#and then go ‘sorry we’re not shipping to Canada’

[seeminglyseph]

Okay seph, just… specifically spend less money on dolls this month and buy this set of glorious twins. That’s what you have to do. Yes they are $90 they are glorious though.

I wish Sunny still had fun buns but I understand that she needs to have more than the same hairstyle over and over, and Luna’s fun buns are fantastic looking, but Sunny has a little bit of torpedo head going on.

Other than Sunny no longer having Sailor Moon hair which was her trademark and something about her I loved so much, I need to focus and purchase this set. Maybe I’ll get lucky and it will inexplicably go on sale. Like. For the end of summer. Or something.

The Madison Twins are definitely top Twins even if I don’t have the Shadow High twins that are like over $100 in Canadian markets so sorry bubble gum mouth you are excluded from the running due to being like

$172.02 on Canadian Wal-Mart and almost impossible to find elsewhere, that’s too much money. I’m waffling on $89.99 for a superior twin set and you’re sitting there at $172.02. Don’t talk to me.

[alicepao13]

Hudson and Rex S06E08

Another good episode. As a disclaimer, I’ve had a pretty specific idea of how this episode should be like, so I went in a little bit negatively predisposed. Also, these aren't in order. Sorry.

I remember the dead guy. He was in the episode with Meghan Ory’s character, the first one of the two.

“He’s dead. Are you happy?” Calm down, ma’am, you’re giving him reasons to be stupidly self-sacrificing.

Joe: Charlie no. Charlie: Charlie yes.

“We’re going to transfer all the inmates I’ve arrested out of the prison.” You’ll… what… now?

“I’ll find your killer and get rid of your drug problem”. And also fix your plumbing (oh, wait), clean your laundry, and create a gourmet menu for your prison.

Okay they did find a good reason for Rex to be in there. I'd still have preferred Charlie alone in prison and Rex investigating on the outside.

I hate this hairstyle. There, I said it. However, it’s more fitting to prison inmate Chuck than what Charlie has had all season so far as a cop. Which has actually been tolerable as an image despite not fitting the character, and I refuse to spend more time on that because I keep seeing it being commented on and when this keeps happening, I feel bad.

I think I know the actor who plays Charlie’s prison bunkmate but I can’t place him.

Charlie displayed a lot of badassery in this episode. Also, I think John Reardon did some good work acting wise in this one.

Charlie said “I love you”, “babe”, “you’re the hottest woman I’ve ever seen”, “sweetheart” to Sarah, and all of that while he was undercover in prison and through the phone??? Who do I talk to about this? How was there not a better moment for this? It’s like they wanted to throw these words out in the open in the least romantic way possible.

The way I hate “babe” and yet every single couple I ship is using it… They’re lucky I’ve been desensitized since Castle.

And Sarah’s facepalm on the other end lmao. It’s obviously not the first “I love you” at least. I wonder what she calls him.

I liked the instrumental music for the prison scenes. It was very much on point.

Damn, they put him in solitary for 24 hours. This couldn’t have awakened any claustrophobic feelings from a) the freezer b) the cave collapse, c) the coffin he was buried in d) the containers that almost turned him into a pancake? Come on, guys. Also, do they or do they not have solitary in Canada? It can’t keep changing according to the season.

Sarah worried because her idiot almost died in prison. Charlie finally (I might pass out) having a moment of weakness? Saying that he misses Sarah and Rex? I did not think I'd live to see it.

Jesse saying that they'd pull out Charlie if it gets too dangerous… This is way too optimistic. Realistically, he would have gotten shivved before anyone could do anything about it.

Rex totally wanted to maul that guy for injuring Charlie. Once again, why can’t we see him baring his teeth? German shepherds have scary canine teeth, they’re not just cute and cuddly.

I liked Joe as a guard. And interrogating the suspect, getting a bit handsy with him.

Detective Jesse Mills. Doing interrogations. Detecting lol

Bringing back a bad guy from S1? Interesting choice. I barely remember the guy. And wasn’t that episode like a collective fandom hallucination or something? When Charlie mentioned the guy had killed a kid I was like, oh so we haven’t seen that case. That’s how much I don’t remember that episode.

“Lots can change in that time” Charlie, you’re squeaky clean, bud. You tried to be “bad” in S4 and lasted for like four minutes.

Also, in every show I’ve seen, once a cop enters prison, no one cares whether he’s a disgraced cop. They’d want to kill him either way.

Either they shot the scenes of the prison yard in one day or it was raining all the days they had those scenes. Very gloomy weather, it added a bit of extra grime to the episode.

“Do you want to read the letters with me?” Absolutely not. He wants to go back home, hug his girlfriend and have a hot shower to wash the prison off of him. Maybe this all happened off screen already. I don’t care. I didn’t see it so it didn’t happen.

I liked the episode. It didn’t go my way at all but it’s understandable. I wanted some more danger towards the end, as people were catching on to the fact that Charlie was a cop. Also, Charlie had way too much communication with the team, I know it doesn’t make sense for me to not want that, but it also doesn’t make sense for an undercover cop in prison to be able to be in touch with almost every member of his team throughout the episode. Did I want a Charlie and Sarah scene in the end? Absolutely.

Promo: That is a pretty lame promo for what should be a character centric episode. It looks like a complete filler, devoid of character moements. I hope it will be a character centric episode and not a filler NCIS episode (because Navy). Hopefully it’s just lousy promo editing and not a lousy episode. Interesting choice for Charlie’s dad. And I know people might hate me for this, but I’ll say it anyway. I did prompt a few storylines to an AI model about Charlie facing off his dad, and the AI would always, always have his dad call him Charles. Fucking hell.

There’s no way Sarah is not meeting Charlie’s dad, right? I need to be reassured.

Dude seems so dismissive of Rex that I hope Rex bites him. He should be allowed to bite family members who are being assholes.

[icarusthelunarguard]

This Week’s Horrible-Scopes

It’s time for this week’s Horrible-Scopes! So for those of you that know your Astrological Signs, cool! If not, just pick one, roll a D12, or just make it up as you go along. It really doesn’t matter. Better yet! Check out “Heart of the Game, Fredonia” - they can sell you those D12’s with the symbols on them! Get in contact with them on Facebook, shipping to the U.S. only, and tell them “Shujin Tribble” sentcha. “Hail, Hail, Fredonia!” Home of the Blue Devil!

Now that the nights are starting sooner and lasting longer, let’s see how we can help you all out… by letting you know that it gets even worse if you have a job you have to fight to stay awake in. So suit up, true believers! We’re taking you on a trip to Dullsville… and Mystery Inc isn’t invited!

Aries 

This is a tough one on us because it is, without a doubt, one of the dullest jobs, but also one of the most lucrative: Tax Consultant. The job revolves around personal finances and tax liabilities and how to maximize take-home funds against tax returns, and make sure your clients are following the law. So This Week… Nobody ever says they want to be a Tax Consultant as a kid. There’s a reason for that. Listen to your Inner Child

Taurus 

Honestly, we’re as stumped as you will be on this one: Clergy member! There’s a lot of things that could be said about this job, only some of which are usable in polite company. But let’s be clear here - a good portion of the image for this job depends a lot on what group you affiliate with. So This Week… Investigate “The Church of ‘YES!’ ” as created by Kristen Applebees. 

Gemini 

Once seen as the newest extension of the Office Typing Pool, you’ll be doing the work of seven people as a Data Entry Worker. OH! Sorry. Should we have called the position Data Entry Operator? Honestly, it really doesn’t matter. There’s very little that can up the fun factor of this job. You’ll be gathering information from various locations and condensing it into a new location - usually by trying to read someone’s handwriting and re-typing it for storage later. So This Week… There is a bright side to this job - you could just do it at home and work in your sleepwear. You DO wear “something” to sleep, right? Keep that in mind when you have to video conference in.

Cancer Moon-Child 

For all the hype that this job gets, which is Very Little, it’s hardly as glamorous as it once was. You’ll be a Bank Teller - and just to be clear you will not get robbed nearly as often as you think you will. Between automated teller machines and online banking and High-Def Cameras it’s getting less-and-less likely that you’ll be dealing with actual cash, so there’s little incentive to actually try to rob the place. So This Week… There is nothing more disgusting than the smell of newly minted bills direct from the Federal Reserve. Don’t believe us? Go to the teller window and withdraw $100, but ask to have it in one package of new $1 bills. Obviously this doesn’t work in Canada, so… Thumbs Up, Canada!

Leo 

Are you good with remembering where every little scrap of paper is located? You know where all the proverbial bodies are buried? That’s about the only saving grace for your job: File Clerk. Yeah, consider what you think about that job already, and chop your expectations off at the ankles. It’s not a job with long-term security now, you know, now that so much stuff is being digitized. So This Week…  If you want this job, expect you’ll have to pass some tough employment screenings, since you’ll likely be in government, legal, or hospital arenas. So keep your nose clean and you’ll make pretty good money.

Virgo 

Do YOU want to be part of a Super Secret Government Agency that answers to almost nobody and has the pulse of the nation at its proverbial fingertips? Well, forget about it because we’re setting you up to be a Postal Service Worker. Look, we’re not gunna sugar coat this one; you might be working outside or inside, maybe sorting otherwise unsortable envelopes or changing out a P.O. Box’s key. It’s not glamorous, it’s not exactly healthy, and it’s sure as hell not going to get you an interview with the Men in Black, but you’ll get first crack at all the commemorative stamps being printed. So This Week… You don’t really want this job. Check in with DHL and see if they have an opening instead.

Libra

Are you listening? Good… Listen closely… Receptionist. Once upon a time ago the job was a glorified switchboard operator, but now it’s so much worse. You have people walking up to you to talk, deliveries asking where to go, customers setting up appointments, and the occasional person trying to scam their way into your facility. And you have to keep a smile on your face the whole time so you aren’t offputting to anyone, since you’ll be the forward face of the company. So This Week… Practice Saying this phrase, “One Ringey-Dingey. Two Ringey-Dingey”. Some people will smile in understanding. They’re the ones that’ll appreciate you and your job.

Scorpio 

In a lot of stores there’s a job that’s considered Less-Than-Worthy, and you’re getting it assigned this week: Cashier. In most countries they don’t care if you sit or stand for your shift, so long as you’re making the transaction work well and don’t break anything. So This Week… There WILL be people putting combinations on the conveyor belt just to see your reaction. Just look them dead in the eye, raise an eyebrow, and don’t say anything. See how long it takes for them to blush and look away. Beat them at their own game.

Sagittarius 

We know how much a big-wig you like to play yourself off as, and honestly we’re kicking ourselves for feeding that, but that’s what the Stars picked for you. You get to be a Business Manager! You get to tell people what to do, when to do it, how to do it, and best of all, they need to do it or you get upset. So This Week… You know all those orders you keep giving out? If you’re given bad information by mistake and you tell people to do the wrong thing, guess who looks like an idiot? That’s right, it’s all you, bay-bee! Remember that. You owe your success to everyone else around you.

Capricorn 

We don’t know where this one came from or who thinks this is a way to make money, but somehow Mathematician is an IRS approved job title. We don’t understand what you need to do to earn a living that way, but we have an idea, and it’s not a good one. So This Week… Do you remember the plot of Superman III? Go watch it again and don’t do that. 

Aquarius 

No matter how many times you hear the expression, “PC Load Letter - What does that even mean?!” you will never not find that funny. You’re about to become an Office Worker! Now, yes, there are people who want specific supplies, like staplers, but there is one thing that you want to be sure you do NOT ever screw up. So This Week… If you drop a tray of printer toner and it dusts the whole room, DO NOT BREATHE! Get out of there, close the door, and call for backup!

Pisces  

You’re such an outgoing personality that this one feels like it’s against the Geneva Conventions to assign it to you - but we’ve got a job to do and damnit we’re doing it! Accountant. Once you boil it down your job is about doing simple math. Seriously! You know how to do Percentages and Multiplication? You’ve got half the job done right there. The other half is following convoluted instructions. So This Week… Spreadsheets are like Baking - Do it right and it’s great for everyone. Do it wrong and, well… Just follow the directions your predecessor left behind. Trust Us. Just do it.

And THOSE are your Horrible-Scopes for this week! Remember if you liked what you got, we’re obviously not working hard enough at these. BUT! If you want a better or nastier one for your own sign or someone else’s, all you need to do to bribe me is just Let Me Know - or check out the Ko-Fi page ( https://ko-fi.com/icarusthelunarguard )! These will be posted online at the end of each week via Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, Discord, and BLUESKY.

[pennzance]

Ghostbusters: Port Huron (Episode 19)

Episode 19: Captain Hatchet

October 4th, 1998

Incident report by Bryan

On a Sunday. Man, screw this guy.

We’ve been on high alert for the last few days because of Dan’s cryptic warning schtick. I was really hoping it wasn’t going to be on Sunday, but of course it was. When the traffic is always at its worst.

At about 4pm (again, on a SUNDAY), we got a call from the Coast Guard. A vessel has been spotted on Lake Huron flying very old flags and, when approached, firing actual cannons at people. A Coast Guard vessel had gone out and been sunk, and the waterlogged men who had been pulled from the water by a daring speedboat driver doing his own thing had stated that the vessel was captained by a transparent pirate.

Cue us. While Jeremy, Amber, Eric and Kelly took the Ecto-908 to the Coast Guard station, Jason and I went a little further down the St. Lawrence River to the Lightship Museum. I can’t say I was surprised that the engine of the ancient boat was running, but I appreciated Dan being ready.

“Ready ta cast off, me bucko!” Dan crowed from the upper level of the ship, obviously having the time of his afterlife.

“You can’t just steal a museum and sail it into a naval engagement!” I shouted up at him.

Dan didn’t care. “All aboard who’s comin’ aboard! Bring them fancy lightnin’ guns o’ yers, we’re gonna need ‘em!”

I dragged Jason aboard and almost immediately the Lightship drifted away from the dock, much to the surprise and shouted questions of the manager standing impotently on the shore. The entire ship had a shimmer to it, almost like it was covered in a thin layer of oil, but it wasn’t slick to the touch. “Dan, what the hell?” Jason managed to shout. He was acclimating quickly.

