#because clearly he had to homeschool the boys

[bambiraptorx]

For Minor Interference, you've mentioned that Draxum and Splinter are REALLY not going to get along. Also that Draxum hasn't really been thinking about how turtles' lives have been, but I'm thinking it's possible he's giving more consideration to his creations' history due to the events of the last few chapters.

On Draxum's part, so far I can see his assumption of "food scarcity" for the turtles. What other things is he assuming right now about the turtles' upbringing/parental figure/life in general, if I might ask?

You know that scene in canon when the fam ends up in their house after the whole Battle Nexus New York thing? Where Draxum looks around and is like "No one would ever look for us in this disgusting sewer hovel?" I'm reasonably sure that he didn't know up until then that the turtles live in the sewers.

MI! Draxum is going to find out sooner than that, and he's not going to be happy about it. There's a lot of things that the boys have never experienced due to having a very sheltered/isolated upbringing, and some of things are things that kids really should have. (For example, doctor's appointments.)

On a related note, as of the most recently published chapter, Draxum still has heard nothing of a parental figure, so he's kind of assuming that there isn't one. He's actually going to be more concerned about the boys' homelife once he finds out that they do have a parent and were still raised in such isolation.

(To be fair to Splinter, it's very reasonable that he didn't want his kids interacting with either the human or yokai worlds, given that there were people dangerous to them in both, but raising your kids in the sewers is never ideal. Not even close. It also doesn't help that once the boys weren't little he kinda just... left them to their own devices. Just because your kids are teens doesn't mean they don't still need you.)

[thebubblesareevil]

My Dad is from Mars

Okay so when j’onn met danny he was John jones. He was doing some grocery shopping when a young teen with a limp bumped into him, stealing his wallet.

John grabbed the teens arm to stop him and retrieve his wallet when his hand went through through the boys arm. John saw the scared look on the child as he took off, John pursued the child running through walls and watched in concern as the child appeared to be a Martian like himself. He stopped an alley where he witnessed the teen fall to the ground and simply vanish.

John then said how he was impressed at his camouflage skill considering how young he is and that he has no intention of hurting him he just wants to help him get home to which the child was NOT HAPPY screaming how he can’t go back there he won’t. The child is barely able to stand when his camouflage drops, j’onn sees the green and red blood coating his shirt where his jacket opens.

He looks to make sure no one is looking before shifting back into his Martian form and kneeling in front of the child. In the Martian language he tells the boy that he is only here to help if he will let him

He replies in perfect Martian you’re not a hunter, j’onn freezes at the knowledge that a Martian child is being hunted and is filled with icy rage. He calmly replies that no he’s not he’s a friend. The child reaches for him before fully passing out. J’onn takes him back to his apartment where he tends to his wounds. He is further infuriated when he sees the y shaped incision on his chest. He vows that this child is under his protection.

However not everything is as it seemed. When Danny woke up he was in a bed and his wounds had been dressed. It hurt to move but much less so than before. When he heard movement he panicked until he turned and saw the coolest superhero to ever live

MARTIAN MANHUNTER who just so happens to be anACTUAL martian from MARS. Danny just stare at him in awe. He can barely speak and the hero brings him some water and begins to softly ask how he came to be so far from mars and at such a young age and Danny just stares at him for a second before he just says I’m from earth, I’m human- kinda

J’onn is clearly confused. And asks if he’s a meta when Danny says no, he asks if he would be willing to explain Danny made him swear not to tell anyone, because how could he say no to Martian manhunter. He explains that he’s half ghost and how his parents were ghost hunters and when they found out he was a ghost they turned on him. They took him to the GIW where they… and at this point he cuts himself off with a terrified look on his face. J’onn places a hand on his shoulder and tells him he is safe here for however long he wishes to stay. Danny doesn’t believe him at first until he explains that when he came to earth he was also hunted for being different.

Danny is incredibly grateful and accepts the offer with the intention of leaving as soon as he is healed . A month goes by and Danny is healed he is hesitant to leave. One month turns to two and two to three and before they knew it they were moving into a bigger apartment so Danny could have his own room when J’onn asked Danny if he would like to be his son Danny nearly cried as he said yes (Bruce took care of the paperwork, he knows it like the back of his hand) not long after though Danny got sick and it wasn’t until j’onn was visited by a ghost with a clock in his chest that they realized it was because his core was sick and so they both travel to the ghost zone where J’onn learns more about ghosts as well as learning that he is apparently a grandfather, that was fun. Danny also found out he was going to be king that was less fun

They set up a schedule of days Danny would spend in the zone with clockwork learning about ghost politics and when he was on earth he would be homeschooled by J’onn, Danny’s favorite part is when J’onn would talk about mars and traveling amoung the stars.

It’s just before his 15th birthday that J’onn announces that they were going to visit mars Danny almost exploded he was so excited the whole flight there and when he arrived he met his half white martian cousins M’gann and him got along like a house on fire. He was sad when they had to leave and there were many promises to visit. Unbeknownst to them they had a stowaway on the ship. Both Danny and J’onn scolded m’gonn fpr running away from home but he was still happy to have his cousin on earth. She trained with her uncle to be a hero she often questioned Danny about why he didn’t want to train as well, because after 1 unwanted advance from a human when he was near and it was clear he could fight. He would always make a joke out of it and dodge the question. Eventually she stopped asking.

One thing that was made abundantly clear after moving in was the fact that her cousin is terrifying. Absolutely bone chilling and not always on purpose sometimes he was just so …. Still, quiet, unnerving. She started getting used to it and her uncle is immune at this point but she will never fully be immune. And there was one indisputable rule she was not allowed to use telepathy on Danny no matter what.

When M’gann joins her team she texts Danny about them all the time, he is well aware of her crush on Conner and he feels secure in the knowledge he could crush him if he hurt her. she doesn’t really talk about Danny much because he’s pretty private.

The first time the team meets Danny it is a call to arms sent by M’gann. On the night of the Halloween party. M’gann decided to call in back up to help them get back at the kid who was trying to prank everyone as well as give everyone a good scare. Danny arrives though no one actually saw him arrive but he most definitely made an impact. Years later the school would be call it the best scare of the century.

When they head back to the base they find Danny already there he runs picks M’gann up and spins around and gives her a hug and just as she is about to introduce him the zeta tube activates announcing Martian Manhunter, he asks if anyone would like to explain why there was an emergency call from a student from their school reporting that the dead have risen and are coming to take their bloody revenge? Danny,who had hidden behind Conner peaked out and says yeah sorry about that, that was me. J’onn gives him a look and Danny shoots back c’mon dad it was all in good fun, no one was hurt, and the kid was only SLIGHTLY traumatized. J’onn is not amused. M’gann is trying to hide her laugh Conner is relieved that he’s not a rival and Wally, well Wally was in shock because when did the Martian manhunter get a son?!?

Okay I feel like this is a good stopping point for now cus I need sleep, I’m gonna add more later,

Flash is next and then it’s a vote between Wonder Woman or superman

I’m not sure if I’m gonna do green lantern or the hawks cus I don’t know that much about them

[jibberjibbsart]

Wait I want to rewrite Sage’s backstory already.

It all starts with Sage’s mother Ana Tavreen.

The Tavreens were struggling nobles from the city of Waterdeep and were deeply indebted to the Graye family. To free themselves of their debt, the Tavreens promised their eldest daughter to the Graye’s eldest son, Octavian. Ana wanted to refuse the marriage, she wanted to marry for love, but she also wanted to help her family. She agreed and entered the loveless marriage.

Years go by and Ana is unable to conceive an heir. It is no secret that Octavian has taken many lovers during their marriage and she fears he is seeking an heir elsewhere. Conveniently she meets him.

He says the right things, it’s as if she has known him for years. She falls in love quickly. He tells her he can solve her problems, he can give her everything she desires. She agrees, and signs her soul away.

She becomes pregnant, and her mysterious suitor disappears. She tells Octavian they will finally have an heir, she saved her family.

Until the baby is born with blue skin, horns, a tail, and obsidian eyes. A tiefling.

The man Ana laid with was a Cambion, a half devil half mortal being. Normally they can’t reproduce with humans, but a human with tiefling ancestry can potentially produce a child. Ana’s family has infernal blood. Octavian was furious, but they had no other option. Clearly something was incompatible with them and they couldn’t have a child.

Using his connections, Octavian had a wizard create a glamour charmed amulet to disguise Sage. While they wore the amulet they would appear human. Because of the risks of the glamour fading and others discovering Sage’s true identity, they restricted Sage’s access to the rest of the world. They were to be homeschooled by a private tutor, they weren’t permitted to have friends, and they were only allowed brief appearances at parties. Octavian made excuses saying Sage was sickly and needed bed rest.

Sage’s mother loved them. She told them stories of faraway places and daring adventurers. Ana longed for Sage to live a normal life.

When Sage was 13, Ana gave birth to a baby girl named Juniper. She was human. Octavian called her perfect.

Sage snuck out of the house while everyone was celebrating the birth of Juniper. Sage ran until they reached the pier. Tears poured down their face and they couldn’t stop from crying out. Their mother would be busy with the baby now. Their father never looked at them. They would be alone. They looked at the glamour charm around their neck and almost ripped it off, but their hand stilled. They couldn’t risk exposing themself and ruining their family’s reputation. They turned around and planned to return before anyone noticed they were missing until a voice called out. A boy, a few years older than Sage, asked if they were okay. In his hands was a small ball of light, he was a magic user. Sage quickly stuffed their glamour charm in their shirt as they walked over to him. The light reflected in his soft brown eyes, Sage blushed. He asked if they knew any magic, and if they wanted to learn.

Months turned into years and Sage continued to sneak out to meet the boy by the docks. It turned out that Sage was quite proficient at channeling the weave. Sage still hadn’t revealed their true identity to their friend, but they wanted to. They had developed feelings for him and they wanted to be honest with him.

One night he told Sage he had something to tell them. He was leaving Waterdeep and going to a school to deepen his understanding of magic. He took Sage’s hand and told them to join him. Sage had told him how strict their parents were, but he insisted they would understand. Before Sage left to go home, the boy kissed their cheek and wished them good luck. Sage decided to tell him their secret tomorrow. Tomorrow would be different.

Sage’s father was furious. He couldn’t believe Sage would risk their family’s reputation for learning silly parlor tricks. He locked them in their room and forbade them from using any more magic. He especially didn’t want them sneaking out anymore so he assigned a butler to watch over their door.

Once the seasons changed, Sage knew their friend had left Waterdeep long ago. They never got to say goodbye. They never told him their true identity.

On Juniper’s 5th birthday they had a big celebration. It was a stormy night and Sage was permitted to mingle (it would’ve been odd not to have the eldest Graye child celebrate their younger sibling’s fifth birthday after all). Sage was glued to the walls the entire evening, only their mother gave them any company.

It was towards the end of the night when guests were thanking Ana and Octavian for the invitation when Sage overheard it. A woman around their mother’s age talking to their father. She mentioned her son, and his name was all too familiar. It was their friend from the docks. This was his mother! Sage perked up and approached the woman, Sage’s father was furious they interrupted the conversation. Sage asked her how their friend was doing and his mother realized who they were.

“It was a shame that you weren’t able to attend with him, he didn’t say why but he seemed real torn up about it.”

Something in Sage snapped, their heart hurt. They couldn’t stop themselves from crying. Their father grabbed their arm and demanded they pull themself together but Sage couldn’t hear him. Energy crackled around them, it was as if the weave itself was reacting to Sage’s emotions. They tore their arm away from their father and a jolt of electricity burst from them. Sage’s amulet shattered from the sudden release of energy and the glamour faded, their form shimmered and their horns and tail materialized. Soft gasps were heard around the parlor as Octavian held his arm, smoking from the lightning. He demanded they leave, and Sage’s mother begged them to stay. Sage ran off into the stormy night, away from Waterdeep, never to return.

Years later after being kidnapped by mind flayers and infected with a tadpole, Sage pulls a quick witted wizard out of a magical stone. A wizard that hails from Waterdeep, and has suspiciously familiar brown eyes.

[oksurethisismyname]

Hiiiii as a queer person living in the Bible Belt of the USA, I’m envisioning a “Christian trauma AU / general theology AU” because you know my main focus is always Sanji. This assumed that we’re in the USA, modern era, and I guess maybe a college or post grad AU for how they meet each other? This is a lonnnnnnnng text post so scroll at your own risk. To keep it from being toooo long I’m also sticking to east blue crew.

Hear me out:

There are a million different sects of Christianity so we’ve got a ton of angles to use.

Garp is catholic (but think FRENCH laïcité instead of American Amy Coney Barret Supreme Court justice weird catholic cult), Dragon straight up rebels against the strict structure and goes about his atheist ways. Neither of them really raise Luffy anyway so 💁🏻

Luffy ends up being agnostic. It’s not that he doesn’t believe in a higher power but he knows he needs to take action and that he can’t rely on a higher power to fix the problems of the world. Very Albert Camus, revolting against the absurd and holding himself to a higher responsibility in life

Zoro comes from a Shinto or Buddhist background. He’s not judging anyone’s religious beliefs unless they’re harming others.

