out, “Did you die here? Is that why you’re haunting this place?”

Tetsurou is stunned, both by Kei's enthusiasm and the way he said that almost cheerfully, as if having his apartment be the scene of a gruesome murder (because that's how Tetsurou would die here) is the good answer.

Kei continues, “Because if you got murdered here, rent could be even cheaper.”

It’s not what Tetsurou expects at all, laugh bursting out of him. Kei waits for him to finish his outburst with minute impatience showing in his twitching brow. He files that for later and wipes an imaginary tear, Kei's excited face at his answer is making it hard for him to talk properly.

He considers lying, just a little white lie to keep Kei’s excitement going, but he settles for the truth. “No, I didn’t die here. The dude that did up my body when I died rented the place. He liked my necklace so he swiped it, and ta-da, here I am for eternity.”

Kei stares at him from behind his glasses, at a loss. “Then why are you still here? Couldn’t you just,” Kei waves around one of the hands previously on the arm of the couch, the green sleeve from his sweater flopping about, “get the necklace and go wherever.”

“The dude lost it.” Kei stares at him. Tetsurou gets it, he reacted the same way when it happened. That and rage-cracking the dude’s phone, the bathroom mirror, and the window. “He lost the necklace.”

Kei sputters, “But you’re still here!”

Tetsurou laughs again, less humor and more of something else that he doesn’t want to explore. “Fuck if I know, no one gives you the So now you’re dead talk. Ghosting 101 is self-taught.”

“So no brutal murder?” Kei sounds disappointed, physically sagging where he's bent.

“Nah, sorry. But I bet if you tell Karen something is spooky here with a scary enough voice, she’ll give you a discount. Now shhh, Victoria is about to fuck shit up.” 

Ten minutes into his novela Tetsurou is hit with the fact that they had a normal conversation. Kei walked out and casually asked him (odd but expected) questions, told him to close the window and went back to his room when commercials ended.

Like they’ve done it a hundred times before.

He phases half through the couch and watches as the channels on the screen flip a mile a minute on their own when he realizes that, unknowing to him, they have.

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[thedogsled]

Okay guys it’s about time we did this properly. This is Q.

John de Lancie is pretty much my single most long lived childhood crush so bear with me because this is a love post as much as it’s explanatory to those people who absolutely need to know. Q is a hugely significant character to the genre, and De Lancie appeared in three different series of Star Trek as the character (I’ll get to that). He’s basically the Star Trek universe’s trickster god (and on many worlds he’s even worshipped/feared as such, or as chaos, or mischief, or in one implication Loki *COUGHCOUGH*). So significant is the character in fact that Discord, the dragon in MLP, is also voiced by De Lancie.

Q introduced himself to the crew of the Enterprise-D as “Q”, but went on to explain that he is a Q (a member of the Q Continuum) and therefore other Q are called Q too. When Q was introduced, he was putting humanity on trial. If they failed, the Q would exterminate them, and if they passed...well. The implication has always been imo that humanity has the capability to become essentially Q, and that’s where the evolutionary arc is leading them. What’s fascinating, however, is that the more time Q spends around humanity, the more it affects him as well. Seen as rebellious, he’s considered an outcast by the rest of the Continuum at one point, but is brought back into the fold later on to resolve issues. He has a whole character arc within the three series he’s in which is expanded on by the books.

Since I enjoy a good story about multidimensional beings that become more human as time goes on, and the quest for humanity in general, I sort of love him to death. Also this:

P.S. The trial that Q puts the Enterprise crew through? Spoilers: it’s the entire seven season run.

According to the books (and Q himself), the Q have always existed. He wasn’t ‘born’, but he did experience a coming of age, and my favorite book followed Q as he explored his powers, wandering around the universe making dodgy friends with other interdimensional beings. Despite this upbringing Q eventually does what no Q ever has before and makes a little baby Q (called Junior, played briefly as a baby by De Lancie’s own son on ST: Voyager). He then has to raise him and teach him his values, though the kid has serious superpowers (like our Jack) and other things on his mind.

tbf he respects his daddy almost as much as his daddy respects... idk. julian bashir:

Q is capricious. In the beginning he can give zero shits about mortals and their problems. Ultimately he maybe gives only one or two shits about mortals and their problems, but it’s an improvement.