“Gotta move quick,” I heard Dan say, although his voice wasn’t coming from any particular direction. “If Hatchet gets to the bridges, he’ll be in the wind and we’ll never catch ‘im.”

I could see the Bluewater Bridges from our vantage point on the river, and a bit ahead of us the Coast Guard were casting off their second, smaller boat with the rest of the team on board. There was some other traffic on the water in the river, but the sight of the old Lightship unmoored and moving was making the ones who weren’t stopping to stare vacate the area with all haste.

There was an absolutely unnatural fog rolling in from the lake. The Bluewater Bridges that connected Port Huron and the United States to Sarnia and Canada stood at the mouth of the river, where the St. Lawrence met Lake Huron and served as a channel all the way down to Lake Eerie. We were making good speed upstream, moving slightly faster than the Coast Guard and slowly overtaking them as we approached the bridges.

The fog was even thicker here, but the Lightship’s light shone like the sun and cut through a lot of the gloom. Jason and I stood on the bow of the ship, and the others lined the sides of the Coast Guard boat, all of us peering into the fog for some sign of Captain Hatchet’s vessel.

“Dan,” I asked in the sudden and crushing stillness, “what should we expect?”

“Trouble,” Dan replied, his voice sounding strained.

“Why can’t we let him past the bridge?” Jason wondered aloud.

“Gateway between two worlds,” Dan responded. “I been keepin’ this sonuvabitch kickin’ around the lake fer th’ better part of a century. Whenever he gets his gumption up, he makes a run fer the bridges and I have ta find a way ta stop ‘im. I usually commandeer one o’ them bigass cargo haulers and just run his sorry hide over, them big ships barely feel the bump. But now we’ve got a unique opportunity to put ‘im in a prison he can’t get out of.”

“What happens if he crosses the threshold?” I asked.

“Nothin’ good,” Dan’s voice came back. “Maybe he lives again, maybe he rips open the world. No idea, don’t wanna find out.”

“Agreed.”

There was a tense silence, unbroken as the bow of a schooner came into view. I was expecting an old, two masted pirate ship straight out of the movies. What I got was a hodgepodge of naval engineering from the last hundred years or so. Some wood, some aluminum hull, a single mast, no sail. Standing proudly on the bow, like he owned the entire lake, was the ghost of Captain Archibald Fitzsimmons, the infamous Captain Hatchet.

This was a man who, when the natives scalped settlers in the region, took it upon himself to scalp them right back, and then go further. A man who murdered so many women and children and braves that were he to have stood trial for the crimes his consecutive life sentences would have interred him for a thousand years longer than his lifespan would have allowed. If those crimes had been considered crimes when he sailed the lakes, that is. In many ways, Hatchet was the tool of the colonizers who were all too eager to drive the indigenous people of America not just off their lands, but off their mortal coils entirely. The blood may have been on his hands directly, but figuratively that blood stretched all the way to New York and Massachusetts and Delaware to families that profited from the wholesale slaughter of nations they didn’t care to recognize as nations, let alone humans.

We wasted no time in lighting his ass up.

Dancing beams of fire and fury cut into Hatchet’s ships from either side, but if the captain was worried or shocked, he didn’t show it. On the contrary, he bellowed a challenge and I heard a thunderclap. The Lightship pitched to the side and I had to grab the rail to keep from falling over. Cannon fire? I looked around and sure enough, the railing and the door beyond it leading into the Lightship was a smoking hole.

“DAN!” I shouted involuntarily as the ship pitched back the other way on the waves.

“I’m on it!” the voice was like a thunderclap itself and the Lightship began to turn toward Hatchet’s Frankenstein-like vessel. I tried to steady myself but had to duck something flying through the air. Living up to his name, the bastard was actually throwing hatchets at us.

“Reload!” I heard him bellow over the adrenaline in my ears.

“Roast his ass!” Jason shouted, bracing a foot on the railing and firing again. I followed his lead, and I don’t know who it was that hit him, but someone did. Hatchet shot backwards and onto the deck of his own ship. Shots from the Coast Guard boat knocked him over again as he tried to stand back up.

And that’s when we rammed him.

The Lightship may have been old, but it was a single ship and solidly built. Hatchet’s boat was such a mashed-together hodgepodge that it came apart at the seams on impact, breaking into disparate parts that began to sink at different speeds. The Bane of the Huron didn’t let that slow him down, leaping up and onto the deck of the Lightship and brandishing a very real and very sharp looking cutlass.

Jason and I wheeled around to blast him, but Hatchet was too fast. He ducked my beam and sidestepped Jason’s, lunging forward with that terrifying sword.

Suddenly Dan was just THERE, cavalry saber in hand and deftly parrying the wild lunge. The blades clashed at speeds I was having trouble following, but while Dan was the better swordsman Hatchet was more ferocious. It wasn’t like they could kill each other, but it was a hell of a fight to watch.

The Coast Guard pulled up alongside us and I caught Dan giving me a look in between blade strokes. I nodded and, heedless of who I hit, fired. Dan was ready to give himself up without a fight if it meant Hatchet was caught as well.

“Catch ‘em both!” I shouted, and Jason caught on. Jeremy and Amber joined in right after, and Eric and Kelly followed up. Hatchet realized what was happening and tried to get away, tried anything really, but the combination of Dan and our firepower was forcing him to panic.

We both kicked our traps across the deck, but a deep booming sound shook both ships again. Hatchet’s amalgamated mess must have still been able to fire whatever spectral artillery it had even though it was sinking. Water spouted up between the Lightship and the Coast Guard and the ships pitched away from each other on the swell. I panicked and stomped down on my trap, but everything slid on the deck and the piercing light cut ineffectually into the fog.

Over the noise, I didn’t hear it coming until it hit us from behind. Jason and I went head over heels across the deck and I heard Dan swear loudly. By the time I could stand up, Hatchet was gone, flying through the air on the back of a horse with bat wings.

Confusion and shouting took over as we all tried to understand what had just happened, but I couldn’t stop myself from following the dwindling shape of Captain Archibald Fitzsimmons and his demonic-looking steed as they swooped down and beneath the Bluewater Bridges, vanishing into thin air.

And the air below the bridges rippled like the surface of the water.

We’d lost. I turned to Dan but he was gone. His presence was gone. The Lightship was a drifting, lifeless hulk now. Everyone was shouting questions, asking if the others were okay, coordinating how to drag the Lightship back to shore, and I just stood there, hands frozen to the rail.

We’d lost.

Now what?

End of report.

[ashencontract]

CHAPTER 1: [OPERATION START]

Days slipped past as the Inferno trundled over Canada’s landscape, undeterred even by the presence of those pesky magnetic storms that had made your lives just that little bit more difficult over the past week or so. It was easy, perhaps too easy; for those of you who don’t enjoy practicing your combat skills, you might have even forgotten what you were hired to do here.

Not any more.

One day you wake to find the Inferno has ground to a halt, and a buzzing noise over the ship’s intercom greets your ears/ear holes/whatever it is you hear from.

“Helloooo! We’re here! Can our recently hired combat Operators report to the Hangar, please!”

The dulcet tones of Big Slappy greet you as you roll out of bed, get yourself ready, and do as you’re told- some Operators more diligent than others, of course. By the time you’ve all arrived, your little boss is ready with a stack of papers and a little table full of styrofoam hot cocoa cups. Are those for you... How nice...

“I’m pleased to announce that we’ve arrived at our first destination! Umm...” Big Slappy shuffles through his papers with his little fingers. “So you’re going to need to wade through a lot of swampland, sorry. And we’ve been getting reports that there’s some pretty nasty critters in there. But! The location of what we’re looking for should be... here...” 

He holds up a map of James Bay. Part of it has an X on it. It is not where you are currently. “...But the terrain is stopping the Inferno from getting any closer, so we’ll be dropping you off HERE and you can advance on foot!” He gestures to a spot on the map that’s a fair distance away. Ughhh, you’re going to have to walk? 

“Now, I don’t have a lot of data on what exactly you’re looking for. But it’s, umm... You should know it when you see it!” He totally fails to elaborate on what this might mean. “So! Everyone finish up your cocoa and descend to ground level when you’re ready! I’m expecting great things of you!” 

...

You wonder if there’s time to like, get some gumboots or something before you head out.

Please report to the threading server for further details!

[women-are-hot]

Sweet Dreams (Jessie Fleming)

Summary: after canada wins gold at the olympics, jessie and y/n break the internet.

Warnings: slightly angst, fluff

Note: first fic with jessie on tumblr :)))

Today is the biggest day of my career! I'm going to play in the Olympics final.

I can't believe it. It’s so unreal but real at the same time.

Right now we’re on our way to the stadium.

I was sitting beside Jessie as always.

We have been together for 2 years. She is the best thing that has happened to me!

Nobody really knows that we are together or the fans ship us lots, but our teammates think we're just really close friends.

Like no, I'm in love with this cutie.

I was half asleep on Jessie's shoulder and she was running her hands through my hair while looking out at the window.

When we were at the stadium, I could feel the nerves start.

Jessie took my hand in hers since she could feel that I was beginning to be pretty nervous.

"Baby, don't worry! You will be just fine, okay?!” she said and kissed my hand.

—

We then got ready for the big game and took our kits and everything else on.

"You're gonna be great!" Je.ssid said with her sweet voice.

She laid her hand over mine

"You too. Thank you for always being here" I responded and smiled at her.

"I will always be here, my love" she said and laid her head on my shoulder, waiting for the game to start soon.

—

My teammate aka my best friend, Julia Grosso is now standing in front of the ball.

If she scores we have won the Olympics. 

I hold tight into Jessie's hand.

Grosso kicked the ball and it went in.

IT WENT IN. WE HAVE FUCKING WON THE OLYMPICS...

We all run to Julia and jump on her. We all then stand up and look around trying to understand what just happened.

I tried to find the pretty face of my girlfriend. When I finally found Jessie, her eyes were already on mine.

I runned to her and jumped into her arms.

"We did it" I whispered in her ear, still not believing it.

"We did it, baby," she replied...

—

We then shook hands with the Swedish brilliant players.

I have shaken hands with everyone except for one. Magda.

I saw her and when she looked at me I could see that she was crying.

Then I ran to her and hugged her.

"I'm sorry, Magda," I said.

"Don't be sorry. You did amazing and I'm so proud of you!" she responded.

I just began to cry too. Magda means alot to me! She is like a big sister to me.

"Now go back to your team and celebrate that you just won the olympics. I will be watching" Magda said and kissed my head.

—

We were all changing into our fancy sweatpants and shirts, since we soon had to be at the ceremony to get our medals soon.

I took my jersey off since I had sweated a lot on it and clearly had to change.

"Damn Y/n. When did you get this fit?!" Janine teased me.

"Yeah, look at you, honey!" Julia said and touched my abs.

I just laughed, but when I looked at Jessie, I could tell that she was not happy about it...

I just brushed it off, she should not be jealous. She knows that Janine & Julia are my best friends and nothing more!

When Julia & Janine had teased for a few minutes more, Jessie could not hold it more.

"Will you guys stop fucking toughing my girlfriend like that?!" Jessie yelled suddenly.

I flinched a bit since I never heard her yell before.

"Are you and Y/n dating?" Christine asked softly.

"Yes and that's why I don't want other people to touch her like that. It's only me who can do that" Jessie answered annoyed.

After answering Christine's question, Jessie took my arm and dragged me out of the locker room.

—

"What the hell was that?" I asked Jessie as we were outside the door.

"Listen, I didn't want to say it. It just came out. I couldn’t hold it anymore. I couldn’t see them touching you like that'' Jessie answered as she took her arms around my waist and bagged me against the wall gently. She then laid her forehead against mine.

"Please forgive me" she begged, looking into my eyes.

"Fine, but now that you already told the girls, why don't we just tell the fans?" I asked.

"Of course. It would be nice to finally tell people" she answered and kissed me softly.

—

We were now finally standing with our gold medal.

I looked to my left and smiled at my girlfriend.

I gently laid my shoulder on her

"I'm so proud of you" Jessie said.

"I'm also proud of you,"I replied.

I then got a little shocked, since they suddenly were coming confetti out of some cannons.

Jessie and I played with the confetti and threw it at each other, laughing.

We then looked into each other eyes

"Can I kiss you?" Jessie asked.

I just nodded and she then leaned in...

We had a long night + we broke the internet.

What a nice day…

—

[lumosinlove]

Well, this got longer than I thought it would, so I’ll have to publish in a few parts as I write...

But Happy Birthday, Finn, my favorite :)

Find it here on Ao3

~

Of Silence And Slow Time

part i of iii

~

New York City, 1920

~

Everyone told Finn that the statue looked like him, that he simply must go and see it.

“Really, Finn,” his older brother Alex said. “It’s the eyes, the face, it’s the mouth. It’s uncanny.”

Finn had just looked over Alex and the man and woman he seemed to always have at his side ever since the war ended. Natalie, a nurse whom he’d met in France, and Kasey a Canadian from another unit—they’d ended up in the hospital together.

“It’s in France,” Finn said flatly. “I know you’re forgetting about it all, but I’m not exactly keen on going back there. It took me ages to get home.”

It had taken everything for him to get home.

Alex, to Finn’s relief, nodded at Natalie and Kasey to go get themselves a drink at the bar down the street, told them that he’d meet them there. Finn stared down at the book open and unseeing in his lap. He wasn’t even sure what he was reading, on that he wanted to. His mind didn’t seem to follow him just right these days. Cars became bombs sometimes. Sleep was all dreams.

Alex sat beside him on their parents’ old sofa.

“Fish,” Alex said softly, and moved his hand slow, where Finn could see it, before resting it gently around his shoulders. “You can’t sit here all day. That’s not going to help you, and I know you don’t like it. You’ve never sat still like this.”

“I’m not going back to France.”

“It’s Paris,” Alex said, and gently flipped Finn’s wrist over to reveal the tiny globe his friend Jackson had dotted there with a needle and ink. “You’ve always wanted…don’t let this war stop you any longer.”

