#bro she’s graduating this year and she has a scholarship for college and she’s already been talking college classes so she’s gonna be a

[camscendants]

Lol I didn’t put in my two weeks today

It was a really good work day tho

Corporate came in this morning and we got a 8. last time it was a 6. So the main manager was super happy, got everyone chocolate, and let us a have a lazy day off. It was completely dead the whole time and it was chill. We kinda just talked the whole shift

[nella09archive]

Marriage. 105

Chapter 105: Early Graduation and Scholarships

The next morning was killer. Mostly due to the fact that dad look like his face was in a fight. To top it off, both mom and dad were super covered up. I was ready to just walk out, and make my own breakfast. And when Videl stood next to me, she had a weird face and looked towards the door. Guess we were thinking the same thing. We tried to make a break for it, but Goten had pointed us out. Great job little bro. Dad and mom said good morning, and we said good morning back. But we still tried to back away, and hope they let us leave. We were so wrong. Goten grabbed over hands, and pulled us to the table. Let’s kidnap my brother and stay as far away from here for as long as possible. Videl nodded, and I grabbed Goten. But we was stopped by dad. Guess after breakfast.

As we ate breakfast, I felt super uneasy. I didn’t even look up from my food. After breakfast, me and Videl tried again to make a run for it. Only to be stopped by dad, and he was carrying us. At least he didn’t smell weird. He carried all three of us outside, and even walked like this for a good while. What gives? Soon, he just dropped us, and we looked at him. We were going to ask what was going on, till he spoke. He told us that today he was going to train all three of us. “Why?” His only responds was a why not.

The rest of the morning, was just full of pointing out what we needed to work on. Well, for me it wasn’t so bad; mainly because I was just a little rusty. Goten was slightly ok, but he did good. Videl, oh Videl, dad pretty much made her change her whole stance and kata. It was funny to watch. But her movements did improve. How come I didn’t notice, or think of that? Then again, this is dad. He’s an expert at these things.

When we ate lunch, it didn’t feel as awkward. Dad even asked Videl if she wanted to stay the rest of the summer, and he could train all 3 of us. Videl seemed to like that idea, and said she’ll ask her dad. So, after lunch she had left, and Goten was ended up going to play with Trunks. I was about to head upstairs, till mom caught my attention. She made me sit at the table, and handed me a couple of letters. I was confused, till I saw they were addressed to me. And who they were from was a bunch of colleges. My parents excitedly watched me open and read each letter.

“They’re all saying how my teachers handed in a referral for me, and that they were accepting them. Something about giving me full scholarships, and asking if I could start as soon as January. That part doesn’t make sense. Shouldn’t I finish high school first and then start college?” That’s when mom held up a bigger envelop and handed it me. Inside it read:

Dear Son Gohan

After much consideration, and request by all your teachers, it has come to our attention that you have already completed all your requirements. We are writing to you for the solo purpose of offering you an early graduation. We already had referred you to many top colleges around the world. They are even prepared to consider the possibility of you completely your bachelor’s under half the time frame. To top it off, your tuition will be cover in full, even if, and when, you chose to get your doctoral degree.

I hope this letter finds you in high spirit, and we look forward to discussing more of your future.

The board of education.

I was in complete disbelief. How is this even possible? When in the world did all this happen? I looked to my parents, and asked if they knew about this all along. They shook their heads, and said how they just saw that I got mailed this morning. They were waiting for when we could be alone, so I could read them. I don’t know if I should be happy or sad. I should be happy because I’m continuing my education and working on my future. But what about my friends and all the things I’ll miss out, since it was going to be my senior year. I know I’ll always stay connected to Videl regardless, so, that didn’t worry me. But what should I do?

“How about you take some time to think it over. Nobody is rushing you. This is just one of many opportunities. Don’t feel so pressure to give an answer right now. You have the rest of the summer to think it over.” I felt mom rubbing my back, and dad ruffling my hair. And how they were wiping the tears I didn’t even know were falling. I told them thank you, and they gave me a hug. I then took all the letters and went to my room. I definitely need a moment to think things through.

…

“Goku. Our baby just got accepted into college, and even given the chance to graduate early.” I could feel the tears starting to build up. And feeling my husband rubbing my shoulders, and his chin on my head, was making me even more emotional. “I’m so happy. But I’m so sad.”

“I understand the happy part. I’m happy too. But why are you sad?”

“Because it’ll mean that there’s a high possibility that Gohan is going to be moving out. Or at least dorming. Especially so he wouldn’t miss classes, if he’s going to a school super far.” I finally turn around and hug him. I can’t help but cry. “I’m so very happy. But I’m going to miss my baby so much.” Goku held me tightly, and was rubbing my back.

“Not like we’re never going to see him again?” That’s when I looked up at him. Even though he was smiling, I could still tell he was a little upset. “He’ll visit, and call. Won’t he?”

That’s when I smiled up at him. “Of course. Especially if doesn’t want his mommy and daddy popping up out of nowhere.” Now he was really smiling. “And besides.” He looked at my puzzled. “A few of the schools are in West City, and in Satan City. If he chooses one of those, it doesn’t automatic means he’s leaving completely. But if he does, it’s a quick trip over.” He kissed my forehead. “Our baby is moving up in the world.”

He kissed my lips. “And I’m glad I’m alive to witness it.”

“I’m glad, too.” We shared a quick kiss, before he tells us we’ll have guess soon. That’s when we hear a knock at the door. We end the hug, and I head to welcome Videl in. She asked where was Gohan, and she also handed me a container. As she heads upstairs, come to find out the container had cookies. “Goku, don’t.”

“Aw, just one.” I give him one, and tell him that’s it.

…

When I got home, I was greeted by dad. He was saying that I really should let him know when I end up sleeping over. That he was worried I didn’t show up for breakfast. I apologized and told him I was staying over Gohan’s, for the rest of the summer. As I packed, we spoke. He even reminded me that I have to go to the doctors next month. Is it really going to be 3 months again? I really hate taking those shots.

“For goodness sake dad. Me and Gohan haven’t done anything. We haven’t even tried. Besides, Gohan’s parents are old school; believing in waiting till marriage.” But he kept insisting.

“I just don’t want my baby girl getting pregnant until she’s married.”

“I really appreciate it dad. Now can you let go of me.”

“Then put back those night gowns. They’re too short.”

“But they’re my favorites. But fine.” I put them back, and packed another set of short pj shorts, and pj shirts. With that dad finally stopped hugging me, and made my way. As I flew, I was starting to feel overly excited and overly sad. I wonder why. This would be the first time I ever felt these super strong emotions. I wonder why. When I get to Gohan’s house, I’m iffy about just walking in. Long ago I came to find out they never really lock their door. So, sometimes I just let myself in. But most of the time they have the door open, so it doesn’t feel as weird. But since yesterday I don’t want to risk it.

Thank goodness I knocked. They were alone downstairs. When I asked where’s Gohan, they said in his room. After I handed them the cookies, that I forgot to bring yesterday, I headed upstairs. I didn’t get a chance to know, when Gohan opened the door. His face had a lot of emotions written all over it. I hope he’s ok. After I entered his room, he just hugged me. “Is something wrong?”

“No. Yes. Maybe.” He’s doing it again.

“Gohan. What happened?” He just continues to hug, and then tells me that he just got news about he got the option to graduate early. Also, how he got accepted into different colleges, with full scholarships. I spun around so fast, it surprised both of us. “That’s amazing, Gohan. But why you look down about it.”

He kissed my forehead. “I’m not. I just don’t know if I should take it. I kind of want to, but then I don’t. I would love it. But then I’ll be technically missing the whole high school senior experience.” I couldn’t help giggle at that. “Why you laughing?”

“Because how cute you’re being right now. You done a ton of amazing things, and yet you want to experience being a normal teenager. If I were in your shoes, I’ll take the offer. And during my days off have fun like anyone else. Besides, I heard college is where the real fun happens.” He started snickering at that one.

“But I want to hang out with you. We’ll be in different schools. Different schedules. Heck, I might have weekend classes. I definitely won’t be looking forward to that.”

“Actually, you do know you can pick your schedule, and the number of classes you’re willing to take. So, you’ll be able to make a schedule that’s right for you. And we could always video chat during our lunch, so, it won’t be that bad.”

He kissed my forehead again. “I’m glad I spoke to you.” I told him I was glad too. “Hey. Want to help me pick a college?” I nodded, and we sat on the floor looking through different colleges and what they had to offer. It was super fun. Until it was time to head downstairs.

…

Gohan and Videl sure look weird today. As we ate dinner, they were talking about colleges and stuff, but that wasn’t what was weird. I looked to mom and dad, to see if they noticed, and they were smiling. I guess they know something I don’t. After dinner, instead of playing with dad, I asked Gohan is I could hang with them. He said sure. So, they’re sitting on the floor, looking through papers, and they just look weird. I’ve seen something similar, but I never thought anything about it.

Like, it’s almost how uncle Vegeta and aunty Bulma looks. I thought it was just them. But when dad came back for good, him and mom got that weird thing going on. I don’t see it with uncle Krillin and aunty 18. Maybe I should ask dad, or uncle Vegeta about it. Gohan and Videl just seems to have this invisible bubble around them. Well, it has different colors, but they change too fast. I wanted to say something, but I didn’t want the thing to go away. It was cool to look at. When they finally looked at me, that weird thing almost disappeared. “Hey.” I had to blink a few times, before I answered Gohan. “You ok?”

“Yeah. Just fine. I’m leaving.” With that I tried not to step on any paper, and left the room. I went downstairs, and spotted dad doing pushups. “Dad.” He paused, and looked over at me. I walked over to him, and got on his back. He then went back to doing pushups. “Why does I see that weird thing around Gohan and Videl? You and mom, and even Trunks’ parents have it. But Marron’s parents doesn’t. What does it mean? At that, all three are so different. Yours and mom has a blue color, and Trunks’ parents have red. But Gohan and Videl doesn’t have a color. It’s always changing.”

By this time, mom had sat next to dad and me. They haven’t really said anything yet, but it’s ok. Maybe dad is waiting on mom to answer. Mom is very smart. But what if it’s a sayian thing. Shouldn’t dad know too? “Everyone has it.” Mom made me confused. How does everyone have it? I don’t see everyone have it. How is that possible? “I guess you can say you see it with use more because we’re somehow connected. Well, maybe that’s not it.” Ok, now mom is really confusing me. “Oh. How bout this.” She tells dad to stop his workout, and sit. While he does, mom went off to get a book. When she gave it to me, it had a funny word on it. “When me daddy taught me what ki was, I got super curious. So, I tried to find as many books about it. I found this one. Then after a long talk with uncle Vegeta, it got me thinking if this is what he was talking about.”

“I still don’t get how this answers my question.” I was starting to get frustrated. How was this book supposed to have the answers?

“Goten.” I looked up at dad, and he had a frown. Did I do something wrong? He ruffled my hair, and gave me a smile. What’s going on?

“It took Gohan a bit of work to learn to control ki. It took your dad some time too. Even me.” Mom was giving me a big smile. “But you.” She poked my nose. “Was able to control is much faster. It’s even stronger than daddy’s and Gohan’s first time.” That sounds impossible. I look to dad and he was nodding his head. Then I look back at mom. “Everyone has something. I might not be able to give you the exact answer you’re looking for, but know this.” She picked me up from daddy’s lap, and placed me on hers. Now I was facing dad. She then told dad to do something. The way she said it I was just lost.

But as I looked at dad, around him there were different colors. At first it wasn’t that super sayian color. At one moment it was blue, then red, and then it went to gold. I don’t get it. Mom said that dad had to work super hard to do that. Like I could tell he was raising his ki, but what does it mean? mom then pointed again at the book. “This book is about chakras and auras. I don’t think I could explain it the way Vegeta did. Because even he confused me. But I can say is that what you saw with your big brother and Videl was a bond being made. Well, from what Vegeta said. But for your big brother it’s taking a while to build. For me and your dad, we had long started still very little. Vegeta and Bulma have their own case.”

Ok, now I think I’m getting it. Still confusing but I’ll manage. “Mommy.” She looked at me with such a loving smile. “Can I read your book?” She poked my nose, and said it’s mine now. “Really? You mean it?” She nod her head. I then gave her a hug. I then tried to grab dad, and I’m glad he got the message. Now I was hugging both of them. And to my great surprise they were pinching my cheeks, and saying they love me. I did find it funny that dad started carrying me and mom, and walked around. He asked if I wanted to sleep in my room. I shook my head, and so he took us up to their room. Tonight, felt nice being snuggled in between my parents. I wonder if this what Gohan talked about, when he told me about, he felt the happiest when he slept with our parents. How he felt the safest, how at peace he was, and that it was the absolute best feeling in the world. I have to agree with him. This truly is a wonderful feeling.

…

After Goten left, me and Videl decided to start cleaning up. Once done, we just talked about random things. Everything was going fine, till I told Videl that my dad’s ki was raising. I told her I was going to check it out, and she could wait in my room. When I came back, she had changed clothes. Well, she was in the middle of changing her pants. When I realized what I just walked into, I quickly closed the door, and told her to let me know when she was done. I can’t believe I just walk into her changing. So embarrassing. I felt my face burning. But the realization that she was changing in my room, I wanted to bang my head against the wall. How am I going to survive the night without thinking about that? I’m sleeping on the floor tonight. Even if she says it’s ok. I’m sleeping on the floor.

When she opened the door, I thought I was going to faint. She’s wearing one of those spaghetti string tank tops, with shorts that were super short. I wanted to leave my own house. My whole body was burning up, and I can’t even face her. No way I could. Then she just had to say my name, and try to pull me inside. My room just became a death trap. A very lovely, intoxicating death trap. The fact that her top was black, while her shorts red, the only thing I could think of was that I was trapped by a black widow. Videl is trying to kill me! That must be the only true reason she’s wearing that.

I have seen her wear it before, just that we were video chatting. So, I didn’t have much to worry; other than being extremely hard when I work up. The most annoying feeling I have ever encounter. And I thought getting jumped on by Goten, or growing pains, or even my explosive anger was annoying. Nope. I found something so annoying, that it top the list. And calming it down was another annoying task. Thinking about the many parts of the human brain had worked, at first. Till thoughts of wanting to know how Videl brain worked. Which lead to thoughts about bodily functions. I still don’t know why that had me excited. Probably because it led to the question, where is she the most sensitive? That thought brought me back to the reality I was in. And to the reality of what was happening between my legs.

I was in a panic. And to my complete horror, Videl was looking down. Oh, dear Dende, why are you trying to kill me? I turned around and sat on the floor, having my hands between my legs, as a weak admit to hide myself. She already saw my reaction, but it’s still embarrassing. Heck, if I recall, she even felt it. That thought made it hard to breathe. I felt trapped in my own clothes. At that, it was just a short sleeve shirt, and a pair of knee length shorts.

Why does the room feel so hot? I could barely breathe. But what I could breathe in was her. That’s all my senses were picking up. Oh, dear Dende, I’m not going to survive tonight. I might as well just camp outside, in the fresh air. But Videl would get mad if I leave. Mm. An angry Videl sounds yummy. CRAP! I slapped myself for that. I was so lost in trying to calm myself, I failed to realize someone was standing in front of me. It’s when I felt a slap, that wasn’t my own hand, did I finally see her face.

At that moment, all thought process went out the window. I quickly pulled her down for kiss. Which led to me having her on my lap, with her legs wrapped around me. When the kiss ended, I hungrily went after her neck and shoulders. Just a taste wouldn’t hurt. One little taste. I licked and nibbled along the base of her neck. She taste so good. I smiled at that. All those times of just dying to taste her, I finally let myself have it. Smelling her just wasn’t enough. I want more. I want to taste all of her. I just have to taste all of her. She’s mine! And she’s going to know it!

“Gohan.” At the sound of her voice, I look at her beautiful face. The eyes that just draws me in, were crying. Oh no! Did I do something wrong? “Gohan, is that really you?” What is she saying? Of course, I’m me. Did I change? I try to kiss her, but she pulls away. Oh no! I did do something wrong! I just let her go, and made my way to the window. Maybe some fresh air would do me some good. As I’m trying to catch my breath, I feel her hugging me from behind. “What happened?”

“Sorry about that. I don’t even know what happened. Did I hurt you?”

“No. You scared me, though.” I turned around to hug her, and I started to apologize and how I didn’t mean to. “It’s ok. It’s just.” I looked at her face, and it was all red. “I just never seen you like that. It almost was like you became a totally different person.” I started to feel really bad now. I kept saying sorry, and told I was going to sleep on the floor. “Please don’t.”

“You sure?” She said yes. Thankfully the fresh air did calm me down, by a whole lot. What should I do about this? Oh, I’ll worry about it another day. Once we settled into the bed, a last thought pop to mind. Videl is sleeping like this. That alone made me fear falling asleep. I definitely am going to learn self-control even more. Maybe I could ask dad for help with that. After all, he who else has the most… scratch that. Remembering how he is around mom. Does he even have control over that? Wouldn’t hurt to just ask. Great. Now I have to get myself ready for the most embarrassing, and awkward talk with dad ever.

…

The next morning, I could feel something was going to happen. I woke before Chichi, and Goten. I couldn’t help admire this little moment. Reminds me when Gohan was small. I’m glad I got another chance to experience this. I got out of bed quietly. After I quickly brush my teeth, and stepped out our room, I was greeted by a red face Gohan. When did he wake up? He was stuttering a bit, but he finally said how he wanted to talk with me. We went downstairs, but he wanted to have this conversation outside. We then went down to the lake. What he said next made my face burn. My poor Gohan.

“Calm down Gohan. Slow down. You’re speaking too fast.”

“Dad. I just lost it. And I just wanted more and more. If Videl didn’t say my name, or was even crying, I don’t know what I’ll do.” He looked so horrified at what was going on with him. He was even crying. My poor boy. “I couldn’t even sleep last night. I was too afraid of what I would do.” He then went on what’s been happening during the morning, after a video chat with Videl. My poor Gohan. It’s really hard for him. “Dad. How do you stay in control?” Oh boy.

How was I going to answer this? “I would say training, but you’re not me.” He look upset at that answer. “It took a super long time for me to learn control. Heck, the only thing stopping me from…” Oh boy. “Well, anyway.” This is awkward. “I could tell you to avoid the problem, but that won’t fix anything either. As much I would love to see you happy, but at the moment it looks like the suffering option is best. Me and your mother would like you to take the traditional route on this. But I can tell it’s really troubling you.” This is just so awkward. Even he’s looking uncomfortable. I can’t take this. I get up, and pull him in to the lake.

“Hey! What was that for?” He looked mad at that. I pushed him back under. When he came back up, he still looked mad, but didn’t say anything.

“Your mother will kill both of us, if I say what I want to say.” He looked at me confused. “I’ll love to tell you to just go for it, but if Chichi knew I told you. Oh boy. We’ll be dead by morning.” That’s when I saw his face turn red. “I don’t want you to get in trouble. You’re a good boy, Gohan. But I want you happy. It’s even confusing me on what I should tell you.” He went back under the water.

When he came back up, he looks calmer but still blushing. “Is it so bad to just have a little taste? Just a little touch?”

Oh, did he just? The fact he’s looking away, brings up the fact he really did ask that. At this point what I’m I supposed to say. Chichi usually has the answers. Wait! That’s it! I couldn’t help the smile grounding on my face. He gave me a confused look. “Do you trust Videl to no end?” He raised an eyebrow, before saying yes. “Can you tell her everything?” Another yes. “Do you feel safe to black out around her, because you trust she won’t hurt you?” Again, another yes. “Do you feel lost without her? Or you feel that everything makes sense when you’re with her?”

“Dad, what are you getting at?”

“Just answer.” He said yes. “So, there’s nothing to worry about. Only thing you really need to worry is creating another life. That, you can’t do till you’re married. No making me and your mom grandbabies until your married.” His face went beet red, before going back under water. When he came back up, he was smiling.

“Wait a minute.” I looked over at him. “Shouldn’t she have those monthly things, that means she can have babies?”

“Talk to her about that. Because that even confused me.” After a moment, we finally left the lake and flew home. There we were greeted by two angry females. And then we remembered one little fact. CRAP! We rushed past them, and went to our rooms. We had to change out of our wet clothes.

…

When the boys finally came down, they were laughing. “I hope you know you two are cleaning my floors. And please tell me there isn’t a puddle in the rooms.”

They both chuckled nervously. “Hon, there’s no puddles, and I’ll gladly clean the floors.” Something is up. Before I got a chance to ask, they had already made it to the table and started eating.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were going for a swim? I would have like to go.” Goku just placed two of his pancakes onto Goten’s plate. Oh, something is definitely happening. And I’m going to find out. After breakfast, the kids headed out, and Goku got ready to clean my floors. The moment I finished the dishes, I went up to my husband.

“What happened?”

“Nothing. Gohan just wanted to cool off.”

“Goku. Is something wrong with our baby?”

“Nothing. He just wanted to talk, and it got to where we needed to cool off.”

“Why?” He then got up, and grabbed my hips. The way he looked at me was making my face burn. I hope he’s not thinking off doing anything. He then licked his lips, before kissing my neck. What has brought… “WHAT?” I pushed Goku away, or tried to. “What did you tell him?”

“No grandbabies. Be a good boy. Be happy.” I then slapped his chest, and told him to tell me exactly what he said. “I already told you.” He tried kissing me.

“You’re sleeping alone tonight.” He started pouting. While I could feel a sneaky hand heading south. I pinched his hand. “I mean it. You’re sleeping outside, by yourself.” He kept pouting; like that’ll change my mind. He then looked to the door, and back at me. The smile he gave me was downright evil. He toss me over his shoulder, and took us to our room. When we got inside, he locked the door, and walked us to our bed.

I was ready to argue with him, but he didn’t do anything. Instead of putting me on his lap, or touching me, he sat me down on the bed, and sat on the floor. “Chichi. When you talked me about babies, and how they’re made, why did you say we had to be married first? Bulma and Vegeta weren’t married when they had Trunks. So, I’m a little confused about your reasoning. Not to say I’m not happy with it. I actually love the fact we got married first. It made everything feel more special. But is that really the only way?”

My Goku really wanted to have this talk. I don’t know if I should feel happy or sad. “It’s how I was taught. So, I taught it was the only way. Even though all around me everyone did what they wanted, when I had to be proper. Even when I was trying to be a proper lady, everyone still mock me. But also, I wanted to save myself for you. I truly value our promise. So, to me, there was no other way. But before we got married my thoughts were always about hugging, kissing, and doing romantic things. Then when guys tried to come on to me, or even force themselves, I always fought back. Yet, the very people, my father ruled over, mocked me for not letting any man have me. Here I was told, I had to be married first before a man could touch me. I had to be a proper young lady, since I was a princess. But it was unfair how everyone mock me, when I tried so hard to be a proper lady. That’s another reason I didn’t want to continue being princess. Marrying you made me feel free, and myself.”

I didn’t even notice when he moved, but I’m currently in his arms. “You shouldn’t have gone through that. You valued yourself, and yet no one saw that. You’re absolutely perfect. But Gohan is different from us. You had your values, and I was clueless. But I trusted you, even when I didn’t know it at the time. Would it really be so bad, if he, you know?” I looked up at him, and he seem to be blushing. My Goku really is something else. At that I couldn’t help laugh. “Why are you laughing?”

“You’re doing it again.” He asked what. “You’re trying to make me say yes to Gohan. Just like when he was very small, and he really wanted something. And if you already said yes, you would do everything to make me say yes. You’ll do anything to give our baby what he wanted.” He kissed my forehead.

“I want him happy. He’s happy with Videl. I want him to have what we have. He’s my first baby, he’s such a good boy, he listened to mommy and daddy, even when upset and want to argue. He rarely stepped out of line, and only when he feels strongly about it. After all, he has you to thank for that. Let’s let over baby have this, please.”

“But I have to speak with Videl first. Other than that, I see why not. After all, you did tell him no grand babies, till he’s married?” He nods his head. “Ok, but you’re still sleeping outside tonight.” He said it was worth it, and carried me back downstairs. That’s when we met 3 kids, that looks like they all took a swim. “Looks like you have more cleaning to do.” It let out a sigh, and placed me down.

-----

Ch104

[sazc94]

Pietro and Bunny

HELLO

Here is my second entry for the wonderful @msmarvelwrites 2k Challenge.

This a spin-off from my Bucky fic: The three times Bucky broke your heart. Part 1 linked Here.

It follows the same timeline and explores the relationship of Pietro and Reader (Bunny) More.

Words 6034

Themes. Angst, Suggestions of smut. But mostly lots and lots of fluff. 18+ Because of the smut suggestions.

This has two parts and I will upload part 2 tomorrow.

𝐀𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰, 𝐛𝐚𝐛𝐲?"