Nami has religious trauma from the Baptist church that set up in her town and made it impossible to be herself. Belle Mere is so clearly queer and she’s harassed and dies at the hands of some zealous bigots who were emboldened by the words of the local Baptist church pastor (Arlong)

Ussop comes from a chill Protestant background (maybe Presbyterian?) But he’s more of a CEO (Christmas Easter Only) in terms of actually attending any sort of church. Honestly, with his dad out of the picture and his mom dying, he just had bigger things on his mind like living every day.

Finally, Sanji. Oh boy, Sanji has major “Quiverfull movement Christian” trauma from Judge. For those who don’t know, quiverfull is a Christian extremist movement where the idea is to have as many kids as possible and adhere to very strict purity rules and gender roles. Contraception isn’t allowed. Women wear long skirts and non fitted shirts to hide their womanly form (ew), and most of the time these parents homeschool there kids to avoid the “temptation” or “impurity” of modern society.

Judge had these 5 kids who he’s raised in this faith but Sanji never liked how Judge treated his mom. Why was Sora supposed to be “seen and not heard?” Why was it ok for his brothers to use scripture to bully and hurt and spread hate? Why would a loving god create women just to subjugate them? Judge wouldn’t like this, and once Sora passes away (probably because Judge wouldn’t let her seek medical care post birth of the quadruplets, so her health deteriorated for years), Judge locks him up and makes him do all sorts of horrible “prayer” and “repentance” practices, which are really just abuse.

Sanji would maybe escape when they go into town to get something mundane like a printer or a new wifi router (which only judge is allowed to use the internet). He’d probably bolt first chance he gets and when he meets Zeff, Zeff can recognize the signals of abuse. He takes Sanji in and even though Sanji never believed women were less than men, he still has years of trauma and gender roles beaten into him that he has to unpack.

His choice to cook? That’s a huge rebellion. Wearing tight fitting suits that look sinful? That’s a middle finger to his dad. He always treats women like goddesses because he feels so much guilt for the sins of his father. When he finally joins the Strawhats, he’s so overwhelmed with how free and nonjudgmental they are (of important stuff, obviously they’ll still poke fun at small stuff) that he feels comfortable dropping little comments here and there, opening up.

Ussop will be comforting Nami about something and sanji will tell him is so refreshing to see a man be so nurturing. He goes to Ussop often, asking how he’s so confident sharing his emotions.

Nami will be ordering them around and he’ll do everything she says with a smile, just happy to see her free to do what she wants (which is be a bossy bitch)

Zoro will talk about Kuina one night and Sanji will sob, overwhelmed with joy that she got to have all that strength and a friend like zoro even when faced with hurtful gender expectations.

Luffy above all is the most jarring for him. He grew up hearing about sin and sinners and temptation and evil but when he sees Luffy doing his thing, taking down bad people, fighting for the underdog, he knows that if there is a God (he she it they? Who cares), Luffy is doing their work.

——————

Bonus Gay Cherry on top is that Sanji meets Iva and gets into drag, starts performing, does some events, and through that gender liberation is able to find some peace in who he is, tucking away all the hate he was born into. And he ends up with zoro the end bye

[griseldabanks]

Let Me Count the Ways ask game

Requested by @bunnyscar

Fandom: FMA (Foster Family AU) Characters: Roy Mustang and Edward Elric Prompt: "I can't believe I'm telling you this."

From the day he and Riza had decided to become foster parents, Roy had known his life would be forever changed. Their daily routines would have been disrupted no matter who they ended up with, but how much more so when the first children to grab their attention were two heavily traumatized boys, one with anger issues and only one leg, the other who didn't say a word and kept on trying to smuggle stray cats inside under his shirt.

It had been three years, and Roy thought he was well prepared for anything Ed and Al decided to throw at him. They'd lived through the night terrors and panic attacks. Al had finally started speaking, though he still tended to clam up around strangers because of the stutter he'd developed. After numerous shouting matches and slammed doors, Ed finally seemed to have mellowed out a bit, though he still turned his heavy metal music up loud when he was annoyed at Roy.

But Al called him 'Dad' now. And though Ed didn't, sometimes he would skip the grousing and griping and send a grin Roy's way that warmed him from head to foot. Maybe those two things meant he was actually doing an okay job at this.

But Ed always loved to keep him on his toes. One afternoon, during their usual game of chess once the day's lessons were over, while Riza took Al to his speech therapist, Ed said, “Hey, um...can I...ask for some advice?”

“Sure,” Roy said. “Move that pawn; my knight is about to take it.”

“What? No, not like that!” He moved the pawn anyway. “It's just...you're, like, married and stuff, right?”

Roy raised an amused eyebrow. “Yes, I am in fact 'married and stuff.'”

Ed shot him a dirty look, but plowed on anyway. “So you, like...you know...you've been on dates before. I mean, you had to have asked Riza out at least once before you got married, yeah?”

Straightening up from his contemplation of the board, Roy eyed the pink tinge of Ed's cheeks and started putting two and two together. “There's someone you're thinking of asking out?”

Ed hunched down in his chair, making himself even smaller than usual. “Knew I should've kept my mouth shut,” he mumbled.

Roy eyed his foster son, trying to suppress a gleeful smirk at the same time as a wave of wistfulness crashed over him. He should have known this day was coming. Ed was fifteen. He was starting to grow up.

“Don't worry, you've come to the right place,” he finally said, moving his bishop across the board. “As you so astutely pointed out, I have been on at least one date and managed not to screw it up long enough for us to get married. Clearly, I know a thing or two.”

Never mind the time Riza had slapped him so hard he saw stars when he got drunk and started flirting with someone else. And they wouldn't get into the crippling guilt that ate away at him for years after they discovered he couldn't give her the children she'd always wanted. Nor the way he pulled away from her in shame, thinking she resented him, while she spent the whole time worrying that he resented her. The important thing was that they'd worked through these issues, and they were still together. That had to count for something.

“So who is it?” he prompted when Ed just sat there, turning one of his captured pawns over and over in his hands.

“Does it matter?”

“Of course it does,” Roy said patiently. “Believe it or not, there's not just some magic formula to make any girl instantly fall in love with you. Every girl is different.” And I'm curious to find out who on earth could have caught the attention of my prickly homeschooled son.

Ed slid down even farther in his chair and stared up at the ceiling over Roy's head. “Ugh, I can't believe I'm telling you this....” He hesitated, his face going redder and redder till it was almost the same shade as his favorite hoodie. Finally, he mumbled, “It's Winry.”

“Ah....” Roy supposed he should have guessed that right away. They'd been friends their whole lives, neighbors for a large chunk of their childhood, and then Winry's grandmother had become the boys' legal guardian after the car crash. They didn't see each other as much now that they lived across the city, especially now that Winry was in high school. But when they'd gone to her tap-dance recital around Christmastime, Ed had gone strangely silent and awkward, barely saying a word to her when they met her after the show.

“There's...her school has a prom in May,” Ed mumbled. “And I...kinda wanna ask her? But like...what if I ask her and she says no? Or she just laughs at me? As if I know how to dance. I'll probably just end up stepping on her foot with this.” He kicked up his prosthetic leg, the one he usually wore around the house that looked nothing like a human appendage.

“Let me clue you in on a little secret,” Roy said, thinking back to his own awkward prom days. “Nobody knows how to dance at those things. Just put your hands on her shoulders and sway a little, and that should be enough. Or you could have her show you a few pointers.”

“That's if she says yes.” Now Ed looked faintly green. He stared up at the ceiling for a minute, then sat up straight and leaned forward almost desperately. “What if this ruins everything? What if I tell her how I feel and she turns me down and then everything's all awful forever and we can never be friends anymore? I don't wanna do that! If she doesn't wanna go out with me, I can't just...never talk to her again! Maybe I should just not say anything and just stay the way we are...but when I'm around her, I just...all I can think about is....” With a growl of frustration, he buried his face in his hands.

Roy tried to remember what it was like to be fifteen, the way a single glance or a single smile from a pretty girl could make all of his insides feel like they were on fire. In many ways, he was grateful for the age gap between him and Riza; three years was nothing to them now, but at the age of fifteen, he'd never even considered dating the scrawny twelve-year-old down the street. None of those complicated feelings had interfered with getting to know her until they were both older and much more mature.

“I think you should tell her,” Roy said. “Winry's a smart girl; it won't take her long to figure it out for herself. If she doesn't suspect already,” he added with a smirk.

“But what if she just laughs at me?” Ed moaned.

“What makes you think she would do that?”

Hunching his shoulders, Ed mumbled, “When we were, like, five...I kinda...asked her to marry me. And....” He took a deep breath, then finished in a rush, “Then she laughed and turned me down because she said she'd never marry anybody who was shorter than her!”

It was a good thing Roy had a good poker face. It was a good thing he'd had occasion to practice it quite often as a father of two teenage boys. Even so, he had to bite the inside of his lip to keep from bursting out laughing at the look on Ed's face.

“Well, say something!” Ed scowled down at his fists clenched on his knees, his face still red as a tomato.

Once he took a deep breath and cleared his throat, Roy dared to speak and found that his voice was level. “So...you're worried she's of the same opinion ten years later?”

Ed sank back into his chair with a defeated sigh, nodding glumly.

Roy laced his fingers together, striving with all his might to keep his voice neutral. “We are just talking about prom here. It's not like you're asking her to marry you. Again.”

With a groan, Ed covered his face in his hands. “I knew I shouldn't have said anything!”

“My point,” Roy persisted, “is that she might see things very differently now. You aren't the same as you used to be, and neither is she. The way I see it, you have two options: ask her, and risk her saying no. Or don't ask, and be okay with the knowledge that somebody else probably will.”

Slowly, Ed straightened up. Roy could practically see the gears whirring in his brain. His eyes blazed at the suggestion that someone might beat him to it, that some other boy would end up dancing with her through the night, maybe earning a kiss at the end....

Ed shot to his feet. “Okay,” he said firmly. “Okay. I'm asking her. I'm...I'm gonna do it!”

He marched out, barely even seeming to see Roy anymore. Roy just smirked fondly after him and put the forgotten chess pieces back into place. They could count this game as a draw.

A minute later, Ed thumped back into the room, looking sheepish. “Uh...I don't know how to ask her.”

“Sit down,” Roy said with a smile. “Let's brainstorm some options.”

[sinnohanvulpix]

Goh is neurodivergent and you can’t change my mind

Since today is Autism Acceptance Day, this is the perfect time to look back on Goh’s iconic moments throughout Journeys and how they support my headcanon that he is autistic. This is also @pikatrainer99​‘s headcanon, and we collaborated to make this post. And yes, we are both autistic, and we are allowed to encourage acceptance through this headcanon. If you’re not autistic and you disagree with any of this, then kindly leave.

With that out of the way though, let’s start with episode 1. And, oh boy, is there a lot to unpack! Just in this episode alone, we can see that Goh has a clear special interest in Pokemon, which brings him so much joy to talk about (which I can totally relate to). We also see that he lacked some social skills, didn’t understand social cues, and infodumped about all the different Pokemon they encountered as he didn’t understand that his role was to be the listener, not the teacher. But the biggest thing that stood out to me was when he said that he didn’t need friends, and it’s later revealed that he had been avoiding going to school. This seems to imply that something happened at school that made him stop going, which is unfortunately not uncommon for autistic people to go through (I would’ve gone through that if homeschooling wasn’t an option for me). So instead, he spent all his time on the computer doing Pokemon research.

Fast forward 4 years later to episode 2, and we see that Goh still finds just as much enjoyment in Pokemon research, with still no interest yet in making new friends. That is until he meets Ash, who was one of the first people he met who loves Pokemon just as much as he does. Because Goh still didn’t understand how friendship worked, he announced to him “I accept you as my friend!” As adorable as this is, it’s not the typical reaction to meeting someone, and I’m glad that it was Ash he said this too and not anyone else.

But episode 3 is when I really started seeing myself in Goh, as it was the first to show his insecure side, which likely developed from multiple instances of being misunderstood. After having one small argument with Ash, Goh became convinced that their friendship was completely over, that he messed it up. He even starts tearing up while muttering to himself, “so you’re one of those people too...”, which shows just how much having Ash as a friend means to him. Fortunately though, since Ash is so forgiving, he quickly forgot all about the argument and helped reassure Goh that they’re still friends, much to his relief.

After episode 3, the evidence became a little more spread out, but we can clearly see in multiple future episodes that Goh’s friendship with Ash hasn’t “changed” his autistic-coded traits. We still see many of these traits throughout the series, especially his fear of being rejected (which I headcanon as RSD, aka Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, which is commonly linked with autism and ADHD). This was most prevalently seen throughout episode 22, when Goh became convinced that Raboot didn’t want him as its trainer anymore and would live a happier life without him, which fortunately turned out to be untrue as Raboot came back for him. This was seen again in episode 101, when Goh saw Grookey getting along so well with the wild Grookey and Thwackey they met that he thought Grookey would be happier living with them. But once again, his beloved partner came back, reassuring him that they do belong together.

Speaking of the Galar starters, we also saw in episode 62 that Goh has trouble identifying his emotions, aka alexithymia (also commonly linked with autism). During a childhood flashback, after he had lost interest in playing with the other kids, his teacher asked him why, but Goh was unable to answer as he didn’t know why himself. Even in the present day when he reassured Drizzile that it’s okay not to know why it’s feeling this way, he began to tear up without knowing why. Something tells me this is something that he’s always needed to hear, whether he realized it or not.