His powers are basically anything he wants he gets. He can teleport into people’s beds, seduce them with puppies, instantly transport a ship 75000 light years in a blink of an eye, shrink it down to the size of a christmas tree decoration and put it on a christmas tree on the actual ship that’s shrunk down, generate dancing girls, and whine about EVERYTHING EVER in a totally endearing way.

Oh and there was that one time Sisko punched him in the face. Picard never did that, though for Picard Q was much more of a nemesis, introducing the crew of the Enterprise to the Borg among other things. And appearing in his bed. And basically acting like superior intellectual gatekeeper to the universe.

Not to mention he basically wore the captain’s uniform to mock and undermine him from the get go. (There’s only one captain on a starship after all, so this was Q mirroring Picard deliberately to challenge his authority)

Just as in any search for humanity story, Q experiences being human, but ultimately he doesn’t really like it very much. This is after he experiences falling asleep for the first time:

Powers are where it’s at for Q. He has a superiority complex that is pretty unparalleled, biting sarcasm, and is used to explore just how a being with unlimited power might act in any situation, and how in some ways the lack of humanity is a weakness. Q is not bound by general rules of physics. He’s much more aware of multiverses, scoffs at the passage of time, manipulates gravity and relative dimensions in space.

Not to mention the Continuum itself (the place not the species), which exists outside of our universe and is.......basically the most boring place ever. Where is the lie?

Oh and there was that one time he pretended to be God for shits and giggles

And tried to seduce Janeway because he admired her or something. (Or actually cause he was being a bratty rebel but whatever). And like I mentioned already he tried to seduce her with puppies.

And both intentionally started and ended a civil uprising in the Continuum because he was sick of being predictable (even though the civil war literally resulted in stars exploding and other awful cosmic things)

I could literally be here all night and not say all the things I want to say about him, so I’ll just leave you with this not safe fw gif as the last one. It’s so scandalous...

Long story short I love this guy. And there’s no doubt there’s a little bit of De Lancie in Misha’s Qstiel. Now you know (and shame on you! go watch some Star Trek!)

(Edit: tldr: Q is a cosmic entity with the power to transform his appearance and manipulate the universe around him. He’s more powerful than God (even literally in his canon), and even once appeared to a character when they were ‘dead’ to mock them and force them to confront their past before returning them to their life to live it better. He also put humanity on trial for all its mistakes via the Enterprise crew. He’s also a mocking little shit with a superiority complex who likes to get things his own way.)

[renrutnnej]

I never wanted to be a mother

Oh boy, the miracle of birth and whatnot!

I’m really bad at absolutes. For example, as long as I can remember I’ve told people I never wanted to be a wife or a mother. As a little girl I remember looking at both jobs and being like, “Nah.”

My daughter was not my first pregnancy. The first time I was en-wombed was in university and I was a freshman who in the short span of six months time was sexually assaulted, and entered into a volatile physically and emotionally abusive relationship. Because of some mental health problems and a total lack of self esteem, I didn’t see either of these things in their correct light, I just thought my first year away from home was a real education in female adulthood.

Fortunately my first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage. Is it weird or wrong to say that? I don’t think so. I was 19 and had already chipped a front tooth from being punched in the face by my boyfriend. So when I think about that time in my life, I don’t feel any guilt. Also I didn’t know I was pregnant until it was too late and what I thought was the worst period of my life was actually a miscarriage.

This gave me the impression that my physical person was a hostile environment to children. It proved that I knew I could and would not be a mother, ever.

—

To talk about my daughter’s birth, I have to set the stage, which in retrospect I’ve always described as an unfortunate series of events, but now I realize fully how incomplete and lacking in good substance my life would have been without her. I have to look at these events as exactly the way things were supposed to happen.

First, I could not find a writing job out of college (I graduated with a degree in English literature, lucrative I know). All of my self esteem issues came to a head and I resigned myself to the fact that I had been posing in college as a person with ambition when really I was going to end up staying a small town person working retail or as another’s administrative assistant or something.