Finn stared down at the reminder he’d asked his friend for, ink permanent black. He’d never been farther than New England before the war. Paris, he’d always thought, gazing at his collection of books. Rome. Athens, Barcelona—

Finn swallowed hard. “Looks just like me, huh?”

Alex’s grin was enough to pull one out of Finn, just slightly. “It was bizarre.” Alex squeezed his shoulders. “I’ll even meet you there later if you want, once we’re through with Canada.”

Finn sent a wary glance towards where Natalie and Kasey had left.

Alex raised an eyebrow. “You’d like them. And, who knows who you’ll meet over there. We ran into all sorts of people, people like you’ve never seen. It’s why—” Alex broke off slightly, and looked after the nurse and soldier, too. Finn blinked at the nervous bob of his throat, and then his smile. “There are all sorts of love and art in this world of ours. I know it feels like it’s all war, I felt that too, but it’s not. Please let me help you see that.”

Finn rubbed a thumb over his tattoo, and closed his book.

Everything felt like war. He was so tired of it he thought he’d be crushed.

He looked up at his brother. “I don’t have much money.”

Alex just grinned and slapped him on the back, then pulled him into a tight embrace.

~

Finn arrived in Paris with a lump in his throat. He stumbled through half-French greetings and requests to his taxi, who looked at him sourly and turned out to have dropped him off four streets away from his hotel—maybe on purpose. Maybe because it was barely six in the morning.

Finn was annoyed at first, and then he began to walk.

Paris’ cobblestones were like those in the West Village, only they weren’t. There were glimpses of his home in the uneven tread of his feet, but these stones were darker, as if soaked with more time and more place. It calmed him, while the brief glance towards France’s rolling hills had sent him back to his cabin on the rocky ship, shaking and gasping for air. He’d barely eaten during the entire journey besides forcing down the occasional breakfast sludge, and his legs had wobbled so fiercely upon stepping back onto land, he’d had to sit down.

Finn paused now, closing his eyes and leaning against the nearest building. He’d been so stupid the first time, decked out in his new uniform, eyes on the war like it was some prize to be won. The comfort waned with his scattering mind and Finn tried to draw a steady breath in. The lump in his throat only grew tighter and he squeezed the handle of his small suitcase.

“Monsieur?” came a voice, spilled over with concern.

Finn’s eyes flashed open and he pushed himself straight, blinking through the pale morning light. There was a boy standing there, around his age, with bright blond hair and worried blue eyes. He was tall, with a neat white apron tied around his hips.

“Ça va?” the boy took a hesitant step forward. His eyes glanced towards Finn’s suitcase, and he nodded in realization, then spoke in accented English. “Are you all right?”

Finn looked behind the boy to see the cafe, slowly opening, from which he must have come. There was an abandoned stack of chairs he was putting out for the day, and his apron had an embroidered name at one corner, Finn realized, that matched the sign above.

Le Lion.

“Yes,” Finn breathed, but found himself unable to speak louder. “I’m fine.”

The boy just shook his head, and gestured behind him. “Non. You must sit down. S’il vous plaît. Please.”

Finn didn’t know how to refuse him.

A few minutes later, he found himself stationed at one of the cafe’s tables with a steaming pot of coffee in front of him, a croissant, and a plate of softly scrambled eggs.

“You look like you need more than butter and bread,” the boy had said, wiping strong looking hands on his apron. “You are from America?”

Finn nodded. He had been worried he would be able to stomach the food after the boy went through so much trouble, but upon his first bite of eggs, he felt ravenous.

“Yes,” Finn nodded, brushing his hands off from croissant crumbs. “Sorry, yes,” he held out his hand. “Finn.”

“Leo,” the boy smiled, and took his hand. “It is a pleasure.”

Finn found himself returning that smile with one that, for the first time in a long time, felt like his own. He tried to put coins into Leo’s hand when it was all over, but Leo simply waved him off and said he hoped to see Finn again.

~

The Louvre was more than Finn could have imagined. It was like walking across the ocean floor, new rarities at every corner. And, of course, there was the matter of the statue. Alex had said it would be with all the other works from ancient Greece. He didn’t have trouble following the signs to the correct gallery, walking through the white marble hallways. When he did reach the Greek galleries, his first thought was that the perfectly white statues nearly blended in with everything else, at least until he found a plaque that said it had all been painted once. Finn smiled to himself. Maybe his apparent stony doppelgänger had had red hair, too.

Imagining Alex and his long stride in these halls was easy. And it was quiet here, and distracting, which let Finn close his eyes for a moment, inhaling the scent of old stone, like a church, or a river’s bank.

When he opened them, he had found it. He was staring into his own face. His eyes were blank. He reached up to feel the shape of his own jaw as he looked at the statue’s, on display in the way the head was slightly turned, jaw set, brow low, as if in focus. Finn blinked, pulled out of the daze of seeing it, and his eyes landed on the museum card beside it. There was a word in ancient Greek, said to have been carved more visibly into the bust’s base. Future, it translated to. Thought to be made in the name of a God, though he may be lost now. There is no other surviving work by this artist.

Finn looked back at the eyes, so much like his own he could have seen brown there in the blank irises, and thought about when this strange statue had been carved. He’d always loved the way ancient Greece was sometimes described in poetry. It had gotten him through many long nights in the trenches. Serene, warm, and with nothing to do but lounge in the olive groves. Working the land and coming home at sundown to wine and honey and spiced meat. He’d longed for it. He longed for it still, this simple-seeming past.

The next thing he felt was warm wind. He smelled salt water.

The museum melted around him and his shoes slipped into sand before disappearing entirely.

~

Finn turned around to the sound of someone shouting, worried it was at him, only to find a brunette boy storming towards him—then past him—a foreign language continuing to fly off of his tongue. But more importantly, the boy was dressed in a simple garment of white cloth that left his strong, tanned legs and arms completely bare, and his feet were sandaled. Finn reached down to smooth his suit, only to find it gone, as well, replaced with a similar getup. He stared down at his bare skin, so pale in the bright sunlight.

And then the foreign language morphed, like a scratched record, and became English to his ears.

“—I’m telling you, Leo, I won’t go. Not without you.”

Leo?

And there the blond boy was, sitting in the shade of low trees at the edge of the beach. He was holding some sort of musical instrument, plucking at its strings almost sadly, head bowed.

“You have to,” Leo replied. “The oath says—“

He stopped mid-sentence, having looked up and spotted Finn. It made the brunette turn, and then Finn’s back was in the sand and there was a thin, rough blade at his throat.

Green eyes bore down into his own, a growl ripping from the boy’s throat. “Spartan.”

Finn choked out a breath, his hand going around the boy’s wrist. “No���no.”

“Logan,” came Leo’s voice, and then the knife’s pressure was released, pulled back by Leo, but the boy—Logan—was still sitting firmly on Finn’s hips. Finn felt his entire body flush with the sheer lack of fabric between them, but Logan didn’t seem to either mind or notice.

“I’m not a—Spartan,” Finn managed. “What the hell, I…” He looked to his left, at the sparkling waves lapping there, and then to the two boys looming above him. “Where am I?”

That made both of them freeze, the knife twitching in Logan’s hand.

“Ithaca,” Leo offered timidly, then glanced out at sea, as if that was where Finn had come from. Finn just stared at him.

He was the boy from the cafe. He was sure of it. His blue eyes filled with the same concern as they had on that early morning cobblestone street.

“Are you all right?” Leo asked.

“He is a spy,” Logan said, and went for him again.

Finn was ready this time. He knocked a leg around Logan’s waist, putting him on his back, and then rolled away from him and to his feet, knife in hand. He raised it for the two of them to see and then tossed it a little ways down the beach. “I’m not a spy. I…I’m just lost.”

It was true. In more ways than he’d even thought before.

“Please,” he managed more quietly.

He watched Leo and Logan exchange a look, unsure of what it meant, until Logan turned on his heel and Leo gestured for Finn to follow.

~

“Are you at war?” Finn asked he was led through the city streets. It had been a hot walk up a long road built into a steep hill, all the way up to what Finn assumed was the inner city and acropolis. Water ran along the side of the street—no doubt with sewage—and they crossed via stepping stones, pressing themselves against the walls whenever carts rattled by—carts filled with men with shields and swords or spears.

Logan, who brought up the rear behind him, having retrieved his knife, scoffed. “Aren’t we always?”

“And where are you taking me?”

“Where we take any question we can’t answer,” Leo said from in front of him, golden hair gleaming. “Pascal.”

[renaerys]

Has anyone said “38. That ass is highly unprofessional” for Reds yet? Because I feel like the comedy potential is enormous

38. “That ass is highly unprofessional.”

There are far too many good scenarios for this excellent prompt and idk if I picked the best one, but an effort was made. 🤡

Send me a prompt and some characters! Reminder that the challenge is to make everything SFW, so we're getting creative here.

List of prompts

xxx

Blossom watched from across the room as Brick fist-bumped the head delegate from the China team. He’d been cagey and weirdly subdued all morning, but the moment the unmoderated caucus began, he slinked away without anyone noticing. Anyone, that is, except Blossom.

“Russia? You were saying?”

Blossom snapped the pencil she’d been holding between her fingers. Denmark leaned back and slowly pulled the cup full of fresh pencils out of her reach. “What? Oh, right. I’m proposing we form a sub-committee to begin formal negotiations.”

“No way, we don’t negotiate with terrorists,” said Canada. “Terrestrial or otherwise.”

The United States stood up and palmed his fist. “Agreed. I say we nuke ‘em before they can nuke us.”

“Oh, sure, great idea, Rambo. This is Model UN, not Independence Day.”

“Wow, super in-character of you, Switzerland. Why are you even here?”

Blossom put up her hand. “We have no idea if the aliens are terrorists. I agree that we can’t discount the possibility of hostile intent, but violence should not be our opening move.”

“Crisis update!” A staffer handed Canada a red envelope, which she read aloud to the gathered students-cum-delegates. The aliens had parked one of their space ships on the Xi’an city wall, destroying a huge chunk of it and killing some civilians, and China was using it as justification to attack with full force.

“Oh my god, I think we might actually be in Independence Day,” Canada said.

“Recess! I’m calling for a recess.” Blossom left the table as the United States, Canada, and a gaggle of European Union countries began to squabble.

She found Brick talking to Israel and Argentina. The minute he saw her coming, he excused himself from the conversation and walked the other way.

“Brick! I know you saw me.” Blossom followed him to the all-gender restrooms, where he was fixing his hair in the mirror. “What are you doing?”

“About to take a gratuitous shit. You might want to get out of here.”

She grabbed his elbow and spun him toward her. “I’m talking about your side conversations. What were you doing talking to China without me?”

“Russia’s a big country, and you looked busy doing your thing. I’m just doing mine.”

“And what, exactly, is your thing?” She peered at him. “I swear to god, if that KGB comment this morning wasn’t a joke and I find out you’ve been threatening the other delegates behind my back—”

“Relax, comrade,” he patted her shoulder, “before you pop a seam in your pencil skirt.”

Blossom could not help but check out her ass in the mirror now that he’d brought it up. Of course, he was also checking out her ass, because he was an uncouth jerk who knew exactly how to get under her skin, and now Blossom was at an impasse. If she told him off, she’d be giving him exactly what he wanted, which was to make her snap and froth. If she did nothing, he’d still win with the knowledge that he’d pissed her off and gotten the last word in to boot.

Much like with terrorists, when it came to dealing with teenage boys, negotiation was not an option; the only solution was total annihilation.

Blossom placed a hand on her hip and stuck her ass out more as she examined herself in the mirror. “You mean, this pencil skirt?”

Brick’s smile fell in defeat like so many doomed German aggressors marching into the heart of Russian winter. “Obviously.”

Perish, you fool.

“Did you see a loose thread somewhere around here?” She turned slightly and ran her finger along the side seam of her skirt in an unbridled act of hormonal militarism. “Or was it on this side?”

Brick rested his weight on the counter because he was weak and cornered and they both knew it.

“No?” She smiled. “Just your imagination, then. We better get back to the conference.”

She made it halfway to the door when Brick hauled his wounded carcass away from the sink counter and desperately fired back with: “Disgraceful tactics, honestly.”

“Me? I’m not the one committing treason and encouraging intergalactic warfare.”

“Hey, I signed up for global warming and nuclear proliferation, not this made up Men in Black bullshit. If aliens attacked we’d just blast them ourselves, no negotiation necessary, we can all go home.”

“Oh my god, so you admit you intentionally sabotaged the exercise! I knew it. You are highly unprofessional.”

“That ass is highly unprofessional!”

“Stop thinking about my ass!”

“I literally fucking cannot after that!”

Blossom fumed. “Are you saying I’m asking for it?”

“I’m saying how dare you expect me not to think about how good your ass looks in that skirt!”

“Oh, so it’s my fault, is it? Well, I’m so sorry for looking amazing in Western business professional!”

“Apology accepted!”

“Good!”

“Great!”

“Fantastic!”

“Wonderful!”

“Incredible!”

“Superb!”

“Glorious!”

“Brilliant!"

Blossom had at least fifteen more increasingly positive synonyms that she could have screamed at Brick, but Denmark popped his head in just as she was getting ready to shout stupendous at top volume.

“Um, hi. We’re taking a vote on what to do about the aliens and we need Russia’s vote, so…yeah.”

The vote was close and also meaningless, since China and several allies acted on their own against the aliens, who of course retaliated and gave the United States carte blanche to bust out the big guns. By the end of the conference, half the world’s population had been eradicated by nuclear weapons or alien technology. It was a complete and total disaster, and Blossom had no idea how she was going to explain it to her Model UN club coach when she got back to Townsville.

“Told you we should have just fought the aliens ourselves,” Brick said as they packed up their things for the flight back home.

“Please stop talking. It makes it harder for me to pretend you don’t exist.”

“Still wearing the skirt, I see.”

Blossom threw her water bottle at him, which was both very childish and very unsatisfying when he caught it. “I’m going to wear pencil skirts every day for the rest of the semester just for you.”

“Don’t you fucking dare.”

“I dare.”