And of course, we can’t talk about Goh’s insecure side without talking about episode 32. Even though we knew by the end that it was all a misunderstanding, Goh was convinced for three whole years that Tokio had intentionally broken his promise and abandoned him. This experience heavily traumatized him, which we can clearly see as his encounters with Ariados and Pineco bring back the memories of his time with Tokio and the painful emotions he associated them with. Not to mention this took place a year after episode 1, when he was already uninterested in making new friends. Seeing his first close friendship end this way definitely contributed to his distrust in others and unclear grasp of how friendship works, even after the two eventually made up.

This was even shown as late as episode 135, the penultimate episode of Journeys. He spent the entire episode trying to find the courage to tell Ash that he wanted to go on his own journey... only for Ash to casually tell him the same thing. Goh felt so betrayed by this that it led to an emotional outburst, which I can honestly understand. I wouldn’t want my dear friends to make this kind of casual announcement either. This proves that even after all this time of bonding with Ash and growing as a person and trainer, Goh still has much work to do when it comes to understanding social relations, which is a lifetime commitment for autistic people.

Fortunately, Goh has still managed to find much fulfillment on his journey. Not only has he finally gotten to embrace his deep passion for Pokemon, but he’s also formed multiple friendships with Pokemon. In fact, Pika and I believe that the reason he wants to catch ‘em all (apart from working his way up to Mew) is because he feels more comfortable befriending Pokemon than people. Pokemon don’t judge him the way people do, so it makes perfect sense why he would want to have friends in his life who won’t betray him.

Overall, we’re both super happy that we got to spend three years following the journey of one of the most relatable characters in Pokemon history. Goh will always be one of our favourite characters, and we’ll always look back fondly on his many iconic and relatable moments ❤️

[snaililita]

All That is Disappointing, Improvement is Sometimes Found

〰︎〰︎〰︎〰︎〰︎〰︎〰︎〰︎〰︎〰︎〰︎〰︎〰︎〰︎〰︎

✬ Death the Kid x Fem!Reader

✬ Angst

✬ TW: Mentions of depression, anxiety, eating disorders, swearing, and overall just sad vibes

This is honestly just a vent post cuz I'm so fucking done with my life right now☹️ Not proofread as I post it for the first time, but I'll most likely proofread it later.

Summer. You hated summer. It was always so hot and everyone was out of school now. You were homeschooled and your mother was a teacher and your father was never really present in your life, so you always spent your school days completely alone. Sure, it was lonely, but you also didn't have to deal with anyone. And that's exactly why you hated summer so much.

Your mother was home now, and the park you always visit during winter months that was always so quiet and peaceful was now jam packed with loud, arrogant assholes. This horrible town was filled with nothing but those kinds of people, and you'd been stuck here you're entire life. But it's okay, cuz you still had your secret place all to yourself.

You sat in a small clearing in the middle of some trees, near a small bridge, doodling away in your sketch book. Death the Kid. He was your "friend". You remember a time when he and you would play together every single day on the swing set when you were just little kids, but now you're both almost 16 and he's too cool for you now. He's got better friends than you now, ones that aren't just weird, small town girls with 0 social experience.

You hadn't seen him in 3 years, since that one October day when he left for Nevada and never came back. You'll never forget the promise he made you, the one you still hold him by even if you know he's long since broken it.

"I'll come back for you, and I'll take you away from this miserable place." He said, you still remember his voice clearly and how his silly bum linked both his pinkies with yours for the symmetry, "I promise."

You still have yet to see him descend from the sky on his flying skateboard, Beelzebub again, he most definitely forgot about you. Even when the sky was stained red he still never came back, when it was restored to its original colour he didn't show either. So maybe it was silly that you always found yourself coming to this park everyday, skipping lunch and breakfast to make it there by 1:00 PM sharp. Even when you found yourself developing eating habits that probably weren't the healthiest, you'd still run your dingey sneakers ragged trying to make it there.

You'd wait for 7 or 8 hours everyday, long after the sun would set. Maybe it wasn't safe, but you most certainly didn't care because what if Kid showed up at 8:00 PM because he couldn't make it there at 8:00 AM? You had to be there. Even... even if deep down you knew he wasn't coming for you.

So here you were today, sitting in your special spot, waiting for a boy that you knew wasn't coming to come steal you away from this small hell you've found yourself in. You felt your stomach growl again, a reminder you skipped out on eating to get here again. But you only ignored it and continued drawing pictures of the grim reaper's son, some goofy part of you wanted to believe drawing him constantly would manifest him coming back for you. But that's not how the world works. At least, that's what you think.

But then, a sound you thought you'd never hear again filled your ears. Jets. Skateboard jets. Kid's skateboard's jets.

You whipped your head upwards to peak out from the bushes and trees to see further up the hill in the distance near the playground a familiar sight of raven hair with stark white streaks through it, he had actually come back for you. You scrambled to your feet, your sketchbook in hand as you found yourself completely ignoring the bushes and running right through them and tearing your skirt on the branches. Thank goodness you always wore shorts on underneath.

You ran up the large hill as fast as you could, your weak and battered legs carrying you as fast as they could under the heat of the summer sun. Kid only realised you were there when he heard you toss your sketchbook off to the side on the hard cement so you could tackle him in a tight hug, startling him. He meekly returned the hug seemingly nervous about something,

"I'm sorry," He began, "I didn't mean for 3 years to slip away like that, everything became so chaotic I just- No... No excuses..." His grip on you tightened as the familiar smell of his laundry detergent filled your nose as you buried your face in his shoulder, tears flooding your vision, "I'm sorry it took so long for me to fulfill my promise, but I'm here now and I'm going to get you out of here."

[chocolatespringonion]

Won't it be funny if we imagine characters from The Boys in a high school AU? Since I'm a Homelander x Hughie shipper I would write it Hughlander-centric (Is this really the name of our ship? XD)

I was thinking something along the lines of Homelander/John is the hottest jock in school, athletic, and quite smart too since he was homeschooled before. Surprisingly despite his history of being someone who attended homeschooling, he was socially adept. He would smile and even earned a place with the popular kids, he was even their leader.

As the number 1 in highschool, John definitely knew how to indulge, he dated all the cheerleaders and even slept with them but once the girls had their dreams of dating the most popular kid in school come true, they were treated like garbage the next day because John would lose interest in them immediately. This kind of behavior didn't even earn John a bad reputation, it was the rest of the school who ridiculed the girls who would claim the unfair treatment. In the student body's eyes, John could do no wrong.

Then one day there was a transfer student named Becca, she was beautiful and smart. She was the top of her class in her previous school and the teachers bet she would be too in Vought High.

John who had his eyes on her already calculated a plan on how to bed the brilliant transfer student. Oddly enough, everytime he tried to strike a conversation with her, a mop of messy brown hair would interrupt their conversation and take her away, it would be another day before John would see Becca again. He was angry, no, furious with how he's being cockblocked.

When he saw the familiar mop haired bastard by the lockers he slammed his hand hard on the lockers, surprising the poor kid. He couldn't help but to doubt his intimidating presence because the kid was clearly taller than John, "I noticed you've been hanging out around Becca lately." John tried to appear as friendly as he could, even with his insincere smile. "You see, I'm interested in Becca and really want to date her so can you stop lingering around her like a fly?"

The taller boy scoffed, "You only want to sleep with her then leave her like all the previous girls you dated. I've been watching the way you treated those poor girls and it's disgusting. I couldn't do anything back then but now I won't let you do the same to Becca. So, no, I wont. Becca deserves better."

It was the first time John met someone who challenged him directly as everyone else was too scared of him to do so. But this kid who glared at him with eyes of pure disgust sent shivers down his spine. He was used to dealing with obedient sheeps, it was the first time he dealt with a feisty one.

The kid pushed away John's arm and excused himself, "Keep your hands to yourself for once in your life."

John was left dumbfounded as he watched the boy walked away. After he regained his mind, he looked at the bystander who watched the whole thing and asked, "Who the fuck was that guy?"

The bystander, intimidated by John yelled out, "T-That's H-Hughie Campbell. P-Please don't hurt me..." He ran away.

John muttered the name with his lips. Hughie Campbell. He noticed the kid sometimes, odd one among the bunch, quiet, probably sits in the loser's table.

A glimpse of Hughie's disgusted eye appeared in John's mind. The boy really intrigued him.

"I can't wait to wipe that expression off his face."

The imagine of Hughie's distorted expression, hatred combined with powerlessness as John put him in his place itched in his heart.

But how will he do it?

In the end:

John : You bastard, who gave you permission to talk to that no-name bitch? *menacingly*

Hughie: Wha–?

John : He's mine. Get your hands off. *glares at Robin*

Hughie : Since when am I yours?

John : Since you riled me up and left me blue-balled every chance you get.

John : *cornering Hughie* Now you need to take responsibility.

[bellabeebe]

chapter one - starting point

(trigger warnings: blood, graphic description, swears, death)

Southern Ontario was home to most of the cast members of the infamous 2010 show, Total Drama World Tour. The teenagers had decided to throw a reunion party at a popular venue. It was a large hall, decorated with Canadian heritage, like flags dotted around on the walls. The party was hosted by Heather after she won the third series. Now, Heather wasn't one to host parties, but despite her mean exterior and personality in the show, she had a kind heart. The contestants would finally be reunited after a year apart.

The guests arrived one by one, contented by each other's presence. When stood outside, waiting, Heather spotted a familiar figure - someone that she was glad to see. She left her spot and ran toward him, laughing happily. That someone was Alejandro, her competition from the season prior. He swept her up into his arms and hugged her tight. "I'm so glad you could come." She smiled. The rest of the contestants arrived one by one, too.

The Drama Brothers, Total Drama's resident band, were ecstatic to reunite. No one, though, was more ecstatic than Izzy, the 'crazy girl.' Upon spotting her two best friends, Noah and Eva, she leaped over and gave them a huge bear hug. Eva wasn't mad about physical touch, but she made an exception with Izzy. She then bounced over to Owen, her boyfriend. He, as well as Izzy, loved physical touch and gave her a warm squeeze.

Once all the guests had arrived, the party began. The old friends chatted on and on, laughter and fun filling the room. The only person who was not surrounded by friends was Ezekiel. He barely had any friends, and usually took to being alone. This was probably because he had said something sexist in the first season - his dad told him to say it, and he didn't exactly know any better. Thinking back to that moment, Ezekiel realized that he shouldn't have said that. If he hadn't he would most probably be surrounded by friends. Alas, it was what it was.

Justin sat in a circle with his three best friends, Cody, Harold, and Trent, as they discussed new songs to publish as a band. Since Total Drama Action, he had stopped worrying about his looks as much. His friends were much more important than beauty. As he laughed, he noticed the homeschooled country boy sitting alone in a corner. Ezekiel was clearly sad, his eyes clouded with loneliness. He headed over to him, moving in an awkward bum-shuffle.

Ezekiel's head was buried in his arms by the time Justin reached him. "Hey." Ezekiel jumped. "Hey!" Ezekiel exclaimed in surprise. He hadn't expected anyone to communicate with him tonight, let alone Justin. "You ok? You can come and sit with me and my friends if you'd like." Zeeke leaned forward to catch a glimpse of the group. Harold smiled and waved. The two sat with the group, making regular conversation with Ezekiel. To be honest, Ezekiel thought he was about to cry. Not because he was sad, though: because he finally felt appreciated.  

Alejandro and Heather sat together on one of the couches, snuggled up in a blanket. She was asleep, lying on his shoulder as he and a few others watched a movie on the TV in front of the couch. Heather stirred and murmured in her sleep a few times.

The television, all of a sudden, glitched and the news flicked on. The newsman looked visibly distressed and disturbed, stray hairs sticking up off his head and eyebags sagging. It was an emergency broadcast. This hadn't happened much before.

"This is an emergency broadcast announcing the outbreak of an apocalypse. Labs all around Canada can not explain the sudden surge of these creatures - please stay inside your homes and only leave if urgent. Even then, stay protected, stay safe. May God bless you all. The zombie apocalypse has begun."

Alejandro urgently nudged Heather awake, calling the others over to the television. Some watched in horror, some started to cry. Some were in denial, some panicked. "WHAT WILL WE DO?" Sierra shrieked, hugging Cody, much to his annoyance.

"Shit, shit, shit.." Gwen paced around the room, biting her nails.

Bridgette's bottom lip wobbled and she burst out into childish tears. Geoff hurried to hold her, trying his hardest to comfort her. Ezekiel sat blankly in front of the news broadcaster, taking in every detail of what he was saying. This infection was spreading at an unnatural rate, due to the zombies' unnatural speed. His parents had taught him to always be prepared for something like this. He knew how to block doors. That was only his first step.

Moving quickly, he darted to the door a blocked the door handle with a chair. Looking out the window, he saw somebody outside. They were pale and bloody, with grotesque scars and blotches on the skin. Their eyes were that of a blind person's - light blue and glossy. The zombie twisted their head and spotted Ezekiel sheepishly staring at them. They let out a terrible screech and started banging on the door. "Oh God." He murmured under his breath, finding more objects to block the door with. A table, more chairs, wood planks. He sped back through the hall to where the teens were gathered.

