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[rafelandia]

Two Babies (dad!Rafe Cameron x fem!reader)

Word Count: 5.4k

Warnings: angst, mentions of smut, pregnancy

Summary: Y/N is pregnant again before she’s ready.

Author's Note: Hello! Please enjoy my first Rafe one shot. I would love to expand on this couple so if you have any requests or any blurbs you'd like me to explore, please send me a message! As always, likes and reblogs are much appreciated - it helps more than you know. Happy reading :)

“Well, well, well. If it isn’t my favorite tiny human,” the pediatrician chimed as she kicked the door to the small examination room shut with her sneaker.

“You must say that to all of the parents that you see,” Y/N blushed, unable to hide the smile that tugged on the corners of her lips.

“I do, but this is one of the rare times when I actually mean it. Those blonde curls! Are you freakin' kidding me?”

She padded over to the miniature exam table to get a better look at the infant that was lying contently on her back and chewing on her pudgy albeit still tiny fingers. 

“Let’s take a look at how you’re doing, sweet pea.”

The doctor, Melanie, lifted the stethoscope that was looped around her neck and placed it into her ears. Listening to the baby’s heartbeat to check for any abnormalities, she couldn’t help but give a sympathetic frown when the tiny girl under her tensed up from the cool touch of the metal.

“Nurse’s notes say she’s put on quite a bit. She’s finally caught up to her age group in weight. I’m assuming breastfeeding is going better for you both now?”

Melanie lovingly squeezed the extra chub around the baby girl's thighs.

“Yeah. We don’t really use bottles anymore. Finally got her to latch on and now it seems like all she wants to do it eat,” Y/N chuckled.

“Good! That’s good. There’s nothing wrong with formula like we talked about, so don't overexert yourself if becomes too demanding. Breastfeeding is cheaper though," Melanie chucked, though in her head she was kicking herself. As if this family is in any need to save money. "Is she hitting the milestones? Rolling over? Propping her head up? Babbling a bit?” she continued.

“Babbling, definitely. She keeps us up sometimes because we can hear her talking to herself through the monitor at night,” Y/N poked her tongue out at her daughter in an attempt to get her to smile.

“Having a bit of trouble propping herself up though. She can only do it for a little bit and then she’ll give up. She’s got Rafe's big head, so I’m sure it’s a bit of a struggle.”

Melanie laughed loudly at the mention of her patient’s father, admiring Y/N's wittiness even in the absence of her husband. Given the reputation of the Cameron family, others might think the couple were all work and no play, but Melanie had the privilege of getting to know them behind closed doors. While they took doctor's visits seriously, always paying close attention to what the doctors and nurses had to say regarding the health of their firstborn, her experience with the Cameron's changed her outlook completely. Y/N and Rafe were warm, welcoming, and quite funny sometimes - always making jests at each other or sharing little tid-bits of what their life is like at home. She wished everyone could see them this way. Melanie really wasn't lying when she doted on the little girl, they were the best.

“She’ll get to it eventually. All babies are different. She seems to be coming along quite nicely, though. Nothing abnormal or anything to fuss about. A perfectly healthy six-month-old in my book.”

Y/N sighed in relief, though she knew there was nothing to worry over to begin with.

“How’s mum doing? You taking care of yourself, too? You’re just as important as baby.”

“When I can. Rafe's really good with her. He’ll take over when he sees me struggling, but it seems like she only wants me these days. Think I might be coming down with something, though. I’ve been feeling awful for a few weeks. Like I got hit by a train. I keep reminding myself to go get checked out, but I always get distracted taking care of her,” Y/N gestured to her daughter that was now drooling onto the parchment liner and staring up at the ceiling as if there was something ornately interesting about the popcorn texture that had been stippled onto it.

“When you say, ‘hit by a train,’ what do you mean? I can examine you here if you’d like. As long as it’s nothing serious, I can send you something off to the pharmacy.”

Melanie re-fastened the snaps on the infant’s onesie, making sure not to pinch her chunky legs and placed her back into her mother’s lap.

“Ummm,” Y/N began, “Just extra drained, I guess? Kinda nauseous. I’ve been getting migraines a lot and even when I do get a good night’s rest, I still feel like I could go back to bed for the rest of the day. Maybe I’m just exhausted, I don’t really know. But it just feels a bit different than being worn out like I have been before.”

She could see the wheels in Melanie's head turning, noting each of her symptoms and trying to align them in a path that would lead her to the root of the problem.

“Can I ask you something that might be a bit personal?”

Y/N nodded, rubbing her fingers absentmindedly along the bridge of her daughter’s socked foot.

“Have you and Rafe been intimate since she was born?”

She was taken aback by the question, not understanding where Melanie was going with this or why it was relevant.

“Umm,” Y/N stuttered, feeling a static-y surge of embarrassment travel up her neck and onto the sides of her face, “Yeah. We have.”

A whole fucking lot ever since I’ve been cleared for it, Y/N thought, but kept to herself.

“And can you tell me when your last menstrual cycle ended?”

Then it clicked. She genuinely couldn’t recall her most recent period and even the thought of what Melanie was alluding to made her stomach twist into thousands of tiny knots.

“I- I don’t know. I’ve been so busy with her I don’t even really think about what’s going on with me half of the time.”

Y/N tried to make excuses, anything to avoid the obvious, but judging from the quizzical look on her daughter’s pediatrician’s face, she knew exactly where this was going.

“There’s no way,” she whispered, “I can’t be.”

Melanie's face dropped, now tender and apologetic when she realized that this was news Y/N was not ecstatic to hear.

“I know I’m a pediatrician, so that’s obviously the first thing my mind goes to, but can we at least get you to take a blood test? That way we’ll know for sure?”

//

Rafe came home to a quiet house. It wasn’t unusual, but seeing as it was well after six o’clock in the evening and his wife wasn’t in the kitchen making the pasta dish she'd been dying for all week was. Their grocery store had been out of her favorite canned tomatoes for over a week and she’d nearly tackled Rafe to the ground out of excitement when he’d come home from the grocery store with them the night before. Had he not seen her car in the driveway, he probably wouldn’t have even suspected her to be home.

He checked the living room first, and it was desolate apart from the baby pink, quilted playmat on the floor that was littered with a few of his daughter’s favorite rattles and teethers. Y/N's coat and purse were abandoned haphazardly on the couch, almost as if she tossed it aside in a hurry to get somewhere.

“Baby?” Rafe called out.

Nothing.

His head peaked into the nursery, stealthily and quietly in preparation to walk in on his daughter taking her scheduled nap before her actual bedtime. He’d gotten good at hushing his footfalls to almost complete silence as to not wake her, having made that mistake more than a handful of times. 