Pietro thought you were pretty cool. He thought you and Bucky made a great couple. He enjoyed hanging out with you when you would all hang out as a group. Pietro wasn’t one for girlfriends. Sure he’d had a few semi-serious flings and would occasionally bring a date to the parties after a game and loved how you would instantly make anyone feel welcome. He couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment he started to think of you as more than a friend. It was sometime during his senior year.

At first, he pushed the idea out of his head. You were Bucky’s girl Y/N! You were the cute shy girl Bucky had brought out of her shell, who was still deep down that adorable musical theatre-loving dork. However, when Bucky started getting defensive around him and Sam about who he was texting, Pietro stopped feeling so bad about liking you of course Pietro would never do anything to jeopardize your relationship with Bucky and his friendships with either of you, but he couldn’t help but feel a tang of jealousy towards Bucky.

2010

“Look at Bucky, can’t go 5 minutes without texting his little cheerleader,” Sam said walking up behind Pietro. Bucky was too engrossed in his phone to pay any attention to the pair of them. Pietro smirked.

“Sam, watch this” Pietro said, before breezing over to Bucky and pulling his phone out of his hands. Bucky instantly shot up trying to grab the phone from Pietro, however, he was too quick throwing the phone to Sam.

“Dear Doll, I love you so much and all thought I only saw you this morning, I am already missing you” Pietro sang in a teasing manner.

“Come on guy’s give it back” Bucky grunted. Sam and Pietro kept throwing the phone between them. Suddenly Sam stopped laughing.

“Hey Buck, who’s Nat and why is she asking if you’re going to be around this summer?” Sam asked his eyebrow shooting up. Bucky’s façade faltered for a second. His usual bright blue eyes deepening with an unfamiliar expression. Pietro’s interest was also piqued, he may have wanted you for himself but that didn’t mean he wanted to see you get hurt.

“Oh, she’s just a friend of Jane’s. I met her at that party after our game in Green Bay last year she’s a cheerleader like Jane and Y/N. Natasha and her boyfriend Clint will be in town the summer and she wants to introduce us apparently her boyfriend was impressed with how we played” Bucky said, shrugging it off like it was no big deal. After that incident, Bucky was on his phone around the football team less and started talking about how much he loved you and couldn’t wait to spend some quality time with you in the summer.

November 2011

By the time graduation rolled around Pietro had put any thoughts about the pair of you out of his mind, chalking it up to wanting a relationship as opposed to you. At least that’s what he kept telling himself. You came along to his graduation ceremony. Well, it was for everyone. Pietro, Sam, Wanda, Jane, and Carol. Bucky came along too. Late. But you were there with Peter Parker who was a freshman, he had talent, but he seemed to prefer being behind a camera as opposed to on the field.

The whole gang hung around the field and bleachers after the ceremony. Goofing off and enjoying the last time the group would all be together like this for a while. Peter took photos of you all. Pietro’s favourite was one where he and Sam had picked you up whilst you were in the middle of talking to Carol and Wanda. The laughter that came out of your mouth as you squealed and shouted for the two footballers to put you down made his heart flutter.

Okay so maybe he wasn’t as over you as he told himself he was. Now he could understand what that Taylor Swift was banging on about in that song of hers.

Have you ever thought just maybe?

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t Bucky’s girl,” he said grinning at you. For some stupid reason, probably because Pietro didn’t know what to do with his hands, he ruffled your hair like you were 5 again. He couldn’t help but notice you wince at the old pet name. He mentally kicked himself. Why had he called you that?!

Graduation was the last time he saw you for over a year. Unlike Bucky, Pietro had actually been away at a football camp when Bucky had cheated on you. He didn’t know what had happened. Only knew you two had broken up. Wanda was fiercely protective of her friendship with you and didn’t want to betray you by admitting to those that didn’t know that Bucky had cheated on you. He wasn’t going to lie; he was saddened when you didn’t stay in touch with him after he graduated. But after he started his first year at the University of Michigan, he didn’t have much time to worry about it. He was a Line Backer having secured a football scholarship after college scouts came to see Sam and a few others play, Pietro had caught the eye of the scout from the University of Michigan, all though he was a great player, Pietro didn’t want to play professionally like many of the guys on the team. He was studying Business and Economics.

Since about the age of 15, he and Wanda had always planned on going into business together. Between parties, flirting with the pretty cheerleaders and sorority girls and his studies you became a distant memory to Pietro. That was until one November game in his second year.

The Wolverines were playing the Wisconsin Badgers. Boy did they suck. Not that Pietro minded it allowed him the opportunity to watch the cheerleaders, he knew a few of the girls on the team from various parties, he hadn’t paid much attention to the new girls on the squad. Then out of the corner of his eye, he spotted someone who looked familiar to him. Could it be Y/N? Wanda had mentioned something about you getting a scholarship at Uni for your cheerleading, but he’d been in the middle of a game of Mario Kart with Sam at the time.

He tried to rack his brain’s but then the ball came towards him. He smiled to himself. Showtime Pietro. The game was an easy win. Whilst his teammates cheered Pietro made his way to the side-lines, desperate to know if the girl he’d seen earlier was you. His heart skipped a beat when he heard your familiar laugh. He couldn’t believe it. Pietro came jogging up towards you determined to chat.

“It’s just Y/N” or you can call me cutie you said winking at Pietro, he chuckled.

“How about I just call you tomorrow?” he retorted, you felt yourself blush. Pietro may come across as confident but inside he was shaking with nerves. Was he really doing this? What if you said no? You shrugged before pulling out a sharpie from your bag, you wrote down your number on his arm. He cocked his head puzzled.

“I changed it last year after Bucky wouldn’t stop blowing it up with apology texts,” you said simply wrongly presuming Pietro knew what had gone down. Before Pietro could respond you ran off to join the rest of your squad and headed for the changing room. He couldn’t help but smile to himself as your laughter rang in his ears whilst you walked off the pitch.

“Pietro! What’s good? How’d your game go tonight?” Sam asked. He sounded buzzed and Pietro could hear the faint sounds of a party in the background. Excellent he thought to himself. Sam was buzzed enough to have loose lips but not drunk enough to be of no use and if he was lucky Sam might not even remember half the conversation.

Pietro got back to his apartment, he had zero clues about what had gone on with you and Bucky. It was obvious due to your remark about him blowing up your phone with apology texts that he’d done something. He weighed up his options. Wanda or Sam? Wanda was his twin, and he knew deep down if he pulled the twin card she would tell him, but then if nothing came of this, he would be opening a can of worms with his sister over nothing.

Then there was Sam, he was still pretty close with Bucky and liked to chat a lot. But ultimately, he was like a brother to Pietro, and he trusted Sam to keep his mouth shut. Taking a deep breath and raking his hand through his Silver-blonde hair he picked up his phone and dialled Sam.

“So Sam you’ll never guess who I ran into cheering on the side-lines of the game!?” Pietro tried to sound breezy and cool like it was no big deal, despite the fact he was about to ask his friends ex out on a date.

“ I ran into Y/N. You know Bucky’s girl?” Pietro carried on forcing his voice to sound light. Sam choked on his drink down the other end of the line.

“I wouldn’t let her hear you call her that. That boy broke her damn heart, the fool” Sam said, there was an edge to his voice that Pietro almost missed.

“Wait, what do you mean?” Pietro asked genuinely curious.

“Well remember that little party your sister threw that last week of summer whilst you were away at football camp with some of your new teammates?” Sam asked. He didn’t wait for Pietro to respond before he continued.

“Well, Jane brought her friend Nat along” Sam continued. Pietro took a sharp intake of breath. No, Bucky wouldn’t have been stupid enough to kiss her at a party with your mutual friends, would he?

“Well turns out that Clint guy Bucky talked about wasn’t her boyfriend he was just a really good friend. But by the time we found that out Jane realised both Bucky and this Nat chick hadn’t been seen for at least a good 15, 20 minutes. So, she went to go find Nat. Only to walk in on them fucking. Oh yeah, it was on your bed bro”, Sam finished his story like it was no big deal. Other than the telling disdain in his voice.

Pietro stood stunned. No wonder you had winced at the use of your old nickname. Pietro’s heart broke for you at that moment. He vowed at that moment that no matter what happened between you both, he would do everything in his power to ensure you never had to feel heartbreak like that again.

Pietro will never forget that first date with you. He had come up with some lame excuse of showing you the best-hidden beauty spots of the campus. Not that there were any, he just wanted an excuse to spend some time with you. He wore jeans and a jumper with his beat-up converse.

All though it didn’t look like he had put much effort into his outfit he had spent a good hour agonising over it. In the end, he settled for a faded blue jumper hoping it would make his eyes and hair pop. He met you by the school library and the sun was shining, it was still a chilly November mid-morning.

You had turned up with your hair tied up in a messy bun a few stray pieces framing your cheeks, you had opted for a sweater dress. He remembered because it was loose and comfy but sinched inwards in all the right places. It was a silvery colour almost the same shade his hair was. Pietro swore you took his breath away.

Winter Break 2011

“And that right there is where the fraternity pledges had to stand and sing, I’m a little teapot every time someone put 10$ in the bucket. I didn’t truly understand the strange British Nursery Song or whatever it was, but I did like watching the pledges get embarrassed every time they had to sing when the cute cheerleaders walked past. So, I put 40 Bucks in the bucket when I knew the 3rd Years would be heading to practise” Pietro said pointing to the school statue.

You had nearly fallen over laughing at his story. Pietro noticed how you scrunched your nose up when you laughed. Like a rabbit. No like a Bunny. When Pietro walked you back to your dorm, he wasn’t sure if he was going to kiss you, but when you let him hold your hand, he decided at that moment he would regret it more if he didn’t take the plunge.

The moment he knew he was yours and you were his was at a party, he’d taken you on lots of hot chocolate dates, he knew you didn’t like coffee because it tasted bitter to you and that coca was nice, but you preferred the sweet comfort of a creamy hot chocolate.

It was at a party being held by the Ice Hockey team to celebrate their latest string of wins. You didn’t come to parties often preferring the comfort of a book and a cosy night in, but you always tried to attend parties after the football matches. You walked in wearing a red top and black skinny jeans.

The top wasn’t super low cut, but it hinted at your cleavage, you’d left your hair down for a change in loose curls. You’d recently gotten your hair dyed a deep chocolate brown and it brought out your eyes. Pietro nearly lost his damn mind when his Ice-blue eyes met your chocolate brown eyes after he’d drank all of you in. He excused himself from the conversation he was having with Scott Summers and co making his way over to you.

“Bunny, you look good enough to eat,” Pietro said dipping his head down to meet your lips, your lips were always so warm and welcoming a stark comparison to his cool lips.

“Bunny?” You replied scrunching your nose up. This was the first time Pietro had called you a pet name, you felt your heart somersault.

Pietro was messaging his sister on the drive home. He could tell you had something on your mind, but he knew better than to push you.

“So,” you began.

“What’s up Bunny?” Pietro asked snapping his eyes up from his phone.

“Well, I just thought now might be a good time to talk, we’re clearly going to run into a lot of our old friends, and there’s no way Wanda won’t know something is going on here, and I, I saw your lock screen,” you said. Well yeah Pietro thought, was he meant to be keeping you guys a secret? He didn’t want to, and he had just assumed you were a couple. You did couple type things, watching movies together curled up, holding hands when you guys were out together.

“So you were wondering what we are?” Pietro’s couldn’t hide the amusement in his voice. God, you were adorable. He watched your demeanour change and felt a pang of guilt, the determination in your eyes as you tried to not show that you felt embarrassed.

“Hey Bunny, look at me” Pietro grabbed your hand, wanting you to know how much he truly meant the next few words.

“We are a couple. I’m sorry you felt the need to ask, but I adore you, so we are a thing,” he said stroking circles on the back of your hand. You smiled and nodded to yourself. Pietro held on to your hand stroking circles the rest of the traffic. He couldn’t wait to tell Wanda she was wrong about him never getting serious with anyone.

“Hey Wanda, have you got a second?” Pietro and Wanda were heading out to meet up with you and the rest of the old school gang who had made it home for the Winter Break in the local coffee shop.

“Sure brother, what’s up?” she asked shrugging on her red jacket and lacing up her boots.

“So, you know that girl I told you I was seeing?” Pietro asked, you two hadn’t said if you were going to tell people or just let them figure it out, but he at least wanted to give his twin a heads up. Wanda straightened her brown hair falling behind her ears. She impatiently cocked an eyebrow waiting for her twin to continue. They were going to be late at this rate.

“Well, you know her. In Fact, you’re good friends” Pietro continued sucking in his breath.

“If you mean to tell me you’re dating Y/N, I already know brother”, Pietro froze. “I’m happy for you, but if you break her heart like that James did, I will not hesitate to kill you and hide the body” she continued.

“How did you know?” Pietro couldn’t help but ask, you guys hadn’t been a secret, but you hadn’t exactly announced it to the world either.

“I’m good at reading people Pietro” Wanda shrugged before heading out the door.

“You sly dog,” Sam said chuckling. Just then Peter turned up. Sam’s comment hadn’t escaped you, so you simply shot Pietro a quizzical look, one of your eyebrows arched. Pietro gently shook his head. He’d tell you about the phone call later.

It was great hanging out with the old gang, shame about Carol, and Jane being unable to make it back. Bucky was dating that Natasha chick and hadn’t come home from the holidays. Evidently, this wasn’t a surprise to Sam or Wanda. Pietro however was a bit taken back. That was until he heard how his sister had almost killed Bucky when she had run into him last summer. Carol had had to restrain her. Pietro couldn’t lie he was kind of bummed to miss it.

Pietro and Wanda didn’t celebrate Christmas, but they did celebrate being around people they loved and as the four of you sat around waiting for Peter Parker to make an appearance, he couldn’t help but feel his heart swell. You hadn’t even reacted to the mentions of Bucky. The way your brown eyes lit up when you teased Sam about his poor season or crinkled your nose when Wanda complimented your new hair, made Pietro come completely undone. Not being able to restrain himself anymore he leant in and kissed you, a slow soft kiss. The taste of your gingerbread cookie and peppermint hot chocolate lingering on your lips. When Pietro pulled away, he shot Sam a wink, and you promptly turned crimson. Sam just sat there gawking. Pietro watched as Sam tried to piece together his hazy memory from that phone call.

2012

Pietro absolutely adored the photo you had gotten him for Christmas, displaying it on his bedside table proudly. He had brought you a stuffed bunny for Christmas, cheesy but it made you beam at him.

“A Bunny for my Bunny” Pietro said shooting you his signature grin. Your heart constricted; it was an adorable soft fluffy powder blue bunny.

After winter break things got crazy busy. The year also seemed to rush by, between keeping on top, your rehearsals for the play. Pietro’s football practises, football matches, nationals for your cheerleading competition. It felt like you had barely any time to breathe. Pietro always looked forward to football games, not because he loved playing which he did, no it was because when you were cheering your face lit up, you always had his number painted on your cheek. Your brown hair always pulled up in a high ponytail, accentuating your big beautiful brown eyes that always looked for Pietro’s ice-blue eyes on the field. Mostly he loved the looks of jealousy he would get from the other team when players would be checking you out. Pietro would always come over for a kiss for good luck when he wasn’t on the field. You always giggled about how Mr cool; the confident cocky big-time football player was such a dork around you. Pietro was fast, sometimes your eyes couldn’t quite make out his movements, all you would see was a flash of his silver-blonde hair that peeked out under his helmet. You had started calling him Quicksilver, originally as a joke but it had stuck.

“So, move in with me for the summer,” he had said, his heart pounding in his chest. It wasn’t a big deal really but the thought of waking up to you every day for the summer made him practically giddy. Pietro continued to stroke circles on your bare legs. He was watching Grease, but he wasn’t absorbing what was being said.

Pietro loved every single second he got to spend with you, but mostly he loved the summer. College football season had finished, school was winding down and it meant he got to sit in those quiet moments with you. Pietro had no plans to go home for the Summer.

Pietro adored you more than he was willing to admit, hell he loved you which is why he was always never going to push you for anything more than you were comfortable with. He was content just kissing you, steamy make-out sessions. He just liked being close to you breathing in your scent, in the winter you always smelt like Vanilla and crushed Rose Petals. In the summer you changed your body spray, and he hadn’t quite been able to pinpoint the smell, but you smelt like Peaches, sunscreen, and sunshine. Okay, maybe not sunshine but he felt the warmth of your presence every time you were together. Pietro knew you were stressing about summer accommodation so he couldn’t help but offer up his place.

“Okay, I’ll move in for the summer,” you said. You picked up the remote and pressed pause on the DVD Pietro had been so focused on trying to play it cool he hadn’t even heard you the first time you spoke. When you started undressing, Pietro didn’t know where to look. Sure, you’d spent nights together, but Pietro always left you to get changed in his room whilst he went to brush his teeth. His eyes couldn’t help but wander over your body as you walked into your bedroom. Pietro inwardly groaned and felt himself harden. Trying to take his mind off what he had just witnessed he pulled out his phone. That’s when you appeared in the door frame, wearing nothing but his football jersey, when it lifted to show the skin of your bare stomach Pietro nearly lost his damn mind.

“Well, are you coming or not handsome?” Pietro grinned throwing his phone on the sofa and closing the gap between you in seconds, picking you up and throwing you over his shoulder. Pietro was certain that if he didn’t get his way with you right that second, he would combust.

Winter Break 2012

“You love her, don’t you?” Wanda asked Pietro. You were finishing up tech rehearsals, so Wanda and Pietro were enjoying some sibling bonding by cooking Paprikash. Wanda’s eyes narrowed at Pietro who was avoiding eye contact with his sister. He could feel his sisters warm blue eyes boring into him. Eventually, Pietro stopped washing up and turned to face his sister. Wiping his hands on a tea towel he finally lifted his eyes to meet Wanda’s.

“Yes, of course, I do but that’s not a secret, so what are you actually asking Wanda?” Pietro raked a hand through his silver-blonde hair.

“It's obvious you two love each other Pietro, dearly. But you’re in love with her, you would hang the stars for that girl, and when are you going to admit it? You visibly had a thing for her back in high school and you have healed the damage done by James Barnes. So why don’t you let your guard down and tell her how you truly feel?” Wanda asked. Pietro stood there dumbfounded. Had it genuinely been that obvious to people he had liked you back in high school when you were Bucky’s girl? As if reading Pietro’s mind Wanda answered his question.

“You may have fooled everyone else Pietro, but not me” Wanda returned to her cooking and that was the last of the conversation.

“Are you sure your mum doesn’t mind me staying with you guys for winter break?” you asked twiddling your hair nervously. Pietro chuckled lifting your small suitcase into his car.

“Come on then quicksilver, let’s get going before the traffic builds up,” you said shooting him a grin your worries disappearing.

“Yes Bunny, she wouldn’t hear of you staying here alone. Besides, Wanda would rip my arms off if I even thought about coming home without you” he said pressing a kiss to your temple. Pietro had refused to let you drive saying it was his turn as you had driven last year. You still looked unsure tugging at the selves of your red jumper dress as you walked round to the front of his car. Your brown hair fell in loose waves, still slightly damp from your last-minute shower.

Pietro sensed something else was bothering you but didn’t push it. Instead, he hopped up on the bonnet of his car and pulled you between his legs. Pressing his forehead to yours, he uttered a silent promise that his mum would love you and that that the rest of the old gang would be happy for you both like they had all sworn they were. You looked up at him through your big doe eyes and pecked a gentle kiss on his nose.

“So, who did you say was coming tonight again?” you asked. You were standing in Wanda’s room whilst you both got ready for the small hang out Pietro and Wanda were hosting. Pietro had gone out to pick up Sam and Peter Parker and this girl he was bringing, Gwen. Pietro of course had been right about his mum loving you, you’d spent the last four days feeling welcome, included and at home. Wanda and Pietro’s mum had enveloped you into a big hug the moment she met you.

“Sam, Jane, Peter and his girlfriend Gwen. Carol’s coming, I think she said she was bringing her girlfriend. Now put this on” Wanda said handing you a low cut, slim-fitting black sweater dress. You rolled your eyes at Wanda; you were quite happy wearing one of Pietro’s oversized sweaters and your jeans, but you knew better than to argue with her. Just then you heard the door shut.

“It will be great to have so many of the old group back together,” Sam said shrugging off his jacket as he followed Pietro down to the converted basement.

“How are things between you and Y/N?” Sam asked.

“Sam, they’re pretty amazing,” Pietro said, a slight blush forming in his cheeks.

“Okay, that’s good to hear. Did you know Bucky’s in town for the holidays? I text him saying he should come along tonight; I hope that’s okay?” Sam asked. Pietro shrugged, he hadn’t spoken to Bucky since Bucky’s graduation and even then, that had been by phone. It wasn’t that Pietro actively avoided speaking with Bucky, it’s just that Pietro didn’t have anything to say to Bucky.

The pair of you had spoken in great detail about everything that went down between Bucky and yourself last year after winter break, and Pietro could see you still carried the scars from what he had done to when he cheated on yourself. Just then Wanda and you made your way downstairs into the basement. Pietro felt himself harden when he got a good look at what you were wearing. It was going to be a long night whilst Pietro thought the urge to take you upstairs and fuck you senseless. As if reading her brothers thoughts Wanda smirked to herself, a job well done, maybe now her brother would grow some balls and finally tell you exactly how he felt.

“Bunny, you look. Just wow” Pietro said. Sam rolled his eyes, you giggled before walking over to give Pietro a gentle kiss on the lips. You wrapped your arms around him hugging him close before you felt his hardened member. You cocked an eyebrow at him, but Pietro shook his head brushing your hair behind your ears before giving you another gentle kiss.

After about two hours, everyone had relaxed, caught up and were just chilling. Sam hadn’t heard from Bucky, so Pietro hadn’t thought anything more about it, no sense bringing it up to you if he didn’t show.

Sam had also gotten up nudging Pietro, swearing he would beat him next time. Pietro chuckled, that’s when Sam nudged him.

“You sly bastard Parker” Sam practically shouted. The three of them were playing Mario Kart whilst Taylor Swift played in the background, all though he’d never admit to anyone, including no, especially you. Taylor Swift had grown on him over the past year. Mostly because he loved the way you lit up when you sang along to her in the car.

Pietro was so engrossed in his game with the boys he barely registered you getting up off the sofa next to him. Whilst Sam had been busy yelling at Peter for using Banana peels, Pietro had overtaken Sam in the race. Once the game finished Pietro noticed you weren’t next to him. Feeling empty without you snuggled next to him he got up and stretched. He figured you were probably talking to the girls or something.

“Uh, Pietro, you might want to go save your girl from an awkward encounter with her ex” Sam looked pained. He was realising the error of his ways by inviting Bucky along. Pietro just shot him a puzzled look before following Sam’s line of sight. Pietro sucked a breath in.

“Sam, I swear to god if she ends up in tears tonight because of you, I will not hesitate to punch you in the face,” Pietro said before walking off to the fridge where you and Bucky stood.

“Yeah, schools fine thanks Bucky,” you said politely. Pietro’s heart was beating loudly in his chest, he had no concerns about how secure your relationship was, he just wanted to save you from any unnecessary heartbreak when it came to James “Bucky” Barnes.

December 2012 – August 2014

“Hey Bunny,” he said kissing the corner of your head before wrapping his arms around you.

“Hey Buck, long time no see!” Pietro said. Bucky stood frozen for a few seconds processing what he had just witnessed.

“Hey, Pietro Yeah. It's been a hot minute, so you two are a couple? You guys look cute congrats. Oh man, wow is that Peter over there? I barely recognise him I’m going to go say hey. Catch you guys later!” Bucky said practically running over to Peter. You turned around and kissed Pietro.

“Come on Quicksilver, let’s see if I can beat you at Mario Kart,” you said pulling him over to the sofa. Pietro instantly felt himself relax, glad to see that you hadn’t been impacted by Bucky’s sudden appearance. He grinned at you as he let you drag him behind you,

“What?” you said chuckling at his goofy grin.

“I’m just so fucking in love with you Y/N,” he said. Your heart skipped a few beats. Sure, you had both said I love you, but the way Pietro’s ice-blue eye’s shone at you, the way he had phrased it as being in love with you, made your heart squeeze, butterflies erupt in your stomach and all those other cliché metaphors.

“Pietro, I am going to rock you fucking world tonight, because I feel the exact same way”, you whispered in his ear. Pietro’s eyes bulged out of his head. He lent down and gave you a hungry kiss, sending electricity coursing through your body. When you finally broke free from the kiss Pietro, caught sight of Bucky glowering in the corner of the room ignoring whatever it was Peter was wittering on about.

Winter break came and went. Your second year at Uni whizzed past. Pietro even joined you and your family for your annual summer vacation in Miami, your grandparents were getting on a bit, so you decided to skip the summer production of Hairspray. Pietro joined you for two summers of family vacations in Miami. Your Grandma took a liking to him.