"What is that noise?" Courtney gasped, going to investigate. Ezekiel grabbed her arm as she was about to move and shook his head solemnly. Courtney's eyes narrowed, and she sharply drew her arm from his hand. "Don't-" He shouted alertedly.

"What? Why-" Courtney was confused.

"They're here. Just please don't go." He pleaded, fear in his eyes. Courtney nodded and joined the rest of the group. Katie and Sadie clung onto each other, shivering and shaking more with each bang and crash on the door. Lindsay huddled into a blanket on the couch, Tyler comforting her. He held her, softly stroking her hair. Courtney saw how scared everybody was, and whistled with her hands.

"Right, we can't worry right now. We need weapons and protection. Heather, you and your family rent this hall every few months, right? Is there anywhere we can find an emergency gun or something like that?" Courtney exclaimed, passing her gaze to Heather. She nodded, yet said she forgot where it was. "Great.. that's another thing we need to do - find it. Until then, block all the windows and doors. It can be with planks, tables, chairs-"

"I saw a toolbox near the door - maybe we can use the nails and hammer inside to barricade the doors," Ezekiel suggested. Courtney smiled, nodding. For the next half hour, the teens got to work. The toolbox's contents were limited, but they made the most of what was there. The hall was flooded with the noise of dedication and determination. It was hard to hear yourself think with all the hammering. 

A sharp yell could be heard from Heather - tears were brimming in her eyes. "What's wrong?" Alejandro asked, anxiously standing at her side. He looked down. Blood covered her finger, one of the nails sticking out of it. Heather winced when he touched it. "Is there a medical room here anywhere?" Alejandro questioned softly. Heather nodded, both of them standing up and moving to her guidance.

After the group had done the best they could, half decided to keep a lookout. No weapons had been found yet, and the emergency gun had not been located yet. If the zombies broke in, there was no protection. The risk was huge.

Everything was quiet and still until the dreaded happened. A lifeless being came into sight outside, looking directly through the window. It grinned, showing sharp yellow teeth, and lunged toward the door. It banged and crashed against it, the blockage only delaying its entrance by a few minutes. Geoff jumped back from the door in astonishment - it was surprisingly strong.

"Hide!!" Owen shouted, ducking behind the couch. Izzy dove behind too, followed by Noah. Eva stood protectively in front, her stance readied. The rest of the teens found rooms with lockable doors and hid in round corners or under blankets.

Disturbing guzzling noises sounded from behind the front door, sobbing too. Bridgette clasped her hand over her mouth, desperate to stay quiet. Lindsay clung onto Tyler, terrified. Her tears stung her eyes.

In a matter of seconds, the zombie had kicked down the door and was now on the hunt. It charged through the hall, screaming unnaturally. It headed toward Eva, hands outstretched. Eva's eyes widened, and she took action, kicking it as it came near. Izzy watched in awe behind the couch. It writhed around on the floor, Eva leaping behind the couch with her friends. Now, everybody was hidden.

It walked toward a table, where Beth was hidden underneath. It had seen her. Beth could not stand up for herself, or fight. She was a weakling. The creature lunged toward her, teeth chomping. Beth screamed, the zombie tearing at her flesh. Blood oozed from her fresh wounds. 

Lindsay started to sob and was forced to watch as her best friend was torn to shreds. Tyler tried to block her gaze, but she still managed to see. She hugged him painfully, struggling to breathe. He cupped his hand onto her mouth securely. She couldn't make a sound.

Beth cried and yelled, her mouth flooding with blood. She started to choke on it as the zombie ate through her skin. Beth breathed one final breath and died there, on the same floor she had danced on a couple of hours ago.

The zombie stood up, its eyes flickering around the room. They landed on Gwen, her head sticking out from the blanket she was hidden under. It showed a grizzly smile, teeth coated with blood and saliva. Running toward her like an angry bull, Gwen screeched. Trent gasped.

Before the disgusting creature could take a bite of her flesh, a gunshot sounded. It was loud and shocking. Everybody stood up. Heather held the emergency gun in her hand, pressing the trigger down. Satisfaction rushed through her blood.

"Stay away, motherfucker."

The zombie lay limp on the ground, mouth agape and eyes blank. Heather spun the gun round in her hand and blew on the bullet hole. Gwen shivered in her spot. Trent sat with her, gently hugging her.

Everyone's gaze turned to Beth. Next to her, Lindsay sobbed and shook, Tyler holding her back. "No... Beth!" Lindsay's voice wobbled.

Heather helped her to stand up, telling her that it would be okay.

It was not okay.

It never would be okay without her best friend by her side.

[galaxyzone]

Man of Medan headcanons

Even though the fandom is almost nonexistent, that won't stop me from talking about it! So here are some headcanons for all of the Man of Medan kids bc I love them~

First, some neurodivergence headcanons!

Fliss & Brad are both autistic and Conrad has adhd! My neurodivergent faves, I love them sm❤

Brad has a bunch of sensory toys & fidgets that he shares with Fliss & Conrad after they get back home. Brad was surprised that Conrad didn't already have them, since he can afford almost anything, and Conrad reveals that he had bought several fidget spinners when they were popular, but he never knew about other fidgets like the infinity cube (which becomes his favorite). Fliss quickly favors the kinetic sand because it reminds her of the beach & she likes the way it feels in her hands.

Conrad buys 3 sets of noise-cancelling headphones for each of them. He doesn't really get as bothered by lots of noise as Brad & Fliss do, but he could afford it and he wanted to be included in the neurodivergent trio lol, so he figured why not.

Fliss has a super soft fuzzy blanket that she sleeps with every night. If she's ever feeling down, sometimes she'll just grab her blanket & huddle up with a hot cup of tea or something (I also headcanon her as more of a tea person than coffee).

Okay here are some other headcanons!

Despite Brad clearly being the more academic brother, Alex always fell under the role of the "golden child." Their parents didn't have a favorite at all, they loved both boys equally, but Alex was always the one they put a bit more pressure on as their oldest. This was unfair to both of them, as Brad felt like he was always living in Alex's shadow & Alex always felt like he had to be perfect.

Alex played football in high school & briefly contemplated a sports career, but his parents were always a little weary of the field; and after one of his friends & teammates suffered a concussion, Alex felt the urge to go into the medical field instead so he could help people like his friend whenever they got hurt. I like to think it comes from being the older brother & always feeling the need to be a protector.

When they were kids, Conrad & Julia had ongoing prank wars. Julia was usually the victor as her pranks were more clever, but Conrad was always quicker with a comeback afterwards. Their parents eventually put a stop to these battles when one of Conrad's pranks resulted in Julia getting a swollen lip. Conrad felt so bad afterwards, though, so he tried to make it up to her by getting her favorite ice cream (chocolate peanut butter cup) & watching her favorite movie with her (Legally Blonde, because obviously).

Julia is a secret nerd. She won't admit it because she has her street cred & popularity to maintain, but she's totally into all of the history & World War II stuff that Brad is also into. She might not know as much as he does, because his hyperfixation has caused him to relentlessly research it, but she's actually very interested in it. After they all get back home, she starts asking him questions about his grandfather & what else he knows and he just starts gushing to her all about it. It makes Alex happy to see them bonding so well, and he & Conrad tease their respective siblings for being nerds.

Fliss was homeschooled, which is why she tells Brad that she "never really went to school." Her parents just thought that they would be able to give her a better education than she would get at any public or private school. This made it hard for her to make friends growing up, but she would make up for it by finding out-of-school activities and extracurriculars, like swim teams & gymnastics.

Fliss & Conrad are both bisexual! And they both have a preference for women, too. Fliss has experience with both men and women, so she knows who does it better😉 (hence her telling Brad about how women are good in bed); but she has a weakness for goofy & slightly dumb guys (*cough* like Conrad.. Same, girl, same😅). Conrad has felt some feelings for some guys here and there and he'll occasionally flirt with them, but he mainly only has experience with women. He and Fliss make a beautiful bisexual couple💗💜💙

Brad is both gay and asexual! He's been in the closet since high school when he realized that a boy in his biology class had caught his attention. It's not that he's scared to tell anyone, as he knows that his family would love & accept him regardless, but it's more that he's confused by his feelings & not sure what to make of them. It doesn't help that he doesn't experience attraction to the same level or frequency that most of his peers do, so it's harder for him to figure it out.

Conrad is an alcoholic. This one is pretty much canon, as he's seen drinking more than any of the other characters & even opens a beer immediately after they all get back on the Duke safely; but Julia's line about how she's been "studying it for years" in regards to his tendency to get so drunk that he forgets things makes it sound like it's been a reoccurring issue in the past. Perhaps he went through a period where he struggled with depression or anxiety and the booze helped calm & quiet his mind, so he became reliant on it and he feels he needs to have it in order to feel good. This headcanon makes me sad and I like to think that he eventually heals from this addiction & becomes sober with everyone else's help (especially Fliss & Julia)❤

That's all of them for right now! Maybe I'll add more if they come to me, but I wanted to talk about these for now. If any DPA fans happen to find this, please feel free to maybe share some headcanons of your own!😊

[babybluebanshee]

Stuff I've had to deal with as a city librarian - Halloween Spooktacular

Hello again boils, ghouls, and nonbinary werewolves! Your old buddy Blue has a backlog of whack-ass stories from her travels as a humble library clerk, so here's a big post fulla laughs, drama, and maybe a few bodily fluids tossed in for flair.

Seriously though, tw for bodily fluids, bugs, and PTSD

*A woman came up to the front desk and asked if we had a quiet area where she could make a zoom call and not disturb anyone. No prob, have people asking that all the time. The study rooms were all full, so she was pointed in the direction of the cafe. A few minutes go by, and suddenly everyone at the desk and the page in the shelves beyond it hears loud ass shouting coming from the cafe. Julie heads down to inspect, hoping it's not a fight she has to break up. Nope, as it turns out, the lady on the zoom call is leading an exercise class. She has a mat and everything, and was leading her class in aerobics when Julie got down there. We quickly moved her to a more out-of-the-way conference room.

*A children's board book was return to us with a bite taken out of it. The area was still wet. We do not know if it was child or beast that took the bite. We had to throw it away regardless.

*We had to bake almost all our DVD cases because we found two with bed bug eggs in them.

*A woman printed out some color pictures and asked if I could check to make sure they came out. I picked up the stack and the first one on top was of an angry-looking woman with her tits out. My surprise must have been pretty evident because the woman I was helping immediately turned red and told me they were for a court case.

*Like everywhere else in this god-forsaken country, homeschooling has been on the rise in these parts. As such, we get parents all the time coming in with printed copies of the curriculum they chose and asking if we have the books recommended by them. Whatever we don't have, we can usually get through inter library loan, but the catch with that is you can only have five going at a time. One day, we had a mother come in with a list of three hundred books her curriculum recommended, and she had us check out catalogue for all of them. Branson started helping her, but her shift ended in the middle of it, so I had to do the rest. It took forever, and we ended up only having about fifty of them because I guess this homeschooling curriculum hasn't been updated since the mid-2000s. To her credit, the mother was very exasperated with homeschooling in general and knows that her daughter doesn't want to do it anymore. Her husband is adamant that their kid not go to public school, however. I fought every urge to say that was fine for him to say when he clearly wasn't doing a goddamn thing to help her.

*There's a patron that comes in whom we know nothing about except that he's had multiple heart attacks and has massive anxiety about potentially having another. We know this because he tells us every time the library gets too loud for him, because he believes the noise will somehow "trigger" another heart attack. Normally, we would have no problem with that; heart attacks are scary, he has every right to be anxious about it and request quiet spots to hang out. However, the problem is that he takes it upon himself to police other patrons in the library who he thinks are being too loud near him. Some children were nearby, working on a puzzle and started getting a little rambunctious, and the dude yelled at the top of his voice for them to shut up and get away from him. We had to speak louder for a patron who was hard of hearing, and the death glare he gave us was chilling. He snaps at anyone who forgets to shut the sound off on their phone. The director finally had to tell him he can't harass patrons and to tell us if he has a problem with someone's volume. He's been better behaved since then, but any time we see him, we're instantly worried he's gonna flip out again.

*A little boy in a wheelchair came in with his family, and my god, that kid could zip around fast. His mom mentioned that she forgot to grab a book for his sister, so he rolled into the kid's area to grab it for her. He was back faster than a patron who could just walk in. And you could tell he was very proud of that fact.

*Shae gave me a Sylveon card about a year ago, and I wear it laminated on my lanyard (because I was originally gonna hang it from my rearview mirror but forgot). It's always a big hit with kids. One little girl, however, liked it so much she asked if she could have it. I chuckled and told her sorry, it was a gift from a friend. She merely replied, "no, I want it" and started making a grab for it. Luckily, she was on the other side of the counter and couldn't reach it, but it was still weird. Especially because her mother was right there and made no move to stop or reprimand her.

*My coworker Branson had to clean...something off the bathroom floor one night. She's adamant it wasn't poop, but also said it was so dried out she had to use a putty knife to scrape it off. Our best guess is vomit.

*I was working on a display at the desk and a little black girl came up to watch me work. We chatted for a little, her asking me all the usual little kid questions. Eventually, she asked me if I had kids. I said no, I liked being an auntie better. Plus, I wasn't married, so I couldn't have kids. She thought for a moment, then said "why don't you just buy one?" Branson was nearby and I heard her choke on a laugh. I was pretty close to losing it myself, and said, "I don't think it's very nice to buy a person." Luckily, her dad came up and they left shortly after, so Branson and I could finally laugh about it.