“I’ll drop out.”

“No, you won’t.”

“I’ll check out your ass every day.”

“Go ahead.”

“I will.”

“Great, because I want you to.”

“Great, because I want to!”

“I’m going to look so good!”

“I completely agree!”

They stormed out of the conference center together.

“See you on Monday,” Blossom said in her best die in a trash heap voice.

“You better wear a skirt,” Brick said as if he’d just invited her to jump into an active volcano.

“I absolutely will.”

“I can’t wait.”

Blossom swallowed a scream and took off flying, knowing she’d be there all day if he didn’t get the last word in.

xxx

“Dude, are you okay? You’ve been aggressively staring at Blossom’s ass all morning.”

Brick sucked on his straw loud enough to draw Blossom’s annoyed glance. “Fuck off, Harry.”

“Are you, like, into her?”

She turned her back to him and power posed with her hands on her hips, which was an extremely flattering angle and a high-key bitch move. “I despise her.”

Harry smiled. “Oh, cool! Cool cool cool… Hey, so I was wondering who I should ask to Homecoming—”

“No.”

“But I just thought since you don’t—”

“No.”

Harry finally fucked off.

xxx

If you enjoy my writing, check out more of my fics on AO3, link in my profile. I’m currently updating Trinity House and The Alchemy of Us. Thanks for reading!

[forasecondtherewedwon]

Runaway Ride

Fandom: Never Have I Ever Pairing: Devi/Paxton Rating: T Word Count: 4889

Summary: Kamala gets herself into a pickle, Devi needs to go to her, and Paxton has a car. Problem-solving has never been so simple, but that's how it is when your new boyfriend is Paxton Hall-Yoshida. Throw in a little hand-holding on the highway and this family crisis might just be the best date Devi will ever have.

When they finally took a break from dancing—disconnecting hands from hips and shoulders, lips from lips—Devi stepped away in a dreamy headspace. She almost collided with Jonah, but he didn’t tell her to look where she was going, only offered a shrewd, indulgent smile.

Actually, everybody was treating her like that; every eye that caught hers on her way to the table where she’d left her stuff was unjudgmental, admiring, straight up fairy-godmotherly. Devi hadn’t received this much notice since her dad’s death and her subsequent paralysis. And those looks had been pitying, freaked out. Positive attention was new and cool and she wondered, as she grabbed her phone out of her turquoise clutch, whether her socials would show more of the same when she opened them. Would people have snapped stealthy pics of her and Paxton dancing now that she’d been vaulted into the pseudo-celebrity strata of the high school hierarchy? Would the Insta posts be captioned with hashtags of their ship name? Paxi? Daxton? Vishwall-Yoshumar?

Devi never got to check.

Unlocking her phone, she found two missed calls from her mother. Maybe two wouldn’t have seemed like a whole lot to someone else, but Devi knew that, in order for her mom to risk rudeness by stepping away from the company she was hosting at home not once but twice, she’d need to be pretty frantic. Two missed calls from Nalini Vishwakumar were the equivalent of six or seven from any other mother.

Skirting the edges of the gym as she headed away from DJ Humanoid—that nit-witted saboteur of slow dances—Devi was about to call her mom back when her screen changed to an incoming call from Kamala. She pressed her other hand to her ear and answered it.

“Hey. Do you know what’s going on with my mom? She called me twice and, honestly, she knows I’m at the d—”

“Devi, shut up. Sorry,” Kamala sighed. “But I may have kidnapped your history teacher and now I’m panicking a little.”

Devi stopped in her tracks.

“You did what? Why is the sound weird?”

As she was trying to identify the background noise coming from Kamala’s end, her eyes swept over the crowd of her classmates and landed on Fabiola’s. Her friend had been smiling, mid-sway as she held Eve from behind and chatted with Sasha, but it fell off her face like Devi off Dr. Jackson’s roof. Fab disentangled herself from her girlfriend and crossed the room to stand with Devi. She was frowning, silently asking for an explanation for Devi’s distress, but Devi didn’t really have one yet.

“We’re in his car on the highway,” her cousin was saying. “He was a little drunk, so I’m driving.”

Devi had imagined that Kamala was exaggerating, but no, this was really starting to sound like a kidnapping.

“You better be on hands-free right now,” she lectured. Then, because she wasn’t exactly a paragon of road safety herself—barely an hour ago, she’d walked right out in front of Paxton’s jeep—didn’t wait for confirmation. “What the hell happened? Context, Kamala!”

“Well, as soon as I snuck out of the house—”

“But why did you sneak out?!”

“Devi, I can’t talk about that right now!” Devi’s eyebrows shot up at the clear and abnormal hysteria in her cousin’s voice. “I ran out of the house,” Kamala continued, “totally directionless, and the first thing that popped into my head was Manish’s invitation for me to come to karaoke…”

“Ew, what the fuck, don’t call Mr. K that.”

What? Fab mouthed at her, but Devi shook her head.

“That is his name and what he asked me to call him. Anyway,” Kamala said, sounding strained, “I went to your school and met up with him and now I’m driving his car and I think I might have shut my sari in the car door, but I’m scared to pull over and check because if I stop the car, I’m going to have to confront things and I think I’d rather not do that yet.”

“Kamala,” Devi said in a heavy, careful voice. “You have to pull over. I totally get what you’re saying because it sounds like something I might do—minus the part where you kidnapped Mr. K—” Fabiola’s eyes went dramatically wide as she was adjusting her tiara. “—but this isn’t you. You don’t run away from your obligations and elope with my teachers!”

“Manish and I didn’t elope. It isn’t in any way romantic.”

“For sure though? It’s not?” Devi heard another voice in the car ask.

“Mr. K, back off! Kamala’s in the middle of a crisis!” she shouted. “And please be drunk enough to forget that I yelled at you.”

“Devi, what should I do?” Kamala asked, sounding desperate in a sad way now.

“Where are you?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Ok, well, which direction are you heading in?”

“Um, either north or south.”

“You’re a disaster,” Devi muttered.

“What was that?”

“Uh… I said, don’t drive any faster. Try to read the next sign you pass so you can tell me where you are.”

“Alright,” Kamala said.

Devi tilted her phone away from her mouth so her cousin wouldn’t hear her frustrated sigh. She locked eyes with Fabiola.

“Kamala panicked at her engagement dinner and ran off with Mr. K. They’re either headed for Mexico or Canada, but I’ll know more in a minute.”

Fab blinked.

“Wow.”

“I know. It’s a lot. And this is me talking,” Devi emphasized.

“I don’t know if you would do anything this big. Mainly because you don’t have a driver’s license.”

“True.”

“Santa Barbara in twenty-six miles,” Kamala said in her ear.

“Damn, you made good time.”

“The traffic was quite manageable.”

“Try to calm down a little and get off the highway when you can. Don’t go past Santa Barbara. I’m coming to talk you down in person,” Devi said. “Oh, and don’t answer any of my mom’s calls; she’ll just stress you out.”

“That doesn’t seem very responsible. How about I send her a text when I stop to let her know I’m ok?”

Devi rolled her eyes.

“Suit yourself.”

“Thank you, Devi. But how will you get here?”

“Let me worry about that. Text me when you stop so I know exactly where I’m going.”

“I will.”

“’K. I’ll see you in a bit.”

Devi hung up and sighed massively, slumping into the wall and feeling a streamer crumple against her back. She and Fabiola stared at each other.

“What are you gonna do?” Fab asked.

“Be the hero my family needs, but not the one they deserve.”

“Are you misquoting Batman to justify doing something reckless?”

“First of all, rescuing Kamala isn’t reckless, and second of all, the movie isn’t called Batman, it’s The Dark Knight. Young-ish Christian Bale, hello.”

Fabiola pointed a finger at her own face.

“Young-ish out-of-touch lesbian, hello. At least I was close.”

Devi sighed again while Fab smiled sadly at her in obvious sympathy.

“It’s after ten at night. How am I gonna get to Santa Barbara?”

“Assuming you’re not going to ask your mom—”

“No.”

“Then you need a ride.”

“You need a ride? I’ll drive you.”

It was Paxton, walking up and tentatively taking Devi’s hand while darting uncertain glances at Fabiola. Devi felt her entire face light up.

“You don’t want to know where or why?” she teased.

His expression said those were insignificant details. Wow. Devi’d never had a fantasy where Paxton joined forces with her, bounty hunter-style, to track down a flighty Kamala, but this felt oddly romantic. Passionate even? They’d see where the night took them.

“You wouldn’t wanna leave the dance unless it was serious,” Paxton reasoned. “So, I’ll drive you. You wanna go now?”

“I guess we better. Lemme just grab my…”

“I’ll get it,” Fab said, raising a hand like the nerd she was as she volunteered.

She darted back through the dancers to grab Devi’s things and Devi watched their classmates part for their Cricket Queen. She was so proud of Fab. Also, she felt kinda bad for ditching such a momentous occasion. But Kamala needed her, and would totally do the same for her if she ever went off the deep end and kidnapped a dude while fleeing a proposal. Not that Devi could see herself fleeing a proposal (she glanced at Paxton as she thought this, then quickly away, thinking, Way too soon!). Carrying out a kidnapping? With a sufficiently convincing pro-and-con list, anything was possible.

“Basically, Kamala freaked and drove to Santa Barbara with a drunken Mr. K,” Devi said, because Paxton might not have asked to be informed, but she wanted him to know what he was getting himself into. Beyond that, she wanted to give him the chance to say, No way, Devi. I came here to look hot and dance up on you, nothing more.

“Oh shit,” was what he said.

“Damn right, oh shit. You still want to drive? This is going to take a while.”

She should probably have felt guilty about trying to subtly persuade him with her eyes, but not only was Paxton the least complicated option, he was also her first choice. If she maintained eye contact long enough, Devi figured it might trigger some kind of boyfriend override that made going for a long drive at night just as appealing as staying here and dancing with her butt pressed thrillingly to his groin when the teacher-chaperones weren’t looking.

“As long as we can hit up the bathrooms first. I was going to, but then I got talking to Trent, and then Marcus was doing a handstand…”

“Definitely,” Devi assured him. “Good call. Empty the tank. Oh, actually, that reminds me… how much gas do you have in your jeep? If we need to stop at a gas station, I’ll have to factor that in to the ETA I give Kamala.”

Paxton shook his head at her, smiling in what she liked to think was affectionate amusement.

“I filled it up on the way here. I needed a minute to, uh…” To her epic astonishment, he ducked his head self-consciously, cheeks pinking. “You know. Get my shit together. Up here.” He tapped his temple with his index finger. “I wanted to show up for you, like, completely. You know?”

Right as Devi was at dangerously high risk of sagging to the floor in blissful bonelessness, Fabiola sprang to her side, shoving the rest of her possessions at her.

“Ok, ok!” Devi said, harried.

She had to dump it all on the bathroom counter a minute later anyway, but after she’d done her pre-road trip pee, she came out and gave Fab a better thank-you.

“Your Highness,” Paxton told Fabiola with a nod.

Fab nodded back, smiling wryly.

“Prosecutor.”

“I think this is the start of a beautiful friendship,” Devi assessed, “but we gotta go! Say congrats to Eve for me again!”

“Sure. Drive safe!”

Devi and Paxton pushed through the doors together, striding quickly with his hand wrapped around hers. In the parking lot, she glanced sideways to see him digging his keychain out of his front pocket.

“Oh,” she said, “so I wasn’t just feeling that you were very happy to dance with me.”

Until they got into the jeep, it was too dark to see whether she’d gotten him to blush again, but she liked to think that she had. He was definitely smiling.

They got in and Devi carefully tucked her skirt around her legs, mind on Kamala’s cautionary tale. At least it was until Paxton leaned forward to shrug out of his jacket and she saw his shoulder muscles jump beneath his fitted button-down, his narrow black tie swinging forward. Dang. Fifty shades of Hall-Yoshida.

“Santa Barbara?” Paxton double-checked once he was settled behind the wheel, steering out of the student lot.

“Santa Barbara.”

Until they were on the highway and heading out of Los Angeles, Devi did her best to keep her worry about Kamala’s situation contained to the way she flapped her phone against her thigh. Usually, she was stressing about the problems right in front of her (when she wasn’t blatantly ignoring them, only to have that approach bite her in the ass later), but with whatever was going on with Kamala, she kinda had to look ahead.

Had she wanted Kamala to get engaged to Prashant that badly? Well, the best thing about Prashant was that you never knew when having additional hot relatives would be to your benefit. (Devi was already hoping that Mr. K would get over the more nerve-wracking elements of this night and just remember having fun with her stunning cousin… and that this could possibly translate into at least a month of generous grades, if she could somehow spin these shenanigans as an intentional blind date arranged by herself.) However, an engaged Kamala was wholly different from a married Kamala. She wouldn’t be around to watch nonsensical episodes of Riverdale, or be duped into hijinks, or listen to Devi when her mom was too tired, or bitch about her shitty lab-mates in exchange for sitting through Devi bitching about her complicated feelings on the subject of Aneesa dating her ex. She wouldn’t live with them anymore, and the family that had begun to miraculously fill out after her dad had died would be back down to three. And the other two members of it would be old (Sorry, Mom, she thought) and not at all prepared to champion her dating life or the cleavage-accentuating formal dress currently buoying it.

So, yeah, Devi was looking ahead—eyes glazed over as the yellow lights of cars slipped around them to prevent her vision from fully adjusting to the blue-black sky—and feeling more than a little nervous and scared of the Kamala-shaped hole she’d have in her life if her dazzling, dorky cousin left her house for one she might eventually fill with the most beautiful children the world had ever seen.

Thankfully, Paxton was there. It startled her when he took one hand off the wheel and felt across her lap to grab hers, loosely interlacing their fingers. Devi quit hitting her phone against her leg. She sent off their updated location to Kamala and then let her phone fall flat.

“Did she say where she was?” Her boyfriend’s voice was quiet in the car and she realized for the first time that her head had been too crammed with thoughts to put on any music.

“Carpinteria State Beach. Do you know the exit?”

“We’ll find it.”

“And if you want me to drive while you rest on the way back…”

Paxton laughed.