And he was right. There she was, sprawled out in her crib with her arms outstretched over her head like a tiny starfish. Her chubby cheeks were smushed against her bicep, drawing her lips open the tiniest bit so that Rafe could see the tops of her fleshy, pink gums and the barely-there nub of her first tooth peeking through. More than anything, he wanted to wake her up - lift her from the plush mattress and cuddle her close, shower her with kisses and tickle her with his scruff to hear those baby squeals he adored so much, but he needed to find Y/N first.

She had to be in their bedroom, he thought to himself. Maybe she was taking advantage of their baby girl napping to also get some rest. She had been rather exhausted lately. Maybe she’d had a rough day and was relaxing in the clawfoot, porcelain bathtub that had been the selling point of the home they now lived in. The houses on Figure Eight were lavish, but not all of the bathtubs were - at least that's what Y/N told Rafe. Who was he to question his bride?

Turns out he was right again. Like he had done with the nursery, he held the metal doorknob tightly in his grip to keep the hinges from creeking and pressed it open gently. The room was completely dark, but he could make out the lump underneath the duvet on their king-sized bed as his wife. 

Good. She was sleeping. 

He padded across the hardwood floor, still being as quiet as he could until he crossed the threshold of the bathroom. There, he rid himself of the uncomfortable clothes he’d been wearing all day. Curse these professional business meetings that forced him to dress nicely. 

All throughout the meetings, he wanted nothing more than to be home with his wife and baby, cuddling the afternoon away and watching shitty reality television while his daughter cooed and grunted and gurgled in her baby voice that he loved so much and could listen to all day. He wasn't always this way - he used to love this shit, but something inside him changed indefinitely when his daughter was born. Rafe was a softy now and he wasn't afraid to admit it. Maybe it was the fact that he’d been having to partake in these boring work meetings a lot more lately, which caused him to miss even the smallest aspects of his everyday life like changing diapers or checking the baby monitor eight hundred times throughout the day to make sure his daughter was still breathing. Perhaps he’d just been getting sentimental because she was growing so much these days, but it was an unpleasant feeling nonetheless.

His thoughts were interrupted when he deposited his heavy watch into the dish he kept on the counter and he heard a quiet yet still prominent sniffle among the clattering of metal against the glass dish.

“Baby? You awake?” Rafe peaked his head out from beyond the bathroom door. 

He saw her body shift under the covers, but she gave no response. So he called out again.

“You sick or something? Can hear you sniffling."

Nothing.

Pivoting back around to the inside of the bathroom, he quickly shut off the light and carried himself over to her side of the bed where he could see her properly. Her face was tucked into her chin and all that was visible to him was the top of her head.

“Hey,” Rafe cooed, petting what he could reach of her hair and speaking even gentler than he had been, “What’s wrong?”

And that’s when he heard it - an almost inaudible choking sound of Y/N trying to catch her breath that immediately let him know she wasn’t sick. She had been crying.

“Whoa, baby,” he was already pulling the covers back with force, honestly not caring whether or not she minded the intrusion.

“Tell me what’s going on.”

She was emotionless when he saw what little he could her face, her puffy, bloodshot eyes and swollen lips illuminated by the hallway light being the only indicator that she was upset. She didn’t even react to Rafe tugging her head out from where it had been buried in the covers, simply rolling onto her back to stare idly at the ceiling.

“Y/N,” he called for his wife again, this time much more stern, “You’ve got to talk to me.”

She took several deep breaths through her nose, allowing her lungs to fill to their maximum capacity before exhaling with a sigh. Rafe could have sworn she was sucking all of the oxygen out of the room along with his patience each time she did so. 

After what felt like ages, she parted her lips to speak.

“I went to the doctor today.” 

“Yeah? For the six-month check up, right?” Rafe asked, not seeing why that was important but his mind quickly went to the worst scenario possible despite having just seen his daughter sleeping peacefully in her crib. He cut his eyes towards the hallway in the direction of her nursery before looking back to Y/N.

“Is she alright?” his voice now demanding urgency in the delivery of her response.

“She’s fine,” she quickly dismissed him, internally kicking herself for making Rafe worry.

“I was telling Melanie about how sick I’ve been lately and she -,” Y/N gulped and rubbed her knuckles against her tired eyes, bracing herself for whatever events unfolded after she said what she was about to say.

“She, umm. She made me take a pregnancy test.”

Now it was Rafe turn to be speechless. He stared at her with furrowed brows and his mouth slightly agape. His palms suddenly felt clammy against the white sheets that they rested on and his stomach felt like it had turned in on itself from how badly it was churning. Of all of the things he had expected to be wrong with her, this was certainly the last on the list. 

“And?” he asked after what felt like an eternity of staring at her and saying absolutely nothing, though he already knew the answer.

“Ten weeks.”

Silent tears now spilled over her eyes and down past her temples. She couldn’t even be bothered to wipe them, instead letting them dampen a small patch of hair on either side of her head. Pregnancies weren’t supposed to be sad, but somehow, she had barely been able to stop crying since she left the pediatrician’s office.

“How,” Rafe whispered, moreso to himself than to her.

“I think you know how babies are made, Rafe” Y/N quipped.

“That's not what I meant,” Rafe fired back just as quickly, “It’s just...She’s still so little.”

He thought of his daughter asleep in the next room. She was the most perfect thing he’s ever seen and on the day that she was born, he knew he wanted nothing more than to fill his and Y/N’s house with as many blonde, chubby babies as he could fit beds in each room. He just hadn’t expected that his only child’s first birthday present would be the gift of being a big sister. 

It was all too sudden.

“I just don’t know how I didn’t see it sooner. I mean,” Y/N raised her arms above her head before huffing and letting them fall to her sides, “I guess I was just so caught up with the baby that I hadn’t even had a second to think about what’s going on with me. It’s like I don’t even matter anymore and I-”

“Hey, hey now. Don't do that,” Rafe shushed her and curled up next to her frame as she began to sob.

He tucked her head into his neck, hugging her chest tightly as if he was trying to hold the pieces of her together before she shattered. His mind was running a mile per minute. It killed him to see her like this, killed him to be in this situation. The last time they had found out this news, there were happy tears - tears of shock and excitement about taking the next step in building a family. Never had he imagined that the next time they were presented with the very same news, that there would be tears of sadness.

Her voice was muffled against his now wrinkled button-down, but he could still make out what she was saying beneath her blubbers.

“I can’t do this.”

“What do you mean, honey? Of course you can. I can take more time off work like last time and let the boys handle everything for a bit. I know it's not ideal, but we’ll be alright,” he ran his hand up and down her arm in an attempt to soothe her.

“That’s the problem, Rafe.”

He lifted his chin from here it was resting on the top of her head to look down at her.

“What?”

“It's not ideal. You've only just now gotten back to work full time. You said everything almost fell apart while you were gone. It would fuck everything up. Plus, she's only six months old, Rafe. I can't go through that again so soon."