*A patron and his family got taken to court for not returning almost $200 worth of books and DVDS, after ignoring the four warnings we give people before we actually take that step (because at that point you're actively stealing city property). The patron was ordered by a judge to either bring the items to court or pay to replace them, so he brought them to the courthouse. The clerk was going to take them and the whole thing would have been over and done...except he wouldn't give them to her without a library employee present. He never gave a real reason except he was concerned the clerk would "do something" with the items. So without contacting the library or judge the clerk told him he could bring the books directly to the library. When the judge found out what she'd done, he called the library and told us what was happening, and to hopefully expect the guy in there that night. Predictably, we haven't seen him. This was almost a month ago.

*Branson got a phone call from the county jail, which is actually pretty common for libraries. Patrons get arrested and want to make sure their accounts are clear so they don't potentially get into further trouble with outstanding items. Branson goes through all the hold music and questions to finally get the patron on the line...and he'd dialed the wrong number. Branson felt so bad for him.

*A guy came in to use the computers. Donna was getting him set up, sitting at the desk, so she can only see him from about his torso up. He ended up needing help printing something, so I help him, and finally see the sidearm he's got in a holster on his belt. I tell him the library doesn't allow firearms of any kind, no, I do not care that he has a conceal carry, he can't have a weapon in a municipal building. He's kinda testy about it, asking why we don't have a sign. I tell him we do. He had to walk by it to get in the building. In fact, we have one at all three entrances. He smugly asks me to show him, because he didn't see them. Me, petty bitch that I am, make this fucker walk to all three entrances and show him each sign, then tell him as politely as I can to get rid of the gun before he comes back in. He huffily complies.

*I came into work one day and the director immediately called me to the back. He informed me that a couple was having a loud, angry argument on the patio outside the kid's area, and they called the cops for a wellness check because the woman sounded to be in legit distress. Like, rocking back and forth and screaming swears distress. Cop comes and presumably sends them on their way. We don't know for sure because he came, went out to talk to them, and just...left.

*A guy came in to pick up an inter library loan, and when Branson asked for his card, he said he didn't have one. Like, he wasn't a patron. Never mind how the hell he managed to get a fulfilled ILL without one. Branson informs him he has to get a card before he can check out the book, but it's going to cost him $15 since he lives outside city limits. He tries to pay with a check made out to him from someone else. We tell him that won't work. He leaves to get cash, but then immediately turns around and asks if he can just buy the book. I tell him no, since a) it's not our book to sell and b) we're not in the habit of selling books in the collection anyway. I ask if he'd like me to find it on Amazon for him, and he says no. He leaves and doesn't come back. Bonnie sent the ILL back, and we haven't seen him since.

*A lot of our patrons have conspiracy theory brain rot, so you can only imagine the fanciful tales we heard about the emergency test signal. There were theories it would "activate the nanites" in the covid vaccine and either kill everyone who got one or turn them into liberal zombies. My director had someone 100% seriously call it "the Satan signal". It would have been funny if it weren't so stupid.

[the-invisible-queer]

HELLO I'VE DISCOVERED THAT YOU CAN SUBMIT ANONYMOUSLY BY LOGGING OUT OF TUMBLR so now we're finally back, with another wholly unnecessary and novel-length timeline of a Jonas Brother’s hoe ass antics. I almost didn’t do a Nick timeline after the Joe one, for reasons I’ll explain when I get there, but like I said I needed something to distract me/kill some time and writing out an extensive history of this man’s Nonsense turned out to be great for that, so here we are. I’m sorry so much of this focuses on the Disney love triangle (my preteen ass was HOOKED on that soap opera and apparently a lot of it has just been dormant in my brain ever since) and even more sorry it’s INSANELY long. Though at the end of the day it’s not my fault that this man’s teenage years alone were such a goddamn mess that they require extensive lore to fully explain so. Blame Nick for all of this is what I’m saying.

Same disclaimer as with Joe’s, this is all just stuff I remember with no research or anything, so I’m sure some of it is probably wrong and very sure some things were left out. Also I had to kind of weirdly switch up my formatting here since Nick’s first two relationships were extremely…entangled...for a while and couldn’t really be cleanly divided into “every girl gets her own bullet point” the way Joe’s timeline could, so bear with me:

Nick and Miley started dating in 2006, when they were both 13 years old. They were allegedly introduced by Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens (which is ICONIC honestly, like the passing of the Official Disney Power Couple torch) and apparently became attached at the hip right away. Here are some random bits of Niley 1.0 lore that I remember:

Nick once claimed that Franklin (who was like five at the time) also had a crush on Miley before they met and “tried to beat him up” when he found out they’d started dating. This is genuinely one of my favorite bits of Jonas lore ever lol like please that’s so funny and cute

At some point in like 2007 Miley was papped holding her phone in such a way that the background was clearly visible, and it was a pic of her and Nick kissing, which was hilariously major news on the tween gossip sites back in the day since they were still playing the “we’re just best friends!” game at the time; the same thing happened again when she was heavily photographed at an event with “I <3 Nick” written on her hand. At some point one has to assume she was doing this on purpose.

In literally like the mid-2010s Nick finally admitted that Miley was his first kiss (which, no shit??? Incredibly funny that he played coy about that info for years when like bro, you were 12 and homeschooled before her, literally who else would you have been kissing), and said he was embarrassed to realize later that he kissed her right after eating something with a bunch of onions on it and his breath probably smelled terrible.

According to a 2007 interview that I still vividly remember to this day, Miley and a certain “friend” (there’s Disney’s favorite word again) dressed up as Sonny and Cher for Halloween 2006. The fact that not a single photo of this has ever surfaced nearly two decades later remains one of the greatest disappointments of my life.

Niley 1.0 lasted roughly a year and a half: according to Miley’s autobiography, they started dating in June 2006 and broke up in December 2007, with one short ‘break’ at some unspecified point in between. During said break Miley wrote the song G.N.O. and a few others, and Nick wrote S.O.S., Still In Love With You and possibly some other songs I’m forgetting. They also worked together a lot during their relationship, filming the boys’ iconic Hannah Montana episode and then going on tour together with the boys opening for her on the Best of Both Worlds tour, which awkwardly was still going on when they broke up. Miley claimed they ended things mutually because they were just too busy to manage a relationship at the time, never getting to spend much time together because they were both so busy with work, and had started fighting a lot from all the stress they were under. Speculation abounded about whether or not that was truly the reason, especially once Selena hit the scene so quickly and the “you love me you like her” of it all, but it was the official story regardless.

Immediately post-breakup Miley dyed her hair black as a rebellion against Nick, who apparently liked her to have blonde highlights when they were together, and Nick seemingly coped with the breakup in a different way because rumors about him and Selena started cropping up as early as January 2008. One such rumor I remember involved them allegedly flirting at the Best of Both Worlds movie premiere, which is so hilariously shameless that I could easily believe it of Baby Fuckboy Nick despite there being, as far as I’m aware, zero actual evidence supporting it. Regardless of when it actually started though, by I want to say spring of 2008 Nick and Selena were definitely a thing and Miley was definitely mad about it. It was at this point that this entire mess truly started derailing into the endlessly chaotic trainwreck that captivated tweens all over the world for the next two years.

Very rough timeline of Nelena 1.0/general 2008 triangle lore, listed in the probably incorrect order that I vaguely remember things happening in when I was like 12:

Miley and her friend Mandy uploaded an episode of their “The Miley and Mandy Show” Youtube series pretty obviously making fun of Selena and Demi, who at the time were very close besties which just made Demi also guilty by association I guess. This video was the official start of The Feud between Miley and Selena (and their respective sidekicks for a while). Shortly after this they uploaded another video ‘apologizing’ for causing drama, saying it was all in good fun and the girls were all friends; this apology was blatantly insincere and nobody believed it.

Private photos Miley’d sent to Nick during their relationship, clearly intended for his eyes only, were leaked online after her computer was hacked. We don’t need to discuss this in any further detail as it was really gross and invasive, especially considering Miley was very much a minor at the time, but it was a notable event within the love triangle lore so I couldn’t not mention it.

The Burnin’ Up music video dropped, featuring Selena as Nick’s love interest. Fans everywhere were SHOOK by this, both because it seemed like much more of an official relationship confirmation than Disney “We’re Just Friends” Channel stars were normally allowed to give AND because fans quickly started putting together that Burnin’ Up was likely written about Miley, who’d worn the famous high heels/red dress combo commonly thought to have inspired it to an event with Nick long before Selena was even in the picture at all. The drama! The mess! To this day I would love to know if this casting choice was Nick’s decision or if it was Disney’s – it was heavily speculated that Disney sometimes escalated the love triangle drama on purpose, either to capitalize on it for publicity or to distance Nick’s image from Miley’s after the photo scandal by associating him with Good Girl™ Selena instead – but it was very entertaining either way. All of this was truly great television tbh.

The 7 Things music video also dropped, featuring a lot of very blatant references to Nick and completely gagging all of us again before we’d even finished gagging over Burnin’ Up. (I genuinely don’t remember now if these two songs/videos actually premiered like a week apart or not, but that’s definitely what it felt like at the time lol. Just new bits of wild drama dropping every other day like these damn kids thought they were Kendrick and Drake. It was insane to live through as part of the target demographic and tbh this whole experience probably rewired my brain permanently and is why I’m like this.) Dissecting this song and video kept fans busy for a good while; I still remember how super smart my friends and I felt when we realized the melody of 7 Things was just the melody of Hello Beautiful sped up.

Kevin, of all people, popped up somewhere wearing a “Team Demi and Selena” shirt in reference to the ongoing feud between them and Miley + Mandy. He of course denied that it was referencing this and IIRC tried to claim it had something to do with like a bowling team that Demi and Selena were supposedly starting??? Okay, Kevin. Again, I’d love to know if Disney orchestrated that or what bc otherwise what was his grown ass doing jumping into beef between a bunch of like 15-year-old girls to begin with lmao

At some point Nick was directly asked if 7 Things was about him and said it couldn’t be because his friends aren’t jerks, which is somehow the funniest possible answer he could have given so props to him for that one honestly

Miley performed 7 Things live at some event that all the other Disney kids were at, and during the song she walked into the audience to where Selena was and they sang a line or two together. Around this time (I can’t remember if it was also at this event or a different one) the three Disney girls took pictures together and Demi and Selena took pictures with the boys, but Miley avoided them. I remember there being speculation around this time that Nick and Selena might have been on a break or at least having issues, bc of how very suddenly the two girls appeared to start getting along and bc of Selena lowkey shading her own boyfriend? But I have no idea if that was true or not. Nick was probably rattled either way though lmao

Miley’s album Breakout dropped, obviously featuring a lot of songs about Nick but, infinitely more unexpected than that, also featuring a message at the very end of the dedication page thanking ‘Prince Charming’ for inspiring the album and saying “I loved you then, I love you now, and I’ll love you always.” Fans reached levels of gagged so unprecedented that one girl I personally knew jumped the Team Nelena ship and converted over this.

JB’s album A Little Bit Longer dropped (again, what felt like very very shortly after but may not have actually been idk, I’m not about to look up release dates for this) also obviously featuring a lot of songs about Miley – and ones spanning their entire relationship, at that. I don’t think I truly realized until years later how funny it actually was that Lovebug and Can’t Have You were literally released at the exact same time lol.

At some point in the midst of all this 15-year-old Miley started dating a 20-year-old underwear model, which always creeped me out even as a literal child. Not long into their relationship said pedo boyfriend took the tween gossip world by storm by dressing up as Nick for Halloween, which at the time I found somewhat funny despite my reservations with him, but looking back on that as an adult it’s sooooo…that kid is barely sixteen. Why are you dating this teenager and mocking her also teenage ex over their messy teenage beef that does not concern your grown adult ass literally at all AND ALSO WHY THE FUCK AREN’T YOU IN PRISON. Anyway. 12-year-old me always lowkey tried to avoid learning anything about this pedo since he creeped me out, so I really don’t know when exited the picture, but he must not have lasted super long because…

In roughly early 2009, Nick and Selena broke up. Just like last time it did NOT take Nick long to bounce straight back to his other option and in no time at all he and Miley were fueling rumors, publicly flirting and suddenly hanging out again – the iconic lunch date where they were seen alone together for the first time since their breakup and where Nick embarrassed himself by getting into a fender bender while driving his ex around lmao happened during this time period. I remember that Selena spent a lot of time publicly angsting and vagueposting about all of this on Twitter, but can’t really recall the specifics of that anymore. It was clear she was going through it though.

Niley 2.0/general mid-2009 lore highlights, again probably out of order somewhere (also for the full effect imagine all of these things happening literally back-to-back within the span of like two months):

Miley’s book released, suddenly revealing a ton of Niley 1.0 lore all at once. A lot of fans who met Nick around this time got him to sign the ‘Prince Charming’ chapter page of their copy, which admittedly was very funny and something I’m still surprised he actually did.

Before the Storm was written and recorded somewhere in all of this.