“No way. Safety first.”

“Says the guy driving one-handed,” Devi countered, not that she was eager to surrender the hand warming hers.

He turned his head just long enough to shoot her a look.

“Whoa, pal, eyes on the road!” she said. (She had a half-baked plan to call her boyfriend ‘pal’ a few times and thereby de-weaponize the word in a memory that still felt like a fading bruise, an almost-gone sore spot in who she and Paxton were before they were openly a them.)

“Sorry,” he said, staring out the windshield again. He grinned. “You look gorgeous.”

“Really?”

“So gorgeous.” Paxton’s voice was softer this time, the underlying laugh it had carried since she’d offered to drive his jeep drained out of it. It was nearly a sigh.

“Thanks. So do you.”

“You know, I feel fucking awful for hitting you with my car, but I still think I mighta felt worse if I’d walked in and seen you dancing with somebody else.”

Devi twisted their hands, touching the back of his to her thigh so she was sandwiching it between leg and palm for a moment, aiming for reassuring.

“I wanna say I would never be that flaky, but my previous offenses speak for themselves.”

“So does doing this with me.”

“Uh,” she droned, “to recap, you left a fun thing to do a huge favour for me. You’re talking about it like this is my act of redemption. I feel like if you examine it for a sec, you’ll see how I’m actually kind of a dick for accepting your help.”

“I want us to be together,” he said bluntly. “Here we are. Together.”

“It’s that simple?”

“I don’t see why it can’t be.”

“Huh. I think you’re really gonna be good for my tendency to overcomplicate a situation.”

Paxton laughed and unthreaded his fingers from Devi’s. But it wasn’t to release her for pointing out that this date was, in actual fact, the coordinated response to a family crisis; his fingertips moved lightly over her palm, momentarily trapped when her fingers flinched inward in reaction to how it tickled, then traced along the thin skin of her inner wrist. He wasn’t trying to pull away. He was lingering. Though his touch when he sunk his hand into her hair or drew her closer by her waist had always been fairly gentle, it had often had the faint aggression of hastiness to it, clutching her as they made out in her room, always listening for footsteps in the hallway. How Paxton touched her now was pure, exploratory tenderness. It made the hairs on the back of Devi’s neck stand up as a wave of shivers rushed up her spine and crested somewhere around the nape of her neck.

He must’ve felt that wave break, the foamy aftereffects in some tic of her arm or quickening of her pulse while his fingers skimmed gradually up the inside of her arm towards her elbow, because he chanced another quick glance at her.

“That feels good,” she explained.

Paxton looked forward, nodding slowly, and shifted in the driver’s seat.

“Good.”

She thought it must have felt good for him too, knowing he’d made her shiver.

—

The miles were flicking past for Paxton—another, another, another, as fast and steady as the dashed lines painted between the lanes, his arms cutting the water on the front crawl. He wanted Devi, beside him, to believe that he was paying attention to his driving, but he was honestly kinda zoned out. Like that time he’d swum to San Diego, he let his body go through the motions (in this case, twitching the wheel, putting on cruise control when traffic thinned so he didn’t have to focus on the pedals) while his mind floated freely.

Where it floated was to his girlfriend.

At ten years old, he’d been the last kid in his swim class to jump off the 10m board. It was optional—a treat after getting water up their noses turning somersaults below the surface and doing egg-beater legs in between—but all the other boys in the group had done it eagerly, shrieking on their way down to sloppy pencil dives. Paxton had climbed the stairs all the way to the top easily enough, even stepped onto the wide platform, bordered by metal railings and rough under his bare feet. He’d walked out to the end and frozen to find himself so high above the pool.

He hadn’t feared the water, he’d feared the air. Being so exposed on his own at the end of the diving board. Eventually, he’d retreated, then surprised the coach waiting down at the poolside by turning around and taking the jump at a run. Few memories felt as good as the sensation of giving himself back to gravity and letting it reunite him with the water. He’d just had to get past the exposure.

Same thing tonight, going to find Devi at the dance. Holding her hand in his had been him reaching the platform, but when they stood together, just inside the school’s doors, Paxton hadn’t known for sure whether he would take the leap or retreat. And not just for a running start this time, but in a way that turned his sixteen-year-old present self back into one of those nervous ten-year-olds who wimped out and had to take the coward’s way down—descending each step they’d climbed. He might not have run, and yet he hadn’t needed to back up and race into their relationship either. Momentum hadn’t carried them inside for everyone they knew to see them. It had been a calm approach, even if he’d been shaking on the inside when he saw Trent staring at them.

So maybe Paxton had learned something in the last six years, or maybe it was harder to feel exposed with somebody right next to you.

She really did look gorgeous, like he’d said, and because he didn’t want her to worry about his focus if she spotted him gazing at the side of her face while she texted her cousin, the glances he stole were of the knee region. Her dress’s overlay sparkled when the high lights of eighteen-wheelers passed them and the specific teal of the dress itself reminded him of a river he’d swum in once during an out-of-state family vacation. Natural and deep and fresh, and exasperating for his parents because he’d accidentally doggy-paddled himself all the way to a small waterfall and hadn’t heard them calling him back for dinner around the campfire. He felt all that about Devi, except for hoping for a different reaction from his parents when they met her.

Holy shit. He was going to have to introduce his girlfriend to his embarrassing hippy parents. But then, she’d already met Rebecca, so maybe they were set? A sister’s approval should count for a ton.

No, no, no, Devi would have to meet his parents. He was doing this. The two of them were doing this. Paxton exhaled determinedly through his nose and made himself concentrate on the remaining miles he needed to cover. His mind, anyway. His hand continued to stroke and search, covering his girlfriend’s hand with his until he had her fingers tucked away protectively under his own, and then caressing all the way up to the crook of her elbow so suddenly that she made a noise between a laugh and a yelp because he’d unintentionally tickled her. Man, she was cute.

The very end of their journey required the most concentration from Paxton; he finally took back his hand to have both on the wheel as he steered them off the highway and Devi’s got lonely or something, because it chased across to where he was sitting and landed on his thigh. His jaw clenched. He could feel the heat of her palm through his pantleg and congratulated himself on being a driving legend for driving smoothly to where they needed to park for beach access.

Devi had a pink sweater that she put on, but Paxton grabbed his jacket out of the back as well in case she needed it. It was almost midnight and a breeze rolled up off the water, rippling his tie and swishing Devi’s dress. He didn’t have to ask what they should do next—there was just one other car parked nearby and Devi’s cousin was already standing outside of it, raising a hand to wave sheepishly as they got out of his jeep.

“Here,” he said, holding out his jacket for his girlfriend to put her arms through the sleeves. “You guys talk. I’ll be down at the beach.”

Devi turned her back to him as she accepted the jacket, but she glanced over her shoulder with a look of concern.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. You’ll want privacy. I need to stretch my legs anyway.”

“Just don’t swim away, ok?” she requested. “I don’t think I can handle more than one rescue mission per night.”

Paxton could tell by her expression that it wasn’t entirely a joke. He grinned and gripped his lapels, now on Devi, reeling her in.

“I promise. You’d probably take the opportunity to try to drive the jeep home, and I don’t want to risk that.”

“Me committing grand theft auto or me getting hurt?”

“I bet they tested you for smartness,” he said, “but you think they have a test for being a smartass? You’d score high, Vishwakumar.”

“I know, I know, you don’t want me to get hurt.”

She was so infuriatingly flippant, rolling her big brown eyes at him.

“That’s right,” Paxton said plainly. There he was, up on the platform again.

Devi straightened his tie and let her hand rest flat on his chest. He remembered how overwhelmed she’d looked the first time he’d placed her palm there, right on his skin. Even now, it almost made him laugh.

“Ok,” she said, and he was surrendering himself to the sweet strength of gravity, propelled down to the beach while Devi stayed to talk to Kamala.

—

Devi had heard that there were tidepools here, and she was nervous about stepping into one and spearing some aquatic animal on her high heel. Well, she couldn’t magically improve her night vision, but she could take her shoes off and remove the possibility of impalement. They dangled from her fingers as she picked her way down to the beach.

Her boyfriend was sitting in the sand, staring out at the ocean. It just looked so romantic—with the stars the sky was too bright to see at home, and the waves, and the back of Paxton’s white shirt in the moonlight—that Devi decided to slip into the scene without saying anything at all.

A mistake. Paxton gasped and jumped. Apparently, he hadn’t heard her over the noise of the water.

“Sorry, sorry!” she said.

He sighed and smiled, getting to his feet.

“How’d it go?”

“I think it went well. She was feeling calm enough to drive, so she’s on her way home now. She’s gonna cover for me until we get back.”

“That’s good… but what about Mr. Kulkarni?”

“He was passed out in the passenger’s seat,” Devi stated. “I guess he’s kind of a lightweight? Kamala said she’s going to drive back to our school and leave him and his car in the parking lot. She’s planning to call my mom for a ride home. If it were me, I think I’d take the bus and try to sneak back into the house as quietly as possible, but Kamala still has a lot to learn about how to thoroughly dodge your problems.”

“And maybe about how to climb to the second floor of your house from the outside?” Paxton suggested with a meaningful smirk.

She did her best to return it, but the odds were that it didn’t look nearly as sexy on her. Then again, she had moonlight and midnight and well-displayed cleavage on her side.

“How’d you learn to do that so quietly anyway?” Devi asked, tossing her shoes to the sand and stepping forward to boldly wrap her arms around Paxton’s waist.

He’d had his hands in his pockets, but as soon as she’d begun to move towards him, he’d pulled them out. His arms encircled her, his hands on the back of his own black jacket. Although Devi wanted to offer him the jacket back—he felt slightly chilly through his shirt—she didn’t want the two of them to separate. Besides, body heat was a thing. This was practically what it was for. So Devi just pressed herself closer, breathing the scent of the ocean and Paxton’s fading cologne.

“Trent,” he said.

“Yeah, actually, that checks out.”

Were there boundaries between warming someone up while having a conversation and just hugging them? It wasn’t clear to Devi, but it felt good when they both went quiet for a while. She stood unevenly on the cold sand and listened to the thud of Paxton’s heart.

“You never said yes,” he said eventually, quietly.

“Yes to what?”

“I told you I came to the dance as your boyfriend and you never actually agreed to be my girlfriend. We kinda just started making out.”

Devi lifted her cheek from his chest so she could look at him. He didn’t appear disappointed, more like he was making an observation. Maybe he’d been reflecting, out here in the dark, while she and Kamala had talked.

“In my books, that’s an obvious yes,” she said, grinning. “What more do you need?”

She could see him trying not to smile.

“A little atmosphere would be nice,” Paxton said. “Maybe a long drive, or the beach. A full moon. Romance me, Vishwakumar.”

Devi vibrated with silent laughter. Or her heart was just beating really, really freaking hard.

“Sounds like you’ve got some pretty big expectations there.”

“And stars,” he added. “There should be a shitload of stars.”

With that, he took one hand off her back to point far above them. Devi tipped her head back, the light of the stars a friendly blur as she tried to pick one to settle on, just one. Paxton’s face coming forward to hover over hers blotted them out. Her boyfriend kissed her, light and ghosting and then firm and slow.

“On the other hand,” he said, pulling back a little, “I think we were onto something with the making out.”

Devi smiled and dug her toes into the sand to make herself taller, lips at the ready and realigned with his.

“We did set a precedent.”

[monstersandmaw]

Slight update, clarification, and rant here, so please feel free to ignore this if you’re not interested in Etsy-related goings on.

First of all, thank you SO MUCH to everyone who’s bought something from my shop after seeing my post earlier. I will pack and post your orders tomorrow morning before I set off for my parents’. (I’ve also added Canada to the places I ship to, but I can’t ship to the EU fucking Brexit fucking Brexit fucking Brexit because it’s just too complicated for me right now. I’m sorry!).

Those who have been able to leave reviews (bless you for 5 stars!!!) are really helping because (I think) it tells Etsy the stuff has actually got to you??? I don’t use tracking because I want to keep costs down for you if you buy something from me, but that means they hold the funds of each sale, no matter what, for 45 days after I mark it as complete, and this will continue for three fucking months...

I have to say I wasn’t expecting this ‘funds held in reserve’ for ransom when I signed up to Etsy, on top of all the fees (which I was expecting, but my god there are so many, and they’re all really fucking pointless - like if you buy multiple items from one listing, I get charged per repeat item from that listing!!!). The reserve should be lifted from my shop after 90 days (!), but that’s a long time to go without income... Like, until next year. Kind of makes me miss my humbler ko-fi shop days...!! I will have to start opening up writing commissions soon if they don’t release the funds because I need the income! Stay tuned.

It’s been... a ride, but we’re getting there, and you folks are honestly wonderful. I’m so touched, and I’m so happy to know that things I’ve made with my little ghostli hands are going out to you from my little workshop here in the south of England.

Thank you for your support and kindness.

Lots of love, Ghosti. x

[koolkat9]

Would you take a request for non-ship Canada and America? (Or Matthew and Alfred)

Like, the two of them just being twins and doing twin stuff?

And, um, if it comes up, I like Canada as the older twin...

Sure! Love me some family stuff! I hope you don’t mind, I got a bit of NedCan brainrot when writing this so there is a little bit of NedCan at the end. 

Rating: T

Relationships: NA bros, NedCan

Word Count: 1398

Finally Free

It was summer once more, which meant regular trips up to their cottage whenever they had free time. Alfred and Matthew always kicked off the season by taking a couple of weeks off and heading up near North Bay to their cottage for some much-needed downtime. They often invited their family and friends, but the first week was always dedicated to just them as well as preparation and cleaning up. 

“But I just want to go fishing,” Alfred whined as Matthew handed him a mop. “My bosses have been cooping me up for months. Can’t we just clean tomorrow?”

“No,” Matthew replied sharply. Strangely, the normally quiet and passive man had been quite irritable the last few days. Alfred wanted to protest since he saw no good reason as to why they had to finish their cleaning today, but he knew how scary his brother could be if pushed too far. So begrudgingly, he started sweeping the kitchen while Matthew focused on loading the fridge.