Second, my sister graduated from college the following year and decided to move to Las Vegas. Through zero seconds of trying to convince me I decided to come along. Also our parents were already living there (they had moved while we were both in university).

This new start inspired me and I decided to do something completely different with my life. I was going to change the world by joining the Peace Corps. Whoa, except that stipend does NOT even come close to covering my credit card bills and student loans. Umm, backup plan, I was going to change the world by teaching English in South America, somewhere like Argentina or something. In the meantime I had to save up for this adventure so I took the first job I could, in retail.

Third, sexism has pissed me off for a long time. Growing up tomboy really instilled an (arguably ignorant) type of jealous competitiveness in me. Anything they can do, I can do better, or in the very least I can do it too. So when my male peers (retail managers) were having relationships with younger employees, I decided to too. I’m a modern woman, and cougars were like definitely a thing by then. I started hooking up with a very hot, barely legal (but also very legal), sales associate.

Next, in a few months time my sister moved to Seattle and my parents moved back to Washington state. They moved me into my own apartment on Warm Springs and back home to Richland in the same weekend. Finally I was a modern woman living in Las Vegas, with her lifelong companion cat (i.e., cat I picked out when I was 6 years old) Beauty, making it happen.

Just kidding, I got pregnant.

—

Getting pregnant a second time was a complete shock. And by that I mean, I thought it was impossible. As in, not even within the realm of possibility.

I’d been having some lady troubles for sometime and since my sister had had Exorcist level kidney stone problems I went to the doctor right away for fear. The doctor confirmed what I had known since I was 19. Well, almost. She said it appeared that my symptoms might be an indication that I was infertile. Twenty-four year old me: duh. But they still had to run the tests.

Getting pregnant brought intricate complexity and mind-numbing simplicity to my life. Having to tell the parents of my 18 year old (now boyfriend, ugh) that I was pregnant was terrifying. Having to tell my parents, worse.

No more changing the world.

No more Argentina.

No more writing.

No more freedom.

I had just fast tracked my path to wife and mother by being a “modern woman” making things happen.

No more infertility, what the hell?

And since this was clearly a miracle baby, getting rid of her never once entered my mind. This was obviously a baby Jesus type situation.

We moved from Vegas to Kansas City with his family. To say it politely, my parents weren’t pleased by my condition and the distance did us both a lot of good (I told myself). His family, on the other hand, were very happy and excited by the baby’s coming. At least they always gave the very genuine appearance of being so. I was less excited.

Actually I was the most depressed I’d been in my life at that point. I knew my body was a hostile place to fetuses so what the heck!?

I absolutely could not imagine the whole exit strategy of my situation. Instead I imagined death.

I took lots of time to myself and wrote pages and pages of tear-stained journals I can’t bear to read now. I slept as much as I could. I was mourning my death while I was still alive, growing a life inside of me.

Also I had to get rid of my cat, what the fuck.

—

I knew I was never meant to be anyone’s mother and so I was positive I would carry this baby to term and die during labor, and she would be cared for by this warm and loving family. And I would die young like I’d always predicted. Well, youngish.

My OBGYN became worried by my morbid questions about death rates.

I refused to have a baby shower or anything resembling a baby shower because I couldn’t imagine celebrating the event that was going to kill me.

My lamaze class teacher asked me stop asking questions about worst case scenarios because I was scaring the other mothers.

—

Working in retail brought about what I felt to be appropriate levels of shame and self-hatred.

Strangers, assuming me to be much younger than I was, made completely hideous comments about me and my baby, and my education (lol, right). I was constantly touched and given advice by strangers, interrogated regularly.

My retail district was close to a particularly violent one regarding shoplifters. Other managers in my store had been maced or stabbed with the tools shoplifters brought into stores to break off the security tags. One day I found the equivalent of a shiv in the front room of my store and went into the stockroom and had a complete mental and emotional break down imagining approaching the wrong customer just one time.

I felt I deserved this, though it enraged me. This was my penance.

My hormones surged. I snuck as many drinks of wine at family dinners as I could. (Sorry baby, but red wine is delicious). I had nightmares about delivering babies with heads shaped like deflated basketballs, or delivering piles of bloody guts. I obsessed over my single friends awesome lives (aka highlight reels) on Facebook.