Miley, Selena, Demi and the boys all filmed the Send It On music video and its accompanying Disney Channel ads, including several clips the three girls had to do together in which it was painfully obvious that Miley and Selena couldn’t stand each other and poor Demi looked like she’d rather be eating glass than sitting there between them. Candids from the set dropped showing Nick appearing playful and flirty with both girls during filming, despite Niley being pretty obviously back on by this point and him and Selena still seeming to be on bad terms otherwise?

Joe opened his big mouth on Larry King and accidentally confirmed Niley 2.0 despite Nick trying desperately to avoid this, surprising no one but greatly amusing everyone (except Nick).

Nick flew out to visit Miley while she was filming The Last Song in Georgia, where paps caught potato-quality yet still iconic pics of them making out on a jet ski.

Miley made a surprise appearance to sing Before the Storm with Nick for opening night of the boys’ tour, which remains to this day the only time they’ve ever performed it live as a duet.

Selena Gomez & The Scene dropped a song called I Won’t Apologize which (on top of just dragging Nick for filth in general) pretty obviously referenced the love triangle, basically saying he’d tried to turn her into Miley or at least that she’d felt like she needed to turn into Miley to make him happy, and also seemed to imply there was overlap between Nelena 1.0 and Niley 2.0. At the time this last bit was very scandalous lore for young fans to digest, even though in hindsight that was really like. The least surprising revelation ever lmao. ALSO this song was meant to be like an empowered I Don’t Need No Man anthem, with her being all “you don’t deserve me” and “I won’t go back again” which is just…genuinely so fucking funny in context. Spoiler alert: she sure as fuck will go back again.

Then at some point that summer Miley got into her own insane love triangle which somehow seemed even messier than the first one, and after a few weeks of general chaos and confusion (apparently so confusing that even Miley herself walked away unsure of some of the exact dates involved) things eventually culminated with her and Nick apparently breaking up again and her stepping out with co-star Liam Hemsworth not long after. Mess upon mess. I very vaguely remember that in the months following Niley 2.0.’s death Nick was spotted two or three times with…some girl who had like a bit part in one of the Camp Rock movies, I think? I want to say Courtney or Chloe something but again I’m not looking shit up for this. To this day I’m not really clear on if there was anything to that or if it was just a rumor bc he was seen near a girl during his first time ever being single for more than like a month, but if he and Random Third Girl actually did have anything it must have been very brief because…

Did Nick learn from the experience of seemingly being on the other end of a love triangle, as one of the two people being played with at once by the third, that this feels like shit and maybe he shouldn’t do it to girls anymore? NOPE! By late 2009 he’d already run straight back to Selena, who happily took him right back as if she hadn’t just spent the last year publicly whacking him all over Twitter and in her music. God every single one of these kids was a fucking disaster GIRL WHERE’S THE SELF-RESPECT WHAT HAPPENED TO THAT ENTIRE DISS TRACK YOU WROTE

Anyway. Nelena 2.0 and general 2010 lore highlights, once again probably out of order but oh well:

Miley was very blatantly pissed when Nelena reunited and publicly shaded both of them several times, despite the facts that 1) she actively had a boyfriend at the time and 2) by all appearances she was the one who’d dumped Nick for someone else anyway, because apparently her not wanting Nick did not mean Selena could have him. Okay girl. One of these occasions that I remember being HUGE gossip was when she changed the lyrics in 7 Things to say Nick’s brothers were jerks, rather than his friends; it remains unclear to this day what, if anything, the brothers did around this time to suddenly warrant their own specific lashing.

Nick Jonas & The Administration’s album Who I Am dropped, featuring several songs commonly thought to be about each of the girls, but I don’t think Nick ever explicitly confirmed any of them.

For some occasion (maybe Valentine’s Day?) Nick, nothing if not dramatic, built some sort of elaborate rose garden at Selena’s house as a surprise – likely a reference to the NJ&TA song Rose Garden which was allegedly about her. Roughly a year later after they’d broken up again Selena would do her own on-stage lyric change in reference to this, bitterly saying something like “the roses you built me were only made of plastic.”

Justin Bieber made his first appearance in Selena’s life while she was still with Nick. While there’s no evidence that anything beyond some mild public flirting happened between them until after Nelena 2.0 ended, him showing up in this timeline at all is still just…incredibly fucking funny to me. A THIRD love triangle has somehow hit the fucking towers.

Nick performed the song Stay for the first time, setting off a fandom debate over its muse that still persists to this day. Some think it was about Selena because they were together at the time and because she was present and seen crying in the audience when he performed it; others think it was about Miley because she also had a song called Stay that Nick’s seemed to directly respond to in a lot of ways, and because Selena’s tears as he sang it didn’t really look like particularly happy ones. Many OG fans still have passionate opinions about this today, and we will almost certainly never find out which group is right.

Nelena 2.0 was ultimately rather brief, not lasting more than 3 or 4 months into 2010 I’m pretty sure, and with its death the official Disney love triangle era finally concluded as Selena jumped out of the frying pan into the fire left Nick behind to enter her Bieber era, which by all appearances was also a giant chaotic mess because apparently none of these kids ever did anything that wasn’t. It was at this point that Nick finally started to have confirmed relationships with people who weren’t the same two girls over and over, so we can finally try out the relationship bullet points now.

At some point that couldn’t have been more than a couple months at most post-Nelena, in like mid-2010, Nick started dating Samantha Barks whom he met while they were preparing to star in the Les Mis 25th Anniversary Concert together. They were pretty quiet about it, and I was also hyperfixating on something non-JB at the moment and not super interested in general, so I’ve never known too much about this and am honestly not sure if there was even any more public info to know. As far as I remember this relationship was also not particularly long-lived, lasting like 5-6 months maybe, but also didn’t seem to involve any public drama which was a new and refreshing change for Nick.

I’m really fuzzy on the order here but somewhere in 2010, right around the time Jonas L.A. started airing and their characters were will-they-or-won’t-they-ing and then dating, it was rumored that Nick and Nicole Anderson were together. Most fans never believed this (I personally still don’t) as with the timing it seemed like a very obvious ploy for show publicity, but to this day there are some truthers out there who insist something happened between them. If it did then it must have either been very short-lived or overlapped with either Selena or Samantha, if not both – but by this point it was clear Baby Fuckboy Nick was no stranger to his relationships lowkey overlapping so honestly who fucking knows.

GUESS WHO’S BACK, BACK AGAIN. MILEY’S BACK, TELL A FRIEND. Niley 3.0, which happened in I want to say very early 2011, was Nick and Miley’s briefest and last obvious attempt at…something. It was never clear if they were really back together during this period or just hooking up or what, but they were definitely doing something notable enough to include here. (Bonus: Miley was definitely also still being messy with Liam, who by this point she’d also already been on-again off-again with like twice, at the exact same time as this all this was happening because of course she was. Why would any of these damn kids ever have had one unhealthy situationship going at a time when they could have two?) They were pretty quiet about things this time and I also still wasn’t paying super close attention, so I don’t remember much aside from a few spottings of them together and a lot of vague Twitter flirting, and it didn’t seem to last longer than a few months. ALSO there was a really weird incident during this time where the day after an event they both attended, where they were rumored to have been very flirty and left in the same car, several articles came out alleging that Nick and/or his car had been spotted outside Miley’s house that night or the next morning…and then all of these articles just disappeared all at once. Like they were literally scrubbed from the internet, leaving only some gossip site comments from the young fans who’d happened to see them (including me which is how I vividly remember this) as the only recorded evidence that they ever existed at all. The most accepted theory for this bizarre occurrence is that it was true, there were pictures that someone was threatening to publish, and Disney, not wanting to clean up a “purity ring-touting teenage star spends the night with girl he’s not even officially dating” scandal and beyond rich enough to take the hit, just paid everyone off to make the entire situation go away by gaslighting everyone who had seen the original articles. So. That was a thing that happened once.

In like spring 2011 Nick started dating Delta Goodrem, who at the time was 26 or 27 and very fresh out of a broken engagement with another grown ass adult while he was barely 18 with no relationship experience outside of at most a small handful of teenage girls around his age. This relationship always made me uncomfortable at the time and if anything makes me much more uncomfortable now that I’m an adult, so I intentionally did not follow it at all then and am not about to seek out any information about it now either. All I really know is that it did seem to be relatively short-lived, which I can only imagine was probably a good thing.

At some point in like 2012 or early 2013, Nick and Rita Ora were seen talking at a couple of events. They looked kind of flirty but I don’t recall anyone thinking there was anything to it beyond them maybe hooking up once until he namedropped her in the song What Do I Mean, seemingly implying she’d burned him in some way…but when Rita was asked about it, she said she was super confused by the song because they were always just friends and she had no idea he liked her. Apparently she confronted him about it and he admitted he must not have done a good job expressing his feelings, and I guess it was all some kind of weird misunderstanding between them that he...made no attempts to clarify with her before publicly calling her out in an angry song. Alright then?

Olivia Culpo showed up in I want to say mid-2013. For full disclosure I was already not super into Nick when their relationship started, and after he broke up the band and then picked up his solo frat boy Jealous persona that I was just very very not into – it reminded me of my controlling over-possessive ex and grossed me out – I pretty much completely lost interest in him and just stopped following him at all for a few years, so I honestly missed most of their relationship entirely. Mostly all I remember of Olivia is that she wasn’t well-liked in the fandom (at least not in the beginning when I was still paying attention) because she and her family and friends were…incredibly blatant about very much enjoying the attention that her dating Nick brought them, we’ll say, and also quickly developed a reputation for being rude to fans both in person and online. Nick largely seemed happy with her though and they lasted…around two years? I think? She presumably inspired much of his early solo discography and I’m pretty sure appeared in at least one music video. Again, creepy possessive solo Nick gave me the ick, so I wasn’t consuming any of this and only know what I picked up through osmosis while keeping up with the fandom just enough to somewhat keep tabs on Joe and Kevin. (I do vaguely remember seeing a lot of discussion among fans about Nick’s then-bestie Demi not seeming to like Olivia/being subtly snarky about her on multiple occasions, which…hoo boy we’ll get to all THAT in a minute.) I want to say they broke up at some point in 2015. I feel like there should be more things to note in this section considering I’m pretty sure this was his longest continuous relationship until his marriage, but if there are I simply am not the person to note them because I just truly don’t know crap about this era of Nick’s life.

Continuing on from that, there was still at least a good few years post-Nolivia where I wasn’t keeping up with Nick at all, so other than the next few bullet points (that I learned about mostly via keeping up with the other person involved and not him) I really have no clue what he was doing. At some point he was connected to Kendall Jenner, and then I think Kate Hudson??? I have zero idea when these relationships happened, how long either of them lasted, or if they were even relationships at all or just rumors I saw on my infrequent trips through Jonas Twitter. This is why I almost didn’t write a Nick timeline to begin with, because there’s this whole big chunk of time that I’m just blank on so there’s definitely stuff missing. Sorry.

GUESS WHO ELSE IS BACK! BACK AGAIN!!! In I want to say 2015 there was a super weird little moment where Nick and Selena hung out together at some event, looking a little flirty, and then like a few days later he dropped the horny song Area Code out of nowhere and liked a bunch of tweets implying it was about Selena. Clearly this led to nothing, so I can’t count whatever this was as Nelena 3.0, but it was still notable and also very funny so I’m including it anyway. Jury’s still out on if they hooked up that one night and the song was written in response or if they didn’t hook up but he wanted to and put the song out as a request to be booty called; I’m equally amused by it either way. Maybe a tiny bit of subtlety next time, Nicholas.

This is kinda out of order but while we’re talking about the Disney days rising from the dead, Miley also popped back up a few times in surprisingly recent years, especially every time she and Liam broke up because Nick was apparently still perfectly eager to be her back-up plan. I feel like roughly 2015 and early 2018 both had periods where those two were suddenly interacting much more than usual, mostly via social media flirting that made observant fans wonder if something else was going on in private. Obviously we have no way to really know if anything was actually happening or if Nick commenting heart emojis all over every pic she posted was an attempt to make something happen that went nowhere, but either way it’s still enough to include here. (Also I didn’t mention it when we were on 2012 but obligatory shoutout to Nick performing Wedding Bells for the first time after Miley got engaged, which was genuinely ballsy as hell and a lowkey insane thing to do. Gagged the absolute hell out of literally everyone.)