Rafe paused to break away from her and sit up straight against the headboard, “Are you serious? Of course I can take more time off work. You are more important than anything that could possibly be going on at the office.” He was a bit stunned by her words. She almost sounded annoyed, which didn't sit quite right with Rafe.

“But do you see what’s happening? Everything is fucked.”

His voice wasn’t so calm anymore.

“No, Y/N. I honestly don’t. I mean I know this is all happening much earlier than we expected, but what else is there to do? Will you please tell me what you're getting at, because I’m starting to get upset.” 

Rafe's lips were pressed in a thin, straight line and his nostrils flared with every breath. Why was she being like this? 

“I don’t know what I’m fucking getting at. I’m just overwhelmed."

“And you think I’m not? I'm trying my best to keep it together for your sake if you haven’t noticed,” it almost condescending the way the words rolled off his tongue.

“Oh, excuse me,” Y/N laughed sarcastically.

“Didn’t realize you were the one that's pregnant. Didn’t realize you’re the one that has to grow all big and gross and swollen and be in pain every fucking day to the point where walking to the bathroom feels like a fucking marathon. Didn’t realize you’re the one that has to feel like you're burning alive from the inside out for hours and then just have to lay there while a doctor you’ve never seen before stitches you up because it literally tore your insides apart. Didn’t realize you-”

“For fuck’s sake, I get it!” Rafe was yelling now. They hadn't argued like this since they were much younger, and he absolutely hated it.

“It’s not the same and I’m sorry for suggesting that it was. I'm not sure what you want me to say though. I’m sorry? Is that it? Sorry for getting you pregnant? Sorry for having a job that helps us get anything we want for ourselves and our family? Sorry that I do everything I possibly can to keep you and the baby and everyone else on the fucking planet happy?”

“You’re being an asshole, Rafe,” she was just as angry as he was, scowl evident on her face even in their dimly lit bedroom.

“And you’re not making any fucking sense! Are you telling me you don’t want to keep it? Because I never fucking said that you have to.”

The thought had crossed her mind on the drive home from the doctor’s office, but the feeling left as quickly as it approached. She’d taken one look at her daughter in her car seat through the rear view mirror happily sucking on her teether and knew without a doubt that she couldn’t.

She felt a tidal wave of fresh, salty tears peaking and about to crash over her.

“I don’t want - fuck,” she put her head in her hands. 

“I just-,” and then she broke.

Sobs wracked her body, making her shoulders shake up and down. She wasn’t even sure how she had any more left to get out, but it just kept coming. Over and over and over again until it felt like she was being suffocated and that no one was going to save her. She felt Rafe's hands move to rest on her shoulder blades and heard gentle, cooing-like sounds coming out of his mouth, but she couldn’t make out what he had said over the sounds of her own wailing.

“Baby, it’s okay. Just breathe. It’s alri-”

His attempt at subduing her was cut short by shrill cries coming from the digital monitor that sat on their nightstand. Rafe peeked over his shoulder at the screen, seeing that their daughter had woken from her nap and was now demanding the attention of her parents. He couldn’t help but wince as he watched her socked feet flail around in the crib; it was without a doubt that the screaming match they’d just had that stirred her from her sleep, and that hurt him just as much as it did to see his wife crying right in front of him.

Y/N heard it too, somehow. Perhaps it was because she’d been trained to react to every minute sound that she made and could recognize her cries from a mile away in the paralyzing fear that something was wrong with her or maybe it was because she looking for any and every excuse to get Rafe's hands off of her so she could get away from him and escape the argument they’d just had without making the situation any worse than it already was. Regardless, she turned her own neck to peer at the monitor and sighed heavily.

“I’ll go, Y/N. Just stay here.”

“No. I got it. It’s after seven. She’s probably hungry.”

She shrugged Rafe's hands away from her shoulders like his touch physically pained her and climbed over his body and off the bed without another word, not even giving Rafe the chance to take her hand and help her over the edge of the mattress. He knew she wasn’t going anywhere but down the hall and into the nursery, but he couldn’t help but feel like she was walking away from everything.

//

Y/N stared her daughter while she nursed. She started from the top of her head that was riddled with sandy blonde curls and worked her way down to the tips of her toes that would occasionally flex themselves out of habit. Her hair? Undoubtedly Rafe's. Her eyes? A perfect, entrancing shade of blue akin to Rafe's. Her lips? The same almost inhuman shade of fleshy pink, just like Rafe's. Surprisingly, the only physical trait she’d inherited from her mother was her nose, which was funny considering that Y/N had always hated hers.

She was content, suckling away at Y/N’s breast - her cries of hunger long forgotten. The infant hadn’t even flinched when a few more of Y/N’s silent, cold tears spilled over and left small wet spots where her onesie rested over her belly. She had no idea that her parents were upset with each other and she had no idea that in a little more than six months time, she’d be a big sister and there would be two babies fighting for their attention. Y/N was also clueless, but only as to how she was going to take care of a newborn and a one-year-old simultaneously. She’d always thought she’d have more time than this - more time to spend with just her daughter and Rafe before they decided to have another, but just like her eyes, things always had a funny way of never working out in her favor.

Three soft knocks on the wall withdrew her from her thoughts and she was greeted by her husband idling in the doorway like he needed permission before entering a room in his own house. It was off seeing Rafe Cameron this way - being the one with his tail tucked beneath his legs. It was usually the opposite. He had changed out of his work clothes and was now clad in his favorite pair of sweats that were permanently stained with spit-up. Y/N had tried everything under the sun to get the spots out, but he’d been persistent on not throwing them out.

“Can I come in?”

His voice was barely above a whisper and much calmer than when he’d been yelling at her about twenty minutes ago. He still hesitated crossing the threshold even after Y/N had given him a skeptical nod, but allowed his bare feet to pad over the plush carpet as he joined her on the loveseat in the far corner of the nursery.

He watched their daughter just as Y/N had, taking in her tranquil state as her fingers brushed reflexively against the underside of Y/N’s breast. He’d never been able to pry his eyes away every time he watched her nurse. There were no ulterior motives behind it whatsoever. It amazed him each and every time, how Y/N was able to provide their child with everything that they needed to grow with only her body. At first, Y/N hated that Rafe loved sitting in on her feedings, feeling exposed and unattractive despite Rafe's continuous affirmations that it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever had the privilege of witnessing, but over time she’d grown fond of it.

“I'm sorry for yelling at you,” Rafe started.

“It was uncalled for,” she quipped.

Y/N sniffled, rubbing her swollen eyes with the back of her free hand that wasn’t supporting her daughter’s back as she held her.

“It’s okay. It was a lot to take in. I’m sorry for yelling at you too.”

She couldn’t quite look him in the eye just yet, but she was slowy but surely getting there.

“It's not okay, actually. You’re right. I’m not the one having the baby. It’s you that’s got to do all the hard stuff and I know how scary it was last time. I should've been more considerate before jumping the gun.”