Not even ten minutes in, Alfred’s mind began to wander to blue skies, fresh air, and the calming rock of the current as it pushed against him in the water. He couldn’t keep this up, angry Mattie or not. Cautiously, he looked over at his brother. Matthew seemed completely focused on making all their (Alfred’s) food fit. Without making a sound, he propped the broom against the wall and began tiptoeing towards the door. 

“Nice try Al,” Matthew called. When Alfred turned back around, Matthew still had his back to him. He couldn’t have been that loud to notify Matthew. Could he? Whatever it was, he had been caught. Maybe he could make a run for it.

“And don’t think about running. You know I can catch you.”

Alfred groaned, picking up the broom once more. 

Once the fridge and cupboards were stocked, Mathew turned his attention to wiping down the counters. Alfred continued his half-hearted sweep. Despite Alfred’s lack of enthusiasm, the two finished everything that needed to be done in the kitchen. Next was the bedrooms. “I’m thirsty Mattie. Can we take a break for drinks?” Alfred asked. 

“Fine,” Matthew agreed without much fuss and headed over to the fridge while Alfred got glasses. As they sipped their juice, Alfred got another idea. He placed his drink down and reached over to the fruit bowl Matthew had put out, but as he reached, he “accidentally” bumped over his drink, making a mess. 

“Shit, I’m sorry Matt,” Alfred exclaimed.

Matthew took a moment to take a breath before replying. “Just…Just move onto the bedrooms, and I’ll be there in a minute.”

“You got it, bro!” But instead of heading upstairs to the rooms, Alfred headed straight out the back door. 

He had almost made it to the dock when he felt someone grab his collar. “Nice try,” Matthew stated tiredly, “Do you really think I wouldn’t hear the back door close?”

“N-No…I–”

“Come on, we’re preparing the bedrooms– together.”

Alfred was dragged back into the house by Matthew, up the stairs, and into the first bedroom. He was handed a broom once more, and, dejected, he began to sweep. As Matthew put out fresh sheets and bedding, Alfred sulked around and swept. Surprisingly he finished the room just as Matthew was beginning to set up the bed in the next one. In the end, Alfred had successfully swept two of the five rooms before he felt the call of the lake once more. But how could he escape? 

As he made his way to the third bedroom, he passed the bathroom. “Hey Matt,” He called to his brother, not taking his eyes off the bathroom door.

“What?”

“I just have to go to the bathroom. The soap is out up here so I’m just going to run downstairs.”

“Fine, but no funny business,” Matthew warned.

Alfred dashed down the stairs and into the bathroom. He took a minute before throwing open the window and climbing out it. Unfortunately, Alfred had overestimated the size of the window and ended up getting stuck. He tried his best to wriggle free, but it was futile. He couldn’t call for Matthew or else he would be caught for a third time. So he kept wriggling. 

After about fifteen minutes he heard footsteps coming towards him. Matthew came around the corner with a smirk on his face. “I should be mad,” He chuckled, “But I’d rather see this as karma.”

“Just get me out of here,” Alfred cried.

“Hmm…I don’t know. You’ve kind of been an asshole since we got here.”

“Mattie!”

Matthew leaned against the wall, ignoring his brother’s plea.

“Fine! I'm sorry! I’ll clean! Just get me out of here.”

Matthew gave him a pleasant smile. “That’s all you had to say.” Matthew ran back into the house and barged into the bathroom. With a few quick tugs, Alfred was free once more. 

Alfred kept true to his word and cleaned the rest of the rooms before heading down to the living room. Matthew soon joined him, wiping down the coffee table, end tables, and mantle before heading into the kitchen once more. Alfred quirked a brow. Why was Matthew going back in there? After pondering for a moment, he figured it was probably nothing and went back to his duty. The sooner he finished, the sooner he could head down to the lake. 

Just as Alfred was finishing up, Matthew returned to the living room and began wiping down the tables and mantle again. “Matt, I’m pretty sure they’re clean,” Alfred remarked. 

“You can never be too sure. We haven’t been here for months.”

“True, but don’t you think you’re overdoing it? Who’re you trying to impress? Francis?”

“N-No…I’m done doing that.”

“Hmm…I know Arthur likes things to be clean and orderly, but not so much so that you need to–”

“Jan is coming tomorrow okay,” Matthew snapped.

Oh, so that’s why Matthew wanted to get everything cleaned right away. “Ooooh finally confess?” Alfred asked, nudging his brother’s shoulder. 

“No,” Matthew replied through gritted teeth, “That’s what this weekend is for.”

“Aw Mattie–”

“Don’t start. Just finish cleaning in here, and then you can go do whatever you want.” With that, Matthew rushed back into the kitchen (most likely to wipe it down again). Alfred could tell his brother was nervous. Why else would he be so crazy about cleaning? Why else would Matthew have been so tense since the beginning of the trip? Maybe he could use this to make it up to Matthew for being a pain earlier today. Finishing up his chores, Alfred grabbed the car keys and headed into town. 

—

When Alfred awoke the next morning, Matthew was just leaving to pick up Jan. As soon as he heard the car pull out of the driveway, Alfred got to work. He took the bouquet of tulips and bag of decorations he had bought yesterday to decorate the living room. He placed the bouquet on the coffee table before taking out the flower garland and stringing it on the mantle. The final touch was a new floral pattern blanket Alfred had picked up. He draped over the back of the couch and straightened it out before surveying his work. It wasn’t much, but Jan seemed to enjoy flowers, and hopefully, he’d like the little surprise. 

Just as Alfred was finishing straightening everything up, he heard the car pull in. He dashed into his room and hopped onto his bed as if he never left. He heard Matthew gasp when he reached the living room. That was his cue. As if he had just woken up, Alfred stumbled out of his room. 

“Matthew, you didn’t have to do all this for me,” Jan said as Alfred entered the living room. 

“I–”

“I told him that, but he insisted,” Alfred interrupted, failing to hide his growing grin, “You’re very special to him, you know.”

Though his expression remained ever stoic, the slightest hint of blush reached Jan’s cheeks. Matthew, on the other hand, threw his brother a not-so-hidden glare. 

“I’ll leave you two alone for a bit. I didn’t get the fishing in like I wanted to yesterday.” 

As Alfred made his way to the back door, he gave Matthew a wink before heading down to the lake. He would get his thanks later. Right now, Matthew and Jan needed some privacy.

[icarusthelunarguard]

This Week’s Horrible-Scopes

[Sorry I'm a night late... had a VERY bad work-shift]

It’s time for this week’s Horrible-Scopes! So for those of you that know your Astrological Signs, cool! If not, just pick one, roll a D12, or just make it up as you go along. It really doesn’t matter. Better yet! Check out “Heart of the Game, Fredonia” - they can sell you those D12’s with the symbols on them! Get in contact with them on Facebook, shipping to the U.S. only, and tell them “Shujin Tribble” sentcha. “Hail, Hail, Fredonia!” Home of the Blue Devil!

OH, there’s for sure a theme to this week’s ‘Scopes, but we’ll be damned if we’re about to let you all know just WHAT it is. After all, the LAST time we told you about the secret messages you had such a fun time trying to discover what it was, right? Your only clue is: Baseball Bat Religion. And so we’re clear, you can only ever win this contest ONCE.

Aries 

There are stores in the US and Canada called “Dollar General”, who don’t have a picture of a General as a mascot, oddly enough. How about you start your OWN chain of similar stores, called “Spend A Buck” - with a pirate as your mascot, drawn in the style of “The Scream”, named “Buck-an-Ear”. Yes, this is a Fozzy Bear level Dad Joke, but we don’t care. It’s funny to us. So This Week… Don’t sell a whole bunch of different things, just Corn on the Cob… “Buck An Ear”! If that’s not appealing you could always just make grits.

Taurus 

Taking inspiration from THAT ‘Scope, let’s get you back into playing video games. “War Admiral” is an old-school terminal window game played against the computer, very like the tabletop game of Battleship. It used to be an easy enough game to play back in the day, but now that you can fill a 4K monitor with a terminal window, the playfield is huge! So This Week… The last-known copy of the program was on a BASF Audio Cassette Tape. So if you want it you’ll need to find a way to digitize it yourself.  

Gemini 

It’s been 42 years since it was released, meaning it’s the answer to everything! Expect to see “Lil E. Tee” to be re-released for a one-night command performance at your local movie theater sometime in early December. It’ll be a chance for families to go out holiday shopping, but take a break in the middle of the day away from the crowds. It’s rated PG, but all things considered it’s still a good family-friendly experience. So This Week… If you have kids with a peanut allergy, do NOT take them to see the movie! They WILL beg to try Reese’s Pieces.

Cancer Moon-Child 

Seems we’re just following up a long train of thought this week. You want to be sure that when you have a child all upset they can’t have Reese’s pieces that you “Justify” your veto carefully. Don’t tell them that they’ll get sick from it, because people get well again, usually. Couch it in the form of them needing to get a shot to keep them from being violently ill, going to the doctors, and not being allowed to get a lollipop after. Because E.R.’s usually don’t give those out. So This Week… Yes, there’s a story about a kid injecting himself with an Epi-Pen before eating a Reese’s Cup out of spite. We’re not sure if it’s a real story, but do you want to find out if your kid’s gunna be the one to actually try that? Be Careful.

Leo 

In the My Little Pony-Inspired fan videos of “Button’s Adventures” by Jan Animations, there is a character named Gibson; Button’s Brother. He, as you might guess, plays guitar in his band, but he’s not exactly good. There’s a question that needs answering; If he joined the Royal Guards and stayed in long enough could he eventually be “Lieut. Gibson”? So This Week… Here’s a guitar joke for you! What's the difference between a guitarist and a vacuum cleaner? When you unplug a vacuum it doesn't suck anymore. (*Beat Pause*) Sorry if the delivery was a little flat.

Virgo 

If you studied Earth Science and Meteorology enough you’d know about this next term and how it’s produced. A “Hill Gail” refers to a mid-sunny-day phenomenon of a sudden high-speed wind that climbs the sun-facing side of a hill. It’s because of this that the placement of wind farm windmills are congregated on hill tops. So This Week… Don’t believe everything you hear on the Internet about windmills. Some of them are fake. This one isn’t, but, you know.. Some OTHER ones are. 

Libra

We haven't given you a language or geography lesson in a long time, so it’s time to fix that with a two-fer. The term in German is “Donau” (“Dough - NAW”) which means “Danube”, the second-longest river in Europe. We don’t think you actually appreciate just how long this river is! If you started at its source in Germany and navigated all the way to the end at the Black Sea, you’d pass through Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova, and Ukraine. So This Week… Even though the name is shorter, it’s longer than the Mississippi River. Quick Question! How many letters are in the name “Mississippi”? (*Beat Pause*) FOUR! The answer is Four. 

Scorpio 

For those of you who feel “Pensive” about that answer and think we’re cheating, Good Instincts! But no. We’re not cheating, just asking the question in a way that’s both accurate but misleading. So try this one on. Why do cemeteries have fences? Because everyone's dying to get in. So This Week… That’s the GOOD answer! Imagine if the answer was because they were trying to get OUT!

Sagittarius 

If Scorpio was pensive, we’re expecting you to have actual “Regret” for what you’re about to get. Just to make you more comfortable we promise you won’t get a dad joke. If you grab an insulated wire in your right hand, with your thumb in the direction of the current, your fingers will be wrapped around the direction of magnetic force. So This Week… If you grab an UNINSULATED wire with current in it you won’t be able to let go. Told you that insulation was important!

Capricorn 

Ok, ok. No more jokes. But how about something educational? You might’ve heard the name “Omar Khayyam” but do you know who that was? First off, that wasn’t his real name; that actually stretches about 18 syllables long and he made contributions to mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, and poetry back in the time of the Seljuk Empire. Why did THAT sound familiar? Because of Bill Wurtz’s animation, “History of the Entire World, I Guess”. So This Week… Do you know how old that video is? It was released in 2017 and almost popular enough to be credited in a different History Video soon, we bet. Go thank him for such a great video!

Aquarius 

There are some of you who are Cryptographically inclined and YOU are My People on this one! Take all the letters in the words “Bold Forbes” and re-arrange them in Numerical Order. Using those numbers in reverse, add two sets of nested parentheses so the outer one has an odd number of letters with an even number on the inner one. Finally use that as the beginning of an equation, solve for “B”, then put that into your graphing calculator. So This Week… You SHOULD end up with a Boy Kisser picture display for you. If you don’t know what that is, GOOD!

Pisces  

And finally, we know how you avoid hard alcohol, but this week, “Go for Gin”. There’s going to be reason enough for you to have it, and it’s not to drink straight. We know you’re going to try that home-made eggnog recipe again. Make sure you’ve got enough gin in there to kill off any nasties that might grow in there since, you know… Raw Egg. So This Week… Yes, we know it’s traditionally RUM  that you’d add in there, but… All Of The Rum’s Gone!

And THOSE are your Horrible-Scopes for this week! Remember if you liked what you got, we’re obviously not working hard enough at these. BUT! If you want a better or nastier one for your own sign or someone else’s, all you need to do to bribe me is just Let Me Know - or check out the Ko-Fi page ( https://ko-fi.com/icarusthelunarguard )! These will be posted online at the end of each week via Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, Discord, and BLUESKY.

[alirhi]

okay. let's do this shit.

Guess what, bitches? Mama bear's back and angry all over again. Remember when I said I might dive into a ragepost about how Bucky's treated after completing the one about Loki? This is it. This is the post. Welcome to fucking Thunderdome.

I will actually try to keep it civil. No promises, but I'll try. and I will not be accepting "constructive criticism" about my rage. Just so we're clear.

Got it? Good. Let's dive in.

In case you don't want to read the whole thing (I know I get wordy) here's what this whole post will boil down to: BUCKY NEVER HAD A FUCKING CHOICE. NEVER. NOT ONCE IN HIS ENTIRE ADULT LIFE.