“Pietro, so good to see you again,” she said hugging him. “If I was 55 years younger”, she said shooting Pietro a wink. Pietro chuckled and stuck his tongue out at you.

“See I told you that she loved me the most out of all of you,” he said. You rolled your eyes. Pietro was right your grandma did have a soft spot for him. Who could blame her? Pietro was a true gentleman and his muscles stretched out any shirt he wore. His floppy silver-blonde hair and his goody grin. You were truly a lucky girl. He was going to break your grandma’s heart as much as yours when you two ended things this summer.

Saying goodbye to you was going to be one of the hardest things he ever had to do. The pair of you had spent the last week of summer in Florida with Wanda and her boyfriend James also known as Vision. Tomorrow you would both be getting on separate planes and going your separate ways. You were dancing around in the sea not a care in the world.

Pietro loved the way you were in the summer, the stresses of school melted away. You burned easily so your skin always had a very faint sun-kissed glow to it, but the way you were with your family. That was when you truly glowed. The way you blushed when your parents would talk about how proud they were of you. You were an only child, so your cousins were the closest thing to siblings you had.

And boy did your two male cousins pick on you. Teasing you about being smart, your relationship with Pietro. The way you would roll your eyes at them. Pietro’s heart squeezed with adoration when he watched you huddled in the kitchen with your grandma. Oblivious to the fact he was watching your brow would furrow in concentration as your grandma bossed you about in the kitchen whilst the pair of you cooked up some delicious treats.

“You know brother if you asked her to do long distance and wait for you, she would”, Wanda said sitting down next to Pietro. Wanda’s red hair almost looked like fire in the setting sun. Pietro sighed and shook his head.

“I know, but it’s not right or fair on her. She has plans of her own and we will be busy setting up your fashion label in NYC” he said, raking a hand through his hair.

“Besides, She's Cheer Captain, and I'm on the bleachers. She deserves to enjoy her last year, her heart is in Michigan, where her mum and dad are.” Pietro sighed. Just then you came bounding over. Your black bikini just about covering all it needed too. You plopped down on the blanket beside Pietro, your brown hair trying to escape its messy bun. You rested your head in Pietro’s lap. You giggled as he gently bopped your nose. Swallowing down the ache in your chest.

The pair of you stood wrapped in each other’s embrace at the airport, the rest of the world shut out. Pietro breathing in your familiar scent one last time. He didn’t need to hear you to know you were crying. It was taking everything in him not to cry too.

“Be good Bunny, don’t cause too much mischief with Loki and stay in touch. I love you my little Bunny” he said wiping the tears from your eyes. You couldn’t say anything, so you just held him tight and cried. When you finally broke the embrace and Pietro boarded. He wiped away the few tears that had escaped his eyes.

[avengersapology-vid]

Avengers: College Edition

Steve: Criminal Justice and Studio Art double major. He doesn't want to torture himself with anything difficult and still wants to study what he loves. He is still an over achiever though. Highkey hates frat parties, saw someone twerking upside down and almost cried but stayed because hes the designated driver (responsible KING). prefers small get togethers with his friends. Roommates with sam and bucky!! Joins Criminal Justice club, jokingly rivals with Engineering (Tonys Club) Everyone on campus loves him including the professors, wins Homecoming king and is very happy. Sam jokingly asks to be his queen, Bucky butts in and says "NO, im his queen". Can be found in the library or art studio, usually with ink or pencil markings on his hands.

Tony: Obvi an engineering KING has physics as a minor. procrastinates to the max "No Bruce I have everything under control" *crams for 46 hours straight on a constant IV drip of Redbull and coffee* Super smart and helps draw the blueprint for the new engineering building. Roomies with Bruce! Tony was in a frat for a bit his freshmen year but hated it and wanted real friends (Throws better parties anyway) met Bruce and all the other avengers during a 1301 intro class. Pulls women like no tomorrow. On the presidents list every semester and tutors math for free on the side. He is basically the Dad in STEM. Tries hitting on Natasha but she is just like :/ nah, when her and bruce start dating tony is surprised because bruce is his "quiet little cinnamon roll." Tony constantly teases bruce and is like "yall fuckin (;" Steve butts in "tONY PLZ I JUST WANT TO WATCH THIS MOVIE" Bruce is thankful for steves intervention. You know how he rivals Steves Criminal Justice club? He butts heads with Business Clubs leader (Pepper) until everyone catches them together at a party. Has a caffeine addiction. Works out with Thor and Bucky one day in the rec and almost dies.

Bruce: Physics and Engineering double major (Hardworking KING) In math club with Vision and Wanda. He loves being roomies with Tony because it helps him out of his shell. Likes to draw with Steve sometimes and enjoys the quiet. Doesn't procrastinate and gets things done in a timely manor. 4.0 icon we all strive to be. Him and Nat already know each other, but bond and get a lot closer while studying in the library and they eventually start dating. He takes her coffee when she works across campus and is always almost late to class because of that (He doesn't care though bc thats his BABY) "Um.. Bruce your class is in 5 minutes" "Okay and?.....Wait I have an ex-" *Sprints to his building* Takes boxing at night with Thor, Bucky, Sam and Steve!!! Loves sparring with Thor and can surprisingly take the big buy on pretty well. Gets his butt kicked by Natasha in a MMA class though.

Natasha: Majors in Criminal Justice and Minors in Psychology. Ballet club AND MOCK TRIAL!! Has a Job at the Criminal Justice Deans office and takes MMA classes on the side. She is on Mock Trial with Loki and they actually get along quiet well once they stop butting heads about the case. Introduces Sam and Wanda to dance and they have so much fun. Coffee dates with Bruce!! Her and Steve become RAs in the following years and are the coolest RAs you know. Prefers night classes, Bruce walks her to all of them. Psychology classes are her favorite and really wants to help children one day. Volunteers at a daycare during breaks. Sis can really out drink Tony and Thor. Puts Wanda under her wing and helps her with fafsa and what not. Her and Bucky get the Russian language credit by simply testing out. Has her sh!t together and while she has a lot on her plate she can take it. She is really the Mom of the group. Can be found dancing or with Bruce. Her and Clint are icons in psychology classes.

Clint: Deaf Studies with education minor! (we stan deaf clint in the comics) In the Archery club and wins nationals for the Uni. Loves to draw with Steve. Helps Bruce ask Natasha out! PRANK ICON! loves to do prank wars with tony, bucky, loki and sam. Was in the same frat with Tony but hated it as well. While he seems to have a more reserved demeanor he is still the life of the party. (Like he knows people at the clubs ya know?) Can get in anywhere and helps everyone rent out a club for the night in celebration of midterms being over. Loves reading in the library and loves morning classes and being productive early in the day. Cracks Tonys netflix and hulu passwords (no tony... tonyr0cks69 is not good enough) Wants to teach at a school for the Deaf. Bruce sets him up with a girl from engineering and that is his future wife.

Thor: Physical Education major and Communications minor! Here on a football scholarship and is in a frat (not the asshole one tony was in) and is a partying ICON. Tries to get Loki to party but Loki just wants to drink wine with the cat he snuck into his dorm. Learns Sign from Clint to prepare for his career in education. Loves working out with Bucky, Sam and Steve. Takes up boxing during football off season and spars with Bruce. Despite being everyones fav himbo he gets really good grades and is a very good writer. Loki dorms across the hall from him. Thor actually rooms with Peter. Peter is the freshman baby and Thor takes peter under his wing and introduces him to everyone and helps him with college stuff in general. Also hooks him up with MJ and brings him to the occasional boxing session. Has a loud booming laughter you can hear in all floors of the library when he sees a funny meme. One time he actually makes a very good point and notices a flaw in one of Tony and Bruces projects leaves everyone stunned. Picks on Loki in big brother fashion. Unironically calls weed the devils lettuce.

Loki: Pre-Law and Criminal Justice. LOVES to argue. (Devils advocate ass) In Mock Trial and Criminal Justice Club. Tony jokingly calls him steves sexy secretary in CJ club. Loves Mock Trial and is the president with Nat as his right hand woman. Sneaks a cat he found at the shelter into his dorm and names it muffin. Stays in the Library writing or going over cases. The one time he was taking Natasha a copy of the Mock Trial case packet and caught her and bruce smooching. (He screeched) "Haha funny joke yall heres the case packet BYE." He automatically texts the group chat "i think nAT AND BRUCE HAVE SOME TEA FOR US HMM". Lets Peter and Bruce come over to his dorm because he knows their roommates can get a little too much sometimes. Loki also becomes an avid twitter user and thats how he gains popularity on campus. (He called the uni out for their awful and expensive parking) Was able to convince the Dean with tony and steve to create a new parking lot. Caffeine addict!!! Him and Tony always bump into each other at the coffee shop. Brings baked goods to meet ups with the gang. Loves to play pranks (especially on Tony) Him and Bucky come up with a genius prank on him and even get pepper involved. Best dressed on campus and is in the fashion club. He is the embodiment of dark academia.

Sam: Criminal Justice Major with Aerospace Engineering minor. Gets introduced to Bucky and Steve during move in and they literally become brothers. Is both in Criminal Justice Club and Engineering Club. In the Historically Black Frat on campus and takes huge pride in that. Parties with tony and thor BIG TIME. Procrastinates by throwing paper airplanes at Bucky until Bucky is like "Um...dude your paper is due in like two hours." At that moment Sam got into work faster than he ever had. Loves gossip sessions with Loki and Wanda. Works out a lot with Bucky, Steve and Thor to get rid of stress. When he and Bucky finish a final they go to loki's dorm and ask "Hey can we see your cat." Helps prep food for friends-giving and decorates the dorm for holidays. HATES 8ams so so so much. Steve promises him pancakes if he gets up and goes. Binge watches shows during weekends and screams when Destiel is finally canon. Loves running and gets a Track Scholarship when Thor gets him to join a sport. Gets Peter to join track.

Bucky: criminal justice major and psychology minor. Buck is also in ballet club with Nat, it really helps him relax and gives him a free space to think (also he runs that shit like no ones business) Criminal justice club as well and LOVES to work out and box. One time Sam accompanies him to ballet and Bucky pushes Sam into a split... the scream was heard for miles. "Sam ballet is good for athletes it helps w-" "Yeah but its not good for my balls" Doesn't willingly procrastinate but once in awhile he will forget an assignment, you best believe his eyes will snap open from his nap and get to work asap. For one of his psyche labs he had to question Steve as if he were Steve's therapist to which Steve responds "Hey bro you dont have to hit a nerve that deep" He also likes to do dance with peter since it helps him get away from Thor for a bit. Not a big partier but once the weight of finals are off his chest you best believe he will go all out. Picks on Nat and says hes gonna steal her man, to which tony interjects and says "Not if I do first" Bucky also has a very comfy dorm, comfy lighting and tons of pillows, the man loves his sleep... and so does everyone else. Sometimes he finds peter, sam, THOR, tONY EVERYONE just napping in his bed before their study time. Overall, bucky is a smart boy and his time in college is kind to him.

Wanda: English Major and Education Minor. After being an orphan Wanda knows what it feels like to not have a parental figure there and she wants to change that for other kids by becoming an english teacher. She volunteers at an orphanage, specifically the one her and pietro were in for a brief moment when they came to the states. She loves to draw as well and takes plenty of art classes with steve. She paints a portrait of the entire gang and gives it to tony as a graduation present (he cried). She loves to do volunteer work for children and also spend a lot of time in the library, She helped Nat calm down before Bruce asked her out. Her and Loki are in constant competition for best dressed. "Loki ill let you win best dressed but you have to let me see your cat" "ugh fine... btw your shirt doesnt match your boots" "hEY" Her and Peter take alot of intro classes together and are constantly running around craft stores trying to get the right stuff for projects. Visits Vision at his Job on Campus and he visits her where she volunteers and eventually they start dating. She is constantly getting visited by pietro at 4am asking "Um do you have milk" "Pietro its 4am what do you ne-" "my OREOS"

Pietro: Track star business major, frat ICON with Thor. poor boy is STRESSED he hates college and is here on a track scholarship, constantly late and running around getting shit done. Queen of late assignments but still gets them graded because he is in Track. Yeah he has alot on his plate but he still parties with thor for hours. When he is drowning in assignments Clint is always there to help him, Bruce also helps him with biology and the more science-y classes. Likes to mess around and race sam at track practice. Not into coffee but will run on all the monster energy drinks you could possibly buy. Seriously is tired of 8 a.m courses, he just wants to nap after practice. Walks into the study room that everyone was in and actually looks more sleep deprived than tony. He gets a lot of tips from steve on how to have an easier time in college and it really helps him.

Vision: Grad student working on a civil engineering masters and a TA. Meets Wanda in the library and she asks him where the biographies are. He mistakenly says they are on the 2nd floor "Uh theyre actually on the third" "Then why did you ask?" "Cause I wanted to talk to you :)" He swooned. Through Wanda he met Tony and Bruce and became their best friend, He helped out a lot with engineering club and got them far. He spends a lot of time doing research for his masters degree, he loves relaxing with the group on weekends and picks on pietro as if he is already apart of the family. Him and Loki bond over intellectual conversations from time to time. Bruce and Nat go on double dates with him and Wanda. Went to a bar once with tony and bruce and had to stop tony from singing Queens entire discography, he had the best night that night. Helps everyone with getting into jobs and into grad school in general while everyone helps him let loose and have some fun.

Peter: Peter is a Physics major and eventually works his way up to biochemistry. (hardworking icon) He is the freshman baby of the group and is introduced to them through Thor. He dances with Buck and Nat sometimes as well. Tony obviously takes peter under his wing and helps him with assignments. One time everyone was in the same study room and him and pietro have a redbull shot gunning challenge. When Peter wins Thor picks him up and almost yeets the poor boy into the ceiling. "VERY WELL DONE YOUNG PARKER YOU SHOULD BE DOING THAT WITH BEER IN NO TIME." "Thor plz" Tony and Thor help him ask MJ out and even spy on them during a dinner date. (Imagine thor with sunglasses and a scarf around his head pretending to be tonys date) He feels so accepted in college because of the gang and gets all his work done on time. Goes out of his way to get everyone christmas presents and is so excited for friendsgiving. Becomes a little stressball during finals and midterms and stays in the library till it closes. He spots loki alot in there and helps loki with science classes while loki helps him with political science classes. He meets MJ through wanda and is obviously blushing the whole time while being introduced. Gets embarrassed when the guys flirt with aunt may. "guys plz stop" This is when Sam earns his "milf hunter" nickname. "Pete hows your aunt?" "She doesnt want you sam i-" its not like that... actually it is like that"

Coulson: Alumni Icon. Is the gangs Intro professor and is the reason why everyone meets eachother. (the class was chaotic indeed) Coulson loved that class so much and he still gets visited by everyone from time to time. He is obviously close with Nick. They were there that night when Tony was signing Queen at the bar and couldnt help but laugh.

Nick Fury: Dean for criminal justice and is heavily involved with criminal justice club and mock trial. He is tired of everyones shit as always. Makes a tiktok account for the criminal justice club and has no idea how to manage social media so gets Loki to help. Has to delete it when Loki commented "hah losers" on the engineering tiktoks page. He looks intimidating but in his office he has a picture with the club and has all the gifts he gets on display. (He even framed lokis comment because it was hilarious afterall)

[zeppelin-and-unicorns]

Yesterday I introduced you guys to the Hyde family, and now it’s time to introduce you to the new generation of the Forman family!

Again, click on the thingy if you want to know more about them!

On the top row, we see Eric and Donna, and on the bottom row, we see their two children, Lucas and Hannah (there’s no hearing aid option on picrew so just imagine Hannah’s wearing one, okay?).

Eric and Donna have overall a nice marriage. I tend not to focus much on them in my stories mostly because I’m indifferent to their relationship. After s5 I completely lost interest in them, and there was a point where I didn’t even want them to end up together anymore on s7. But I do believe that they love each other and that they can end up together if given a nice storyline, which is what I tried to do.

TSG is mostly focused on Jackie and Hyde, so we don’t get a lot of details about Donna and Eric other than they’re together, married, and have children, so I’m going to give you guys a brief summary of what happened between them after the season finale.

Eric and Donna talked about everything when he came back for the New Year’s, and they decided to try again. Eric went back to Africa to finish the program, and Donna went to college. When Eric came back, he went to the same college as she did and they started living together. Donna became a journalist, Eric became a teacher, and they moved back to Point Place when they graduated.

As soon as they moved back, Donna got pregnant with Lucas. They lived in a small apartment for a while, until Lucas started running around everywhere and they bought a house across the street from Jackie and Hyde.

They did not plan on having other children until Lucas was older, but well... Accidents happen and Donna had Hannah in 1987, when Lucas was 3 years old.

About their children... they are something else, I love them so much.

Lucas, just like Dylan, has a lot of pent-up energy, but he’s also an introvert and not a prankster at all, so he uses most of his energy in sports (for Red’s delight lol). He’s really into hockey, like, really into it, and he starts taking hockey lessons from a young age.

When he’s older, Lucas joins the school’s track and field team, mostly because there’s no hockey team in Point Place High and he absolutely hates football and wrestling.

Lucas is a bulky guy, but he’s also geeky and he and his father are addicted to video games. They spend countless hours every week playing Mario Kart and Super Smash Bros on his Nintendo 64 (Eric loses every single time lol).

He’s smart, not only is he great with numbers, but he’s also great at chess. Seriously, he won countless chess matches against his uncle Hyde (who’s half-proud and half-bitter about it), and he was like, 10.

His dream job is to be a video game developer, and considering how he’s a math whiz and how he’s a great athlete, he gets a scholarship to study computer science at college.

He never gets into trouble, mostly because people are smart enough not to fuck with him. He’s quiet and not prone to violence at all, but he’s also huge and he could probably kill someone if he wanted to.

When Lucas graduates from high school and goes to college, some bullies start to mess with his little sister Hannah, but Dylan quickly puts an end to that.

Hannah is a sweetheart, she’s an animal lover and she’s probably the sweetest person from the series.

Oh, and Hannah is also hearing impaired.

One of the things that bother me a lot in the fanfiction world (actually in the whole entertainment industry), is the lack of representativity of people with disabilities. I live with people who have disabilities, it’s something I literally see every day, and sometimes I am genuinely shocked by the lack of information (and empathy) people have when it comes to that subject.

So I decided I wanted to include a person with a disability in my story, and I am going to make you guys love her.

Hannah was born healthy, she learned how to talk and she listened to things normally up until she was 5. But as she grew older, she started developing some behaviors that concerned Eric and Donna, like watching the TV too loud and not replying to them when they called her. They took her to the doctor, they found out she had severe hearing loss and would need to use a hearing aid probably for the rest of her life.

Eric and Donna were crushed (it even causes some problems in their marriage in the future), but Hannah never cared much about it, because she was too young and she could hear just fine whenever she had her hearing aids on. She’s overall a happy kid who loves playing outside and is completely in love with everything related to nature.

The Forman family has three cats, all of them were cats that Hannah rescued from the streets and begged them to adopt. Hannah’s also responsible for bringing Zeppelin into the Hyde’s lives.

She was playing outside with Dylan and Jordan when they found a cute little black puppy all alone, searching for food in the garbage. Hannah took the puppy and begged for her parents to keep him, but they already had three cats and they couldn’t keep him. Jackie and Hyde were in the same room when she arrived with the cute little puppy, and they decided to adopt him (for Hannah’s delight). The puppy was named Zeppelin (Hyde was the one who named him, by the way), and Hannah visits the Hyde’s almost every day just to play with their dog.

Hannah loves picnics and walks at the park, she loves watching the trees changing according to the seasons, she loves to stargaze with her aunt Jackie, she loves hearing Layla’s romantic stories, she loves babysitting the younger kids, and she loves spending time with her grandma Kitty, learning how to bake and how to sew.

When she grows older, Hannah becomes a vet and opens her own animal shelter.

Hannah never let her disability stop her, she’s incredible.

And again, I got way too excited, sorry.

If you have any questions about this universe please don’t hesitate on sending them to me.

Posting the Kelso’s picrews soon :)

[cenestpasmoi-bechloe]

As I Lost My Heart in You

When you’re 16, initials of your soulmate appears on your wrist.It varies by person, but everyone usually spends time trying to find theirs.  It doesn’t always mean that there’s going to be a relationship, sometimes you spend your whole life trying to find your soulmate. 

Title from Mariah Carey's Underneath the Stars.

Gifted to @177-8 for the Pitch Perfect Fandom Drive!

Thank you for contributing!

I hope you enjoy it and I apologize for taking so long!!

For more info on how to help, visit the

@ppfandomdrive

page.

Read on Ao3 

Beca Mitchell got hers the week of her 16th birthday. She didn’t believe in soulmates and initials. Her dad and her mom had their initials, but they had gotten divorced, her mom died of cancer, and while she was fighting it, her dad had found his ‘soulmate’. She couldn’t forgive her father for ding that to her mother.  But she had gotten her initials whether she liked them or not, two letters, CB in cursive.

By that time, she had figured that she was gay, and she had dated a few people.

Her first girlfriend, was Juliana Taylor, but they had broken up, just because they weren’t feeling ‘it’ anymore. Juliana had BM on her wrist, but it probably wasn't her anyways.

She’d decided she’d give boys a try when Conner Basin asked her out. It was less of a date and more of a hangout with a bro, but she had figured he wasn’t the one either, after he had criticized Beca’s favorite video game. He had said the graphics were bad, and that the settings weren’t enough. Beca had called for her friend Stacie to come pick her up at the mall right away, which she did, with her flavor of the week, Jesse Owens.

Boys were a no-go.

Two years later, she was off to college, Barden University, full ride by her father, who is a faculty at Barden. Stacie went along with her, but with a full ride scholarship with her amazing high school grades. Barden had a weird rule about roommates, where everyone had their roommates select randomly by the housing office. That meant that she couldn’t room with Stacie, and she was bunked with Kimmy-Jin, the international student from Korea. Stacie had been roomed with a girl named Alisha, who stacie couldn’t stand. Stacie was literally trying to find a sorority just for their housing.  

Chloe Beale had gotten her initials on her 16th birthday. She didn’t have one before her party, but somehow had one when she took a shower that night. It was a BM in bold letters. She had tried hard to find her soulmate, but couldn’t find anyone that was the ‘one’. She had dated a Bobby Markham, but his birth name was Robert, which made his initials RM, thus making it impossible for him to be her soulmate. But where was the rush anyways? She was still 17. She had college plus a few more years to figure out this whole soulmate thing.

She was off to Barden which had an amazing pre-vetrenary program. She met her best friend, Aubrey Posen during her first year biology class, and they had joined the Barden Bellas together soon after. She started dating Bay Matthews, a boy going to Georgia State at a party during the summer, but had broken up due to him being very possessive.

She had worked hard in the Bellas until her junior year, the senior Bellas that year were a bitch. The captain, Alice was the worst of them all. She bossed everyone around, and made Aubrey and Chloe do all the hard work. She was sick and tired of being bossed around like disposable objects. She had been so happy when the seniors graduated and they were finally the leaders of the group. She and Aubrey had decided to become co-captains instead of closing one leader for their group. After Aubrey and the puke incident, they were out of members and desperate to get freshmen on their team.  During the activities fair on the quad, they had to ask so many girls to join,  they couldn’t keep track. Although their determination, not a lot of people seemed to be interested. Chloe had almost given up when a beautiful brunette had walked past, not interested at first, but had taken their flier.  She had said that acapella was lame, and that she didn’t even sing. That made Aubrey nearly puke, but Chloe had hope.

One day, she’s taking a shower, actually, hooking up in the shower with her flavor of the month or two, Tom, when she hears Davis Guetta’s Titanium sung by a beautiful voice. She stops mid  kiss and walks out of her stall to try to find the owner of her beautiful voice.

“You can sing!” She’s surprised to see the brunette she had just seen at the activities fair in the afternoon.

“Dude!” She closes the curtains, but Chloe opens them back and asks her about how high her belt goes, and about how she should Jon the Bellas.

They sing together, and Chloe leaves the brunette’s shower stall with her boy toy.  What she realizes is that she gad forgotten to ask her her name. All she had managed to see was the brunettes initials on her wrist, which had her initials, CB.

The day of the audition comes, and the brunette decides to arrive at the audition, and sings a song with cups at the end. She can tell that Aubrey is pissed at the fact that she was the best in all of the auditions, and Chloe convinces Aubrey to let her join the Bellas.

After the audition, she finds out that the brunette’s name is Beca Mitchell from the papers Chloe had asked her to fill out.

Beca Mitchell. Chloe’s already so interested in her.

They start with 10 girls on invitation night. The next day, two girls are dismissed, breaking their Bellas promise of not sleeping with a Treblemaker.