It made me bitter that I had to die. I became resentful of my baby’s father, even though he tried his best with me. He wanted to marry me and have more kids, be a dad. I knew she’d be okay. Hopefully he’d marry someone who wasn’t anything like me or that evil stepmom bitch in Cinderella.

I’d end up letting him name her. I chose her middle name, Violet.

—

It began one Sunday night, after a large steak dinner (with red wine) at his parents. I kept feeling like I had to poop really bad every twenty minutes. It was so bad that I couldn’t sleep. By 1am I was on the toilet trying to push steak out and when I saw drops of blood, I freaked out. IT’S TIME! I screamed.

He sprung into action. What do we bring? Spoiler alert, I hadn’t even packed a “go” bag because I never planned on coming back.

We listened to Jason Mraz on the short drive to the hospital. God, this is the last song I’m ever going to hear. I focused on the words and tried to clear my mind of pushing all of my guts out.

When we got to the hospital, they did some tests and I wasn’t far enough along. Maybe this is a fake out, and I can go home and go to bed. No, the nurse told me, you’ll progress it just takes a little time.

Another nurse came in and did a quick ultrasound to see the baby’s position. Her tone worried me, looks like this one’s a breach baby. You’ll have to adjust your birthing plan. Just knock me out, I sighed. Oh oops, those are the baby’s shoulders. I thought it was her butt. She was low and engaged, and I was fine. That fucking nurse.

So he walked me around the hospital corridors while I had the worst cramps of my life. I tried not to cry.

This is how it ends, me alone in the hospital, out in the midwest, without any of my friends or family, with this kid, and this other kid inside me.

Around 4am I finally reached a point where I could get pain meds and this other drug that would help my labor progress while I was medicated, but first they had to break my water. I was terrified of any more pain. They showed me what looked like a knitting needle that they’d insert to break the membrane. The nurse assured me, her name was Bridget by the way, that it was painless. I sobbed. Couldn’t they just knock me out. My knees clamped shut and I couldn’t keep from trembling.

But it was painless and suddenly I was sitting in a puddle of what just felt like warm pee. That was it, water broken. I felt like an idiot. The drugs came quickly after that and by 5am I had progressed to the point that I could get the one thing that was keeping me going through this whole ordeal: an epidural.

The anesthesiologist came in and sat me perpendicular to the gurney. He told me to sit still because he was putting a needle the length of a ruler down my spine. But the painkillers really got to me and I had to crack jokes about how the only thing separating my naked body from the doctors and nurses in that room was a piece of paper gown. My boyfriend looked white. I was already stoned.

Afterward, I was finally comfortable, and I drifted off to sleep quickly. Bridget came in once an hour on the hour and put her whole hand in my vagina to see how far down the head was. I didn’t like being woken up but I couldn’t really feel anything and Bridget was my best friend at that point.

Around 10:45am things picked up. My baby’s dad was downstairs eating breakfast with his family when Bridget told me I’d need to call him, I was almost at 10 centimeters. He came back with his mom and Bridget told me now when I felt the urge to push to do it.

I didn’t want to poop on the table and I couldn’t get up to like clear things out before I labored a baby so I gave some weak ass pushes. Bridget could tell.

I gave one hard push and she exclaimed, JUST LIKE THAT! But I saw his face and I knew I had pooped. The shame. But again, I was stoned so meh.

Strangely I had turned down the floor length mirror at the foot of the bed because I didn’t want to see myself die, but if the end was coming I really didn’t want to see it.

“Bridget can you take off your glasses? With the lights and everything I can see my vagina and I really just can’t right now.”

She did.

With his mom video recording the monumental eruption and destruction of my vagina, my first child was born at 11:25 am. The doctor, I don’t know when she showed up (?), put the blue, guts covered baby on my chest.

She was out. I had tried not to picture her before because I never wanted to let myself go down that road in my mind.

I looked at her. She looked at me. She was gross. But she was an alive thing with eyes who looked at me. She looked like she’d been freezing (she was blue) in bloody Cream of Wheat. Also she had pooped in utero and that was everywhere, super great.