Now, quick reminder: I don't read comics. I know nothing about Bucky's comic canon, except what Sebastian liked to bring up as often as possible during TWS/CW promotions: at some point, Bucky boned Nat. XD Since Bucky only exists as a Marvel property, I won't be bitching about other source material being disrespected like I did with Loki. This is all MCU, my dudes. And honestly? That's enough, because though we don't see nearly enough of Bucky for my liking, we do manage to get a rich, deep backstory to him in the material we're given, partly thanks to better writing in the early days of the MCU, and partly thanks to Sebastian Stan's phenomenal acting. Unlike the writers of the Loki series, Seb knows how to show, not tell. And gods, what stories those eyes show...

Let's start with the army. In an old post illustrating what an absolute BAMF Bucky Barnes truly is, I mistakenly said he enlisted, and a kind soul educated me on the incredible attention to detail Marvel used to pay - in this case, Bucky's ID number. 32557038. As this kind, eagle-eyed soul pointed out to me, the first two digits of that number - 32 - signify that Bucky was drafted, specifically from the NY, NJ, DE area (that last part is rather obvious, as Bucky and Steve are from Brooklyn lol). Bucky didn't choose to go to war. He was drafted. He was forced to fight, or go to prison.

Bucky was born in 1917, which means - again, as someone pointed out to me a while back - he came of age during the Great Depression. As a child, he would likely have seen his parents living comfortably and able to shower each other and him and his sister with gifts and fun memories, and then POOF. Stock market crashes when he's only 12-years-old, and life becomes brutal and painful. He manages to have some fun with his best friend Steve, and spends his teens/early 20s chasing girls and keeping his stupid, stubborn, tiny friend from getting beaten to death.

Steve constantly has something to prove. He's absolutely got what my mom always called "little man's disease", and Bucky's just doing his best not to roll his eyes too much at this asthmatic chihuahua constantly trying to beat up Tibetan mastiffs. While Steve keeps lying on his enlistment forms (an actual crime) trying again and again to get into the army and prove what a badass he is (definitely not), Bucky's had enough trauma and upheaval in his life and he just wants his stupid friend to calm tf down and live. Enjoy the fact that he doesn't have to go to war and get his limbs blown off.

And then he gets fucking drafted. This sweet, resigned realist who knows exactly how dangerous the war really is, is forced to put on a uniform and go fight strangers alongside other strangers thousands of miles from everything he knows. And on his last night of freedom, when he just wants to hang out with his friend, see some cool gadgets, and dance with a pretty girl, his stupid angry chihuahua friend feels the need to lie and try to enlist again.

Okay. Gotta get back on track. Ragepost about mistreatment of Bucky, not how much Steve annoys me. Sorry. Anyway...

Bucky's drafted, accepts his shitty lot with a brave smile, and is shipped off to Europe, where he is captured by HYDRA and presumed by the Allies to be KIA. Instead, he's strapped down, tortured, and given the HYDRA version of the super serum against his will. Steve rescues him, and Bucky knows he can't leave his idiot friend to his own devices to get his head blown off, so he dives right back into the fray. And then he falls off a cliff, loses most of his left arm, and is declared dead...again. This one's pretty damn valid, though lol. Without the serum no one knew he'd been shot up with, there is no way he would have survived that fall.

Here is where Bucky's story gets truly heartbreaking: His autonomy, his ability to consent is stripped from him through electroshock torture/brainwashing. The trigger words are conditioned into him during this process, and boom. Ten words in Russian, and Bucky Barnes is gone. Even the confused, hurting shadow of him is gone, leaving only a perfectly obedient killing machine, with Bucky's pretty face. He's strong as all hell, though, so they can't keep him fully under their control for long, not without more torture, when the disorientation of being fucking frozen wears off on longer missions.

I cannot stress this point enough, guys: Bucky. Had. No. Choice. Not like the draft, where his choices (go and get shot at, refuse and go to jail, or dodge and run to Canada) just suck. No, he literally didn't have a choice. He had his ability to choose stripped from him. If that's too complex a concept to really sink in, try this: His brain was fucking raped. Repeatedly. For decades. Nothing the Winter Soldier ever did was Bucky's fault. Nothing. Ever. Not remotely, no matter how you fucking slice it. Bucky is not an assassin. I almost said "not a killer", but he was a soldier, and a sharpshooter. He definitely killed when he was himself, but that was in a war, not a series of assassinations.

So far, imo, so good. This is just a rundown of Bucky's pre-show backstory. I don't love what he had to suffer, but I do love how it was treated in the movies. People were afraid of him, but when they knew the whole situation, Steve, Nat, and Sam rallied behind him. Natasha had plenty of reason to want the Winter Soldier dead; he'd tried to kill her multiple times and almost succeeded. Sam had no reason to help Bucky at all; he didn't know him, didn't trust him, and again, TWS had tried to kill him. But he stood by Steve, and when Bucky showed the clear difference between himself and TWS, Sam stood by him, too, and fought alongside him.

And it's very realistic, imo, that Tony didn't give a single fuck that Bucky had no choice. He watched this man murder both of his parents on tape. If TWS had killed my dad and I saw proof of it, I'd try to kill Bucky, too. Grief wins out over logic. Most emotions usually do. And that's a very important point we're going to come back to in a few minutes.

Bucky was really only in like ten minutes at most of IW and Endgame, and for multiple reasons I hate those movies, so I'm just gonna skip them, kay? Kay. On to the main event!

Here's where I get pissed off. Even if I didn't have an unhealthy attachment to this character, or the depth of appreciation for his tragic backstory that I do, the lack of continuity between the movies and the show alone would still piss me off. It always does. Don't even get me started on Joss "Continuity? What continuity?" Whedon and his (iconic, but flawed) shows. Ahem. Back on track...

Let me just get one little thing out of the way real quick: I fucking LOVE The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. I love it. This show amazed me when I first watched it, and I still love it after many more viewings lol. I have only ever watched it all the way through without skipping over as much John Walker shit as possible the one time lol but I love how Sam and Bucky interact, and I fucking adore how Sam's arc was treated. I just wish they'd show the same care and attention to Bucky.

Because what they did to Bucky in this show is a fucking travesty. There was a tiny ray of hope in the pilot, when he called out Dr. Bitchface for being a terrible shrink. I thought that would be the start of him realizing he needed to find someone else and ignore the damaging shit that woman was telling him. But...nope. No such luck.

The show really had a strong start, I'll give it that. We see Bucky having nightmares of his time as TWS and struggling to hide how his traumatic memories are affecting him as he tries to live in the world again. He befriends the father of one of HYDRA's victims, which can't be good for Bucky (and we're shown it's definitely not when he sees the shrine in Yori's home to his late son) but it's sweet, how he's trying to connect and reach out to someone who's hurting and lonely.

They drop the ball a little with the whole... Bucky can hack a fucking car, but can't figure out Tinder thing. Had they just run with the fandom interpretation of the tiger photos line, that it shows that Bucky is bi and left it at that, I'd have been okay with it (and no, that is not because I ship Sam/Bucky. it's because Bucky is and always has been a certified nerd who loves technology and has consistently shown very little issue learning to use new gadgets). The outdated flip phone he handed his terrible court-mandated shrink was a burner; I liked that theory when I read it, especially since it's the only time we see him even holding a phone that old lol. This all could have fit the "Bucky is a sassy bisexual nerd" narrative and it'd be okay. Instead, the director was like "NOOOOOO that line was just to show how old he is and how he can't figure out all this newfangled technology!" Woman, you had him remotely driving someone else's vehicle with a tablet. That is NOT a man who can't figure out a damn smart phone!

But that's just a minor annoyance. What fills me with absolute rage is how everyone - not just the shitty therapist who lashes out at and purposely triggers her traumatized patients, but EVERYONE - Sam, Zemo, people who should fucking know better ALL treat him like he's a psychopath and a ticking time bomb. Like he chose to take the serum and he chose to kill for HYDRA, and he's just seen the error of his ways. *barf*

Bucky in the movies is established to be a victim, through and through. His guilt over what he was forced to do is natural, and that he sees himself as a monster makes sense... but that doesn't mean it's correct. The one and only thing I ever liked about Steve Rogers is at least he got it. He pointed out that none of it was Bucky's fault, he tried to show him that he was worth saving. That's the other reason I refuse to talk about Endgame. This post will get a WHOLE LOT LONGER and a lot fucking angrier if I open that door.

Zemo supposedly knows everything about HYDRA and super soldiers... So why does he treat Bucky like he's a corrupt serial killer? (this, for the record, is why I don't like Zemo) Why does he never point out that Bucky was given the serum against his will, or that his actions, when he had control of them, proved that he was never corrupted? Bucky never wanted to become superhuman. Bucky didn't even want to fucking fight!

Sam, despite constantly resisting the label, is shown very clearly to be Bucky's friend. By episode 3, he cares. He worries about how Bucky is getting lumped in with the other super soldiers in Zemo's speech... But he never really defends him. He says "what about Bucky?" but he doesn't point out that Bucky's a good man, he's fought so hard to help people, he does everything he can to avoid killing... And that fucking speech in episode 5. I was with him on "you gotta stop looking to other people to tell you who you are." I was like "YEAH! Tell him, Sam! Bucky, you're WORTH SAVING, boo! Your value does not hinge on someone else's opinion of you!" And then... Sam dropped the ball.

He not only continued the disturbing pattern of victim-blaming in this show, and in Marvel/Disney properties in general, but he gave really dangerously bad advice! No one in their right mind, mental health professional or no, would EVER tell a traumatized former assassin (whether he was responsible for his actions or not) to go confront his victims' families out of the blue with no warning and no one to mediate and keep things from going to shit. Yori already knew his son had been murdered because he was in the "wrong place, wrong time." How is it being "of service" to tell him you're the one who killed him?! Remember how I said Tony's reaction to learning the full truth about his parents' deaths was valid and would be an important point later? Hi! Welcome to later. THAT is the natural reaction to facing the man who murdered your loved one(s). And even if Yori didn't get angry and lash out, HOW IS IT "HELPING" HIM OR BRINGING HIM "CLOSURE" TO KNOW THAT HIS FRIEND KILLED HIS FUCKING SON?!?!?! This man befriended him, bonded with him, watched him grieve... And now he's learning this is the man who caused all his pain and heartache to begin with? That is so toxic and psycho I just... I can't even... UGH.

And then there's the equally toxic and damaging "deeply traumatized person just needed a stern talking to and a hug to be ALL BETTER AGAIN" ending. I loved seeing Bucky happy and socializing, but it was too soon, and it was unearned. And it sends a fucking awful message to people actually struggling with PTSD, and to their loved ones who don't know how to help them. Heaping more blame on them and then hugging it out is NOT helpful!

This show could have been damn near perfect with just two changes. That's all. Just two. 1) Someone, anyone, bringing up the reasons why Bucky was never a villain in his presence. Someone being in his corner and reminding him, like Steve did, that it wasn't his fault and he's not going to "snap". 2) More time devoted to Bucky's healing. Actual fucking healing, not the shit they tried to pass off as a magic fix-all. He can have his happy barbecue moment, just don't frame it as "everything's great now!" Healing isn't linear, and there will be both good days and bad. Some of the most fragile people in the world have the brightest smiles.

If we get a season 2, which this amazing show absolutely deserves, and they address this stuff, all will be forgiven in my book. Expanding on his story and his journey toward healing will help to reframe that "happily ever after" garbage as something more realistic. But as it stands now... Fuck Marvel.

[bigbrotherlouis]

i’m obsessed with joel farabee and morgan frost and you should be too: a primer

hello! welcome! recently i have become infatuated with morgan frost and joel farabee for a lot of reasons but mostly because of that one post that i spent like twenty minutes searching various blogs for that said “people are freaking out about sexualising hockey players, meanwhile joel farabee is one instagram comment away from telling morgan frost he’d suck him dry.” in my head rent free. hit a girl up if you have the post.

anyway! frosty and beezy:

[hard cut to me whispering “oh my god even their nUMBERS are friends” i’m fine.]

this is more like about vibes and less about facts, so you can google if you want to know more about their, like, bios and stats and stuff that’s not 99% rpf or conjecture. this primer is just the things that make me scream. however, that being said, they do play well on a line together and both are very good players.

joel farabee is american, from new york i believe but his dad is from philly, and falls neatly into the category of BORN TO BE A FLYER. longtime fan, hugely excited to play for the team, brings it up all the time.

morgan frost, from ontario canada, was not.

a real, actual tweet. he tweeted this with his WHOLE chest and then joined the flyers like three years later. i adore it. another real actual tweet i adore:

sweet, sweet joel. he misses his buddies :( no doubt including morgan because they are, by all appearances, obsessed with each other. i’m trying not to keep  using the word obsessed in this primer but it’s hard because they are. morgan’s a year older, a first round draft pick in 2017 and joel’s a first round pick in 2018, but they didn’t start playing together until 2019, i believe, because joel played for a college team in boston. side note: he also captained team usa and wore a number 28 in honour of claude giroux and i am absolutely not okay about it.

e! mo! tion! al! incidentally, frosty wears danny briere’s number when he plays for the flyers, which. take from that what you will. iykyk. their NUMBERS are FRIENDS. HERITAGE SOULMATES. joel’s been called up to play on the flyers (and did really well in the playoffs!) but we’re still waitin’ for morgan to come along too but the coaching staff hasn’t recognised the raw power of true love yet so.

at this point, you’re probably saying “sasha shut up about their fucking numbers and talk about why they’re obsessed with each other” but good news! i do not need to do that because the official flyers media has done that for me! (x) i’d recommend watching it because it’s a lot packed into a neat 100 seconds, but notable moments include the voice over saying “joel farabee and morgan frost have found that going at it together has its benefits” within the first thirty seconds. that is a real direct quote. i can’t believe it either. there’s also a lot of light homoerotic bonding over playing chel, them sitting across from each other  on their beds, the admission of being ROOMMATES (oh my god they were roommates), this shot of them sitting with their mouths wide open on either side of their dad,

and also joel wearing a hat with a canadian maple leaf on it, despite being from the the united states. wonder where he got that from. please watch the video.

when they’re not playing chel or, you know, going at it together, they’re being horny in each other’s instagram comments. there’s honestly.... so many of these that i can include but we’re just gonna go with my favourites.