He shifted towards her on the cushions, afraid to touch her just yet but still yearning to be closer to her.

The best Y/N could muster was a quiet, “Thank you,” before she busied herself by attempting to run her fingers through her baby’s hair and untangle the mess she’d created while she was sleeping.

“Can I hold you? Please?” his voice was quiet and pleading.

Now was when she turned to face him and she was met with eyes that were just as red-rimmed as hers. She had heard the bathroom sink running for an abnormally long amount of time and a hard, frustrated pounding against the wall shortly after she’d gone off in the nursery to feed the baby, which meant he must have been trying to muffle the sounds of his own crying when she left their bedroom.

Y/N didn’t say anything, only shifting her weight onto one side so Rafe could easily lift her onto his lap in one swift movement without disturbing their daughter. He tucked her shoulder into his neck and softly kissed her skin and his hands moved to mimic hers so they were both holding the baby that was nodding off again in their arms. She found herself relaxing into his loose grip, her head tilting to the side to rest against his. 

“I love you so much. You know that? I’d drop everything for you if I had to. I don't care about any of it anymore.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” she refuted, but there was no malice in her tone.

“I wouldn’t let you. You try to play it cool and I know that things are different now, but I also know that deep down you really like what you do.” The corner of Rafe's lips turned upwards, suppressing a chuckle at the fact that she really does know him that well.

“Well, just know that I would if you wanted me to. I’ve thought about it a thousand times. I want to be here for you. For her. Don’t want to miss anything. I finally got my shot at being normal when I met you and I hate myself sometimes when I think about all of the bullshit I've put you through.”

“Don’t,” Y/N paused to press a chaste kiss to Rafe's cheek.

“You’re a good person, Rafe's. A good dad. A good husband. Please don’t ever think that you’re not.”

She felt moisture pool in the dips of her collarbones where Rafe's chin lied, but she didn’t acknowledge it.

“I’ll be okay. Sorry if I freaked you out earlier. Think I just need some time to get used to it all. Just wasn’t expecting Melanie to drop the ball that I was pregnant when all I was expecting was for her to tell me that our kid is in the 99th percentile for weight and then send me on my way.”

This got a chuckle out of him, almost causing him to choke on his tears. He quickly rubbed the sleeves of his sweatshirt against his eyes to dry up any remaining wet spots on his face. 

“She is pretty chunky, isn’t she?” Rafe jested while thumbing over his daughter’s rounded tummy.

After a moment of admiring their little chunk of a baby, with her milk-drunk eyes and puckered lips, Rafe spoke again.

“Two babies,” he huffed.

“Two babies,” she repeated.

His hands moved to caress Y/N’s stomach. She wasn’t showing yet considering that neither of them had even known Y/N was pregnant until today, but he still held her like her belly was the size of a watermelon and he was waiting anxiously to feel a hand or a foot press up against his palm.

“Might be kinda nice. They can share everything and we’ll only have to have one birthday party because they’ll be born around the same time. They’ll go to the same school and probably have the same friends. Kinda like twins.”

“Are you hearing yourself? Rafe Cameron? The party connoisseur? Suggesting his two precious babies share a birthday party?”

Rafe pursed his lips and blushed, recalling the fact that he'd already planned his daughter's first birthday in his head. Down to the tablecloth colors and dinnerware.

“Got me there,” Rafe chuckled.

Their banter was interrupted by a grueling rumbling sound coming from Y/N’s stomach that Rafe could feel throughout his entire body.

“Jesus, Y/N. You hungry too? When’s the last time you ate?”

“Uhh...this morning I think?” Y/N sighed.

“Couldn’t stomach anything when I got home.”

Rafe's heart dropped when he thought of how distraught she’d been all day while he was gone and with everything in him, he’d wished he would have postponed his meetings to go to check up with her and they could have found out together.

“Found those tomatoes at the store the other day, remember? Want me to make that pasta for you?”

“Ohh, yes please,” she immediately perked up at the thought.

“Starting to wonder if that was a craving now that I think about it. Didn’t we have it, what? Three nights in a row a while back?” she proposed.

Rafe giggled as he reluctantly removed Y/N from his lap and stood up from the sofa.

“Thought it was a bit weird that you wanted it so badly, but I know better than to question you.”

“She’s going back down. If you give me a minute, I’ll come downstairs and help you,” Y/N said, pulling up the straps of her tank top after realizing her daughter had long since forgotten about her breast and was conked out in her arms.

“I've got it, mama” Rafe quickly refuted. “Take a bath or something and I’ll bring it up when it’s done.”

“Okay.”

Y/N couldn’t fight the grin growing on her face at the nickname Rafe used that she still hadn’t gotten used to.

When she placed their daughter soundly in her crib, Y/N’s fingers stayed put from where they sat on the railing as she caught herself staring at the sleeping infant once more. Though she’d felt like her world was caving in on her just a handful of hours ago, the pieces were all coming back together now. 

Of course, she wanted more children with Rafe. And now she was getting what she wanted. Just like he’d told her back in the bedroom, it wasn’t ideal, but they’d make it work. They always did. 

With two babies.

[sleepymccoy]

Okay so something happened in the trekdom (is that a term anyone has ever used)

I think spirk got canonised?? Or something?? And I assume that as my certified Trekkie Mutual you feel some kinda way about this. you’re a Spones shipper but still how we doing?

I'm sure someone's used trekdom! It makes sense as a word regardless

I appreciate the Trekkie certification lol

Yeah dude, look. Most of the fandom is big into spirk so like people enjoying that romance is par for the course! I got nothing against spirk, it's just a bit of a boring dynamic so I don't really spend time on it. Too healthy for my tastes. Spones is way more juicy, it's got the tension and the sort of different world views that you see in good omens, so it's fun!

To be clear tho, spirk is as canon as it's ever been. Strong subtext, but in the way that a homophobe could watch it and say well they're just good friends. Nothing has changed in that sense, it's just another bit of footage doing more of the same. It's less gay than a lot of the original series, but it's new and shiny so on a surface level i get the excitement

Shatner, who plays Kirk, has done this as a non canon short film. It's apparently considered as canon as the novels? Which is like, not much. Most people don't engage. I haven't really looked into that, im not gonna watch it cos it kind of pisses me off

The thing that really fucks my goat about it is that the guy who plays Spock died a while ago, and didn't get along with the guy who plays Kirk. But the guy who plays Kirk has funded and produced and managed this whole thing to be about his character and his importance, regardless of the wishes of the original Spock actor. Including literally doing someone up in prosthetics to look more like Nimoy. Not just Spock generally, but specifically Nimoy's Spock. Nimoy was involved in star trek films in his late life, and he didn't choose to do this when he was alive. Only after his death has Shatner forced this to happen

That's what's leaving a really bad taste in my mouth. And I feel like people are either not accepting Nimoy's death and are happy to see him puppeted by someone he disliked, which makes me pity them. I work in aged care so I know I'm more comfortable with death than the average, but like. This is a bit fucking dark, no? It's maudlin, let him rest in peace for fucks sake.