Beca didn’t think that shed be joining a female acapella group, and actually taking part in it. Her dad had told her that if she tried her first year, and she still wanted to become a DJ in LA despite trying hard to participate in college life, that he’d let her. That was the biggest reason that she had joined the Bellas, and second being that Chloe, the girl who had caught her at the activities fair, and barged into her shower, was kind of hot. Maybe some hot girl motivation couldn’t hurt. Right?

After the incident at the Semi-finals of the ICCAs, she was definitely getting banned from the group. They had fallen in third place after Beca had sung bulletproof during their set. Aubrey had gotten angry, and she had gotten accused of sleeping with Jesse by her. She was for sure banned from the group.

Thats what she thought, when she got a message from Chloe during the break. The Bellas were back in the Finals, and that she wanted Beca to join the practice on Monday. She thought she was going to be banned, so the message took her by surprise, but talking it through with her dad, she had decided she would go back to practice.

She walks into the auditorium 15 minutes late, when Aubrey is puking her head off, and all the girls are trying to get ahold of the pitch pipe.

She stops the whole argument, and the group shares an amazing moment and the next second, Aubreys tossing her pitch pipe over to Beca. She mis-catches it, and it lands in the pile of puke. Gross.

They head to the pool and have an impromptu mashup session where they find their harmony. They all hug, and Beca somehow catches a glance at Chloes wrist, which says BM. She tries to shake it off of her mind, but she fails.

Chloe had a BM on her wrist, and Beca has a CB. Could this mean that they could be soulmates? But Chloe hasn’t ever said that she was gay, and didn’t she have a boyfriend in the shower that day?

Beca tries to forget.

She really tries.

Beca didn’t believe in soulmates. At least that’s what she had thought. Right?

When she gets back to her dorm after practice one day, she tries to work on her mixes.  She can’t seem to concentrate on anything. Chloe had looked at her more than usual, and Beca was getting nervous. Did she have something to say to her?  Had she done something wrong?

Thats when she gets a knock on the door. Its usually Kimmy-Jin’s friends, so she lets the girl answer it, but to her surprise, what she hears next is a voice that belongs to Chloe.

“Hey Beca. Can I talk to you for a second?” She asks, and Beca looks at her from her desk.

“Yeah. Sure. What’s up?”

Chloe frowns, “Outside maybe?” Beca nods, getting up and walking out the room.

“What’s  up?” Beca asks the ginger as she walks down the hall, and out the door, and she knows she’s heading to the Bellas house. The Bellas had a house, the house Tri Delta had used before moving to a new buildings. It was basically a sorority house, and they were allowed to move in from sophomore year.

“What’s up with you? You’re acting strange lately. “ Chloe says to her.

Beca shrugs. “Its nothing.  N-nothing in general. “ She answers nervously.

“You saw my initials didn’t you?”

Shit. Had Chloe seen her that night?

“You did, huh?” Chloe says turning her wrist to show Beca. “Look, I saw yours in the shower that day. CB. Right?”

Beca nods, a bit more comfortable.

“And you’ve been thinking about this, correct?” She asks her. Beca nods again. “That we have each other’s initials.”

“I don’t even believe in soulmates…..”Beca mutters, looking into Chloe’s eyes.

“They don’t have to be relationships, you know.”

“Yeah, have you seen anyone with a soulmate friendship? They always end up dating, or getting married, or whatever. “Beca scoffs.

Chloe doesn’t say anything. She can’t find anything to say. She tries, but no words come out.

“See. And I don’t believe in this whole soulmates bullshit anyways. Can I go now?” She doesn’t wait for Chloes answer, and just leaves the building, leaving Chloe behind her. She doesn’t know why her aches so much, but she pushes her feelings down, and goes back to her room, crawls into bed, and lets her tears shed. Why was she crying right now?

Chloe stands there in silence, not being able to say anything. She doesn’t know how long she’s just standing in the doorway, until Aubrey comes back from her meeting with her professor.

“God, Chloe. You almost gave me a heart attack. Chloe? Chloe!” She holds on to her shoulder and shakes her.

“Huh? Oh, it’s nothing. I’m just a bit tired.” She shakes it off, trying to escape from Aubrey’s tightening grip on her shoulders.

“Oh bullcrap. I know you so well Chloe.” She scoffs. “What’s wrong Chloe? Is it Tom? Because if he’s hurting you, I swear to god Chloe, I’m gonna kill him….”

“No no. It’s not Tom.”

“What is it then? Its Beca isn’t it? Oh my god Chloe. It is! What happened with ear monstrosities?”

“Nothing. Can you leave me alone?” She runs up to her room and slams the door shut, and bursting into tears. Why did she have to be like that to Aubrey? She knows she shouldn’t have, and she’s regretting it so much. And she shouldn’t have confronted Beca. Now she had ruined her relationship with Beca and Aubrey.

Somehow, she’s managed to fall asleep, and she’s woken up with a gentle knock on the door. “Chloe. I’m sorry about earlier. Can I come in?” She hears Aubrey’s voice. She gets out of bed, and opens the door.

“Chloe I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have stepped in. I just don’t want you to get hurt, you know.” She say, giving her a hug.

“I know Bree.” She sighs, burying her face in Aubrey’s shoulder.

“Do you like her Chloe?”Aubrey asks, and she doesn’t even need to answer. “I know Chloe. It’s okay.” She rubs her back as Chloe sobs into her shoulder.

Beca ’s about to miss two days of classes when her father comes in to her room. “Beca. Wake up. Beca?”

She flutters her eyes open. “Huh?”

“Beca. What’s wrong? I know you’re upset at me but you’re upset for a whole another reason. What’s up?”He asks.

“NOthinggggg. Just some soulmate bullshit.”

“Beca, are we talking about me and your mother, because…” He tries to start but Beca intervenes.

“No. It’s not about you and mom or you and Sheila. It’s about my soulmate. That is, if there is even one anymore.” She scoffs.

“Who do you think it is?”

“Chloe.”

“Chloe in the Bellas. Chloe Beale?” He opens his eyes wide. “Oh Beca. That’s great!”

“No it isn’t. I just messed up our whole friendship. I just yelled at her and ran off.” She says looking down.

“Oh Beca, go talk to her. You might even find out that she’s not even your soulmate.” He says patting her on her shoulder. “Now go talk to her or go to your philosophy class.” He says to her and leaves the room.

Now Beca had no choice. She had to go see Chloe. Right? She gets up, takes a shower and gets ready to head to the auditorium to find Chloe.

Chloe decided that she would keep skipping practice until she was okay, and that probably meant for eternity. That’s why she’s surprised, when she hears a knock at the door. It couldn’t be anyone other than Aubrey, right? But Aubreys at practice right now, and she always texts before she comes back, asking if she needed anything from the mini-mart. That meant someone else was at the door. Right? What if its a…..

“Chloe?” The door opens and Chloe jumps, but there she is, Beca Mitchell, standing in front of the doorway of Chloe’s room.

“Oh my god Beca! You’re gonna give me a heart attack!” She says now trying to calm herself down. Her heart was pounding and it didn’t seem to stop. Was it her being scared, or was it because Beca’s here?

“I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you. I went to the auditorium, and you weren’t there. Aubrey gave me her keys and told me you were here.” She says as she slowly steps into the room. “I should’ve called. Or whatever….” She mutters, waiting for permission to come into the room. “I needed to talk to you.” Chloe shifts in her bed, making room for Beca to sit, and she takes it as an go sign to walk into the room.

“What’s up?” Chloe says in her most normal-im-okay-but-kinda-not tone.

“Soulmates.” She just says, looking at Chloe.

“Soulmates.” She repeats. “What about them?” She grips her fist tight, nails turning her palms white as she clutches. She’s nervous. She didn’t realize it until now, but she’s nervous. She’s nervous about what Beca is going to say. How it might change their relationship forever. How it might just come crashing down.

“What do you think about them? Do you believe in it?” Beca pauses. “Do you think we are?”

She’s been waiting for her to say this to hear her say it. She looks into her eyes. Beca’s beautiful blue eyes are twinkling. her tears are just barely there, right before spilling out of her eyes.

“Beca. I can’t. I can’t anymore…. I can’t pretend like we don’t have chemistry. Like we aren’t meant to be. I can’t do this anymore. Please tell me if I’m crazy, and I’m the only one feeling this between us. Because I’ll stop. I’ll stop if this is just me. So tell me. Am I the only one feeling our chemistry? The way sparks fly when we look at each other, how we slipped into it own world, that days in the shower? Tell me. please….” Chloe lets her tears spill out of her eyes, down her cheeks, and onto the comforter.

“Chloe….” Beca says, looking into her eyes, with her own tears down her cheeks. “I’m messed up. I’m damaged goods. You don’t want me….”

“I do though Beca. I really do. I can’t fight this anymore.”

That moment, no-one really knows what happens, or who kissed who first. It doesn’t matter anymore. Their lips touch, and their hands are around one another, and it’s perfect. No-one could break this moment.

“I love you Beca. I can’t help but love you.” Chloe smiles as she says so, lips still touching.

“I think I love you too Beale.” Beca chuckles.

“You THINK!? Beca THINK!? You don’t love me?” Chloe pouts, jokingly pushing her away.

“Yeah, yeah, fine. I love you Beale. There! Happy?” She says pecking her lip once again.

They’re kissing each other back and fourth, enjoying their moment together when they hear a knock on the door, and then the door opens.

“Finally. What took you so long?” Aubrey chuckles as she looks at them from the doorway.

“Nothing. Beca just had to realize that I was here.”Chloe chuckles as she pokes the younger brunette.

“Heyyyyyy!” Beca pouts, burying her face in Chloe’s hair.

“You two are disgustingly adorable. Don’t hurt her Beca. Or else, I’ll hunt you down and murder you. I’m not kidding.” Aubrey ays as she walks out.

“I love you too!” Chloe giggles kissing Beca’s head. “So are you going to come back to practice now?” She asks as she wraps her arms around Beca and pulls her down to her bed, making them lay down.

“Yeah, I guess so. I mean, you’re gonna drag me to them now right?” Beca asks, lifting her head up, and looking at the ginger’s eyes.

“Yup. That’s totally going to happen. But don’t worry. It’ll be worth it.” She gives a quick peck on the lips. “So, does this mean you’re gonna be mine girlfriend?”

“Um…… I guess?”

“Um… YOU GUESS!? Seriously? Get out of my room!” She jokingly pushes the brunette off of her.

“Sorry! Sorry! I would love to be your girlfriend. “ She says to her, trying to not get pushed off of the bed.

“Awwwww. Yay!” She wraps her arms back around her.

“Love you too. “ Beca says laying back on top of her.  She didn’t believe in soulmates before, but now she did, and it’s a good change for her. She knows she’s going to be so much happier, and maybe Barden wasn’t that bad after all.

She then realizes that Chloe’s a senior.

But right now, it doesn’t matter, she presses a gentle kiss on the ginger’s lips and closes her eyes, falling asleep.

[serena-jacobs]

Is that KENDALL JENNER on campus? Oh no, that’s SERENA JACOBS. From SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, the 20 year old has come to study BIOMEDICAL SCIENCES. Rumor has it she is CHARISMATIC and CONFIDENT, but SECRETIVE and MANIPULATIVE, which is why she is known as THE LION HEART. She resides in OFF CAMPUS and can’t wait to graduate.

Disclaimer: she’s been at Monarch for a little over a year now. she’s not new!

name: serena jacobs nationality: american birthday: august 1st, 1999 sign: leo born in: Seattle, washington raised in: Seattle, washington major: biomedical sciences minor: human sexuality, public health HELLO I AM NOW INTRODUCING MY NEWEST BABYGIRL, SERENA!! - First things first, Serena isn’t new on Monarch’s campus! She’s been here for a little bit over a year now. - This girl has a huge heart of gold. honestly such a sweetheart and so easy to get along with. She’s very happy-go-luck type, even though she suffers from severe depression and anxiety - She’s very fun and adventurous, and is always down for a good time. She’s a bit promiscuous (actually very promiscuous), but that is simply because she’s very in-tune with her sexuality and is a huge believer that sex is natural and isn’t only to please guys - With that being said…she’s a bit of a feminist. Not like overbearing to the point she overwhelms people, but she’s huge on equal rights and she knows she can literally do anything any guy can - She’s a bit of a town boy at heart. While growing up, she was always surrounded by boys (whether they were just trying to be her friend or just trying to get in her pants). She was really into sports when she was a teen, but mainly street sports. She would play street basketball and football with all of the guys to the point where they really just treated her like a bro more than anything. - THAT BEING SAID SHE HAS SUCH THICK SKIN!! Literally nothing that anyone says could tear her down because she’s probably already heard it from one of her friends - Despite “being one of the guys” she’s honestly SO girly. She loves dressing up, doing her hair and makeup, and shopping lol. Her backstory: - Serena was born and raise in seattle, washington to her two parents, her older brother, and her younger brother. She comes from a very destructive family. - Her father was constantly in and out of jail while Serena was growing up, which caused her to really act out during her middle school and high school years. She would go out partying, messing around with older boys (those boys being some of her father’s drug dealing rivals) just to simply spite her parents. On the other hand, her mother was constantly bringing home different men and was simply never around. Serena basically had to grow up fast and take care of her and her brother on her own. This caused her to resent her family, and as soon as she turned 16, she buckled down and got three jobs to help support her and her brother. With this income, she was able to get emancipated from her parents, which is when she picked up her and her brother and moved to Los Angeles, California to live with her grandparents. By the time she left, her older brother was well on his way out of the house. - Her grandparents are pretty young for their age, considering that teen pregnancy ran through the family like wildfire. They couldn’t adopt Serena due to her already being emancipated, but they quickly put a case against her parents and was able to get custody of her little brother, who’s now 10. Serena hasn’t spoken to her parents since. And although they have pretty decent money, they still believed that people should work for what they want, so they pushed her to do as much as she could in school. - She never got into sports in her new school due to the fact that she didn’t really like the whole concept of a school team; she was and always will be a street player at heart. Even then, she was still able to get a scholarship through her academics. Serena’s the type of person that you would never expect to get good grades due to the fact that she was one to skip class, and was never seen at the library…yet, she somehow always ended up with a 4.0 at the end of the semester, even during college. She doesn’t gloat about it much, so many people don’t know. - She suffers from very bad anxiety and depression, although she’s very good at masking it to people. She puts on this huge facade to people, but behind closed doors she’s very self-doubting, jittery, panicky, and doesn’t practice any self care. Only those who are really close with the girl tend to know, and that’s only because she shows her true self when she’s absolutely comfortable with someone. - She currently works at Octavia as a waitress, and Members Only as a dancer. This is where majority of her income comes from. She currently lives in her own apartment not too far away from campus, and she has somehow managed to keep her head above water. Her grandparents help her out when they can, but she’s very independent and can be a little bit too stubborn to ask for help.

[snarkysims]

(Be sure to read Part One first)

This piece is longer and heavier than what I normally post. I don’t plan to make a habit of it. 

Narrated by Jonathan Parry

“Jonathan!” Jerilene called after me. She had to jog to keep up with my long stride, but I refused to slow my pace. I felt like I had been punched in the gut, but really I’d been punched in the heart. I fought with the tingling behind my eyes because I would be damned if I let her see me cry, but I felt the tell-tale wetness on my cheeks.

Jerilene grabbed the hem of my shirt. “Jonathan, please stop.” I complied to let her catch her breath.

“Look at me, Jonathan.”  She continued to breath raggedly.  I ached to console her, but I clenched my fists and jammed them into my pockets. I kept my head down, my eyes focused on the sand. I’d count every damn grain if I had to. She walked around me until she was facing me. She put a sable-toned hand to my cheek and guided my eyes to meet hers. 

“Oh,” she said when she saw the tears shining in my eyes. She slid her hand up to wipe my eyes and returned it to my cheek.  Her breathing was steadily returning to normal. “I should have known you were going to confess your feelings to me after planning such a romantic date. I’ve been dying to hear you say you loved me.”  

I sniffled to dry up the last of my tears. “If you’ve been dying to hear me say it, then why didn’t you answer my question?”  

She sighed and looked away. “You caught me off guard, and I went into a full panic attack. I’m a mess, Jonathan.”

This time, I brought her eyes back to mine. “Hey, I’m the guy who’s going to be cleaning out Sims’s mouths for a living. I can handle mess.” 

“I have issues.”

“I’m the poster child for issues. Daddy issues. Mommy issues. Commitment issues...obviously.”

She sighed. “Please stop making jokes.”

I put my forehead to hers. “Please stop making effing excuses! My point is everyone has baggage. Let me help you carry yours. I love you. For Will’s sake, Jerilene, I know you love me too.”

“I do.” At least she didn’t hesitate to answer that time. 

“Then, it’s simple.” I looked her in the eyes again and said each word deliberately, ‘Be. With. Me. Jerilene.”

“It’s not that simple.” I stepped back from her and threw my hands up.

She closed the distance between us.  “You were right. Someone did hurt me. Michael Harris was my older brother’s best friend. I’d known him practically all my life. Michael was tall like you. People assumed he was amazing at basketball, but he couldn’t dribble a ball to save his life.

“Michael loved math and science. Physics was his passion. He wanted to be a mechanical engineer. Ninth-grade geometry kicked my butt, so Michael tutored me. He got to know me as someone other than Damion’s little sister. We fell in love. He was my first, Jonathan. My first...everything. We were together for two incredible years.”  She smiled as tears spilled out of her almond-shaped eyes.

“You don’t sound like you’re talking about someone who hurt you. You sound like you’re talking about someone you might still be in love with.”

She looked down. “A part of me is. A part of me might always be.” 

I gritted my teeth. “Well, I appreciate your honesty.” 

I turned away from her, but she grabbed my hand. “I want to be honest with you so you know what you’re getting into.”

“If you still love him, why aren’t you with him?”

She said softly, “Because he’s dead. I don’t want to go into the details now, but his life was taken from him. That’s the person who hurt me, the person who took my Michael.” 

A chill went through me. “I’m so sorry, Jerilene. I had no idea.” I wrapped my arms around her and kissed the top of her head.  “Sweetheart, we’ve been in an intimate relationship for two years. Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

She pulled away from me to look up at me with her chestnut eyes. “No, we’ve been in a sexual relationship for two years.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but she put a finger to my lips. “You and I came to this college unattached, and we happened to find someone we were extremely compatible with in bed. That’s nothing to be ashamed of, so let’s not fool ourselves into believing we started out as more than that. I haven’t spoken about Michael to anyone at SSU. Not even to Everson. I’m telling you now because I do want an intimate relationship with you. That intimacy starts with showing you my demons.”

I nodded. “Then show me.”

“I’ve always had to manage depression and anxiety. When Michael died, my symptoms intensified. I withdrew from my friends and family, and I only left our apartment to go to school. My grades tanked. I thought about taking my own life.”

“No, Jerilene,” I gasped. I didn’t want to imagine a world without her in it. 

“My mom found a therapist for me, and Dr. Curtis was literally a lifesaver. Along with helping me manage my condition, she urged my mom to get me into formal singing lessons. Singing was my safe haven. It helped me remember the good times with Michael because he loved to hear me sing. The more I sang, the more I came out of my cocoon. Eventually, I pulled my grades back up and got a scholarship here. My plan was to breeze through college and land on a stage in Bridgeport or Starlight Shores. Heck, I’d even settle for Downtown. I certainly wasn’t thinking about falling in love again.

“But you came along. At first, I just thought you were sexy as hell and fun to be with. As I got to know you, I saw how caring you are, and you encouraged me in my singing too. No one had done that since Michael and Dr. Curtis. My feelings for you got intense way too soon for my comfort. I reacted badly when I saw you out with Patty because I was already falling in love with you. I do love you, Jonathan Parry, and I’m terrified if I lose you I won’t recover this time.”

I kissed her soft, full lips fervently. She matched my hunger in a return kiss. For the second time that evening, my cheeks were wet with tears, but these tears were hers. 

Eventually, we both needed air so we reluctantly broke contact. "Jerilene, you’re a lot stronger than you give yourself credit for. And you aren’t the only one who could get hurt. You nearly shattered my heart earlier. Sweetheart, I get that you’re scared, but you don’t have to worry about losing me. I’m not going anywhere. You’re it for me."

“Jonathan, you’re only twenty. How can you even say that?”

“I know my heart, Jerilene.”

“But what if I’m cursed and something happens to you too?”

I laughed. “Then I’ll die a happy man!” Her glare told me she didn’t appreciate my joke, so I kissed her on the forehead in apology.  “I’m sorry about the bad jokes. I swear I’m not trying to be a jerk. And I certainly wouldn’t make light of what happened to Michael. He sounds like he was a good guy.”

“He was. I think you two would have been good friends.”

I shook my head. “Doubtful. It’s hard being friends with a dude when you want to steal his girlfriend.” I leaned in. “And that wasn’t a joke. I meant every word.”

A blush crept into Jerilene’s cheeks. “Mark and Jin-Sang somehow manage.”

“Trust me, those two aren’t the bros they seem to be. I guarantee you they’ll come to blows before Graduation. Jin-Sang is one of my best friends, and even I don’t get why Mark hasn’t already pounded him into the ground. 

Anyway, my lame jokes are an attempt to make you smile. Sweetheart, when you smile, your eyes get this twinkle in them. It was one of the first things I noticed about you.”

“Really?”

“Well that and your banging bod.” I winked at her. She rolled her eyes and tried to glare again, but she couldn’t help breaking out into a smile. The edge that had been in her eyes gave way to a doe-like expression. I grinned at her. “Ah, there it is. There’s the twinkle...it’s mesmerizing. I could look at it forever...”

I trailed off because Jerilene was now gaping at me.  She tried to speak a couple of times, but her mouth kept gaping open. It was adorable. After several seconds, she recovered. “Damn, boy, why do you always talk like you’re in an effing Simlequin novel?” Then, she launched herself at me.

Thanking Will Wright for my reflexes, I caught her and rocked her in arms. “So to clarify...you will be my girlfriend then?”

“Yes, of course! Do you think I would literally throw myself at just any guy?”

[girlforlorn]

taissa farmiga + cis female + she/her.┊ ❛ ━ hey, is it just me or do you hear “goodbye mr. a” by the hoosiers playing in the distance ? oh, that’s just melanie “molly” watson, a twenty-three year old assistant research scientist working with the sector of humanity. according to my sources, i heard she can be neutral good and is meticulous, but also desperate. that’s probably why they remind everyone of a thrift shop cardigan two sizes too big, cooking shoplifted hot dogs over a burning garbage can, & a light at the end of the tunnel bright enough to damage your eyes. anyway, make sure to keep an eye out, the doves are more powerful with them on their side ! ( nina, 21, est, she/her )

howdy everybody! my name’s nina and i’ve been thirsting to join this rp ever since lis reblogged one of the first pre-opening promos onto my dashboard! this is my very depressed and shy child molly, who is going to be quietly watching and taking notes as your mutant muses scream in the experimentation lab. 🤠

BIOGRAPHY !

Melanie Watson was born to a very poor and very dysfunctional family, in a rural town in Sapphire state, where supervillains knew there was plenty of land to set up a base secluded from Crystalline. The majority of the population’s tax dollars went not to the school systems, but to reparations on the destruction caused by the supervillains hiding out on the outskirts of the town, the local mutants with no control over their abilities, and the hot-shot superhero who made monthly rounds to the town to bust villain operations. 

While raising their daughters in a town with the lowest life expectancy in the state, the Watsons always did what they could to make sure Molly and her twin sister, Valerie, would have a way out. So they pushed their kids to work toward scholarships, and when Molly was revealed to be a particularly bright student, they cut critical corners to help pay her tuition to a private school one town over, in their only chance to give her an education that could compete with kids from more affluent neighborhoods in Sapphire.

Economic strain from paying for schooling caused the kind of stress that would send the twins’ parents to an early grave--- two deadly strokes within one year of each other--- but by the time they passed away, Molly had earned her scholarship to Staurolite College, and Valerie insisted that she didn’t let all of their parents’ sacrifices go to waste. They shipped off to Crystalline together, and saved money on Molly’s boarding by renting a cheap apartment above a rowdy pub in the Jade District.

Things went well for most of Molly’s schooling, with grief over the loss of their parents quelled by a change in scenery and a sense that they had a bright future ahead of them. Molly majored in biophysics with a minor in engineering, and worked a year-round part-time job shelving books at Crystalline Library, while picking up an additional jobs waitressing during the summers. When she started to feel more comfortable, she’d abandoned most of her anti-mutant politics in favor of keeping her head down and staying out of trouble.

--

Tragedy struck again shortly before Molly’s graduation, when a superhero’s pursuit of a villain escalated to a destructive brawl across rooftops in the Jade District, and the hero’s desperate outburst of power led to the complete decimation of Molly and Valerie’s apartment, with a hungover and housebound Valerie being fatally crushed in the rubble.