Okay, now we have to talk about Demi. No one truly knows what exactly happened between these two, and unless Demi one of them decides to spill the tea in a memoir or something someday we probably never will, but whatever happened was definitely notable enough to be listed here. Basically they were very close friends for a long time and over that time other feelings definitely developed on at least Demi’s part, which was long suspected but finally confirmed in I think late 2017 when she dropped the songs Ruin the Friendship and Only Forever – both of which were clearly and unsubtly about Nick (No I Can’t Keep Denying Every Minute I think of you!), despite her refusing to outright confirm this no matter how many interviewers bluntly brought it up. She also claimed that the person they were written about had written songs about her too; many theories exist about this to this day but, as far as I’m aware, no one knows for sure which of Nick’s songs are about Demi or if these alleged songs were ever even publicly released in the first place. I can’t remember if Nick ever publicly responded to this whole ‘my best friend just told the whole world she’s both in love with and horny for me’ scandal or not (I kind of want to say he just ignored all of it and acted like nothing ever happened lol which…valid way to deal with that situation, I guess) but they did seem to spend a bit less time together right after that and it’s often speculated to have been the beginning of the end for their friendship. I’m not sure when exactly things exploded but I remember she publicly complained about not being invited to his wedding in late 2018, after unfollowing him on social media I think weeks or months before; there was seemingly a bit of drama between her and the boys when she left their formerly-shared team/manager and they stayed; and by 2020 she said in an interview that she no longer kept in contact with any of the boys. Two unreleased Demi songs have leaked in the years since that seemed to add more context to their falling out: Ain’t No Friend, which basically said he betrayed or abandoned her when she needed him most, and Big Little Lies, which seemed to confirm that there was something romantic between them at some point, or at the very least that Nick had made empty promises of something romantic happening in the future, and also implied he didn’t tell her about his engagement before the public found out and…kind of confirmed that the news was hard for her (I don’t really want to touch this too much but a lot of speculation exists that Nick getting engaged and Demi almost fatally overdosing like a few days later were directly related events). As far as I can tell they still don’t seem to be on speaking terms today, or at least they never interact publicly despite Demi having positive public interactions with Joe and Kevin since then, but apparently she did go to the boys’ Remember This tour in 2021? So. There’s that I guess.

In what must have been like April 2018, there was a series of pap pics of Nick kissing some totally random girl in Australia or somewhere after he like helped her when she fell off her bike or something???? Idk. The whole thing was very strange and I remember a lot of people speculating that it must be staged bc both the pictures and the whole situation were just so bizarre. As far as I know the girl was never identified and never popped back up with Nick again. Also this was very literally the last thing I heard that Nick was up to until literally like two months later when I heard he was suddenly engaged to a completely different person, which was a fucking insane thing to experience. This man’s life is such an enigma.

Anyway in like summer 2018 he got engaged to Priyanka, who I guess he’d met at some previous time when I wasn’t looking, and then a few months later they got married and now they have a kid. There’s…not much else for me to say about that really lol. The fun of these things is truly in recounting the past messiness, not the current longterm relationship everyone already knows.

SO WE’RE FINALLY DONE! That was absolutely ridiculous and I should be ashamed to have spent so much time on it but here it is. This actually was a really good distraction when I needed it but please feel free to judge me for possessing all this useless knowledge regardless lmao

[vexia]

Thinking about the Rescue Bots AU in which Cody was raised by Morocco:

They live on an uninhabited island in the Atlantic Ocean.

Due to Morocco's dangerous experiments, the island is divided into two parts: home and laboratory.

Cody spends most of his day (and life in general) in the home section, being homeschooled by specially programmed artificial intelligence.

Cody almost never meet humans beside his father’s closest allies, so the only kid in his age he knew until Griffin Rock was Priscilla (and all things consider, they get along quite well).

This is Cody of course, so he couldn't be himself if he didn’t meet and adopted Cybertronian. So of course he has one! And once again it’s ours (or maybe only mine XD) favorite grumpy panther, Quickclaw. As in other incarnations, he can change his size,  become invisible and use holoform to disguise himself as a Alaskan Malamute to always stay close to Cody.

Cody suffers from the hyper-empathy syndrome, so whenever he is away from home or around other humans, he wears earphones that have been specially developed by Morocco to isolate sounds and modify them accordingly to limit their potentially negative impact on the boy.

Despite his illness, he is curious about people, their traditions and life. She enjoys visiting new places and observing the lives of ordinary people. He reads a ton of books on the traditions of individual cultures and their history.

He loves and cares for his father, he is the only human family member he knows of (he also treats Quickclaw as a family member). He had a great respect for him (even though someone can mistake it for fear), trying everything not to disappoint him (even if Morocco’s standards are quite high).

He is very good at languages. In addition to English, he knows 8 other languages: Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, German, French, Arabic, Russian, Portuguese, Hindi and is still trying to learn more (Quickclaw teaches him the Cybertronian language). Morocco often uses his talent to translate things for him, and Cody is happy to be useful to his father.

Cody enjoys drawing and singing (and he is pretty good at it). Whenever he sees flower/animal/thing he finds interesting, he draws it on his tablet (on which he also keeps a journal where he writes down his thoughts on every topic).

His hair is usually tied in a bun but regardless of his hairstyle, he always has a pin in his hair, which is his only memento of his mother.

He inherited almost all of his appearance from his mother and he treats every comparison to her as a compliment (because according to his mother's stories, she was a beautiful and wonderful woman).

Thanks to Quickclaw's presence, Morocco has a better knowledge of Cybertronian technology, so his robots are more advanced than in the show + they are powered by Energon, which is located in the basement of the island (Quickclaw helps to look for it, because he needs it to survive after all).

With basics like this, let’s cover some events at their first visit on Griffin Rock:

Morocco first arrives at Griffin Rock after the Rescue Team rescued Professor Anna Baranova, so not much later than in the series (and Frankie knows about Bots being an aliens). Morocco's plan remains essentially the same as in the series but he brings Cody along with him to show him where his mother lived before she died.

After their arrival, Morocco allows Cody to go to the Blossom Vale to look at some flowers or whatever (he doesn’t really care, he only tells Cody to come to the town hall around 13.00 and no to wonder around the main part of the town to this time).

He is accompanied by Quickclaw in the form of an Alaskan Malamute, reaching almost to Cody's shoulders (and it looks kind of funny).

While sketching the landscape he is noticed by Frankie who was collecting plants from Blossom Vale to her school project.

Frankie looked at the boy near the waterfall. She believed she didn’t see him before on the island. His long, golden hair tied up in a bun covered on of his eyes. But the other was clearly visible. Gray. The girl had never seen person with this color of iris. She had read that it was one of the rarest color human eyes can have. He was wearing an elegant, long, light gray suit jacket that accentuated his eyes. The red accessories matched the red stones that were visible against the sunlight in the jewelry pinned into her hair, though she couldn't get a good look at it from this distance. He was clearly sketching something, snuggled up in the fur of the dog lying right behind him. If it weren't for the dog's darker accents and that red jewelry, she probably wouldn't have noticed the boy in that fur in the first place. His mouth moved sometimes, probably talking to his dog.

She took few steps ahead. She wanted to talk. He looked like a really nice person and it was a rarity to see someone new on the Griffin Rock, especially in her own age. She came closer and closer. The dog raised its head and looked at her with narrowed eyes. Yet it didn’t do anything. Only observed as she approached them. Yet, the boy didn't seem to notice her.

“Hi!” Frankie finally said, getting close enough for the boy to hear him.

He looked at her, clearly surprised by her presence. He scanned her for a while, almost immediately  smiling afterwards. “Hi.” He answered, little awkwardly.

“Can I?” She asked, pointing her head at the dog. The boy needed few seconds to understand what she meant to say.

“Yes- Yes of course. He won’t do anything.” He confirmed and his dog lowered it’s head, reassuring his words. Frankie sat down near, in front of him.

“I’m Frankie.” She said. “And you are?”

“Cody. My name is Cody. It’s nice to meet you.” His smiled grew little wider. It felt so right to know each other’s names. He only introduced himself and she already had that feeling that he would be a very good friend. Like they were destined to be friends…

Cody tells her that he came here for a vacation with his father (even though his father came for the business reasons).

They talk a while about hobbies and Frankie tells him a lot about entire island, her family and the famous “Family of Heroes”.

When she ask Cody to tell him something about his father, their conversation gets cut by Boulder and Graham, who came to look for Frankie.

As the bot took one step closer, Quickclaw became to growl. It was clear to Boulder that this dog hated him, even though he didn’t knew why. Every other animal on the island liked him and he would never threaten Quickclaw’s owner. He didn’t get it. Boulder observed as Cody petted him on the base of the neck.

“Shhh, calm down. It’s alright.” He hummed and the dog's growling began to slowly subside. “He seems like a nice Bot.” He added, looking into Boulder’s optic. The last comment felt so strange, like the golden haired knew he was- “Are you Cybertronian?” He asked. Frankie and Graham exchanged nervous glances.

Frankie tries to come up with a quick lie saying that this is a robot created by her dad.

Cody pretends to buy it because he doesn't want to upset someone he's just met and gets along with very well.

When Cody says he's going to meet his father at the town hall, Frankie offers to walk him off and promises to show him around Griffin Rock. He happily accepts her offer.

When the five of them get under the office, rivalry between Rescue Bots and Morbot was already set.

“What are waiting for Doctor. You get your deal, now get lost!” Kade shouted, visible angry at this entire idea. Competition with a stupid machine. Laughable .

"Have some respect, young man." Morocco said looking at his pocket watch. It's 1:00 p.m. "I'm just meeting someone." He looks to the side, smiling after seeing approaching group. "Oh, there you are!" He said in his characteristic, theatrical manner.

While the others took the curious look at the boy Morocco was pointing to, Charlie looked like he had seen a ghost.  It was impossible. The blond and his dog got closer to the Morocco and Doctor delicately put the boy on his head, rubbing his hair and saying something to him. Charlie didn’t hear what they were talking about, froze in place.

“Be nice son, introduce yourself.” He encouraged Cody, putting his hand on his shoulder. The boy simply nodded and turned his face towards the gathering.

“I’m Cody Morocco, it’s pleasure to meet you all. Especially the famous Family of Heroes.” He smiled, bowing gently.

Chief was able to take a closer look on the jewelry holding his bun. Silver hair stick with the figure of the haw at the top end, with a crescent moon and a sun above its beak. A long chain protruded from under its wings on both sides, at the end of which were comets with two tails. Their center and hawk's eyes were filled with rubies. He could recognized it everywhere. It was a gift he gave to his dead wife almost 15 years ago. It was impossible. If Cody had it that would have meant-

“Is everything alright, sir?” Boys voice got him out of his thoughts. He looked into his eyes. Even though the irises color was different, Charlie could see the familiar softness and kindness in those eyes. He gingerly shook the boy's outstretched hand, skin equally delicate, exactly the same shade. It was her son. Their son.

“Yes Cody. Everything is alright. Thanks for your concern-“

"Forgive him for his meddling, Chief Burns," Morocco cut in, placing his hand on the boy's head again. "Cody has a natural ability to sense people's emotions. Unfortunately, he sometimes has a problem with tact." Even thought he tried to make his voice as gentle and playful as possible, the clear growl could be heard.

In that moment, Frankie didn’t envy him in the slightest.

(…)

“Goodbye! ” Cody said in Cybertronian language and waved to the Rescue Bots. Along with Quickclaw entered the elevator, which took them to the balloon. The bots just stared at each other in shock.How did this boy know their native language?

.

.

.

This is all I have for now. It's much longer than it was supposed to be. Maybe I will write something more in the future, I will see. If you have any ideas, don’t be shy and share them UwU

PS.: This is what the hair stick Cody wears looks like:

[shadowofroses]

A Fluffy Set Up

Demon Slayer

Pairing: Reader x Rengoku Kyojuro

Warnings: Reader is Zenitsu's older Sister, mild language,

Partially on Ao3 for possible story ideas.

Summery: Reader called in for Zenitsu's hair, and you call in Rengoku for a point, and Uzui is there for his backup.

Story:

You were lucky in the sense of your brother, Zenitsu was a goody two shoes, mostly stayed out of trouble unless Tanjiro or Inosuke was involved, Constantly you would get calls from the school complaining about his hair. 

The boy couldn’t help that he was struck by lightning at twelve, and he was comfortable with it, why make the boy dye his hair? You remembered going to meet the Teachers, and there was another blond haired Teacher with red tipped, a old friend of yours that almost gave you a heart attack when you saw him again. How was it that Zenitsu was getting shit for it, while Rengoku was fine? 

You knew the Teacher was born like that and can’t help it. Well neither could Zenitsu. You felt bad for using an old friend of yours as an example. 

This is how you ended up sitting in front of the Principal of Kimetsu Academy, with three of Zenitsu’s teachers, with Zenitsu, who looked like the attention he was getting was about to make him die. 

Ubuyashiki gave a smile, clearly blind. “What seems to be the problem here?”

The Black haired gym teacher gave a side eye look at Zenitsu, “Agatsuma has two toned hair, blond and orange, unnatural. He needs to dye it black.” 

The other two teachers' eyes widened knowing why they were there. You bristled, “You have a teacher, Mr. Rengoku with two toned hair, Blond and Red, how is that allowed but Blond and orange isn’t?”  You weren’t even going to start in his eyes. To you, his eyes were stunning. 

“Uh Miss Agatsuma.” You heard Rengoku speak up and you caught the snicker from his taller white haired companion. “I was born with this hair, it runs in my family! School pictures show that Zenitsu had black hair for a good chunk of his youth! This isn’t natural!” 

You looked at him, as Zenitsu wanted to crawl into a hole. “The boy was struck by lightning when he was twelve, I have the medical paperwork to prove it, and that the biology of his hair changed because of it. Zenitsu cannot help his hair as much as you can Mr. Rengoku!” Your head snapped to Ubuyashiki. “We do not have the money to waste to constantly dye his hair…”

Tomioka looked up, “I’ll buy it if it’s the issue.”