That, or they don't mind the manipulation of his image if it tickles their ship, which makes me dislike them. And I don't think I'll really get over that any time soon, it's so disrespectful. And those are both negative feelings, so I'm kind of generally not pleased about my dash rn

I'm trying to take an angle of being about McCoy cos he doesn't feature in the short and that feels wrong. Spock-centric stuff is feeling a little tainted right now, but I'm sure that'll pass. Fanart is different to this kind of image stealing, but it's still weird for me rn. And as much as I love Kirk, I can't remove him from Shatner and his megalomania right now. I hope that'll pass, but I don't think Shatner's gonna stop here so. Hm.

Besides I like McCoy and he's not complicated by all this so I'm just continuing to play in my little sandbox

It's a weird time for trekdom. There's a bit of a rift, and not down shipping lines. I'm seeing a lot of posts working through their complicated feeling around the disrespect inherent in stealing Nimoy's face for Shatner. And I'm seeing other people celebrate the disrespect cos their ship held hands and that makes it worth it.

I'm hoping people overwhelmingly calm down a bit in a week, get a bit embarassed about how pleased they were over something so gross, and it just sort of goes away. Then we can all go back to having a go at Shatner for his constant sexism and homophobia

At least it's not fucking AI tho!

[adobe-outdesign]

what do you think of the new pteri day stuff? personally i'm not a fan of the cardinal outfit mainly because something about the face just looks wrong to me, but i like the museum outfit and am glad we got a new one of those. and i think the candy pteri is so funny. i think it's cool to have a choice between a more typical-looking, but still cute, candy pet, and between using PB clothes to turn it into a peep. i've already seen people make hilarious customs with the peep pteri.

Candy: Yeah I'll admit, I'm not the biggest fan of this one, sorry. I do like the concept of it being based off a Peep (though admittedly most people outside of the US don't know what that is—note for non-US readers: a Peep is a vaguely bird-shaped marshmallow covered in sugar crystals sold around the holidays), and I do appreciate them doing two designs, one "outfit" that's super literal and then one that's more pet-specific, which shows a good deal of effort. Also, the outfit is pretty funny purely from a meme perspective in the same vein as the Maraquan Nimmo.

However, my problem is that we're on two ends of the extreme with both designs: one is literally straight up a Peep(TM) with nothing Pteri-like about it whatsoever, and one is a vaguely glittery Pteri with nothing particularly candy-like about it. Why not blend the two? Give us a Pteri with the same texture, but round out the claws, feathers, etc. Make the eye markings all blobby, give the head feathers and tail that signature Peep flip, make the pupils the little candy dots, and maybe even have a little bite taken out of the wing to show off the marshmallow interior. You could even still keep the same outfit for the meme if you want, but then you'd at least have a high-effort Peep-inspired Pteri instead of a Peep(TM) and a low-effort Pteri colour, which I think is an import distinction.

As a side note, I'm linking this post by @synthaphone out of obligation because it says most of the same things I just did but was published earlier:

Forest (Outfit): Once again, not a huge fan. I've never really liked these hyper-realistic animal outfits; I'm playing Neopets for the neat fantasy creatures, so for me, having an outfit that's just like, a straight-up cardinal feels pretty boring.

Putting aside personal preferences though, I also just find this really uncanny? It's a bad combo of way, way too much texturing and detailing on a very cartoonish body with eyes that really don't belong on that face. The rendering itself is at least objectively well-done with lots of nice shading, but I would've much preferred just a regular non-textured Pteri with the same colors and markings. Once again, the difference between making a Neopet inspired by something IRL and just making something that already exists IRL.

Museum (Outfit): Okay, now this one I do like a lot. I already made a review covering museum outfits and in it I mentioned wanting more that aren't just mammals. The Pteri is a welcome addition, following the same format as the other museum outfits but having the skeleton hang from suspension wires instead of it sitting on a platform like all the others. That's really nice attention to detail and works perfectly with the concept. While the rendering here is still more detailed than Neopets' art tends to be, it's not bothersome as it's not uncanny (being a skeleton) and you can still very easily tell it's a Pteri.

My only minor gripe is that the placard shows just a straight-up pterosaur, which is weird. I get that the Pteri is supposed to look a bit like a pterosaur with the head crest and everything, but just having a real-life dinosaur on there is kind of distracting. That's a very minor point though; otherwise, I'm a big fan of this one.

[coffeecatcraze]

The fact that Vaggie knew it was a HORRIBLE idea for her to go to Heaven because there were so many things that could go wrong and so many bad memories there, but her girlfriend needed her and she couldn't say no to her cute face; the fact that the headstrong, optimistic, determined, powerful Princess of Hell knew she couldn't handle taking this huge step alone and the only one person she could imagine being by her side in that critical moment was Vaggie.

The fact that even when she felt so hurt, heartbroken, and betrayed and tried for a second to deny it, Charlie never stopped loving Vaggie, still referred to her as her girlfriend, and had full faith that she was completely succeeding in her task (getting detailed sensitive information from a weapons-dealing Overlord) while Charlie herself was struggling and failing with her own.

The fact that even with Charlie so upset that she intentionally threw a painful commentbat her (a comment with a subtle double meaning, though Charlie herself was definitely NOT thinking clearly enough to realize that implication and only meant to make a jab at the secret-keeping), Vaggie still wanted so desperately to protect Charlie out of love that she regrew angelic wings despite having been in Hell for years.

The fact that one gesture from Charlie told Vaggie everything she wanted to say to her, and that mutual understanding was so complete that she didn't hesitate to run to her knowing she would be accepted because her girlfriend still loved her and forgave her.

The support, love, and intimate understanding these two share even when things are hard and painful is so beautiful. They've been together for years; they've been through so much; and it's wonderful to have that respected and portrayed canonically instead of dipping into that easy, fan-craved trope of dramatically heavy relationship angst. I'm glad they left that angst itch to be scratched by fanworks instead, because these ladies aren't that type.

They are powerful; they are determined; they balance and complete each other; and most importantly, they are so head-over-heels and experienced in their love for each other that it took one day for Charlie to deeply consider everything and fully reconcile with Vaggie, who never doubted her even for a second. Their relationship isn't just established; it's stable, and I love to see that for a wlw couple. <3

[canmom]

This an interesting angle. I've never been particularly taken with trying to determine True Art from False Art on the basis of specific qualities of the piece.

(I did ok-ish but not exceptionally on the AI art quiz, probably with a slight bias for misattributing human pieces as AI ones - like many other respondees, I found the Impressionist pieces hardest to distinguish, since they very much play to the AI's strengths.)