An uninsured Molly was left without a home, without a family, and without a purpose in life; powerless and hopeless. The end of the school year meant that she couldn’t even couch surf in her friends’ dorms for long, and after exhausting her savings and local resources in under a month, she was left on the streets in a near-catatonically traumatized state. 

--

After months passed with no response to his emails, a former professor of biophysics looked into whatever happened to the student of his who lost her apartment days before receiving her diploma, and he spread the harrowing results of his investigation to his colleagues. Word of Molly’s story eventually piqued the interest of politicians looking for anecdotes about the devastating downsides of letting mutants walk the streets of Crystalline, and it wasn’t long before Molly Watson became a person of major interest for the movement. 

With Autumn creeping in, cold nights and shivering skin shook Molly out of her depressed stupor, and the pressure to escape her situation started to weigh on her. So when she was tracked down by a scientist with the Sector of Humanity who had done extensive research into her history, she didn’t have enough endurance or dignity in her to turn down his proposition. In exchange for her to share her story with their journalists and make a few public appearances, he offered her his guest room, a guiding hand to get her education back on track, and an opportunity for her to work as an assistant research scientist in the Sector’s labs while she earned her Master’s degree at Staurolite.

While the gesture seemed nothing short of charitable and empathetic to a girl who fell through the cracks, more wisely cynical eyes would immediately realize that she was recruited to the doves for PR purposes. Her story was easily exploitable for anti-mutant hit pieces (a pretty, white, bookish, doe-eyed and angelic orphan who worked so hard to pull herself up by her bootstraps and pursue the American Dream™, only to have her future #RIPPED #AWAY by these ReCkLEsS mONsTErS!!!), and she already had a small grassroots following in the news cycles from other working-class non-mutant people who could relate to the plight of living at the mercy of superheroes, who made insurance unattainable and had no accountability behind their anonymity.

Though she is exceptionally bright, and a fast learner in STEM fields, the doves didn’t recruit a 22-year-old because she was the most qualified candidate for the position, but because the philanthropic act of “rescuing” fallen angel and giving her a cinderella story would be good for their image; it softened their reputation among skeptical humanists who thought their organization was too focused on tearing down the mutants and not concerned with uplifting the common people. She’s being used in marketing to bring in a younger generation of Doves, and they’re making sure her name and face is becoming more public than any allegedly brutal scientists on board, who may have some controversial scandals under their belts.

PERSONALITY !

Molly before she became an only child, a.k.a. Molly for her first four years in Crystalline, as a student at Staurolite and a part-time page at the Crystalline Public Library:

Molly was a sweet girl-next-door type, with a quaint small town charm that made her shy in a big city. A studious mom friend and perfectionist. She was used to being the voice of reason to keep her wild child of a sister from doing anything too dangerous, and that carried over into her friendships.

Because of her bashful nature, the strange and dry sense of humor that comes out when she gets comfortable ends to catch new friends off guard. She’s had a few people in her life that she’s been close enough to to playfully bicker with, and she holds her own in a way you wouldn’t expect. She has a taste for weird kitsch and earnestly terrible movies and pulp fiction, and always tried to make it to the Uptown Cinema’s weird midnight screenings of Ed Wood movies.

Always aspired to be a librarian, but never thought it was an ambitious enough career path when she expected she would have to make enough money to support her whole family and all of their massive debts. She’s always gravitated to working part-time jobs at libraries to make some extra cash, and used to shelve books at Crystaline Public Library for four years while she was an undergrad. She has a big affinity for genre-bro fiction; authors like Bradbury, Salinger, Faulker, Gaiman, Pratchett, Palahniuk, Alan Moore, and especially Vonnegut. Veered into more pretentious russian authors for the sake of conversational fluency when she hung around literature majors, but she’s always preferred her boyish fiction.

She never had a car, and always tried to save money on public transportation by riding her longboard to get from place to place whenever possible. More interested in the utility of skating than the #Thrasher culture. Came off as a bit of a spectacle when she was shredding across the city in a turtleneck dress and stockings.

Molly among the monsters, a.k.a. Molly as a Dove:

After she lost her home, an already timid Molly had completely retreated into herself, and the girl who could a least smile and laugh and go out to parties seemed to abandoned any range of emotion beyond numb absence and melancholic despair--- and that's the narrative the Doves try to push, to both the public and to Molly, erasing any history of wholesome hijinks or moments of genuine joy and solace she may have had while travelling in the same circle as plucky street urchin and jokester magician Jett Hawkins.

Since finding shelter and making her way back into academia, she’s at least made the appearance of coming back out of her shell. 

While her mental health is recovering from the toll that the streets’ harsh physical conditions were taking on her, she may not be healing properly. A mind left vulnerable and weathered is, of course, the easiest to mold and manipulate. And as her surface levels personality traits of calm smiles and composure come back, there’s something fundamentally different about her at her core.

Molly always had political leanings toward a preference for regulation of superheroes, and agreed with some canvasing her more radical sister did for government-enforced superpower blocking medication, but she never got too involved, for fear of getting on the bad side of gods walking among tiny mortals. 

With a lack of research into the fringe opposition to the Doves, she was too naive to truly understand what she was getting into in this organization, and it was easy for her to let her guard down when the scientists who saved her life were subtly priming her for the human rights atrocities she was about to witness in the labs.

Now, there is still a part of her core humanity and nuturing personality that may have survived her roughest days, and it still screams out in moral objection to what she's seen done to the mutants, but the survival instinct she developed knows that she's locked in with the Doves, and it knows that she doesn't exactly have anywhere else to go, and especially wouldn't be able to make it anywhere else if her betrayal of the anti-mutant scientific community gets her blacklisted from future job opportunities in Crystalline, or compromises her ability to finish her Master's degree.

She considers herself trapped in enabling inhumanity and doesn't have the emotional fortitude or stability to take a stand, still disturbed at heart, still waiting on a moment to exhale and truly mourn her sister. She holds it together on a surface level, and lets her shyness come off as icy silence, but anyone who can pay close enough attention might notice that she's the only scientist in the lab who flinches or has to subtly avert her eyes when one of the "test subjects" is being electrocuted. Fortunately for her, most of them seem to distracted by unimaginable agony to notice the wallflower in the back of the room.

WANTED CONNECTIONS!

THE SCIENTIST WHO TOOK HER IN TO HIS/HER/THEIR HOUSE!!!!!! I might send in an official wanted connection for this, but the gist is someone who's very tied to the anti-mutant cause and sees Molly either as a genuinely sympathetic victim of the mutants, or as a very useful prop to use to political pathos (possibly both!). This would be her closest contact in life, since they saved her from the darkest moment in her life, and she probably sees them as a surrogate family while her brain tries to cope with the realization that she has no biological kin left.

People who may have encountered her while she was bouncing between shelters or sleeping in playground tunnels. At the time, she was basically catatonic from the trauma, and probably easy prey for the thieves and the cretins lurking the streets. There’s definitely room for someone who picked up on that and either exploited it or tried to help her out. (The only condition is that it’s important that she wasn’t assisted by anyone who would actually help her get a permanent shelter, since it’s crucial to her story that she was a vagrant at the time that the Doves found her.)

People! Who! Knew! Valerie! Maybe Val’s former coworkers? Someone who traveled in the same anti-mutant activist circles as her? I haven’t decided what she did for a living yet, but I can tell you that she worked at least two jobs and was the more wild and outgoing of the twins, and definitely hung out in harder party scenes, so this could be any connection to Val, from a short-lived fling, to a best friend, to a coworker would work. I’m thinking Val might have worked at the dive bar below their apartment? 

And speaking of that dive bar, someone who used to frequent that pub in the run-down Jade district and might recognize Molly or Valerie from there would be cool, too! Maybe someone who got into a fight on the street in front of the place that Molly had to break up to get back inside, or even someone who got her to stop and smoke a cigarette outside the pub with them after a particularly stressful day.

CLASSMATES!!! CURRENT (Staurolite grad students) OR FORMER (undergrad Staurolute students)! Or just people in her age group who would hang around the same places the college students would chill at, like the bowling alley or The Neon Room. I think most characters went to Crystalline University while Molly went to Staurolite College, but maybe there’s an area between Staurolite and Crystal U where students from both campuses used to coalesce for housing and hanging out. People she used to tutor! People who used to drag her out of her shell and bring her to parties! People she used to stay in with to drink tea and study together! People who helped her rural ass assimilate to city life; and the flipside: people she would drag out of the city to go pumpkin picking every autumn!

She’s very inexperienced in the field of romance, so I can picture her having maybe one serious romantic relationship in her life, that she probably still thinks about a lot. So maybe someone who dated her a few years ago? Any gender ~

A N Y T H I N G there’s such a range of unique characters in this group, i feel like i can’t even begin to touch on all the possibilities in one WC section, so just shoot me a message and i’ll write up a list of ideas for your character to be connected to Molly, either through history together or a future plot!

[anhed-nia]

BLOGTOBER 10/23 & 10/25/2018: HALLOWEEN (2007) & HALLOWEEN II (2009)

By the time Rob Zombie made the bold move of remaking John Carpenter’s name-making classic HALLOWEEN, the horror rock-star’s directorial career had already proved to be incredibly divisive. His 2003 film debut, HOUSE OF 1,000 CORPSES drew a cult from among diehard fans of his music, but was largely panned by critics who identified it as a ramshackle, self-indulgent disaster. The movie was little more than a Frankensteining-together of Zombie’s favorite things, but he managed to follow it up swiftly with 2005′s semi-sequel, THE DEVIL’S REJECTS. With this project, he appropriated three of the principle characters from his cartoony, ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW-like first feature, and reimagined them as the redneck antiheroes of a story that plays like a cross between THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE and THE WILD BUNCH. While DEVIL’S REJECTS showed major improvements in terms of drive and focus, it still felt unsettled. It is an emotionally confused movie that has trouble deciding whether its tale is more tragic for the innocent victims of its psychopathic protagonists, or more triumphant, for the Rejects’ anti-establishment swagger and charisma. Rob Zombie displays a refined aesthetic sense, and seems sincere in his storytelling, but he didn’t have much time to let these things ferment into a more potent cinematic brew before he stepped up to bat again with his controversial remake of the beloved HALLOWEEN in 2007. 

Reviled even by the likes of John Carpenter himself, Zombie’s dour, ponderous retelling of the archetypal slasher story was baffling to critics and genre buffs alike. Loaded up with clunky psychoanalysis that flies in the face of Carpenter’s original intention--Michael Myers is PURE NO-REASON EVIL, FULL STOP--this iteration of HALLOWEEN worked for few people besides Zombie’s hardcore stans. In spite of that very large and general problem, the writer-director was back again in 2009 with a sequel to his own remake. With HALLOWEEN II, he took two major creative risks: Bringing the ubiquitous Sheri Moon Zombie back even though her character died early in the first film, and centering the narrative on Laurie Strode’s psychological recovery, or lack thereof, from her original ordeal. It is easy to see how this setup would draw more complex and ambivalent responses. Mrs. Zombie’s appearance as the ghost of Myers’ mother, whose character is plagued by a lot of Jungian nonsense, was identified fairly as ludicrous by many viewers. On the other hand, Scout Taylor-Compton’s return as Laurie Strode takes a character who was little more than a cardboard cutout in the first film, and turns her into a convincing mass of trauma who undergoes a profound transformation over the course of this sequel. As with THE DEVIL’S REJECTS, HALLOWEEN II suggests that even while Rob Zombie can be an incredibly frustrating filmmaker, he still seems to be on to something. Even in my most stuck-up moments, when his smug use of slow motion and arias of unshocking cuss words make me want to forget everything I just watched, his movies nag at me in a way that I have a hard time describing.  I’m just now starting to formulate an understanding of why.

Often, I find myself asking: Who is Rob Zombie? First and foremost, he is a professional nerd. His music, art, videos, and feature films are strung together by his scholarship in all things genre, whether he’s invoking Tobe Hooper’s snuff-like realism, or the innocent sitcom pleasures of the Munsters. Zombie is vastly erudite about horror, and really anything remotely culty. This is actually to the detriment of HOUSE OF 1,000 CORPSES, which is so bloated with pop culture references that it almost chokes out the movie’s dubious originality. But while he has that irritating nerdy compulsion to competitively show off what he knows, he doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who buys and bags comics without even cracking them open. Rob Zombie is clearly, legitimately passionate; it’s heartwarming, and enough to make you want to root for him even when you don’t totally love what he’s doing. His craftsmanship is on point, too, as a multimedia artist whose talent has been abundantly evident since the early band flyer days. It comes as no surprise that he attended Parsons School of Design, and he occasionally shows his hand as an amateur film historian with a love for golden age Hollywood. So, whatever he wants you to think about his hellbilly stage presence, he’s clearly no hick, and no basement-dwelling dweeb either. He’s an educated artist with a background in New York City’s brainy ‘80s noise rock scene. It’s because of this that I find the worshipful attitude his films take toward their sociopathic murderers to be, well...kind of annoying. Why am I supposed to think it’s so cool, as the movies’ punk rock tone suggests, that the Firefly family tortures random bystanders to death for no apparent reason? Why doesn’t Rob Zombie know how tired the whole “scary clown” thing is, and has been for a long time already, even when it’s someone as magical as Sid Haig under the greasepaint? Why do I feel like Zombie’s interest in pimps and ho’s is deeper than just exploitation pastiche, which makes it potentially worse than if it were just a shallow affectation? The thought of this Massachusetts-born college boy fantasizing obsessively about being so crude and violent and salt-of-the-earth is kind of lame. So, instead of just, you know, being a hater as usual, I looked it up--and discovered that Rob Zombie’s roots are actually in the fairway. As Wikipedia aggregates from various interviews: 

While raising their sons, Rob's parents worked in a carnival, but they chose to leave after a riot broke out and tents were set on fire. Zombie recalled the experience in an interview, stating, "Everybody's pulling out guns, and you could hear guns going off. I remember this one guy we knew, he was telling us where to go, and some guy just ran up to him and hit him in the face with a hammer – just busted his face wide open. My parents packed up real quick, and we took off."

Suddenly, it all started to make sense. Sure, the costumed popstar isn’t an undead cross between Jerry Lee Lewis and Charles Starkweather in real life, but he isn’t a complete poseur either. It isn’t immediately clear, from underneath his mountain of collectory movie references, that he is, more or less, writing what he knows. He isn’t just emulating his cultural heroes, he’s mythologizing his own childhood. 

In view of this, the key to Rob Zombie’s movies is not an awareness of horror history and semiology; it’s actually all about outlaw culture. So, back to 2007′s deeply flawed HALLOWEEN. It’s a heavily bro-y movie, in its outsidery way, that breaks up the Dr. Loomis-Michael Myers-Laurie Strode love triangle, and focuses almost entirely on building a Myers biography. The fascinatingly sullen Daeg Neergaard Faerch plays young Michael, a fatherless boy on the verge of snapping from the relentless torment coming at him from all directions: his slutty sister, school bullies who fixate on his stripper mom (Sheri Moon Zombie), and his mother’s latest violent, depraved boyfriend. Michael follows the serial killer script perfectly, graduating rapidly from torturing animals to brutalizing other kids to annihilating his sister, her boyfriend, and his mother’s beau one Halloween night when his sibling chooses sex over taking her little brother trick-or-treating. He soon finds himself installed in a mental institution where he moves on to slaughtering the staff. Dr. Loomis (Malcolm McDowell) spends years evaluating the boy, though he is ultimately stymied by Michael’s profound lack of humanity. As Michael increasingly retreats behind the folksy homemade masks he spends all day crafting, the opportunistic Loomis gives up on him, instead committing his energy to a money-making true crime/pop psychology book about Myers. Flashing forward, we find the hulking adult Michael Myers (played by the 6′8″ wrestler Tyler Mane) getting ready to bust out of the asylum and wage war on his home town of Haddonfield. There we finally meet teen dream Laurie Strode, a spunky babysitter with a gaggle of gal pals who are perfect grist for the slasher mill. In the final leg of the film, Myers carves his way through Laurie’s social circle, in an apparent attempt to reunite with his sister: Laurie herself. Sheriff Brackett (Brad Dourif) reveals that when Michael’s despairing mother committed suicide years ago, he took her infant daughter and had her adopted out anonymously to insulate her from her family’s tragic history. Laurie, for her part, is unaware of anything other than her need to survive, which she only barely accomplishes.

Naturally, Laurie’s story is the weakest part of a movie that is otherwise so focused on male experience. That is, the experience of needing a father, the ambivalent and ambiguous craving for maternal intimacy, the trauma of having your masculinity impugned by your (fag-obsessed) peers, and perhaps even the undermining influence of academia and capitalism on a man’s natural-born strength and worth. When the newly-freed Michael Myers storms through a truck stop to begin his pilgrimage to Haddonfield, and Rob Zombie chooses to accompany this scene with Rush’s regal outlaw anthem “Tom Sawyer”, it tells you everything you need to know about this take on HALLOWEEN. Like the rampaging Firefly family in DEVIL’S REJECTS, Michael is certainly evil, but he also represents something essential about the formation of and reinforcement of one’s individuality in the face of castrating societal norms--something the carnies among whom Rob Zombie grew up would have found very relatable.

It’s worth noting here that, while the sexuality of the women in Michael’s life plays a role in his distorted development, he is not reacting to their sexuality in and of itself. Michael Myers is not driven by the kind of covetousness that we associate with the archetypal slasher, who gives sexually frustrated male viewers a vicarious thrill by punishing sluts and teases. Michael’s problem is that his mother and sister’s sexuality contributes to his isolation. His classmates use his mother’s profession against him, and that profession keeps her from being able to tuck him in at night. Similarly, Michael doesn’t get to enjoy Halloween with his family and the other neighborhood kids, because his sister is too busy getting laid. Michael is abandoned, even while he still has a home to return to, an outsider even in his own house. 

This leads me to an important point about why the portion of the movie that is devoted to Laurie's struggle is so ineffective. It is a flaw in the film, but a virtue of the director: Normal, attractive teenagers are not Rob Zombie’s people. He doesn’t even participate in traditional slasher movie misogyny, he’s so far away from thinking about them. His movies are full of badass women who are fully possessed of their sexuality, and who wield it like a weapon against hypocrites and assholes, and this is always shone in a heroic light. Moreover, he delights in casting women of all shapes and ages, often assigning them immense personal power, as in LORDS OF SALEM, an enormously satisfying movie about society’s original persecuted outcasts: witches. Rob Zombie is deeply committed to outsiders, and his definition of them isn’t limited to banal lawbreaking--he also rejects conventional beauty and our cultural obsession with youth. His films are populated by all manner of human beings, and the farther away they are from looking like model material, the more likely it is that they’re meant to be the heroes. On that note, whatever you think of his movies, you have to acknowledge that they are almost never dehumanizing. Zombie is an accomplished actor’s director who gets a full spectrum of emotion out of his performers, and who excels at creating a feeling of camaraderie within his ensemble casts. It is this surprising sweetness, and compassion even for the victims of the villains he lionizes, that makes HALLOWEEN II so peculiarly effective.

If 2007′s HALLOWEEN was a remake on which Rob Zombie couldn’t resist draping some of his personal hangups, HALLOWEEN II is almost a completely original and separate entity from what one thinks of as the franchise started by John Carpenter. In it, Michael Myers is presumed dead but his body is missing--and indeed, his character is missing for much of the movie. We find a disturbed, scarred-up Laurie Strode living with her surviving friend Annie, and Annie’s father, Sheriff Bracket. Laurie is dealing, poorly, with a heavy dose of PTSD. Along with nightmares and flashbacks, she also has trouble just being nice to people, or accepting affection. Annie and her father’s attempts to be charitable with their adoptive family member are no match for Laurie’s increasing surliness and mistrust of the world. Once a good-natured and optimistic young woman, her appearance becomes vagrant-like (curiously similar to Rob Zombie’s own casual look), her attitude is more and more nihilistic, and she develops a drinking problem. I’ve always wanted to see a movie with a slasher-like narrative foundation, but that focuses on aftermath and recovery, and recent gimmicky efforts like FINAL GIRL and LAST GIRL STANDING did absolutely nothing for me. HALLOWEEN II--at least, the superbly-acted Strode part of it--is the movie I’ve been asking for.

The other part of the movie is also interesting--or more specifically, it’s as ballsy as it is flawed. The movie gets off on kind of a bad foot when a title card quotes an obscure psychology text book called The Subconscious Psychosis of Dreams: 

WHITE HORSE - instinct, purity, and the drive of the physical body to release powerful and emotional forces, like rage with ensuing chaos and destruction.

This is the excuse we have for the fact that the ghost of Deborah Myers arrives with a white horse to compel her son to find his sister Laurie Strode, aka Angel Myers, to reunite their family, presumably in the afterlife. Deborah Myers is kind of a spectral cross between Glenda the Good Witch and the Wicked Witch of the West, at once welcoming and sinister, drifting in and out of Michael’s consciousness in the company of a sort of ghost of his childhood (Chase White Vaneck, who is no Daeg Faerch honestly). It might be easy to dismiss this anomaly as an expression of Michael’s mental illness, and his desire to experience an idealized version of his youth in which his mother still looks after him--except that later in the movie, during the final standoff, Laurie is shown to be physically affected by these spirits. Maybe the implication is that she and Michael suffer the same psychological ailments, but for them to share such specific hallucinations without speaking is borderline supernatural in and of itself. So, while Sheri Moon Zombie does her best with her impressive force of personality and compelling physical presence, it’s hard to say what this part of the movie serves. When I first saw the film, I was completely outraged by this, not only because it made no sense to me, but because it felt like a cheap ripoff of Sarah Palmer’s similar prophetic visions of a white horse in Twin Peaks. That was all I managed to make of it. 

Today, I still don’t love it, but I have more trouble faulting Rob Zombie for trying to make HALLOWEEN his own, something more than a remake. He also does this by truly letting go of the Shape. The famous William Shatner mask was blown in half by Laurie at the end of the 2007 HALLOWEEN, and scarcely makes much of an appearance in this movie. Michael Myers is a disheveled drifter, literally haunted by his past, whose only real aim is to find a place to belong. It’s sort of funny, in retrospect: When John Carpenter made the first HALLOWEEN, he-by-way-of-Dr. Loomis declared Michael an empty shell of a person, someone who was simply born evil, as reflected by the empty-eyed mask he wears. For some reason, though, a whole legacy of directors just couldn’t resist trying to explain Myers away. The original HALLOWEEN II then says, “Well...what if Michael Myers is on a rampage because LAURIE STRODE IS HIS SISTER? What’s that you say? Why is that a reason to rampage? Ummmm...” And then HALLOWEEN 4 sees him pursuing other young female relations of his, and then in subsequent movies there’s an accursed rune, and druids, and immortality rites, and by the time you get to HALLOWEEN 6 you have this absurd stone soup of bad ideas. It’s a miracle that this franchise became such a thing. Rob Zombie makes the same fundamental mistake, but at least he tries it in the simplest possible way, asserting plainly that Nurture, not Nature, made Michael into a killer. Now, terminally lonely, he’s like a clown waking up in his trailer to find that the carnival left without him. Exiled from mainstream society, he seeks out what remains of his family, who, due to his own violent actions, has grown up more like him than he may have imagined.

I’m not saying I think this was the best thing to do with HALLOWEEN 2. Personally, what I crave in horror movies is something that is farther beyond explanation than this--something that gesturally resembles my life experience, but that plunges past the veil of mundanity into a deeper, darker world of primordial fears and urges, addressing things that unsettle me because I cannot rationalize them. For me, horror is definitionally incomprehensible, and Rob Zombie’s HALLOWEEN diptych is fundamentally sane. But, I think what I’ve discovered is that these movies are not proper horror movies, in spite of their relentless sadistic violence. They are outlaw fables, with more DNA in common with something like EASY RIDER, than with FRIDAY THE 13TH. It’s funny to watch myself coming to a compassionate understanding of these movies that are themselves about outsiders and rejects who are specifically deprived of understanding. My goal in all this was not so much to convince people of the value of these movies, which one might reject on any number of reasonable counts, but to explain to myself why I keep coming back to them. It isn’t to condescendingly heckle them, and it isn’t just because they’re often handsome-looking, or because they’re so emotionally authentic even when the narrative is less than compelling. It must be because, even when I’ve found him challenging, I can’t help seeing Rob Zombie as a person with vision, someone who heroically eschews common consensus on taste and sense-making--the consensus even among horror fans and his own cinematic heroes--in order to say what makes sense to him personally. Finally, he has begun to make sense to me, too.

[yanjuniverse]

This Small Town; one

(previous/next) masterlist

“How was school, bro?” Justin fist bumps Yuqi as she approaches the two of them.