I had nothing profound to say, so I said, “Oh my god, a baby.”

Then they whisked her away to clean her up and do all the baby tests. Everyone else left too.

My body got overtaken with waves of pregnancy hormones coursing through me while I delivered the placenta and my whole body convulsed as the pregnancy hormones left me. NO, I DO NOT WANT TO SEE THE PLACENTA. Jesus.

The doctor began to clean up the volcanic eruption where my lower lady parts used to live. I knew I had felt a slight burning sensation during the birth, but I didn’t know it was a tear. I simply thought it was the slight onset of death.

It didn’t make sense to me that I was alive.

I had no plan for this. I didn’t even bring a nightgown.

Now what?

—

As of the time of my pregnancy, I can’t recall seeing any birth or pregnancy narratives that highlighted feelings like fear, depression, or general reservations without framing them them as fleeting blue aspects of an otherwise golden soft lit scenario. That’s not real life. I’m sharing my story, because even though I was certainly depressed, I don’t know that my feelings of doubt at the sudden onset of potential motherhood are all that uncommon.

When I share my true feelings and experience with friends, I often hear that other women are relieved by my candor. Dutiful, knowing mother is a trope to which I do not subscribe, and frankly, doesn’t reflect my experience at all. So I’m offering my story as just one against the many almost romantic Disney-esque birth and pregnancy stories. My daughter and I did not live happily ever after, and our relationship, just like any other, is one that has required hard work and patience (a lot of patience) but we’re both better for it.

This story originally appeared on Medium, April 3, 2016.

[viralhottopics]

Im A Millennial Republican And Im Sick Of All The Crying

Let me start by asking: do you remember a time when ones political leanings were a topic kept wholly and unequivocally private? I do. I remember when it was uncouth, improper, and just plain rude to ask someone who they voted for and why outside of intimate family and loved ones. Do you want to know why that was such an excellent practice? Because it didnt drive a stake between you, me, and everyone else. At the end of the day, your take on abortion, on the death penalty, on civil rights these are the innermost things about you. They are very personal opinions. This is part of the reason I am so against the liberal attitude. I dont feel the need to scream my opinions from every abstract rooftop I can find, gathering people to my cause. I also dont feel the need to cast people from my proverbial Olympus when they have (the audacity) to disagree with me or my causes. This past year has been a media circus and a shitshow. Ive long gone quiet as members of my party are painted as racists, bigots, and terrible people. It wasnt enough that the silent majority showed up on Election Day and blew your minds to say were here, were relevant, the Republican personality is still constantly under fire.

I am a young, female Republican that has voted for candidates from both major political parties. And I didnt make that decision blanketed in the ignorance of privilege. Privilege, especially racial privilege, is part of my life certainly. But I have suffered personally the way everyone suffers. And that is an important piece of knowledge to remember. Everyone comes from struggle. No one has a perfect life. Since when did the national currency become sympathy and pity? I have zero let me reiterate ZERO interest in playing the who had the worse life game with people my age. Because, believe me, I could play hardball if I wanted to about individual suffering. But I enjoy my privacy, and my dirty laundry is, unfortunately, none of your business. My struggle is not why people should notice me and remember my life. My sad story doesnt chalk up my measure of relevance. How about my sense of humor? My undying loyalty? My work ethic? Those are the things I want celebrated. Not the fact that Ive survived what Ive survived. And because Ive lived through real trauma, I want that to be the thing that defines me least. Todays democrat seems to be a card carrying member in the belief of youre only as good as what youve overcome, when theyre also championing the hope that one day, no one will have to overcome anything.