There are many different ways you could describe "art" as a human activity, I'm sure there's a post somewhere where I make a list, but a really big one is its communicative function - one purpose of art is to somehow pass on some aspect of our 'inner world' to another person, through a lossy and limited channel.

That a signal can be easily imitated doesn't mean it doesn't carry contextual information. For example, I could ask a yes/no question of enormous emotional importance - "should I take the shot", "has the baby been born", "will you go out with me", "am I a good girl" - and be answered with either "yes" or "no". It would be trivial to generate a machine which randomly substitutes for this communication - that's basically all a magic eight-ball is.

The amount of information that can be contained in an image of a given size and colour depth can also be calculated. For example, the number of fullscreen images that would fill my current monitor at 8 bits per channel would be 2^(3440 × 1440 × 24) ≈ 3 × 10^35788372 - about 15 megabytes uncompressed. It's a number that seems astronomically huge, though effectively the amount of information is much less than you'd calculate since all the likely pixels are correlated. The same goes for other art forms, like novels (encoded as, say, UTF-8 strings or PDFs) or pieces of music (encoded as sound files, MIDI, MuseScore files, etc.). The exact number is complicated, you end up getting into Kolmogorov complexity and shit like that, but the point is that it's finite.

If we want to claim that all the information about a human life that Hofstadter describes (grief, despair etc.) is in there somehow, we're claiming that this finitely many bits is adequate to capture all the nuances of a human life. I don't know that that's true!

This, however, doesn't really seem to align with how we interact with art. Human production and exchange of "art" is a social act - I would describe it as being continuous with "play". When we observe a piece, we are opening a communications channel - at least a one-way channel. The person on the other side sends some information into the channel, and we process it somehow.

Since it is a lossy channel with limited information, we must infer various things about the other mind on the opposite side of it. If I show you an artwork that I made, we might have a conversation about how I did it, why I made the choices I did. If I feel something looking at the work, I might imagine that you felt something similar, and designed the piece to evoke it intentionally (a guess that will often be wrong but sometimes still productive). I might also look at what specific choices you have made, compare them to the choices others have made in the same medium, etc etc.

We form these inferences on the basis of experience - the more you learn about making art, the more you learn to appreciate other peoples' art and vice versa. And we project these experiences, usually plausibly, onto other artists.

(Perhaps I am saying all art is in a sense performance art? Seems like a tasty soundbite, though I'm not fully sure I wanna commit to it.)

I'm not meaning to claim that a computer couldn't simulate this kind of 'how did you make it' interaction too. This line of argument was anticipated by Turing in his original 1950 paper on the 'imitation game' that someone links in the comments above, where he describes a poet undergoing a viva voce test interrogating their word choices, and argues that a computer might be programmed to give convincing answers to such a test. I imagine he's right - for a paper written in 1950 he makes some surprisingly sharp predictions for how future AIs might be made, such as the idea that an AI could be built to be 'educated' like a child. (He also thought the evidence for ESP is 'overwhelming', but hey, can't win 'em all).

A lot of the context around art would be quite easy to forge, had you a mind to. For example, suppose I go to a film screening, and someone is introduced as the director so we can all clap them. Did they really direct it? I don't know! You could totally send an actor. Less conspiratorially, if someone says they made an artistic choice for x or y reason, they could be lying about it, or misremembering, or most likely oversimplifying a complex and inscrutable process down to a simpler story.

At some point you have to take something like that on trust, or else simply accept that being lied to about it is part of the game you're there to play! (c.f. Oshi no Ko.)

Anyway, the sudden arrival of a new process that can produce, at least sometimes, near-indistinguishable output to various types of communication, throws a spanner in the process. If we're feeling uncharitable, we could call it something like a DDOS attack, stuffing the channels with spurious inputs that don't fit our design assumptions. I think that goes too far, though. AI gen doesn't preclude communication, but it does need we need to think differently about what is being communicated.[1]

So to consider that last question, if art is like a game, could you train an AI art to produce art that is meaningful to humans only by 'playing against' itself, like AlphaGo Zero? I don't think this is so likely. The rules of Go are strict and well-defined; the rules of what humans find meaningful are inseparable from the history of interacting with other humans, which is why art constantly evolves. Training an AI on existing human artworks is training it to compress and interpolate/extrapolate that dataset; training it to optimise for "making novel art that expresses something in a form that its interlocutor could understand" requires it to be interacting with someone.

You could imagine a training process with an "artist" AI and a "critic" AI (a sort of more sophisticated GAN, where the adversary is optimising not to distinguish human/AI art but to judge it on aesthetic grounds) - but how would you get the "critic" AI? Whose taste would it express?

Admittedly, the developers of image generators are constantly refining their models in response to users, so they are being optimised to appeal to someone, not just interpolate existing artworks. But I think it would be very hard to remove humans from the equation entirely. And the present means of providing feedback to the AI are very crude.

For an AI to learn from interacting with other AI (and the world), I feel like you'd need a whole new process that isn't about minimising loss against input-output pairs. Romantically, I imagine it would be closer to how humans learn from life, but I don't really know what will 'work' in the end.

below: some other remarks that were excised from the main post.

[1] We can view AI image gen as another channel for communication between humans, with its own set of inferences to make. If someone shows me a picture they've generated with AI, there's no point asking why they painted this bit that way, but I might approach them more as a curator and ask why they chose this generation over others, or how they went about prompting it.

The AI artists who go to the trouble of finetuning their models with LoRAs for a specific end goal, or using more involved processes with multiple stages of generation, probably have most to 'say', either through the work they generate or how they'd discuss it. (I find it very endearing when someone trains an AI to serve up a hyperspecific fetish.) And the more I know about how AI images are generated, the more I can probably have a productive conversation.

In this light, the "problem" of AI is mostly one of deception, insofar as it tries to look like something else and thereby tell a misleading story. That's probably a big reason why why it brings the rancour it does, although it doesn't explain all of it. It's not (usually) a forgery of a specific human's work, but it is designed to forge spurious communications in this channel in general, so the channel is 'noisier' - and this could be thought to undermine many of the contexts, i.e. the operating narratives and social games, which are why we exchange art in the first place. Over time, we'll presumably end up renegotiating the 'games', and spawning new ones, as humans always have.

And of course, the issue of provenance and plagiarism in art - particularly when prestige and money get involved - long predates AI and is full of all sorts of bizarre contortions when you look at it closely.

More intriguing is whether there is some possibility for "real communication" between humans and AIs - that is, could there be an AI output that does respect the 'rules of the game' in some way. This is harder to imagine! Like, if you ask why we aren't solipsists, we could point to how much we resemble other humans and say, all things considered, seems very unlikely we aren't the same type of entity. But I only know 'what it's like to be' a human. Conversely, while I know a reasonable amount about how AIs work, the attention mechanism and latent-space vectors and so on (thanks 3blue1brown), the analogy isn't so clear anymore, so I don't even know how I'd determine whether there even is a 'what is it like to be' under all the 'noise' of communications aggressively optimised to fit the patterns of something a human might say. If there is, it's probably very alien to all of my experience.