“Boring as always,” she says. She sticks her leg out and pulls her sock down. “Look what I got from soccer!” she says proudly.

“Whoa,” Chengcheng leans down to look at the purple bruise on her leg. “How did you manage that?”

Yuqi shrugs, “My dad says I’m accident probe.”

“Probe?” Chengcheng giggles. “The saying is accident prone, babe. Have you told anyone else that your dad says this?” She shakes her head as Chengcheng stands up. “Okay, good. Be sure you work on your pronunciation.”

“Right,” she nods, lacing her fingers with Justin as they begin to walk home.

Yuqi liked this part of the day - when Chengcheng and Justin would pick her up from school. Since they were let out earlier than her, they started to offer to pick her up and walk her home so that the others wouldn’t have to worry about it. Most days, they’d stop by Linong’s store and see what candies they could talk him into giving them. If Linong was no help, they’d use their allowance and take Yuqi for ice cream at the local ice cream parlour before taking her to the park so she could run her sugar high off. They’re usually back before Xukun is finished with classes and will lounge around until then.

Since Chengcheng was now a high school graduate and taking online courses, he tells Yuqi he might get a job soon.

“Good. Then nobody will chase me around with worms,” she stickers her tongue out.

“Oh, you mean like this one?” Chengcheng grins and pulls a gummy worm from his pocket, causing the little one to scream and clutch into Justin’s side. Justin clicks his tongue and shoves his brother. “What? I’m joking!” Chengcheng laughs as he pulls the pack of candy and throws it into his hands. “Yuqi, I’m a man now. I don’t have time for childish things.”

“Whatever,” Yuqi pouts as they continue their journey home. “My dad says just because your mom let you get tattoos, doesn’t mean you’re still not a cry baby!” Chengcheng scoffs, not feeling the least bit hurt by her words.

They reach the apartment buildings twenty minutes later. Chengcheng and Justin come just in time to see Zhengting. He was a doctor at a hospital nearby. He’s been living in their building for maybe six months now, fresh out of college and just starting his internship at the hospital. He usually bumps into the three on his way out for his night shifts.

“I’ll never understand why someone as rich as you chooses to live in a place as ratty as this,” Justin jokes and Zhengting jogs down the steps.

Zhengting shakes Yuqi’s hair as he passes and then runs backwards. “It’s called student debts! See you later, kids! Make sure to eat all your vitamins!” And just as quickly as he came, he leaves.

“What are student deads?” Yuqi asks Chengcheng. “My uncles are always complaining about it.”

“Student debts is basically money you owe the college you go to that you’ll have to pay back,” he explains simply. “It’s really complicated and stuff unless you get a scholarship.”

“Scholarship? Is that a type of boat?” Justin chuckles at how cute Yuqi is.

“A scholarship is basically just money people give you if you’re good at something or of a certain race or height or even if you’re left handed, like yourself,” he winks at her. “You can even get one for dance or soccer, kid. So, carb up and make the big leagues so I can babysit your couch and TV in the future.”

“You wish,” Yuqi scoffs as she walks up the steps. “My dad says that as soon as we get our own house, you’re not allowed anywhere near it!”

“Did he now?” Chengcheng laughs. He’s immune to these empty threats. Even if Yanjun really did want to keep Chengcheng away, Chengcheng would still be glued to his side. It’s like they’re social soulmates or something, Yanjun swears it. “Well,” Chengcheng laughs as he jumps up from where he was sitting, “you tell your dad to remember that when I make it big.”

“As a what again?”

“An actor,” Chengcheng rolls his eyes. “Your Uncle Zhangjing is right. You’re a shit listener.”

“Yeah? Well you’re a shitty person!” Yuqi retorts.

Justin jumps at her words, covering her mouth. “Yuqi!” he squeals. “No bad words!”

Yuqi manages to pull away from Justin and huffs. “Uncle Zhangjing says that I have every right to curse at Chengcheng-ge if he keeps cursing at me!”

“Yeah, well if your dad hears about this, he won’t be very happy. Now will he?” Justin warns as he picks the extra key from Yuqi’s backpack. He swings the door open to their apartment and toes his shoes off. “Plus, Chengcheng is your gege. You have to speak nicely to him.”

“But Lingong-ge says I don’t have to be nice to anyone who isn’t nice to me,” she says a matter of factly.

Sometimes, Justin wishes Yuqi wasn’t so quick on her toes. He decides to give up the fight as Chengcheng falls on the couch.

“Let’s do homework, yeah?” Justin smiles as he leads her to the kitchen counter. “Ge,” he calls out. “Why don’t you come and cut up some fruit for us to snack on?”

“Why when there’s a pack of oreos in the cabinet?” Chengcheng scoffs, getting up nonetheless. “I’m sure Yuqi would like some oreos.”

“Uncle Chin says that I can’t eat a lot. He says we’re supposed to celebrate something tonight,” Yuqi says as she writes her name on her math assignment. Justin raised his eyebrows. “Daddy applied for a job. It’s at that magazine he’s always reading. The one for parents.”

“Ah,” Justin nods. “The one for iQIYI. I hope he gets sponsored by Nongfu,” Justin pouts. “I can only spend so much on water before I’m flat broke.”

“Aren’t you always flat broke?” Chengcheng jokes as he cuts up some strawberries.

“Not the point,” Justin rolls his eyes.

Chengcheng surpresses his chuckles and continues to cut up a small amount of fruit. He leaves them in a bowl in front of the two before going back to the couch. Meanwhile, Justin helps Yuqi with her division homework and tells her to read ten pages of her book before she can play games on his phone.

Xukun and Ziyi come home from school and work soon after. They both kiss Yuqi on the cheek before moving to bussle around the kitchen.

“Yuqi, why are you still in your uniform?” Xukun ushers her down from her seat at the table. “Go change so you can help me and Ziyi. Okay?” Yuqi groans and trudges off to change. Xukun smiles at Justin. “Staying for dinner?”

“Can’t,” he says as he starts to pack. “Our parents want us to eat some of their food every once in a while. Linkai’s even coming down from his dorm to eat with us.”

“Oh, could you remind Linkai about Yuqi’s dance recital next Friday?” Ziyi says as he shuts the fridge, the dry erase calendar staring at him.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Chengcheng smiles as he approaches the counter. “We’ll be off now, yeah? Save us a slice of cake!” he waves. “Bye Yuqi!” he yells.

“Bye!” her voice faintly replies. The two head out before Yuqi can come back.

Soon enough, Zhangjing comes home to see the guys already prepared the side dishes for tonight. All he has to do is fry the chicken up and everything will be set into place.

When Yanjun comes home, Yuqi is busy setting the table. As soon as she hears the door click, she drops all the forks back onto the table and speeds towards the door.

“Daddy!” she jumps up and down, grabbing into him.

Yanjun picks her up, spinning her around. “Hey bubbly. How was your first day of school?” he kisses her cheek.

“Good! I made a new friend today! Her name is Minnie! Like the mouse!” she says as Yanjun carries her to their bedroom. He places her down on the bed and turns the shower head on. “How was work, Daddy?”

“Hectic as always,” Yanjun throws his apron on the floor. “But guess what Daddy did?”

“What?” Yuqi asks.

“He got a new job at a magazine company! And I’ll get to work from home! Isn’t that exciting?” Yanjun grins. “I’ll actually be home to tuck you in at night, kid!”

“Really?” she grins.

Yanjun nods, leaning down to kiss her nose. “Now you run out there and finish setting up the table while I shower. Okay?” Yuqi nods, her little feet pattering across the floor as she rushes out. Yanjun sighs happily.

Things are finally going right.

-

They all eat until their bellies pop. Each of the guys wash their food down with a bottle of beer. Yanjun even allows Yuqi to drink a soda because tonight was such a special night.

When they finish up, Yanjun takes Yuqi to lay down in bed since she had school in the morning. He moves to take her socks off so they don’t get lost in the sheets when he notices a big bruise on her leg.

“Yuqs,” he frowns. “What happened this time?”

“I fell while playing soccer,” she explains with heavily lidded eyes.

“You sure?” Yanjun runs his thumb over it. She winces and pulls her leg back. “You gotta be more careful, Yuqs.”

Yanjun thinks that maybe Yuqi is anemic or something. She always has bruises going up and down her body. Part of him hopes that that is the case and that she isn’t being bullied at school. But at the same time, who would bully his Yuqi? She’s the sweetest thing anyone will ever meet until you tick her off. The little girl knows how to pack a punch. He and Ziyi taught her how to after they found out on of the boys at school pushed her off the swingset last year.

“Yuqs,” he whispers.

“Daddy, I want to sleep,” she whines, burying her head into the pillow.

“Yuqi, listen,” he shakes her. She looks up at him with bleary eyes. “If anyone is bothering you at school, you need to tell someone. Okay? A teacher, me, one of your uncles, even Justin or Chengcheng. Don’t let anyone push you around. Got it?”

“Got it,” she nods. “Can I go to bed now?”

Yanjun smiles and presses a kiss to her forehead. “I love you, baby. Sweet dreams.”

“Night,” she yawns right before she fall asleep.

-

“You should get this one,” Justin points at the mac book. “Our school has these. They’re really cool.”

“We’re not looking for cool, Hao. We’re looking for affordable,” Yanjun rolls his eyes. “Where’s Yuqi?”

“Her and Chengcheng are looking at some toys,” he says as his fingers dance along the keys of the laptops. “I guess an HP could work too. Not my style but-“

“I just need something to type on,” he waves his hand. “That laptop that all of us share has too many viruses. I’ll never get an article done on there.”

“Well maybe you guys should stop downloading so much porn and get a real date,” Justin mutters. Yanjun smacks him on the back of the head, causing the younger one to yelp out in pain. “Hey! I was just saying!”

“I knew I should’ve waited for Linong to get off from school,” Yanjun shakes his head. “He’s smart.”

“I’m smart too!” Justin retorts.

“No, you’re just a smart ass,” Yanjun rolls his eyes. He picks up one of the laptops that aren’t that pricey but also don’t look like they’ll fall apart and decides that it’ll have to do for now. “Go find Yuqi and let’s go.”

“Roger that,” Justin salutes.

Yanjun heads to check out. He was busying himself reading the box that he didn’t even notice that the children had returned until Yuqi called his name. “Yuqs!” he gasps as he sees a tissue shoved up her nose. “What happened?”

“Daddy, you said my nose bleeds whenever it’s too hot,” she explains. “And it’s really hot in here.” She’s right, the heater was on full blast and Yanjun even found himself sweating a bit. “Gege wanted to take me to the bathroom but he said I can’t go in the boys’ bathroom.”

“No, you can’t,” he clicks his tongue, leaning in closer to inspect her skin. “I’m going to buy you a helmet for christmas. Sound good?”

“That’ll totally mess up my hair!” she whines.

Yanjun pecks her forehead then stands up straight. “Chengcheng, you and Justin go take Yuqi to the car so she can get out of here. I’m going to finish checking out.”

They agree and leave with her. At the car, Chengcheng uses a waterbottle to wash her face a bit before buckling her in.

“Yuqi, you have go to start toughening up if you wanna make it to the big leagues,” Chengcheng says. “We need to give you some protein.”

“Dude, she’s like seven. Lay off,” Justin scoffs from where he’s sitting. “Yuqi, you can do whatever you want. Don’t listen to Chengcheng. He’s stupid.”

“Stupid isn’t a nice word!” Chengcheng pouts as he slides into the front seat. “And what do you even wanna be, kid? Ever thought about it yet?”

Yuqi thinks for a second, pondering the thought. “I wanna be like my daddy!” she exclaims.

“You wanna be a waitress?...” Chengcheng questions.

“No, stupid!” Yuqi crosses her arms. Justin tries to hold his laughter in. He’ll let this one slide. “My daddy chased his dream and he’s a writer now. Why do you think we bought a laptop today, huh?”

“Cut the attitude before I cut your hair while you sleep,” Chengcheng snorts.

“Justin-ge!” Yuqi frowns.

“He won’t,” Justin reassures her. “We’re not allowed in your room, remember?”

“Well Chengcheng isn’t allowed to eat candy after dinner but one time, me and my daddy woke up and saw him eating oreos on the couch at like three in the morning!” Yuqi says. “If I wake up and find out my hair is cut, I’m going to punch you, Chengcheng-ge. Uncle Ziyi taught me how to and he’s in boxing!”

“Oh, I’m so scared of a seven year old!” Chengcheng rolls his eyes, reaching back to flick her forehead.

“Hey!” she yells. Just then, Yanjun slides into the driver’s seat. “Daddy! Chengcheng-ge just flicked my forehead!”

“Tattletale,” Chengcheng sticks his tongue out.

“Can’t you pick on someone your own size,” Yanjun groans, flicking his forehead. Chengcheng winces and rubs the spot. “Stop picking on children, you dope.”

“She started it,” he pouts.

“And I’m ending it. God, I thought I was a father of one not two,” Yanjun rolls his eyes. “If you left a mark, I’m going to kick your ass, Fan.” Chengcheng knows it’s an empty threat but either way, still sits as close to the door as possible.

Yanjun backs up the car, turning around to see Yuqi already fast asleep. He smiles at her before turning around to take them home.

[donqvounq-blog]

1

Jaehyun messed it all up, big time.

 He had so much stuff to do, paperwork kept being stocked higher and higher on his desk as time ticked by, and he believed they were better worked on than being stared at, but Jaehyun did the latter nonetheless.

He glanced at his finger. The gold band embracing his slim fingers glowed as the streak of light from the office lights hit the object in question, the one thing that reminded him of everything he impulsively did in the past weeks.

 “I think this is all wrong.”

He read his reply to Johnny that night. His thoughts didn’t change anyway. He still thought this was wrong, completely and absolutely not correct. Yeri was a kind, gorgeous lady and Jaehyun was more than glad he got to be together with her. She was there when he was down, there when he was wrecked, there when he was alone, but despite all of those, Jaehyun couldn’t make himself love her the way he wanted to. His heart was still stucked in the past, still beating for the same guy. He tried everything to forget him, to move on, to close all the wounds and to start anew with Yeri. He thought it worked the last three years. He thought he was ready to start over, and that was what he did. Three weeks ago, he proposed to Yeri, putting a ring on her delicate fingers and his. He was ready to begin again, to start fresh. He knew time heals all wounds, and he believed he had enough time for it to do the job, but man was he wrong?

 He swiped his screen and went to his conversation with Jeno. It was still left at ‘delivered’. The panic devours him, still unable to comprehend the last message the kid had sent him. He anticipated for this day to come anyway. He knew Jeno would soon leave him, and he knew better than to keep him. The question still lingers on his mind, why he couldn’t let him go.

   Jeno was one of the two orphans he met on a social science trip back in college. He and the other one were their foster children for the whole semester for the project, treating them as if they were one of their own. Needless to say, Jaehyun fell in love with the two. Even when the project was long done, he still went for usual visits on the two orphans. In his heart, Jeno and Jaemin were his own children, and so he and his boyfriend decided to adopt them. That sounded ridiculous, two college men adopting children already, but they were capable anyway of being a foster parent. Their shared unit was huge anyway and Jeno and Jaemin could definitely live with them. His boyfriend’s father was influential, so he was able to give the two a scholarship in SM University for their whole highschool years. Everything was happy back then. They lived like a real family, although insisting the two of them being called “hyung” instead of “appa”.

But everything fell apart during their last year in college.

 Jaehyun was an intern for his last year. He was working on a company far away from SM University, so he had to move out of their shared unit temporarily. The long distance away from his boyfriend and Jeno and Jaemin stressed him non-stop, and he didn’t know if he could last for six months.

Needless to say, Jaehyun drowned himself with a lot of work he couldn’t have enough rest for himself. He’s up at work from eight in the morning until eleven in the evening most of the times, and he’d go home feeling extremely exhausted he’s down on his bed the moment he entered his room. He got an annoying boss as well so all this internship thing turned into a hell hole into an instant.

Time went by and all Jaehyun became for the past weeks and months was a total wreckage. He lost in touch with everyone, his boyfriend, Jeno, Jaemin, and literally occupy himself with every piece of task he was assigned to do. He hadn’t had his phone checked for a long time, the last thing he remembered was a chain of messages from his boyfriend. He can vaguely picture the last of it as “this is getting ridiculous.”

Jaehyun had never rested, that’s why when his boyfriend decided to breakup, he was so tired he didn’t try anymore and just agreed. That’s why he was not surprised when he came home to an empty unit after his internship was finished. It was when he realized why he was always tired, because Doyoung was his rest, but he always ignored him. He thought being silent was good, but he was wrong. Silence is not golden, will never be. That’s how he ended up in his room, alone and stressed, being twice as exhausted as he was the past six months. He was dumb. Maybe he had to talk to Doyoung and make up with him, or maybe he just had to apologize.

The next thing he remembered, he was calling an Uber. But there was a problem, he didn’t know his whereabouts.

He tried to call him, but the tables had turned. It was Doyoung who was ignoring him now. Funny that it made him annoyed, frustrated, sad. Doyoung must had been feeling this the whole time. He tried and tried until his phone was almost dead. Well, it was his fault he didn’t charge it back home.

He was long out of the cab already, now just walking by casually on Seoul streets. He wanders off, not knowing where to go, letting his feet take him wherever they take him. Later on, he passed by a restaurant. He saw a familiar figure, sitting on the side of the stairs outside the premise, sitting on a cardboard and wearing rugged, winter clothes. Jaehyun hurried himself to the person, eyes of sorrow and pain directed toward him.

“Jeno!”

“Jaehyun-hyung!” he saw how his eyes once full of darkness brightened up upon his appearance. “I have waited for you. I know you’ll come back.”

“Why are you here? Have you eaten already?” Jaehyun wanted to throw a lot of questions but he decided to brush all those off for now. “Nevermind. I’ll take you home right now.”

 “Where are Doyoung and Jaemin?” Jaehyun let out his thoughts. Jeno had already eaten a meal, taken a long, warm shower, and now wearing fresh clothes that were two sizes larger since those were Jaehyun’s.

“I have no idea,” was the answer he didn’t want to get, but he expected it nonetheless. “I tried to tell them not to leave, to wait for you, but Doyoung hyung didn’t listen. Doyoung wanted me to go with him, but I stayed and waited for you. Thank you for coming back. Even though it was a month after, I’m still happy.”

“How about your education? Are you still going to school?”

“Doyoung hyung kept my scholarship, but after the two of you broke up, I felt lost. I wasn’t doing well academically, and since they left, I didn’t go to school anymore.”

Jaehyun couldn’t help but put the blame to himself. Jeno wasn’t supposed to be like this. He was supposed to live the best life, but all he did was give him misery.

“Jeno, I’m sorry,” Jaehyun broke down and let the tears and emotion that had bottled up for the past months flow. “I should not have occupied myself with all those shits. I should have made time for the three of you. I’m such a bad person, you don’t deserve me.”

Jeno didn’t know what to do. He had never seen Jaehyun cry, so he just locked him in his embrace, shushing him with words of comfort.

“Don’t be sorry Jaehyun hyung.”

“Let’s find Doyoung and Jaemin. I owe them an apology.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Jaehyun raised an eyebrow at Jeno’s reply. He asked why, but looking at the way Jeno fidgeted, what’s about to come wasn’t a good thing.

“Doyoung hyung was always worried about you. He was always waiting for your respond that he spent most of his times looking at his phone. He skipped a lot of meals, and classes. After he failed five of his classes, he decided you just don’t care about him anymore, so he decided to text you to break up to test the waters. But you agreed and I never saw him that sad.”

Jaehyun just stared at Jeno, feeling speechless and unable to form any words.

“Doyoung hyung failed classes so now he had to retake them next semester. He can’t graduate this semester.”

Jaehyun’s shoulders slumped down as he heard those words come out from Jeno. Doyoung was an achiever and a top student as well. It must have been humiliating in his part that he had failed because of him and that he would graduate late because of him. Maybe Jeno was right. It really would not be a good idea to see Doyoung, or have Doyoung see him. Maybe right now was the best time to do what he had done in those six months he was away.

 “Maybe it’s time for me to go,” Jeno excused himself after staying with Jaehyun for a while. The older stopped him nonetheless.

“No. I promised to be a good brother to both you and Jaemin. I have failed you for these past times. Now, let me make up for it. You’ll stay with me.”

   Maybe that’s why he couldn’t let go of Jeno right now. He was the only person left from his past, the only one that reminded him of how happy he used to be. Maybe he couldn’t let go of Jeno because he reminded him of Doyoung, and that’s probably why he wanted Jeno to stay.

But he had decided for himself. Jaehyun couldn’t do anything.

The stress from everything started to build up, and Jaehyun might have cried that night. All the paperwork, the wedding, Yeri, Jeno, Doyoung, all of which are bugging his mind right now.

Maybe Johnny was right. He needed to rest, to have some breath of fresh air for once. So he did what he had never done his whole work life. He filed a resignation paper. That was after he completed all the paperwork of course. He was in misery because of this shit. Time for him to let it go.

Now he just couldn’t wait to hang out with his bros tomorrow.

   “Wow he really did that?” Mark’s eye widened at the shot of good news Johnny has brought him. “I’m sorry but Jaehyun and resigning don’t belong in the same sentence.”

“Well what done has been done,” Johnny said as a matter of fact. “Plus it’s good for him. He was shit and all because of that job of his.”

“Touché,” Mark nodded.

Not long after, the door of the café creaked open and Mark saw Jaehyun entered. He waved at him so he can acknowledge their presence and Jaehyun made a beeline to their table.

“Jaehyun bro!” Mark was the first to greet.

“Long time no see,” Johnny added as Jaehyun took a seat. “But I think we will see each other more often now.”

“Wait did you really resign?”

“Well Mark, yes,” Jaehyun replied. Mark still looked confused though. “I had been shitty my whole life because of work, so now I let it go.”

“Good,” was what only came out from Mark.

“Where is Lucas anyway?” noticing the absence of the other, Jaehyun was quick to ask.

“Oh. Jungwoo is here too surprisingly. So you know,” Johnny shrugged as he answered the other’s query. Mark just chuckled after mouthing “boyfriend duties” in between Johnny’s sentence.

“Oh,” Jaehyun nodded. “I want to see him.”

After that, the three of them left their seats and went to Jungwoo’s table. Johnny’s right. Lucas was seated beside someone, but still he was able to notice Jaehyun’s presence.

“Jaehyun, you’re here!” Lucas was quick to stand up, arms leaving the shoulder of the person who he supposed was Jungwoo.

“Are you Jungwoo?” Jaehyun ignored Lucas walking to his side to ask out his curiosity. The person in question raised his eyebrows, not expecting a question to be directed to him.

“Yes. I’m Jungwoo,” he replied with the cutest smile Jaehyun had ever seen. Well, second cutest.

“And I’m Ten! Hello!” the other man in front of Jungwoo introduced himself, waving his hands in the process. Jaehyun offered them his nicest smile.

“I’m Jaehyun. Nice to meet the both of you. Anyway I have a question.”

“Is it a habit of you to ask questions to people you just met?” Ten wondered and Jaehyun felt a little embarrassed. The other three men behind him were stifling a chuckle, but Jaehyun didn’t care at all.

“Well, yeah,” he scratched the back of his neck. “But anyway you guys are friend with that wedding planner guy right?”

Jaehyun didn’t what was wrong with what he said, but Jungwoo’s face definitely fell from his question. Nevertheless he replied.

“Yes we are,” Jungwoo replied flatly. Something must have been going on between the two, but it was out of his business right now,

“Good. Can you tell me his name?”

“Hey! Hey! Hey!” Mark was quick to react. “Won’t that be against Yeri’s punishment for you?”

“Well I’m finding it out myself so I think it is fine,” Jaehyun shrugged, eyes still focused at Jungwoo. The latter sighed dramatically, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“We are not in good terms right now so I didn’t like it that I’m being reminded of him right now,” Jungwoo shook his head, but again it was not of Jaehyun’s business so he didn’t care. “But you’ll find it out sooner anyway so I guess it won’t hurt to tell you.”

Jaehyun nodded, putting up two thumbs up at Jungwoo’s reply.

“Well the planner’s name was Doyoung,” Jaehyun blinked. “Kim Doyoung. You’re welcome.”

[baldysims]

Strange Legacy 3.2

“Hey bro, how was college? Still have all your skills maxed?”

“Oh, Di, it was amazing! You wouldn’t believ--”

“Hang on, I just realized it’s the middle of the day and I somehow failed to get in my coffin and am about to die from sunlight exposure yet again. Hold that thought.”

“But--!”

“We’ll talk about skilling laterrrrrrr! Hissssssss!”

Third generation heir Fornax has returned to the legacy lot and been reunited with his parents and older-but-perpetually-teenaged sister, Diadem. The main household got played a bit while the rest of the kids were at college so I could troubleshoot the whole teen vampire thing with fewer distractions.