You twitched, “That is far from the issue, the issue is the PEER FUCKING PRESSURE the teachers are placing on my little brother to change something he cannot help!” You snapped. You heard the taller man snicker again. As the other two men sat up straight at you swearing in front of their boss. “If I have to take Zenitsu out to homeschool him I will, Gramps won’t be happy, but if it gets your teachers to stop bullying my brother…”

This time the taller man, Uzui spoke up, “Miss, I think you’re being a tad flamboyantly overdramatic…”

Your eyes narrowed on him, “Am I being overly Dramatic when he is being written up once a day for a hair violation that he cannot help?”  You turned back to the Principal, “My point is if you’re going to report my brother for something as blatantly useless….”

Ubuyashiki however silenced you by raising his finger up to his lips. Gaining the attention of the other three teachers as well. “Frankly I agree with you Miss Agatsuma. It is honestly quite appalling that he is being written up once a day for something he cannot help any more than the sun going down for night fall.” You blinked feeling fuwafuwa. “Giyu, I have to request that you stop targeting the boy for something he cannot help.”

“Yes sir.” He said with the most deadpanned expression. 

Ubuyashiki smiled and clapped his hands, “Then we have come to an understanding! Delightful! Again Miss Agatsuma, I do apologize it came down to this, I offer my sincerest apologies. If that is all for today, I’m afraid I have another parent to meet with.”

You bowed causing the three men to give you a look of wonder. “Thank you so much for your time, Ubuyashiki-sama.”  The four of you went to leave the office when Tanjiro and his mother walked in.  You sighed, leaving a hand on Zenitsu’s shoulder, and turned to look at Rengoku as he came out of the office. “I would like to offer my apologies to you Kyoujurou for targeting you in my argument.” You bowed slightly.

Rengoku boisterously laughed, “It’s absolutely fine (Name)! Zenitsu is a star pupil in my class, and I don’t mind at all!” You sighed in relief by covering your heart with your hand. That man was always the death of you in high school. Still was. 

You felt your heart quicken, and you twitched, knowing that Zenitsu could hear that as well. He gave you a look and so did Uzui oddly enough. You shook your head, “Okay Boyo, get to class, try to stay out of trouble.” You gave him a hug. 

Zenitsu beamed at you, “Of course!” He ran off. 

You turned to the two males, “Again I’m sorry for the trouble!”

Uzui clapped Kyoujurou on the back. “It was no trouble at all! We hope you travel safely!”

You grinned, before turning around. You didn’t even catch Uzui nudging his friend and muttering that you were cute, or the low “I know.” in response.

Later that day Uzui pulled Zenitsu who was holding a clipboard off to the side. “Hey Kid, your sister seeing anyone?”

Zenitsu deadpanned before yelling at him, “YOU HAVE THREE WIVES! STAY AWAY FROM MY SISTER!”

Uzui bonked him on the head, “No, not me! Rengoku!”

Zenitsu blinked at that, looking at his elder wearily as Uzui had a mischievous glint in his eyes. “She is not, but says she doesn’t have the time for that.” Zenitsu was aware of the quickened heartbeats of both you and Rengoku earlier. 

Uzui cupped his own chin in thought, “Hm…what does she do for a living?”

Zenitsu shrugged, “She helps out at the Kamado Bakery with Drinks, like coffee and such.” He saw no problem with answering him with these questions. 

Zenitsu watched as Uzui’s eyes brightened. “Are you up for setting your sister and Mr Rengoku together? We’ll probably need some assistance from your friends too.”

Zenitsu looked at his art teacher wide eyed, “Uh sure, but why are you doing this sir?”

Uzui scoffed, “I saw the way those two looked at eachother, like some star crossed lovers that would never profess their love to each other no matter how flamboyant of a situation! Your sister seems sweet, and Rengoku is a great guy.” 

Zenitsu nodded in response, “Okay, so what do we do?”

Later that day you stretched as you made yourself a Caramel Macchiato, Mrs. Kamado came into the bakery at precisely that time. “Has it been busy?”  You watched as the woman went to put her apron on. 

You shrugged, “No more than usual. The rush just ended. What did Tanjiro do today?”

The woman gave a laugh, “He got written up for his Hanafuda earrings. And Zenitsu?”

“His hair…Which I set the record straight. Do you need me to go with Tanjiro and set his record straight?”

Smiling gently, she shook her head, “No I don’t need to be traumatizing Kimetsu Academy teachers. Actually I saw a few heading this way with the kids. Do we have any Ohage or Sweet Potato centric items made?”

You groaned. “Uh…No idea, I honestly just touched the drinks.” Kie only nodded and went back to fetch some fresh goods as the doors swung open for chaos. Tanjiro, Zenitsu, Nezuko, Inosuke, Senjurou, Genya and Tokito for the kids. Uzui, Rengoku, and Sanemi for teachers. You felt your soul leave your body. Nezuko came over and tugged it back to you. “Thank you! Your mother is getting some fresh stuff out.” 

Nezuko gave a brilliant smile, “Oh I’ll go help her! I want to get some bread anyway!” You patted her on the head before turning to everyone else. 

“Alright, If anyone needs drinks, order up, except you Inosuke, you’re not getting coffee.” you stated, singling out the boy. 

The Teachers seemed amused by the shared antics, Inosuke huffed, “I drink what I want Woman!” 

You frowned, “And we’re not in the mood to replace windows again because you decide in your Caffeinated high to go through them. I have a new Raspberry Hot Chocolate you can try though!”

Inosuke hummed, “ALRIGHT BUT BECAUSE THAT SOUNDS GOOD!” Tanjiro and Zenitsu sandwiched their friend, “can we get some too?”

You blinked at that, “So…Raspberry hot chocolate for all you boys?” you watched as the other three nodded. “Simple enough! Alright, Teachers, what can I get ya.

Rengoku blinked, “the hot chocolate sounds good actually…” Sanemi nodded. 

You gave Uzui a stare, he only grinned, “What’s your most Flamboyant drink? And don’t say Raspberry Hot chocolate!” 

You smirked, “I don’t know sir, I think it is rather flamboyant considering the fact that it’s a hot chocolate bomb.”

Uzui blinked in response, “I’ll take four then! I’m sure my wives will love it!” 

Your soul again left your body, as Kei and Nezuko came back in with sweets. Nezuko grabbed ahold of your soul and reeled it back in. you went to work on heating up some milk, and grabbing the hot chocolate bombs.  Kei gave Sanemi a Ohagi, Rengoku sweet potato mochi, handed each of the kids dango.  She turned to Uzui, “Now I’m not used to you showing up, so what would you like?” 

“I’m just here to watch the chaos!” Uzui grinned. 

As you moved the cups to the counter, you placed the little bombs in front of them, except for Uzui’s four as you assumed he would want to enjoy them later. You placed the Chocolate bombs in a small box for him. “Alright, come get your drinks, drop in the chocolate bomb and watch the magic!” Everyone rushed forward, minus the teachers, Rengoku however lingered at the counter causing you some confusion. “Can I help you?”

Rengoku’s brows furrowed as you raised one of yours, he reached for his chocolate bomb and dropped it in the warm milk. “Zenitsu said you wanted to have me over for dinner tomorrow, what time is that?!”

Your eyes widened, “HEH?! What do you mean?” 

Rengoku’s eyes focused on you, “Did you not tell him to invite me over for tomorrow?” 

Your jaw dropped, “I did not, but you are now um…six o’clock okay?” 

Rengoku nodded with a big smile, “Yes!” Not catching the smirk from Uzui, who nudged Zenitsu. 

You pinched your nose, “Zenitsu, please ask me before inviting people to eat in the future?” 

The blond laughed nervously, “Sorry about that (Name)!” 

With a sigh you shotgunned your Caramel Macchiato. This was going to be a long week. 

[blubushie]

1. Your brother was clearly just being silly and having a good time being a young boy /lh

2. My cousin played the 'hearts beat fast/colours and promises' song for her wedding. But being into Billie Jean for that long is some dedication I hope I'll have one day. Your brother's a bit petty for hating on you when you weren't even there for your dad's switcheroo.

3. My mom thinks China caused coronavirus and believes all the 'Jesus sighted 😍' posts on Facebook

4. If anybody let my cat (or any pet) be attacked just to get close to me I would be throwing hands but uh... good for your aunt+uncle.

5. You know what they say! We're a mosaic of all the people we've loved (I walk by an old friend's house and wonder if there's still a couple drops of my blood on her porch from when I accidentally stapled my fingers)

6. I also do not like your oldest maternal cousin :)

7. Poor kid, I suffered in school, too, being the Weird Kid. Even now I still get talked down to and I don't know what I'm doing wrong. My heart goes out to him, school can be tough, and he's going to walk out with all the more reason to keep to himself (for better or for worse, it was worse in my case) and all too many psychological scars.

8. Usually it's autism or some other neurodivergence when somebody's marked as effeminate or gay with no definite proof, especially in more conservative families. Queerness does tend to be concurrent with that, though.

9. He's normal?? Must be a mutation or something, he's sticking out too much...

[Animal Fact Anon]

1. I was 12 my brother was in his 30s.

2. Yeah I literally wouldn't be born for another 20 years lmfao

3. Most of my family too

4. They've been married over 50 years now so they're doing well!! I'm pretty he knew her dog would win anyway 😅

5. Yeah

6. YEAH

7. Yeah. He's homeschooled too (because obviously if he showed up at school like that he'd immediately be tested and put into special ed and we can't have that) but the homeschooling defo doesn't help with his socialisation

8. The only proof anyone has is that, afaik, he's never had a girlfriend despite being in his 30s. But I was 18 before I had my first girlfriend, and if she hadn't come onto me I never would've gotten with her. He's a recluse and very shy, so I think it's far more likely he's on the spectrum or socially anxious and just hasn't been able to approach someone. Or he just doesn't want to, that's fine too. I'm annoyed by the family constantly gossing behind his back about what's wrong with him, when he's coming out, etc, and I'm tired of them coming to me, token faggot of the family, to approach him as a mediator.

9. Yeah he's the weirdest one in the bunch cuz he's doing the best of all of us lmao

[reikiajakoiranruohoja]

Ramble: Humanity

Because I felt this aspect needs noticing and how it relates to the way Steven is written, here are some thoughts on humanity in Steven Universe.

Unlike many cartoons I grew up with and many cartoons today I'm sure, Steven is not middle-class. He is barely lower class and mostly lives off the grid. This is important for multiple reasons I will come to. Still, it already sets the series apart just by having a protagonist who has no social security outside his gem guardians and what his dad can afford.

It would be one thing if there was only a reference to these things once or twice. Instead, the series depicts the gruelling nature of poverty and lack of financial security surprisingly harshly. Greg cannot afford to go to the hospital, Mr Smiley is running Funworld on his own and it is clearly taxing him and Greg has to risk his life to buy parts for his carwash from a guy on the internet. The show makes it clear that despite the Earth of SU being different from ours, it still is as shitty as ours is.

Why I find that interesting, is the aforementioned lack of such narratives in most cartoons. Most series set in the real world have their characters be at least lower-middle-class. There might be a few jokes aimed at the parents about bills and insurance, but it is never treated as something that affects the characters long term.

Steven lives off the grid in a beach house, does not go to school and is homeschooled by guardians who do not really know humanity well and what he sees on TV. He is known to the locals, but long term he is not part of their society. He does not have to think about the future as PD does, and he does not have to deal with hurting people through muscle memory as Connie does. He is not beholden to any job or any expectation from his human side.

I'm not saying that Steven is having it easy, because he definitely does not. Steven is put in danger constantly and is expected to be more mature than he truly is. Yet, because these challenges come solely from the gem side, Steven is slowly but surely losing what little touch he had with normal human life. Especially once we start visiting Homeworld, the struggles Steven faces are from a fantastical story. With space pirates and titanic nobles of alien morality.

When the battle has been won and Steven's 'destiny' has been fulfilled, he clearly thinks he can return to the way things used to be before the gem mess really picked up. But as I said above, the human world of Steven Universe is very much like ours. The unrestrained freedom of childhood and the whimsy of being an untethered child is lost to Steven. Instead, he comes face to face with the expectations society has for him and the weight of responsibility that comes from fulfilling them.

Ironically, Steven is as flightly with his gem life. He treats his role as a diamond something he doesn't have to think about, he gave up his ambassadorial position after only two years and his role as a teacher in Little Homeworld after at most few months. It isn't that he doesn't realise the gravity of those jobs, but he is stuck trying to live the free life of his childhood.

Both the human and the gem world are now asking Steven what he does and who he is and Steven flounders with this as he never realised it was a question to begin with. Everyone is moving on, gem and human, and Steven is left exactly where he always has been. The boy who doesn't go to school, the boy who spends all day doing what he wants or going on adventures. Unchanging, stagnant. Even when he tries to hang out with Peridot, he finds it strange as they usually hung out while solving a problem.

It is no wonder that Steven eventually leaves Beach City and the gems. Because he has to find out who he is and what does he want to do with his life. He stayed still for far too long and so he must start anew to truly find himself.

It isn't addressed in the show, but Steven leaving also shows he isn't quite there yet with accepting adult responsibility. After all, he is still a diamond, he is the only gem-human hybrid and so the best ambassador and he could still serve as a teacher in Little Homeworld.

The way humanity and human life is portrayed in SU is honest in a way that is refreshing. We don't get an easy middle-class life, we get to see just how tough living paycheck to paycheck is. And most importantly, we are shown through our protagonist how important it is to be a part of that life. Lest we see it and everyone we know rush past us.