when i say i think about this comment on a picture of morgan with isaac ratcliffe, a fellow flyers prospect on a daily basis, i mean it. i’ll be just doing my thing, minding my own business, and MORGAN MAKES ME VENMO HIM JUST TO TALK will pop into my head, completely uninvited. king shit for morgan to do and king shit for joel to admit on social media for the world to see, but joel admitting things he maybe shouldn’t is a running theme. 

cool. TOTALLY not flirting or anything.

joel. also both their exhibitionist streaks should be explored in fic more i am JUST sayin.

ok but bee you were lookin. like you can chirp but you were lookin, don’t lie. 

when ur in love with ur roommate but ur both hockey players so u can only communicate that love via chirping when he’s with the boys :(

what’s it called when you vibe really well with someone and also live with them and also comment on their shirtlessness and also maybe kiss them on the mouth a little? d... da... dating?? can’t be it.

morgan is a little more composed in the comments and mostly just posts inside jokes i cannot comprehend, or compliments. it’s still cute.

this was on a playoffs pic where joel’s wearing #28 love 2 see it love a supportive boyf always

this one was of joel with a fish he caught and i’m sorry but i did not want it on my phone.

but morgan can’t hide his affection for long. (me, in the distance: TWENTY EIGHT TWENTY EIGHT TWENTY EIGHT!!!!!!!)

there’s more comments but they’re boring and this is long, mostly joel chirping  morgan for wearing baseball or football stuff. however! they are also on twitter where they keep each other humble after incredible goals, like bros do,

this is DEFINITELY flirting. like, blatant. it’s like that kind of flirting when you’re thirteen and you don’t know what to do with your body so you just kinda steal your crush’s stuff or insult them because all attention is good attention, right??

but when push comes to shove, beezy is always gonna look out for his boy (because they are in love):

some important pictures of them together, for your pleasure: 

this is so DUMB and i love it

friends supporting friends!!!

this is them meeting their hockey dads :) so cute :) joel is promising g that he’ll have morgan back by ten yessir he will be respectful of boundaries and curfew. jake is high fiving morgan on getting some. this is facts i just call em like i see em.

and finally!

is this allowed?????  is this allowed???? it’s hard to tell but i’m pretty sure that’s joel on his knees for in front of morgan and i just??? how is that allowed???? it’s been five days and this picture has RUINED me. someone write me an essay to have on my desk by morning, stat.

also v unrelated but here is a video of morgan frost reading, proving he’s the smart one in the relationship. that’s not saying much but, hey! at least there’s proof he can read.

obviously different ships capture people in different ways but there’s something about them to me, personally, that is just so captivating. there’s a lot of potential for different fic vibes, and joel in particular always has a really fun voice to read (and also to write). they definitely have chemistry, they’re pitted against each other so there’s a good-natured rivalry going on, CLOTHES SHARING AND HERITAGE SOULMATE NUMBERS, and, like, they just genuinely seem to enjoy each other. someone PLEASE write more fic for them or by god i’ll have to do it myself.

ok that’s everything for now, i believe. they’re in love and don’t care who knows it and i’m obsessed. (however, i’m also obsessed with joel farabee and andrei svechnikov together, for which i have a one-picture argument for here.)

(p.s. anything not linked i screenshotted myself thank youuu for reading have a good day and remember: morgan makes joel vemno him just to talk 😌)

edit: hello. i wrote this on election night as a way to take off the edge of my nerves and it is not as funny or screechy as i wanted it to be so i’m going to add some now.  

[tohellandbackanthology]

Heya, sorry, why is the cheaper international ground shipping not available? I know you're not a business so it might be that, but just wanted clarification if possible. Thank you very much.

Hi anon! Thank you for the question!

There are quite a few reasons and all of them have to do with timing. Strictly speaking, ground shipping is in fact available but we do not see it as a viable option for us at this time. But below the cut is a detailed answer!

One big reason is that we really want to be able to donate all our proceeds to charity before the end of this year. Timing it for the holidays seems especially lovely, and if we allowed ground shipping for international destinations, it would mean that we would have to wait an additional 3-4 months before we are able to do so. 

Another reason is the fact that in Canada, we are an incorporated non-profit society. We have to submit income tax forms for each year and we would like to conclude the activities of our society within 2021 so that we do not have to do income tax forms again in 2022 for the activities pertaining to this anthology.

We support these packages as they go out. We monitor the tracking and if a package unexpectedly gets sent back to us, or gets damaged or lost, we submit a claim to Canada Post to rectify the situation. When packages get sent back to us, we get charged the cost of shipping again. 

When we initially sold these books via Indiegogo and Big Cartel, we undercharged shipping by a lot, which we were able to do because we sold so many books! International folks paid approximately $32 CAD shipping when, in reality, it cost us $55. So while our international backers paid shipping, we also paid partial shipping for them out of our own funds. Then in cases where books were unexpectedly sent back to us, we were charged $55 again. To send that book back to the backer, we have to pay $55 again. That adds up to $165. And it’s a big blow to the money that we want to go to charity.

While we only had a few books sent back to us due to shipping mishaps (and we’re so grateful that Canada Post is so wonderful with shipping!), it’s still costly. And it doesn’t only cost money but also a lot of time. 

Most of our shipping mishaps happened in Australia as Covid-19 has especially affected Australia Post. Australia is one of the most expensive countries for us to ship to from Canada as well as the country with the longest shipping time. Most Australians had to wait 3 months to receive their books. We had two Australian books sent back to us. This meant it took 3 months to get there, 3 months to get back to us, and 3 months more to get back to the backer. That is 9 months of stress for us where we have to constantly do follow-up. And because we get charged every time, that is 9 months where we can’t donate our money to charity. By allowing expedited shipping internationally, these books will land in Australia in 1-2 weeks, and if they get sent back to us, it’s resolved within a month, rather than nine!

And that stress is the biggest reason why we can’t do ground shipping this time around. We conceived the idea for this project back in 2019 and put it into motion, recruiting fan artists and fanfic writers. In 2020, we had our contributors finish their lovely fan works and we began fundraising. And for those of you lovely folks who have been following us since our initial fundraising campaign know that it took us 6 months to acquire that funding money from Indiegogo, as cross-border banking complications essentially put our project to a stop for those 6 months. Once we finally got our funding, strict Covid-19 measures put our province in a lockdown, meaning the 8 of us could not get together to pack and ship until the lockdown ended.  And then finally we shipped out and since then, we have been waiting for all ~830 of our packages to arrive, so that finally we could get here, which is our extras sale!

As you can see, the creation of this book has been an incredibly long journey with a lot hard work and stress! And yet we’re glad we did it. And we’re incredibly proud of what we accomplished (such a beautiful book!) and we would do it again in a heartbeat because it was an adventure and such a fulfilling thing in itself, but we are very very tired now and it is time to put this book and its story on a shelf for now, to be looked back on with fond memories in the future.

I hope this lengthy explanation helped clarify the situation. We really wish we could offer ground shipping again for international residents but unfortunately, for all these reasons, we chose to go the expedited route this time. We thank everybody for their understanding!

[bsd-elle]

Thoughts on the SK8 The Infinity Episode 12

So the final episode just aired. And I’m having majoorrr mixed feelings.

This show was truly something that kept me going, with it’s story, animation and the whole found family thing. I have loved this show from the beginning and I will till the end.

But as a lot of people in the fandom I do have some strong opinions on the finale

First off, I just want to say that everyone is allowed to have their own opinion but please do not send hate or any negative energy to studio Bones and Hiroko Utsumi. They have worked incredibly hard on this series. In fact I put them on a pedestal for giving us something so poignant and wonderful during such trying times. I looked forward every Saturday to watch the new episode and that feeling, that rush while watching it, never changed throughout the show’s run!!

Now on to my thoughts on the finale.

1. Shipping

I saw many people in the fandom criticizing the studio for queerbaiting. Now I can definitely not give an accurate perspective on this, as I am not part of the LGBTQIA community, though I am a strong ally.

Let’s talk about the main ships: Renga and Matchablossom

Renga: In my opinion they’re pretty much canon. All the hints, the loving looks, Langa jumping to hug Reki, Langa basically saying Reki is his happiness, Reki wanting to skate beside Langa (Infinitely). In my eyes, they’re canon.

Of course it would’ve been amazing to have a canon queer relationship, but we have no idea what happens behind closed doors. The rules in Japan, unfortunately are totally different from other progressive countries. As someone who lives in a country where they just decriminalized gay marriage, seeing canon queer relationships is honestly rare.

I think they did whatever they could to show that Renga is canon.

I mean come on, Langa basically said he liked Reki in episode 8

I think it would be very very cool and progressive to have a them outwardly admit to it, but we know both these dumbasses never finish their sentences. lol

I’m happy with the way their relationship evolved.

Matchablossom: I honestly can’t give a clear reasoning to this, because personally I don’t ship them. But the thing is, they could be canon, who knows?

I mean everyone was talking about how Joe went out with 2 girls in the end sequence and because of that they aren’t canon. But by that logic we couldn’t ship them from the beginning, since Joe kissed girls in the first episode.

I mean I totally headcanon that Joe is a bisexual king, so that means he could be hanging out them girls while still majorly crushing on Cherry.

Who knows, maybe Joe brought the girls to Cherry’s signing on purpose to make him jealous. Lol

Let your imagination run wild, people. It’s up to your own perspective. I personally don’t ship them, but I don’t think it’s queerbaiting when you pretty much have several hints to them caring deeply (love) about each other.

2. Story

This is where the critiquing comes.

One of the main reasons why I loved and still love Sk8 was one, obviously because of Renga and two because I absolutely loved the story.

From eps 1-11 the story was so compelling and written in such a fantastic way. Every week I’d have some assumptions and every time it would completely blow my mind.

In particular ep 10. When I originally saw the title “Dap not needing words” I was so worried.

They need to talk, they have to communicate. But wow, that episode was just phenomenal, if you guys want me to make a review on each episode I would be happy to, I have so much to say.

Sure, ep 10,11 was wayyy too rushed, but I just know it’s because they had to fit a lot of story in such a little time period. If they had maybe 24 episodes, they would’ve knocked it out of the park.

Either way I had no complaints.

My issue with ep 12 is the beef: Adam Vs Snow

I thought animation wise and as a beef it was really impactful (similar to Reki Vs Adam)

But why God, why did they give Adam a redemption

I’m sorry but he doesn’t deserve it.

I knew for a fact that as much as I wanted Adam to go to jail (so badly), I knew it wouldn’t happen. That was just not possible (in my eyes). I thought they would take a page from Fugou Keiji: Balance Unlimited, where his family (those evil ass aunts) and send them to jail (for clear mental, physical abuse and who knows what else), and Adam would go in isolation somewhere.

There he could properly heal from his trauma and abuse, work through it, heal his relationship with Tadashi and just work to be better.

There was a part of me that expected the show to end with a typical “oh we’re all friends and everything is forgiven” bullshit and I prayyedd that wouldn’t happen

But boy was I wrong

Why did they try to sympathize with him?!?

I get it, he’s clearly had severe trauma and abuse, and he uses skateboarding and entering the “zone” to get away from his terrible reality.

But why did they have Langa say this to him??

“Skating is fun because you can do it with your friends!”

It’s sweet that he’s trying to teach Adam what Reki taught him, but this implies that Adam is his friend. Or atleast that’s what he wants

“hey, you’re a crazy monster and you assaulted my friends (boyfriend), but I still wanna skate with you, cause it’s fun with friends”

I’m sorry, in what universe is this.. your friend?

Your actual friend, Langa, who taught you everything you know, who’s been with you from the start, he has been attacked and traumatized multiple times by Adam. Not to mention several other people.

I could’ve accepted it if they used the line

“Don’t ever end up on your own”

That makes more sense in this context, it’s like saying “hey you evil monster, you’re crazy but don’t end up alone, treasure the people in your life”

I think that implies more on the sense that Adam has to figure shit out on his own, by himself. Not with Langa and the people he’s assaulted.

Then it would make atleast a bit more sense to heal Tadashi and Adam’s relationship.

You just cannot build up a character like Adam, for 12 episodes and then completely forgo that for the sake of “friendship”, that just makes no sense

Not to mention, Kirako the detective, the fact that she worked so hard and got absolutely nothing, is preposterous.

That whole thing put a really bad taste in my mouth.

Also, during the beef, like I mentioned, Langa basically implies that they should have fun because they’re skating with friends.

This basically just throws out Langa’s friendship with Reki.

I mean Reki was so badly hurt and injured after their beef, both the times.

Yes, he did have a lot of fun and that was the point of ep 10, 11 to show Reki that he didn’t have to skate to be the best (like no one ever wass.. dun dun dun. If you know that reference, here’s a chocolate) he skated to have fun(even though in my eyes, he’s the best)

Ep 12 was that arc for Langa, for him to realize he also skated to have fun.

But when you’re condoning and encouraging Adam, idkk.. it just rubbed me the wrong way.

I didn’t like it at all. They made him into a gag character in the end scene, which is literally the opposite of what he’s been pictured for the past 11 episodes.

3. Side characters

Shadow did not deserve that in any way whatsover.

He was completely glossed over. I thought his injury would be a pivotal plot point for improving his relationship with the manager, but they just used it as a way to remove him from the tournament

Tadashi, babyy, that’s Stockholm syndrome

When I saw that dog comment:

Godd... he deserves so muchhh moree..

So, overall the finale, honestly disappointed me. But my love for sk8 is everlasting and the finale will never change that

4. Future

Hopefully, and I pray for this

A season 2, movie, OVA or anything tbh.

There’s so much potential

Reki and Langa go to Canada, they visit Oliver’s grave, Langa teaches Reki snowboarding

Kirako finally arresting Adam

Tadashi becoming true friends with Langa, Reki and the gang

Shadow getting the love he deserves

Matchablossom canon

Renga canon

Miya getting the apology he deserves

But whatever it is, Sk8 the Infinity owns my heart and I don’t know what I’m going to do with my life.

Other than reading Renga fanfiction