It turns out teen vamps are hard, but not that bad when you build them a garage full of snapdragons and give them a fancy sports car to shield them from the sun’s harsh rays on their way to and from school... at least when certain other people aren’t hogging the coffin. *coughCASSIEcough*

Yep, Cassie’s back home too. Why? Well, I wanted a platinum grilled cheese grave for the lot, but I also really didn’t feel like making another Sim eat 200 sandwiches. Sue me.

It’ll be nice to have an extra set of hands around to raise generation 4, though, especially since I’m sure I’ll be pretty distracted a lot of the time with keeping Di alive... in a manner of speaking.

Generation 4 will be here very soon, since Fornax took less than a day to fulfill his lifelong (or at least last-two-years-of-college-long) dream of becoming a rock star. Not bad for a former nerd who never even made out with a girl until after he’d already graduated.

Fornax’s wedding to Danni, the sexy heroic firefighter of his dreams, was thoughtfully held at night so that all members of the Strange family could attend, both living and dead.

Unfortunately this included some family members who probably shouldn’t have been invited, like Uncle Alpheratz.

Ever a man of class, he couldn’t even wait until the reception was over to start trash talking the groom. It’s extra gross when you realize that the woman he’s talking to is his daughter Cursa, who you might remember along with her sister Bellatrix as the tearful, brokenhearted children from the last family wedding Alpheratz ruined.

What have Bells and Cursa been up to since we saw them last, anyway?

Well, Bellatrix married the love of her life, Tybalt Capulet, and became a business tycoon in the family company. She’s angling to get her son, Lucius, named the heir to the Capulet fortune, but I doubt that’ll happen given how matriarchal the Capulets are. Still, she tries. I guess you can take the girl out of the patriarchy, but you can’t take the patriarchy out of the girl.

Cursa moved into Capulet Manor alongside her sister, and immediately began a scandalous May-December romance with Tybalt’s grandfather, Consort. No one in the family has told Betelgeuse about their affair, and for good reason. Bete was raised to believe every Sim in the family must abide by the Strict Family Values and True Love handicaps, regardless of whether they were raised in the main household or not. The knowledge would only hurt him, and clearly, he’s happy in his blissful ignorance.

Bete also doesn’t know that his youngest daughter, Electra, is also keeping certain aspects of her life as a spare a secret from him.

Sure, she locked down a True Love in her college years and married him as soon as humanly possible, just like her parents always dreamed, but given that she and Freddy are a couple of video game-obsessed slackers who can barely put down the handhelds to feed themselves, much less raise a child, I decided to let them embrace the wonders of modern birth control.

And so it seems that Betelgeuse and Angeline’s only grandchildren will be through Fornax and Danni. Speaking of whom, let’s get back to their wedding; I think we’ve gone on more than enough spare-related tangents for one chapter.

Danni Strange, former last name unknown, is a knowledge Sim and former firefighter who is truly, madly, deeply in love with her dork of a husband. She saved his life back in college and the sparks, so to speak, were instant.

Danni’s very well liked by the rest of the Stranges. Cassie used to be the sole holdout, but now that Danni is officially part of the family, she seems to have come around.

It’s shaping up to be a very wholesome generation.

Danni got pregnant right away, and spent the majority of her pregnancy working on maximizing all her skills. She’ll need them, because I want to get the collection point for having all the career rewards this generation.

Danni was game, and dedicated herself so thoroughly to this task that she even gave birth with her skilling hat on.

Little Gomeisa here turned out to be a girl, which gave Betelgeuse a little anxiety. He himself took four tries to have a boy with his wife Angeline, and they ended up cutting it pretty close age-wise. He doesn’t want that stress for his own son, so he urges his son to try for more grandchildren as soon as possible.

Fortunately, that’s not a problem for Fornax and Danni. Their chemistry is through the roof and they basically go at it like rabbits constantly, so it wasn’t long before Danni gave birth to another girl, Hamal.

This did not relieve Betelgeuse’s concerns.

“Son, you realize that only boys can inherit the legacy heirship, right? You have to have at least one, and really, two is best.”

“You think I don’t know that, dad?”

“Of course not, Fornax, but I want to talk you through some of the implications. The only way it’s mathematically possible for you to have an heir and a spare is to have at least two more children.”

“So? That’s fine. I mean, sure, I’m not a Family Sim like you or grandpa, but I’m permaplat and Danni’s definitely up for it.“

“The problem, son, is that there are already seven people in this house. Di can’t move out until your mother and I die, which we’re nowhere close to, and Cassie can’t leave or we lose the grilled cheese grave. Essentially, you’ve only got one more chance to get a boy... and I hope you’ll agree that we should maximize it.”

That’s right, it’s cheesecake time! Betelgeuse himself was a cheesecake twin, so of course he’s aware of this classic legacy strategy.

I actually hate having twins, especially during the toddler years, but Betelgeuse is right -- it only makes sense to double the chance of getting an heir before it’s too late.

And so Danni went through a third, much more difficult pregnancy, while the rest of the household worked as hard as they could on various miscellaneous legacy milestones.

Cassie spent a lot of time tediously job-hopping for various career rewards, and also painted the next generation of Strange family portraits. She herself won’t have an official portrait as a spare, but I thought it would be nice to let her memorialize herself for posterity with a grilled cheese masterpiece.

Betelgeuse finished his memoirs, as demanded by the Storyteller handicap.

He also spent some genie wishes bulking up the family fortune. The Stranges don’t really need money for money’s sake, since they’re already swimming in filthy lucre, but in order to get maximum points they'll need $3,000,000 by generation nine, so every simoleon counts.

Diadem earned all of her point-based scholarships as well as an impossible want point by maximizing her skills. Now that she’s free most nights, she spends a lot of time acting as her nieces’ night nanny.

“Glowing skill milk for Gomeisa! Hissssssssss!“

Unfortunately, I realized too late that I made a big mistake by maximizing Di’s skills as quickly as I did. She’s knowledge, so now that she doesn’t have anything left to learn, the only real big-ticket wants she can satisfy are being scared by ghosts... and ours aren’t exactly cooperative.

“Grandma, scare me! Bleh!”

Grandma Sharon would never, Di. She’s too nice. Sorry. You’ll have to wait for Grandpa Zaniah... and for some reason the only time he ever came out to haunt was to scare your mother during her last pregnancy. Jerk.

Di also tends to get lured by the siren call of the career reward collection, which I foolishly stored out of sight in the backyard. Pretty much every morning I lose track of her until I realize from her red icon that she’s been roasting in the sun.

“You can’t blame me for wanting to live on the edge! It’s what teenagers do! And I’ve been a teenager for decades now.”

Yeah, fair enough.

Finally, the twins come along... and it’s two more statistically improbable girls, Ilkil and Jishui. I was so upset by this revelation that I completely failed to take a decent birth photo. I mean... ugh. The house is as full as full gets, but no one can really go anywhere until either the girls grow up and go to college, or I decide to kill Betelgeuse or Angeline. I really don’t want to have to deal with annoying non-Old Age ghosts this early in the legacy... so that means I’m stuck raising four girls while Fornax and Danni’s adult lifespans get shorter and shorter, unable to be lengthened even by Elixir of Life due to yet more legacy handicaps.

That’s right, little spare, grow up! Grow up in your pajamas with no party and no cake. With all 4+ of you little monsters running around, it’s not like birthdays are going to be anything special around here.

It goes without saying that the whole house is basically living off of cheesecake right now. Betelgeuse made a lot. Just in case.

The sole exception to cheesecake for dinner is when the headmaster comes over for lobster, but even then, Angeline objects.

“Fornax, you don’t need to go to such lengths. Just let me fix BJ a few drinks! We go way back, you know.”

I was pretty sure that was the booze talking, but then this happened:

Well, I’ll be damned! I guess booze really does beat out a home cooked meal. I’ll keep that in mind for my next dinner party.

“Aunt Di, why do me and Hamal have to go to private school and study so hard just to start college early? That sounds boring.”

“Gogo, I’m going to lay some truth on you. Private school is the best thing in life. I mean that, literally. The only joy I get in life anymore is from the occasional report card that barely keeps me out of aspiration failure. Hissssssss!”

Yeah, I think Diadem might be depressed.

To cheer her up, I sent her on a date -- the good, expensive kind, not the Aunt Electra “Just take my $25 so I can get a memory token” kind. The matchmaker conjured up Adam, a store clerk who’s been selling the Stranges clothing and groceries since the dawn of the legacy.

Diadem couldn’t get enough of him. He seemed genuinely fascinated by her stories of being abducted by aliens back before getting vamped, and for once in her life since maximizing her skills, Di felt... passion.

Of course, love in a knowledge Sim vampire tends to express itself in a rather, um, aggressive way, and, well... I just couldn’t resist the aspiration bonus.

Sorry, Adam. I'll try not to burn you to a crisp when the Stranges visit community lots during the day from now on.

After claiming him as a creature of the night, Di claimed her first kiss, just as the sun came up. Away with you into your coffins! Bleh!

Oh, Angeline. Booze for dinner with the headmaster, and now booze first thing in the morning? I get that you picked up certain habits from your mother in law, but did you have to pull Fornax in on the day drinking? He’s been so functional up til now!

“I resent that. I day drink purely out of my own free will, just like you would if you knew you’d be changing diapers until retirement age.”

Sigh... fair enough.

In other news, Cassie continues to pursue various careers in search of all 20+ career rewards. Most of the time I just nab them from the newspaper so she automatically grabs them, but sometimes I let her go all the way to the top.

Something about the sweet mad scientist robot hand just seems right for her, you know?

Anyway, we’re about halfway there as far as the career rewards go. I decided I was sick of them cluttering up my view of the lawn (the Stranges are trashy for sure, but like, rich trashy, not furniture-on-the-lawn trashy), not to mention almost killing Di every morning, so I resolved to spruce the place up with a mausoleum/career reward storage facility. And a greenhouse, because hey, why not go for that extra Seasons point?

We already have most of the fish thanks to Angeline, which is the hard part, so really all that’s left is the wishing well and a few juices. Might as well, right?

“Grandma, why can’t you play red hands with me?”

“Well, Hamal, you’ve got to be a good girl and study for when you become a teenager. And I’ve got to spend all day fishing so that I can get red and pass out on the lawn over and over!”

And so she did! Here, have an ugly photo of the upstairs hall proving that Angeline nabbed us every kind of fish.

And not a moment too soon, because as soon as the first leaves began to show on the crops in the greenhouse, Angeline received a ghostly final visitor.

R.I.P. Angeline Strange, former cute teen downtownie, wife and mother of four, Sim City General Chief of Staff and lifelong alcoholic. You were many things, but most of all fun to play, and I’ll miss you.

Poor Bete. Family Sims take the death of a spouse extra hard, so I was expecting this, but it’s still sad. Especially when his morbid vampire daughter discusses it so bluntly over a game of pool that very night.

I don’t mean to imply that Di didn’t care about her mother’s death. She did, of course! She was probably even closer to Angeline than Betelgeuse was. But Knowledge Sims show it in a different way.

And so Angeline was laid to rest in the upper floor of the mausoleum, where Sharon was already haunting in welcome. Hopefully she’ll have some company soon.

Life went on for the rest of the family, with Betelgeuse still hellbent on getting a grandson out of Danni and Fornax.

Yeah, yeah, she already promised to have more kids once you’re dead, Bete! Give it a (final) rest already!

“Aunt Cassie, do I have to die to get a brother too?”

“No, Gogo, of course not. You’ll just go to college, that’s all. We’re not killing anyone on purpose in this legacy until at least generation 7.”

I’m sure Gomeisa was very comforted to hear that.

In protest, she rolled Romance on her teen birthday, but just like Cassie last generation, I don’t think it suits her.

She is ridiculously uninterested in all the men she meets.

She’d much rather hang out with her younger sisters, especially Hamal, who’s about to join her in teenhood.

Now, I’m not a total monster, of course I let Gomeisa have a first kiss before I sent her off to college. The last thing I want is to force Fornax’s children to relive his grisly fate as an inexperienced child in college. Plus the wishing well we got from joining the garden club makes it so easy, how could I not?

Hmm, Loren Teens, not bad, not bad. Technically he’s part of yet another matriarchal Maxis family, the Tricous, but the Tricou matriarchs are all dead and Loren is ultimately just a descendant of one of the men who married in, so I don’t think Betelgeuse would necessarily object.

Especially since it’s finally his deathday.

R.I.P. Betelgeuse Strange. You did everything you could to continue your father’s legacy, even when you probably shouldn’t have, but I respect the effort. I hope you have fun whaling on Alpheratz in the afterlife.

With Betelgeuse finally dead and gone, Fornax and Danni were free to try for babies #5 and #6. Yes, I’m doubling up again, and if I get two more girls, I’m going to scream. I’m not even sure Danni will be young enough to carry another pregnancy if that happens. But hey, at least this picture of them cuddling under the stars is cute. I like to think they’re planning their babies’ names when they do this, since everyone in the family is named after either a star or a constellation.

Just like big sis Gomeisa, Hamal rolled Romance on her birthday and summoned a Tricou kid, this time Loren’s brother Tiave, from the wishing well for her first kiss. The girls in this family really seem to enjoy flirting with matriarchy.

Right after Hamal hit him and quit him, Zaniah popped out to scare her. I don’t think the old hypocrite approves of his great-granddaughters rolling Romance or dating Tricous.

With Gomeisa and Hamal’s first kisses obtained and generation two finally laid to rest, Diadem was able to nab her last scholarship and get shipped off to college with her nieces. I’m sure they’ll have a blast there while I head back to the home lot and pray to Wright for an heir who STILL hasn’t been born and (hopefully) play him all the way to teendom and young adulthood. Sigh.

Legacy Scoring:

Legacy: 3 Money: 2 Family friends: 38x.25 = 9.25 Impossible wants: 9 (Alph 20L, Sharon 30F, Zaniah 7Sk, Angeline 7Sk, Fornax 7Sk,  Cassiopeia 200S, Electra 50FD, Diadem 7Sk) Platinum graves: 4 (Family, Popularity, Fortune) Ghosts: 1 (Old Age) Business: 4 Seasons: 2 Free Time: 4.5 (Games: Zaniah, Betelgeuse, Alpheratz, Electra, Fornax, Cassiopeia, Angeline) Collections: 1 (25 Elixirs) Master: 2 (Social Bunnies Need Love Too, Child Prodigy - Fornax, ) Handicaps: 0 Overflow: Penalties: -1 (bills) Total: 38.85

[everythingisnightvale]

Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked Post Story Info

If you haven’t read my fic Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked, then you should probably do that before reading this post.

A few quick thank yous before I get started.

To the light of my life, prince of all things angst, and probably best friend in the fandom @skepticallysighing, Thank you for listening to my rants and continuing to encourage and inspire me every day. You’re a true bro <3

To my long distance love @heckstetter. Thank you for being lovely and for discussing kinks with me when I was too embarrassed to even talk about them to myself.

To @owenteaguer for having awesome taste in music and for always reblogging myself instead of just liking it. And adding cute comments in the tags. I read all of those and they’re lovely. Thank you <3

and finally @katintintrashqueen We don’t interact much, but we realized recently that we’ve been following each other for YEARS! Like at least 4, maybe even more than that. I don’t know what fandoms we were originally in together, but I’m glad we found each other again in this one.

Okay On with the show!!

Vic:

Shortly after the end of my story, Vic’s mom decided to file for divorce. She gets custody of Vic and the two of them, along with Vic’s mom’s boyfriend move to West Virginia. He and Henry decided to mutually end their relationship, but promise to keep in touch. Memories of Derry and the people in it begin to fade as soon as he moves away. Vic graduates high school and goes to college to become and RN. Vic doesn’t have any idea why he’s already so good at taken care of certain injuries, but it does help him pass class with flying colors.

Vic ends up working in a hospital. Outside of work he openly embraces his sexuality, but he keeps it quiet at work, because he’s worried that it can get him fired. Vic has several relationships throughout the years but nothing too serious, until he meets Gabriel.

Gabriel is a doctor at the hospital he works at. He’s also married, to a woman. He promises for years that he’s going to leave his wife for Vic, but it’s just never the right time. Vic has thought about ending the affair, but can never seem to bring himself to.

He’s in the bed with Gabe when he gets a call from Derry telling him that It has returned. He and Gabe had planned to go away for the weekend, just the two of them, but Vic knows what he has to do. His memories begin to slowly return and the first thing he remembers is how he felt the first time Henry told him that he loved him. He knew what he felt for Gabe now was nothing like that.

Gabe tells Vic that if he decides to go back to Derry instead of going away with Gabe then they’re finished. Vic just sighs and tells him to go back to his wife. Vic packs up his car and drives to Derry that night.

Belch:

Belch stays in Derry until he graduates then he gets a full ride football scholarship to the University of Texas. His parents decide to pack up and move down there too so they can watch Belch play football.

Belch decides to pursue his love of history and ends up going to school for it. He’s always been a patient person, so he decides that he should pass on his love of history and decides to become a teacher.

To celebrate being hired into his first full time teaching position his buddies take him out for a drink at a local bar. Belch is there when he sees a pretty girl with auburn hair sitting at the bar surrounded by friends. He wants to go talk to her but he’s kind of shy and girls are intimidating in groups, so as soon as he sees her friends leave her to go to the bathroom he heads over to talk to her. He says hi to her and the first thing she does is burp in his face. She’s super embarrassed but Belch is pretty sure that’s the exact moment that he falls in love with her. Her name is Casey and they have a beautiful summer wedding.

They’re both very happily married and in love. They try to have children for a few years before the doctors tell that that it doesn’t like it will be possible for them to conceive. They’re pretty beat up about it since they both want children, but they help each other through it and decide that if they’re meant to have children they will. About 2 years before Reg gets called away to Derry they move into a bigger house with extra room and put in an application to be foster parents.

Belch is nervous about leaving when he gets the call. He tries to explain to Casey what happened all those years ago(because that’s what you do when you’re in a happy and loving relationship. You talk to each other about things) but it’s hard because he still has gaps in his memory. She encourages him to go and even goes and books his plane ticket for him. She drives him to the airport and kisses him goodbye and he promises to call her the minute he lands.

Henry:

Henry stays in Derry until he graduates. He had tried to get into the same college as Belch, because at this point Belch’s family is basically his family. He was accepted, but he couldn’t afford to go. Instead he goes to the University of Minnesota. He got a scholarship there and is able to live on campus and get free meals with his scholarship. It takes him 2 years to figure out what he wants to study, but when he does, boy howdy is he driven.

He’s always had to work harder at school, both because he has dyslexia, and because he doesn’t have the worlds best memory, but he works his ass off and after years of schooling he becomes Dr. Henry Bowers, child psychologist. He loves his job. He loves that he gets to help kids. He loves knowing that they have someone who will listen to them.

Through his job he meets Devon(I imagine he looks like Jay Ellis), who’s a public defender. Henry has been out of the closet since college and has shown no sign of ever going back in, but it takes him nearly a year of knowing Devon before Henry asks him out. They date for a few months. Then they move in with each other and adopt a dog. Then Devon proposes to Henry and it’s absolutely beautiful (Henry cries).

It’s 5 months until the wedding when Henry gets the call. He’s not sure how to tell Devon about what’s happening in Derry or what he’s been through. He’s afraid that Devon won’t believe him. He tells Devon he needs to return to Derry but can’t explain why. Devon assumes it has something to do with his past with his father and doesn’t push the issue, but he does make sure Henry doesn’t have cold feet about the wedding and Henry tells him he’s never been so sure of anything in his life.

Patrick:

Patrick is a year younger than the others, which means Henry and Belch graduated and moved on, but Patrick still has one more year of school. The guys plan to stay in touch, but deep down Patrick knows that they won’t. Vic never did. Neither did any of the losers when they left. Patrick begins to feel pretty alone. He graduates Derry, but has no ambition to go to college. He works a few jobs, but never sticks around for long until one day he gets home and all of his stuff is packed. His parents decided that they’re moving to florida and Patrick can either help pay for the move and come with them or stay in Derry. Patrick stays. He bums on a couch her or there and starts working 2 and then 3 jobs, none of the fun, but he affords a crappy little apartment.

One day Patrick is working a shift at the coffee shop when he sees a flyer posted on the bullitan board advertising a need for local law enforcement. One of Patrick’s coworkers jokingly tells him that he should apply. This prompts Patrick to take the law enforcement entrance exam as a joke. He’s really surprised when he actually passes. He decides that since he started this he might as well see it through and goes to the police academy. As graduation approaches Patrick begins to panic because there is no way that he could be a good police officer, but then again, Butch was a police officer and he was a piece of shit. Patrick could be better than Butch without even trying. Patrick ends up graduating top of his class.

Some time after graduation Patrick reconnects with Mike Hanlon, the only other person to stay in Derry. They start by nodding at each other in the grocery store. Then they’re getting a beer every so often. Then they have weekly hangout times. They’re pretty much best friends. Patrick likes to go and hang out in the library after it’s closed and Mike likes to remind Patrick that he is still technically banned from the library. 

Patrick is the first to realize that It is back. Children start going missing, bodies start turning up. He goes to Mike as soon as he’s sure and together they start making phone calls.

[utgleekshq]

Have you seen Quinn Fabray on campus? Rumor has it that the twenty year old junior from Allen, Texas was born on May 28 and is currently studying English in the College of Liberal Arts. Her friends will tell you that she’s independent and opinionated, but they also say she can be judgmental and secretive, so be careful. Her endgame is Quinntana and fortunately for us, her role is TAKEN and unavailable for auditions.

Lucy didn’t have a terrific childhood as she doesn’t remember ever being close to either of her parents. Her father was often busy working and her mother spent most of her time with a martini glass in her hand or out of the house at the latest country club function, and as a result, Lucy spent many of her youngest years feeling unloved. Unfortunately it was only a feeling that was perpetuated during the hours she spent at school. Overweight, be-speckled, and victim to an absurd amount of orthodontic work, Lucy was teased mercilessly. More often than not, she’d hear her hated moniker “Lucy Caboosey” follow her down the halls of elementary school. It wasn’t until the summer in between elementary and middle school that everything changed for her. Lucy went through a growth spurt and began shedding her weight, begged her parents for contacts, and replaced her braces with removable retainers. When she entered her new school she was an entirely different person who chose to go by her middle name instead of her first name - Quinn.

During the seventh grade, Quinn tried out for the cheerleading team and, to her own surprise, earned a spot on the squad. She enjoyed the popularity boost being on the team brought her and put all of her energy into earning the head cheerleader position, which she did halfway through the year through merit and some minor sabotage of her competition. It was through cheerleading that Quinn met Kyle, eight grader and quarterback to the football team. He asked her out on a date after the last game of the year and while she’d never really been sure if they had anything in common aside from football and cheer, Quinn absolutely adored the positive attention dating the soon to be high schooler and football star brought her. By the time Quinn entered high school herself, she’d already been appointed Queen B. Girls wanted to be her, guys wanted to date her, and Quinn loved every second of it. Despite knowing from first hand experience what it was like to be picked on and teased, Quinn wasn’t averse to doing it herself. Being mean and manipulative was expected of girls of her status, so she had to be that way in order to stay on top and eventually even began to enjoy it.

Despite being the golden girl of Allen High, Quinn’s life was far from perfect. Even though her parents were barely around, they still managed to place a lot of pressure on her - especially with her older sister doing so well in life. She was expected to achieve top grades at all times while maintaining her cheer schedule, being active in their church, and volunteering regularly. Not only did she have to be everything for her parents, she had to be the perfect girlfriend to Kyle. Any sign of trouble and the rumor mill would start, their popularity would slip, and another girl would try to swoop in. Perfection became her aim and at times it left her impatient and short-tempered with Kyle and friends alike.  But no matter how frustrated she got, Quinn wasn’t ready to let go of her popularity and when she was placed on Yale’s waiting list, she decided to take the full cheerleading scholarship to the University of Texas; a place where she planned to get her undergrad classes out of the way before hopefully transferring to Yale.

If she had thought that high school cheerleading was tough, it had nothing on collegiate cheerleading - but Quinn wasn’t one to back away from a challenge, and she was damn sure not going to let herself lose her scholarship. Nor did she plan to disappoint her parents. Not only did she dive into her studies, but she also made sure to volunteer when the school hosted their quarterly blood drives and even attended the worship services at the non-denomination House of Worship on campus. Of course, college also provided her with other opportunities - rushing for her mother’s sorority, dating and hooking up (as she and Kyle had split at graduation when it was apparent that Kyle wasn’t going to be much more than a high school football star), attending school parties… Even on top of her busy schedule, Quinn made sure to take part in the college experience, because she knows that when she transfers to Yale? She’s not going to fool around.