Ironically I feel like the current model of 'AI', which teaches us to regard any generated output with suspicion of having 'nothing behind it', would make it harder for any 'real', agentive, subjective-experience-having AI to make itself known to us. But perhaps it's good that we're forced to sharpen our criteria of what we're looking for out of these things.

Anyway, all of this is probably just idle imaginings, because nobody can figure out how to make anything like enough money to justify the exorbitant costs of training and operating AIs, so at some point this whole speculative bubble will go up in smoke and whatever AIs continue to be in use will likely remain about as good as they are today, or stupider - at least until the next 'AI summer' when a new paradigm emerges.

Thinking about that that "slop accelerationism" post, and also Scott's AI art Turing test.

I also hope AI text- and image-generation will help shake us loose from cheap bad art. For example, the fact that you can now generate perfectly rendered anime girls at the click of button kindof suggests that there was never much content in those drawings. Though maybe we didn't really need AI for that insight? It feels very similar to that shift in fashion that rejected Bouguereau-style laboriously-rendered pretty girls in favor of more sketchy brush work.

But will we really be so lucky that only things that we already suspected was slop will prove valueless?

As usual with AI, Douglas Hofstadter already thought about this a long time ago, in an essay from 2001. Back in 1979 he had written

Will a computer program ever write beautiful music? Speculation: Yes, but not soon. Music is a language of emotions, and until programs have emotions as complex as ours, there is no way a program will write anything beautiful. There can be "forgeries"—shallow imitations of the syntax of earlier music—but despite what one might think at first, there is much more to musical expression than can be captured in syntactical rules. There will be no new kinds of beauty turned up for a long time by computer music-composing programs. Let me carry this thought a little further. To think—and I have heard this suggested—that we might soon be able to command a preprogrammed mass-produced mail-order twenty-dollar desk-model "music box" to bring forth from its sterile [sic!] circuitry pieces which Chopin or Bach might have written had they lived longer is a grotesque and shameful misestimation of the depth of the human spirit. A "program" which could produce music as they did would have to wander around the world on its own, fighting its way through the maze of life and feeling every moment of it. It would have to understand the joy and loneliness of a chilly night wind, the longing for a cherished hand, the inaccessibility of a distant town, the heartbreak and regeneration after a human death. It would have to have known resignation and world-weariness, grief and despair, determination and victory, piety and awe. In it would have had to commingle such opposites as hope and fear, anguish and jubilation, serenity and suspense. Part and parcel of it would have to be a sense of grace, humor, rhythm, a sense of the unexpected and of course an exquisite awareness of the magic of fresh creation. Therein, and therein only, lie the sources of meaning in music.

I think this is helpful in pinning down what we would have liked to be true. Because in 1995, somebody wrote a program that generates music by applying simple syntactic rules to combine patterns from existing pieces, and it sounded really good! (In fact, it passed a kind of AI turing test.) Oops!

The worry, then, is that we just found out that the computer has as complex emotions as us, and they aren't complex at all. It would be like adversarial examples for humans: the noise-like pattern added to the panda doesn't "represent" a gibbon, it's an artifact of the particular weights and topology of the image recognizer, and the resulting classification doesn't "mean" anything. Similarly, Arnulf Rainer wrote that when he reworked Wine-Crucifix, "the quality and truth of the picture only grew as it became darker and darker"—doesn't this sound a bit like gradient descent? Did he stumble on a pattern that triggers our "truth" detector, even though the pattern is merely a shallow stimulus made of copies of religious iconography that we imprinted on as kids?

One attempt to recover is to say Chopin really did write music based on the experience of fighting through the maze of life, and it's just that philistine consumers can't tell the difference between the real and the counterfeit. But this is not very helpful, it means that we were fooling ourselves, and the meaning that we imagined never existed.

More promising, maybe the program is a "plagiarism machine", which just copies the hard-won grief, despair, world-weariness &c that Chopin recorded? On it's own it's not impressive that a program can output an image indistinguishable from Gauguin's, I can write such a program in a single line:

print("https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gauguin,Paul-Still_Life_with_Profile_of_Laval-_Google_Art_Project.jpg")

I think this is the conclusion that Hofstadter leans towards: the value of Chopin and the other composers was to discover the "template" that can then be instantiated to make many beautiful music pieces. Kind of ironically, this seems to push us back to some very turn-of-the-20th-century notion of avant-garde art. Each particular painting that (say) Monet executed is of low value, and the actual valuable thing is the novel art style...

That view isn't falsified yet, but it feels precarious. You could have said that AlphaGo was merely a plagiarism machine that selected good moves from historical human games, except then AlphaGo Zero proved that the humans were superfluous after all. Surely a couple of years from now somebody might train an image model on a set of photographs and movies excluding paintings, and it might reinvent impressionism from first principles, and then where will we be? Better start prepare a fallback-philosophy now.

[raayllum]

Thinking about the difference between character development versus character maintenance. I've talked about the difference between character development and character expansion before, and I think this touches on a similar concept here as I did then with character development being held to the highest degree of "is this a good character?" (The answer is no, character development doesn't and is not the only thing that makes a character well written.)

Specifically: sometimes characters have character flaws that are not fixed by the end of the story through character development. Sometimes those flaws are things that stay consistent in order for the character to still feel like themselves, in other words, for the character's characterization to be maintained.

Rayla's tendency to lie for example has been a consistent problem for her throughout the whole show since the pilot, and while she finally makes strides with it outright in S5, she still lies to the celestial elves in S6 to achieve her aims (stopping Aaravos and saving the world). However, I'm not really expecting Rayla's tendency to withhold things, avoid contact with other people, or lie in general to ever totally go away; at most, I think we'll see it be changed in her close personal relationships that have been previously hurt by lying (particularly with Runaan and Callum), but... I'm not expecting anything else. Same with Callum for his temper, Soren with his impulsivity, or Ezran with his overly optimistic nature.

They might get better at handling those things, they might change who and how it gets directed outwards (Ezran in S6 does plan for contingencies with Karim; Callum is much better at not lashing out at people in arc 2 when he is mad; Soren is now impulsive because he wants to help protect people, etc) but those are always going to be things that they deal with because those are part of the things that make them Them. Other flaws (Rayla's hyper-independence, Ezran's passivity, Soren's bully-ish fronting + being impulsive in asserting control, Callum's lack of confidence) are things that the characters have either overcome or are working through. They will probably be mostly resolved by the end of the story, the same way that many of us have flaws we work through or overcome.