I voted for Donald Trump. Not out of choice, but out of necessity. Thats who my party chose as its representative. And, sorry to say it DNC, your party didnt bring a valuable player to the table. Im not going to be star-spangled thrilled for Hillary just because we share the common biological fact of both owning uteruses. Do I LIKE Donald Trump? No, I think hes a big mouth who says stupid things and isnt representative character of what I believe a president should be. But neither was Hillary Clinton. And neither was Barack Obama. In the light of no choice, I made one in the voting booth rather than being inactive.And maybe this is hard for whoever holds the position of POTUS, but I swear to God, there needs to be a stop on the current Commander in Chief rolling over like a pig in shit over the celebrity of the position. Youre not a celebrity you are much, much more than that. Youre our face to the rest of the world. Not a fucking actor or someone who shakes their shit on stage for my amusement. Youre not a star, youre a country. Thats the job you signed up for. Not appearing on fucking Between Two Ferns. Not creating photo ops of you shooting hoops with Steph Curry. Youre more than a meme and more than a dad joke. Act like it. Do you know why I didnt vote for Hillary Clinton? Because she was so goddamn condescending. What, because Im in my twenties, and youre parading Jay-Z and Beyonces endorsement in my face, thats it? Vote won? I dont fucking think so. The absolute last thing I am concerned about when it comes to a president is who star-studded, ZERO political acumen Los-fucking-Angeles is voting for. If the 1% of people who are so removed from financial burden, from prejudice, from hardship of any kind, thinks youre the end all be all of White House potential thats a major red flag for me. The American public and the American millennial is so much more than our likes on Facebook and what we read on Buzzfeed. And if thats not obvious to you, then youre not my candidate. Stop bumping tits with Katy Perry go to fucking Wisconsin.

Socially, Im a liberal person. I love the LGBT and queer community, and they should have every opportunity and every right to be happy in this world, whatever that may be. I believe in racial equality. Just because your ancestors were born closer to the equator than mine (because thats exactly what difference in skin color is) is a non-fucking-entity and should be treated as such. As a professional woman fighting to find a place in corporate America, Im definitely a feminist. I believe women of any and all races are capable, smart, better than the female stereotype, and a million other wonderful things. And you can keep your abortions, too, because I think theyre a necessity for people in special cases. But that doesnt mean abortions are for me. Were literally arguing a matter of life or death here, and just in case the sign-slinging left is wrong when we all meet our maker, Id rather not fall on that side of the line. Our welfare system is a broken, shell of a thing that doesnt find the people that need it and allows itself to be taken advantage of by far too many. I believe in a right to bear arms, because as a survivor of rape and someone who lives in a big city, theres no way Im going through that shit a second time. I believe in a capitalist country where the ceiling is only as high as you settle for, for individual instances of prosperity. The economy is a balancing act, and the more Obama poured his efforts into urban centers (his voters shocker), the more the working class in Middle America suffered.

To me, the prime segregator between a millennial voter of opposing parties boils down to one thing attitude. Far too many people today have their hands out for what they can get for as little effort as possible. Far too many people are bleeding hearts for every sob story. The modern democrat isnt waging a war against Donald Trump, theyre waging a war against a persons choice to be an asshole. If I want to be selfish with the money Ive earned and see as much of it possible in my paycheck, I have that right. If I choose to be uncaring about whatever cause and its GoFundMe than youve posted, thats okay, too. And you can turn your nose up at it as much as you want, but it doesnt stop it from being true. Newsflash, enlightened NYC hipster you are not the only people that exist. Just because you majored in philosophy at Fordham doesnt mean youre some renaissance man. Its fucking disgusting to paint a Republican as uneducated. I have a Masters Degree, and you can suck on it. In their efforts to be a social media vigilante for every Tom, Dick, and Harry with a struggle, the democrats have become the bullies. Theyll shame, troll, and shit on anyone who doesnt think Bernie Sanders is the fucking Messiah. In their efforts to encircle everyone in their warm, squishy embrace, theyve fleshed out an entire stereotype against 304 electoral districts worth of voters. The tables have turned youre the assholes, now. Youre no better than the Duck Dynasty backwater racists you paint most Republicans to be. Ripping down blue ribbons for law enforcement, Facebook status making, weeping on the picket line, crying on each others shoulders in the auditorium, straight up assholes. My struggle doesnt define me. My shortcomings are not my identifiers. I dont need your pity. And when I need your support, Ill ask for it.In the modern Democrats mission for extreme tolerance, theyve become the alienators. So pull your head out of your ass, young blowhard. Take a look around. Its never going to be Kumbaya for the masses. There is no safe space.

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