But in the vein of character writing, not all flaws are written to be decidedly resolved by the end with a neat little bow, and the ones that aren't don't automatically equate a lack of character development. Often times, it's an indication of character maintenance instead.

[undead-moth]

I know I've been on about this for a while now and I'm being a hater but you're telling me SydCarmy was "always meant to be platonic" even though there are two seasons of writing making use of tried-and-true explicitly romantic tropes, themes and writing signals, and SydLuca is going to be romantic because...he was nice to her on screen for a few minutes?

I don't even care if people ship SydLuca, or if they just prefer it, but you can't honestly tell me that you believe Carmy was always meant to be a friend but Luca is an obvious love interest.

Just because Syd and Carmy haven't kissed or confessed their love to each other doesn't mean that isn't very obviously the direction this show is going. The Bear has already shown you who is endgame. It has shown you every episode of the show so far.

Honestly I really don't think The Bear fanbase understands this show or cares about these characters or the story being told here, which is unfortunate because this show is shockingly well-written in comparison to most shows right now, and we should be so grateful for it but all we're doing is complaining that the writers led us on by not making a ship canon fast enough. It's just. Sad.

[the-thieves-gambit]

"Didn't appreciate?" The words were repeated back to herself unsure of what was happening. "Who appreciates a stranger touching them at all?" He wasn't wrong, the touch had caught her off guard and left her a bit off her game the day before. It was something that she had shaken off with last night's rude awakenings. She wouldn't make that mistake again, she'd make sure he'd make it out alive, she wouldn't let her guard down and she wouldn't let him down.

The way he shook his head at her, upset her for a moment but she had to remind herself of everything she learned since arriving here. There was so much already going wrong for him, she needed to stop being one of the things fighting against him she was here to help. Despite calling him on his previous promise, guilt knotted in her. She hated this. As he moved she started to walk over to help him like she had last night only to find herself stopping in her tracks as he looked her over. Whenever anyone looked her up and down she knew how to play, how to move and place herself to make them like what they saw, but it felt different right now. She didn't know what he was thinking. Her breath caught in her throat awaiting what he had to say, only to find herself giving him a soft smile. "Thanks."

Rolling her eyes at the cinnamon sugar comment, like she could ever forget that he was allergic to that, she began to make her way to the door. "I think I saw some in the kitchen. Let me get one for you and a cup of coffee. And then we'll talk before I head out." Before he could say anything, she made her way downstairs to the kitchen. It would give her time to think over how to say things nicely.

As the coffee brewed, she took the same ingredients from last night, minus the chocolate to make a muffin in a mug instead. Granted it would be a lot plainer than the chocolate one from last night, it would still be what he wanted. After the coffee and the muffin were ready she took a deep breath and headed up to talk to him. As much as she hated having to work with someone else, this was his case.

Had someone tried to save her from Jennifer as a kid, she would have hoped they had someone helping them to make sure it had happened. As much as she pretended to not care, she did. It was why she took on people's cases when they came to her at barely a payable wage. She kept the office floating with all her old aliases saved stashes for now. She was their last resort and knew that she needed to help however she could. Settling with her best friend had been the worst thing to happen to her.

"Look Wally," she said started as she made her way back into the room. Settling the mug of coffee and the muffin in a mug on the nightstand next to the bed she crossed he arms and said her piece. "I don't think you're taking this seriously. You're not taking me seriously. Not only can I handle myself I am really good at what I do. You have a kid and an agent out there and I am here to help. Now," She sat on the edge of the bed. "I am walking out there today and I am going to accidentally bump into Nolan, whether you like it or not. And I am going to do what I do best. What I know to do since I," was a kid, she stopped herself. "For a really long time. Now I need you to level with me and tell me what it is you need me to get from him to save this kid. Because as I see it the kid is priority one. If you tell me to not help in anyway, that I need to just 'enjoy myself' then I will leave. And I mean leave back to my office. If you don't let me help then what is the purpose of me being here, Wally? Why the hell ask me to come in the first place?"

Sighing, she stood up. "So, tell me. Am I packing my things and leaving or am I going out there to do what I know how to do? "

"Well, forgive me if I've misread it but didn't seem like it was just unexpected but more like a visceral reaction." At this point he was hopped up on pain meds that he could have read her coming home looking like she did wrong. "Almost like you didn't appreciate the foreign touch." Now he was speaking to his pillow as he rearranged it the proper way. Maybe she wasn't as closed off as she seemed to have him believe.

"No. There's no need. I just wanted the name." Wally was quick to shake his head. More like he needed that name. Things had just gotten complicated for him. Even more so than having that rookie out on the field fucking him up. Which he couldn"t help but think it was Karina's doing. He should have stayed home he began to think. "You're right. Take the day and explore. It is your vacation." Getting himself into trouble was one thing, bringing Elizabeth into it was another. Karina was still riding him over this mission that he needed time to let things cool off. The last thing he needed was to alert her to something else going wrong. As it was this report was going to have a lot redacted. He wasn't going to risk Karina knowing about Liz now that things had gotten a little out of hand with his injuries and a copycat.

As he shifted to his side he kept from screaming out in pain. This was when he finally looked up at her. The dress she had on made him stop and stare a little too long. She looked ethereal. Emerald hues sparkled as they looked at her in the dress. Well, her in general. He was quiet for a moment, smile he gave her was small yet gentle. "You look nice."

"Mm no thank you." he shook his head. Frustration was clear on his features as he still couldn't lift his left arm but he'd manage. At least this time it wasn't his spine. "If I can shuffle my way around I'll review some documents while you're out and about. If I remember the password that is. Enjoy your day, truly." He tried sounding as sincere as possible, actually wanting her to do what she was promised she would get to do. "If you don't mind, could you bring me back a muffin. Not blueberry and not anything with cinnamon sugar. I'll pay you back for it." He needed time to think and force himself to move through the pain. He could not go back looking like this. Karina would for sure pull him off with one of her bullshit reasons.

[mel-loly]

Dont mind me:3

I- Tsu.. You didn't need to... But.. Yeah, uh... Thanks..😅💛

(no pressure, but if you can read the tags, I'd be happy! and that doesn't just apply to tsu but to everyone)

[kittyloops]

the honest to god worship of kenny in some twdg spaces needs to be studied... are we forgetting the everything about him being a complex and nuanced character or am i just insane. this man is NOT a hero he is literally just on a downward spiral

[longagoitwastuesday]

Kusakabe, dear, you're too beautiful to be saying that kind of stuff

[britneyshakespeare]

the fact that all grown up ran for five seasons is unaccountable

[kayatash]

God why is There Are Other Ways so good

[trees-can-draw]

Hm.

[whoviandoodler]

Just finished SVSSS and I have many conflicting thoughts about it, but really it comes down to liking all the details and themes that were wonderfully done/redone/expanded upon in MDZS and TGCF but disliking the story itself

[opens-up-4-nobody]

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