SECRET:

During the years when she was being bullied, the only thing that kept Quinn’s spirits up for a little bit turned out to be video games. Her father got her all the systems she wanted and she could spend hours playing them. While it slowed down during her high school years after getting popular, she would still play the newest games and eventually started streaming them online under the name BeautyQueenGames. She would wear a mask to hide her face in case anyone she knew found out, and it unintentionally took off and is still quite a big deal. She even goes to TwitchCon while wearing her iconic mask. She’s shocked that it’s been as big as it has, and she still sets time out of her week to stream anything from horror games to Animal Crossing. She’s nervous what people will do when they find out someone like her plays games. She likes her status as the popular one and doesn’t want to ruin that by adding something nerdy to the list.

CONNECTIONS:

Blaine Anderson: One of the things that Quinn has continued to do, to help pad her resume for when she eventually transfers to Yale is volunteer - and one of those places she volunteered at happened to be the quarterly blood drive. It was there that she met Blaine, someone that understood the importance of giving back to the community somehow, and after that first time volunteering together, they’ve exchanged numbers so that when they do go out and volunteer, they can do so together. Apart from that, the two haven’t really hung out much - both of them having busy schedules - but she can tell that Blaine is a good guy and she holds no ill will towards him.

Rachel Berry: It was during her freshman year that Quinn happened to run into Rachel Berry - or, more accurately, Rachel Berry ran up to her. It was in the communal bathroom of the dorm floor she was staying on, putting on makeup, when Rachel came up to her and simply stared. It had been creepy, at first, and then Rachel explained that Quinn was obviously pretty and undoubtedly wound up getting boys to pay attention to her - so she asked her what it was she did to get boys to pay attention to her. Once the general creepiness of someone approaching her in the bathroom and staring at her wore off, she felt flattered and even sympathized a little for the girl, so over the years, she’s acted as a sort of listening ear for Rachel. It’s not exactly something she can give a definitive answer for - but she does try and at the least, she can be Rachel’s shoulder to cry on.

Sam Evans: Going to church was one of the things that Quinn was adamant about not giving up now that she was out of her parents’ house. Her relationship to God is important to her, even if she can admit that she may not have been the type of person God would have wanted her to be at times, so finding the non-denomination house of worship on campus was a necessity. There had been a few faces she recognized, both from cheerleading and from her classes, but it wasn’t until her sophomore year that she saw the freshman phenom - Sam Evans - sitting in one of the pews that she decided to actually talk to someone that was there. And, of course, everyone had been abuzz about the new recruit - and she certainly heard enough from Finn’s griping and complaining - but she found him to be easy to talk to and they quickly developed a bond over their religion. Now they make it a habit of meeting up before going in for service and sometimes they’ll even get lunch together.

Finn Hudson: When she had first arrived on campus, Quinn had told herself that she wasn’t going to settle down with any guy - that she wanted to focus on her studies and her being in college - but then she met Finn. While Finn initially reminded her of Kyle, given his status as a football star, Finn was actually, surprisingly, sweeter and kinder. Sure, he may not have been the brightest guy that there was, but he was handsome and he was attentive to her - most guys didn’t listen to girls, but Finn did. And while she appreciated his devotion to her, Quinn wasn’t ready to make their relationship serious so they kept things casual - only to break up every couple of months when Finn would get a little territorial and possessive over seeing her flirt with other guys. Currently they’re on a ‘on’ patch in their casual relationship, but Quinn can tell that Finn wants to make things serious with her - and Quinn can’t help but feel a little guilty.

Mercedes Jones: As a member of the sorority that her mother had been a part of when she had attended the University of Texas, Quinn knew that she was going to wind up rooming with one of her sorority sisters - as there was only so much room in the house - and to be frank, Mercedes? She wasn’t what she expected. But it turned out a lot better than she had expected, really, as Mercedes is definitely the ideal roommate. Clean, quiet, friendly and someone that she could connect with spiritually, too. Their friendship is not one that Quinn would have had in high school, she knows, but this is college… and college is about growing and becoming a better person, right?

Noah Puckerman: As a cheerleader, Quinn tends to know all of the players on the Longhorns roster - especially when they’re best bros with the guy she dates off and on. While Puck definitely reminds her of the high school jocks, the ones that just cared about getting their dicks wet, she can admit that he’s quite fun. The two of them flirt with one another, knowing that it won’t come to anything more - especially when she’s dating Finn - but doing it for the fun of it. And besides, his compliments make her feel good, so there’s no need to feel guilty over another guy just calling her beautiful, right? Especially when she has more things to be guilty for.

Marley Rose: Fitness is an important thing to Quinn, especially considering the fact that the cheerleading coach is strict about the cheerleaders and their regimes, so the gym is a place she can be found at often. It was there that she ran into Marley, a girl that had asked her for tips on how to workout and what the best workouts were. Truthfully, Quinn never thought she’d train a girl, but Marley was sweet and kind enough - and it was clear it took her some strength to be able to get up the courage to talk to her, so she decided to help her out. Now the two of them tend to work out together, usually with Quinn still giving the younger girl tips, and while Quinn wouldn’t say they’re friends, she can’t say she hates having her in her life.

Sebastian Smythe: With football came boosters and Quinn found herself often attending booster parties with her parents whenever they came into town. It was by accompanying her mother and her father that she ran into Sebastian Smythe, a kid similar to her - one with parents that were rich boosters and alumni to the school - and the two wound up lingering in a corner while the older folks schmoozed for more money for the school. It was nice, really, having someone that understood the world she grew up in, and eventually the two realized that Quinn’s sister, Frannie, had married one of Sebastian’s cousins. It’s not something that bothers her, not too much, as she knows that Frannie is happy with her life as a trophy wife and soon-to-be stay-at-home mother… but that’s not the life Quinn wants for herself, despite what her parents may want.

[yepjugotdatright]

Chapter 5

“How could you do this to me?” Jisuk nearly yelled into her phone as she left the building on the university campus and walked to her motorbike. “What do you mean?” Jinah’s voice was a little tired. “You sent me to the fucking exam for the scholarship-program. You enrolled me into a university without telling me”. “Why are you complaining? This way you will have to pay like half of the surgery expenses…”. “Yeah, and can only earn half of the money I’ve earned before” Jisuk shot back and leaned against her bike. “There are some student associate jobs that pay you a lot more – stop worrying about money already. I mean, hello? Seoyun-stockholder speaking?” “Very funny – but I don’t want to use your money”. “Then go and sell your damn kidney!” Jinah said annoyed, “You go to Yonsei – Period!” “Then you go and find me one of these well-paid associates job!” Jisuk was about to hang up but moved the phone up to her mouth again just to bicker back: “Period!” She hit the red phone-button and put her mobile phone into her bag before mounting her bike to head home. It wasn’t even twenty minutes and Jisuk had her bike parked in the garage and walked inside the house. The shoes next to the door revealed everyone to be home and as she came into the living room she saw everyone sitting on the couch staring at a canvas put in front of the TV. Hyunshik stood next to it, proudly laying his hand on the top of the wooden frame as if he took a photo with his graduating son. “So, what do you think?” he asked the others who were still looking on trying to figure out what the painting portrayed. Jisuk walked through the living room and halted as she saw the artwork being left speechless. Kimiko was the first to speak: “I think it is very lovely”. “Lovely?” Hyunwoo snorted and raised his eyebrow, “I don’t think that’s the best word to describe this…” he tilted his head a little, “…this strong message!” “I don’t know what’s your problem – it is clear what the artist meant to portray” Kimiko shot back having everyone turn their back towards her. She coughed and continued: “The choice of color – the strong brush strokes between all the soft ones; it’s clearly about a young and passionate love”. “Woah~” they murmured admiringly. “I didn’t know you have an interest in art”, Hyunshik said feeling more than excited to finally have someone civlized in the house. Kimiko smiled shyly, “My mother is an art dealer… so she made sure I had some knowledge on how to appreciate paintings the right way”. Hyunshik nodded with a small melancholy look on his eyes and sighed, “Yeah, it seems that all art dealers are like that”. “That’s amazing! Why don’t you introduce your paintings to Kimiko’s mother? You might be able to set foot on the Japanese market” Aejin jumped up excitedly and laid her hands on Hyunshik’s shoulder while smiling widely at Kimiko. Kimiko was about o answer, however Hyunshik shook his head. “It’s okay the way it is” he gave his wife a genuinely happy smile and moved his arm around her waist. “Oho” Aejin chuckled, kissed him on the cheek and walked past Jisuk to the kitchen. Kimiko tried to smile; however, she looked awkward and stared at the painting. She knew the painting style – it was the same as the abstract hanging over the chimney in her living room in Japan. But there was no way she would tell Hyunshik that a painting of his was one of the most treasured belongings of her mother.

Jisuk walked up to her room and lay down on her bed. It was not long until her night shift delivering chicken would start, so she should get some rest. Actually it wouldn’t be that bad to start going to college. She would learn more about computer and stuff – which was more in her interest than working in the convenience store. But that would also mean cutting back a lot in her income. With three part time jobs she had a monthly allowance she could live with – after taking out the money for the rent, her aunt’s expenses and the columbarium fee for her uncle. Going to college she would have to at least resign from the convenience store – the one job with the most income. However, when the surgery on her aunt would be successful she wouldn’t have to pay for the Hyungwong Residence anymore – and she could have a proper job after graduating. But before that were at least three years she had to survive… without enough money and time. Her phone alarm went off two hours later and pulled Jisuk out of her dozing state. She washed up quickly, changed into the red polo-shirt with the logo of a chicken with burning eyes printed on her chest. Next was the incredibly ugly jacket – a loud red with the black lining showing at the collar and at the end of the sleeves. She looked at herself in the mirror. She wouldn’t mind giving up this uniform – red absolutely wasn’t her color. After tying her hair into somewhat a ponytail she walked down the stairs, slipped into her shoes and yelled her goodbyes before leaving through the front door.

  Almost a week had passed and Jisuk had continued her part-timing as usual – even almost forgetting that the whole college-business was even a topic. At some points she had even forgotten that the college was mainly the idea to finance her aunt’s surgery. But then she would see the pamphlet from Hyungwong and have a guilty conscience again. It was an up and down. So she returned from her café-waitressing on that Sunday late afternoon and lazily exchanged her fake Converses with a pair of slippers. The house was loud as always. She could hear Hyunwoo in the living room playing some game again and Aejin was busy in the kitchen preparing dinner for seven people. Jisuk walked to the kitchen and peeked inside. “I’m home!” she announced and Aejin turned her attention away from stirring the pot. “Oh, Jisuk! Your friend called – she’ll come over this evening after dinner”. Her voice didn’t sound that excited as she would normally do when guests came over. But that might be due to her disliking towards Jinah. Jinah was way too wild for Aejin’s taste and even though she did something worthwhile with her job Aejin couldn’t get around the impression she got from her in Daegu. “Alright – why didn’t she call me first?” Jisuk asked curious. “How would I know” she tried to sound indifferent and proceeded cooking the stew. Jisuk would have loved to hear the conversation between Jinah and Aejin; both very stubborn personalities and not afraid to utter their disliking for the other. “What are you making for dinner today?” Jisuk changed the topic and peeked over her shoulder. “Sundubu Jigae”, she said and offered Jisuk to taste it. Jisuk took the spoon and fished out a piece of tofu together with pork belly and little bit of the broth and ate it; “Mmh, delicious!”   “Don’t tell Hyunwoo though, he loves soft tofu stew…”. “Why? Is he going somewhere?” “He is going to his friend’s place today – probably watching today’s football game” Aejin offered Jisuk a tired smile. “First Hyunshik and Yunhee are going crazy because of the baseball game beginning in…” she looked at her watch “… about one hour. And then comes the youngest and whines why we don’t have Pay TV so he could watch this American Channel. Be glad you weren’t home today”. Jisuk nodded understanding, “Who’s playing today?” “I am not sure – I think the Baltimore Orioles against Arizona Diamond-something…” “The Diamondbacks?” It was more a rhetorical question. It would explain Yunhee and Hyunshik going crazy over the day. While Hyunshik was a huge advocate of the Arizona baseball team; Yunhee was a huge fan of the Orioles. “But how come an American Baseball game is broadcasted in normal TV?” Jisuk filched another spoon with the boiling stew and let it disappear quickly in her mouth. Upon Aejin’s reprimanding look she just grinned innocently. “There is this one Korean in one of the teams... the baseball idol of South Korea – that’s why” Aejin sighed and pushed Jisuk away from the pot before she would snack on the whole stew. “Ahhh – Yunhee’s Mister number 50” Jisuk grinned knowingly and left for the living room where she found Yunhee and Hyunshik in a heated discussion to which team was the better one. The smaller girl seemed totally prepared for the upcoming game with the well-known Doosan Bears tricot – a huge 50 covering the back. Jisuk walked just past them without bothering to greet them. They wouldn’t hear her anyways and she had no intention to join this discussion whatsoever. “Heyo, bro~” Jisuk sat down on the couch next to Hyunwoo who lazed about on the couch. He glanced at her shortly before continuing to hit the buttons on the controller in his hands and stared on the screen again. “What’s up?” “I heard you are going to stay out late tonight?” she raised an eyebrow at him. Hyunwoo nodded. “Are you sure it’s with a friend?” Jisuk wriggled her eyebrows thinking back how he had a crush on that class president girl. “Yep – with Linus… why?” “Ah, it’s nothing… I just thought that your sudden interest in football was a good excuse for you to date a girl without Aejin saying anything.” “I wouldn’t plan a date on a Sunday evening” he chuckled – which died out quickly and was replaced with a quiet: “Chaerin has a boyfriend anyways…”. “Oh” was all Jisuk could utter. “It’s better this way… looking at her boyfriend I could have never offered her the same”. “That’s bullshit – what does he have what you don’t have?” “A modeling contract with Codes Combine” he said without hesitating. Jisuk snorted, “So he is just handsome? Then Chaerin might not be the best for you… she is way too superficial”. “Don’t say that about her – she is not like that!” “If you say so…” Jisuk shrugged and leaned back to watch him play his video game. “Then is Linus your next love interest? Or why are you pretending to be interested in football?” Jisuk continued to grill him on that topic. He vehemently shook his head. “No, he is the new transfer student – the girls dig him so I thought becoming close with him would…” Jisuk’s hand met the back of his head. “What is that for?” he complained, “I died because of you!”. “Serves you right! You shouldn’t take advantage of people like that!” “Who are you? My mom?” “wHo ArE yOu? My mOm?” she parroted him and crossed her arms, “You either become friends with  him because he is an okay person or you don’t… with your lack of charms he wouldn’t be able to help you anyways” she stuck out her tongue at him. “Stop trying to play the moralizer – you kind of scare me” he shuddered. “Then don’t make me…” she was interrupted by the doorbell. “That must be him!” he jumped up from the couch and left Jisuk in midst her now harmless threat. Jisuk followed him curiously to the door where Aejin was already about to open it. A young boy with fawn  disheveled hair and a chic aura stood in the doorframe, “Oh my”, Aejin smiled at him and offered to come in. “Thank you” he bowed slightly and took a few steps inside casually waving at Hyunwoo. “I am Jung Linus, a friend of Hyunwoo” he introduced himself to Aejin and Jisuk. “What a nice name” Aejin clasped her hands together, “Are you a Korean American?” “Mom!” Hyunwoo complained impatiently – he wanted to just leave. Linus shook his head, “I am from Germany…” “Mom, do you smell that?” Hyunwoo asked fanning air towards his nostrils. Aejin let go of Linus and smelled the air – “Oh no! The dinner” she hurried into the kitchen. “Go quickly before she comes back!” Jisuk urged the two boys and waved them goodbye. Linus and Hyunwoo walked from the door to a beige scooter and Linus coolly threw a helmet towards his friend who caught it casually. “There is a slight change of plans” Linus began before starting the motor, “My parents decided to watch something else – we will be going to my sister’s place”. Hyunwoo shrugged – he didn’t really care. “Alright”.

Jisuk closed the door after seeing the back lights of the scooter disappearing on the street and returned to Aejin bringing the stew on the table. Hyunshik and Yunhee had postponed their discussions to some later time and set the table. “Where are Kimiko and Youngjae by the way?” “The last time I have seen Kimiko was when I left her reading in our room.” Yunhee shrugged. “She surely is still there – she had a huge chunk in her hands.” “Will you get her? Oh, and check if Youngjae is in his room”. Yunhee nodded and slowly went up the stairs. “What is he doing in his room all day long? He isn’t only playing games , is he?” Jisuk asked Aejin and Hyunshik who just shrugged, “You weren’t any better – if I remember correctly you were behind your computer screen all the time back in Daegu” Aejin replied dryly. “Yeah, but I didn’t just play games…” Jisuk murmured back and sat down on her usual seat. Yunhee came back with Youngjae and Kimiko following her. After everyone had eaten until their stomachs were about to burst they moved to the living room turning on the baseball game. It hadn’t started yet – there were some interviews with trainers and last but not least the interview with the star of the whole broadcasting – Kim Hyun Soo. “That’s your Mister number 50?” Jisuk asked a little disappointed - “I imagined him to be… a little bit more handsome”. Hyunshik laughed out loud. “You can say what you want – but that doesn’t change a thing. He is still part of the reason why I started playing baseball seriously!”. “Him? How is that?” “That is a very long story…” Yunhee smiled reminiscing about her middle school days, “The game is starting!” The door bell rang suddenly and Aejin looked at Jisuk and signed her to get the door. “Are we expecting someone?” Hyunshik put down his beer and looked at the young boarders. “My friend is coming by – don’t mind us” Jisuk got up from the couch and walked out of the room towards the front door already seeing Jinah’s silhouette behind the frosted glass of the door. “How you doin’?” Jisuk grinned at her best friend and let her in. “Work was hell today - everything was a mess and you know, kids aren’t very helpful when they want to play with you non-stop”, Jinah sighed and slipped out of her high heels making her tall appearance shrink  down up to Jisuk’s nose. “Yeah - I have the problem all the time” Jisuk rolled her eyes at Jinah as if she was stating the obvious. “However, the mailman brought something very pleasant”, she opened her handbag and fished out an envelope handing it over to Jisuk. While examining it she walked into dining room hearing the rest of the house cheering for the game. Aejin sat quietly at the side knitting and occasionally looking on the TV while Youngjae didn’t mind the game at all – he was too immersed in his phone. Kimiko walked past the two bowing slightly to the unknown woman and decided to go upstairs. “Good evening” Jinah bowed at them – everyone except Aejin gave her a polite greeting. “Who’s playing?” Jinah ignored Aejin and took a few steps towards them looking at the screen. “Ah, the Orioles are playing…” Jinah nodded and stood there for some time watching the game. Jisuk was way too occupied with the mail Jinah had handed her that she didn’t mind her friend. The insignia of Yonsei University was printed on the upper left corner with Jinah’s address in the lower right one. “It’s already opened…” Jisuk noticed and Jinah looked at her. “Duh, it’s my mail – of course I opened it”. “Why does my result gets send to you anyways?” Jisuk raised an eyebrow. “Hey, I was the one who registered you – so I have the right to be the first one to know”. Jisuk glanced at her friend one last time before she took out the letter and tossed the envelope aside. Without saying a word or even changing her expression in any way she read the letter and in the end looked into the glistening eyes of Jinah – who clasped her hands together. “Amazing – isn’t it?” “What is amazing?” the others sitting on the couch turned their attentions towards the two woman standing in the dining room. “Jisuk got accepted at Yonsei as a scholarship student!” Jinah squealed excited. Aejin was quick to jump on her feet and abandon her knitting-tools just so she could snatch the letter out of Jisuk’s hands. “Why didn’t you tell me you applied for college?” Aejin hit her shoulder – but didn’t even give her time to answer before pulling her into a tight embrace. “And on top of that: Yonsei! I am so proud of you!” Aejin’s excitement was way bigger than Jisuk who just shrugged it off – it was a pleasant feeling knowing she was cut out for one of the SKY-Universities in South Korea; but college had never been her goal so her happiness was limited. Hyunshik also joined them in celebration and left the game behind with Yunhee being the only one left actually watching it. “What made you suddenly change your mind?” Aejin asked remembering how Jisuk had always reacted annoyed every time she had tried to get her into college. And now she suddenly had a scholarship. “You didn’t tell them?” Jinah asked nudging Jisuk’s arm. Jisuk shook her head and smiled innocently –“There’s nothing to tell them… “ An awkward laugh left her mouth and Jinah huffed. “We’ll talk about that later”, Jinah whispered. “Of course, we will” Jisuk mumbled. Sudden yelling from the couch interrupted them and they saw Yunhee talking insistently with the TV ending with a dramatic drop on her knees. “Yaaas!” she victoriously put her hands up and Youngjae looked at her shocked from the back. “What is happening?” he laughed at the situation. “Homerun!” Yunhee imitated the batting and raised her hand to give the confused boy a high five. “Is that good?” he confirmed before letting their hands meet in the air. “You betcha!”   “No, no, no!” Hyunshik walked in front of the TV and tore his hair, “That can’t be!” “Who’s the better team now?” Yunhee sneered and crossed her arms satisfied. Hyunshik gave her a glare and sat down back on the couch again. “Okay – let’s forget about this for a moment!” Aejin grabbed the remote control and turned the TV off even though Yunhee and her husband were complaining. “Because we have something which a lot more worth celebrating for” Aejin pulled Jisuk to her side. “My only child who is going to college” she praised her. “What about Hyunwoo?” “I gave up hope long ago…” Aejin mumbled back. “Welcome in the club of Yonsei Students!” Yunhee said, pointing from her to Youngjae and then to the upper floor. Jisuk chuckled, “Yeah, sounds like a really cool club”. Jinah parked her car on the parking lot in front of the faculty of engineering and turned off the motor before looking expectant at her co-driver. “I am going to be honest with you – I am not very thrilled going in there” Jisuk said not even thinking about unbuckling herself yet. “You don’t have to be thrilled about a boring preparatory course… you just have to attend it”. “Ha ha” Jisuk replied dryly and removed the seatbelt. “It’s the best time to find some friends…” Jinah started but was interrupted by Jisuk: “Yeah, and we both know that I am very good in seizing this opportunity”. “Don’t worry about that, you are studying computer engineering as an average pretty girl – you won’t have any problems finding friends”, Jinah smirked mischievously. “Alright – I don’t think me being a girl would be an issue” Jisuk clarified making Jinah chuckle, “If you think so, just go in already – there are some people whose lunch break isn’t the whole day long” Jinah said impatiently. “You are your own boss… you can extend your break as much as you like” Jisuk opened the door, grabbed her bag laying in the leg room and got out of the car. “See you!” She shut the door again and walked up to the building with no motivation whatsoever. The room she had to go to was the same she had the surprise exam in and the docent giving this preparatory course was the one supervising the exam as well. As soon as Jisuk had opened the door she instantly knew what Jinah had meant with her being a girl would help her a lot – and that it was an issue. The room was filled with freshly graduated boys who one by one had sensed the other sex setting foot into the room and turned their head towards the door. Jisuk was a little overwhelmed – she wasn’t used to so many people giving her attention. They started murmuring and talking with each other while they occasionally but excitedly glanced at her. This definitely wasn’t helping in making the idea of going to college tempting for her. “Okay, everybody sit down!” the professor came into the  room – again wearing a knitted sweater. Jisuk hurried to the next empty seat in her reach and watched the professor writing his name on the blackboard. “I am Professor Ji Gongyoo. I am happy to see some familiar faces here” his gaze shifted over the crowd of students and Jisuk swore that he was also looking at her. “What I am going to tell you in this course might be nothing new to the majority here – but I’ll start with basic knowledge and vocabulary nonetheless. At the end of the week I’ll concentrate on organization of your schedule and the different study-portals we are working with” he summarized and Jisuk sighed leaning back. That sounded like a very exciting course. She noticed some of the students hurrying to get paper and a pen ready – rushing off to take notes of every word the professor said as if their life depended on it. Her neighbor however also leaned back relaxed and watched something on his mobile phone – giving the professor not even the slightest bit of attention. Not even ten minutes had passed and Jisuk was bored – so she curiously leaned her upper body to the side so she could look unnoticed on the phone of her neighbor. It was a foreign show, however, with Korean subtitles so Jisuk was able to follow even without the sound of the video. Totally immersed into the show she chuckled at the jokes and called her neighbor’s attention to herself. He raised his gaze to look at her through his thick black glasses with a dry expression. Jisuk noticed him looking at her and apologized quietly before turning her head towards the front again. “You want?” he reached out to offer her the other part of the earphones. Jisuk wasn’t sure if she should take it – she didn’t want to seem rude. But on the other hand, she saw no prominent reason why she should not to. “What’s your name?” he asked whispering. “Jisuk”, she replied putting the earphone in her ear and instantly heard the typical sitcom background laugh. “Nice to meet you, Jisuk. My name’s Bam Bam.” He reached out his hand for her to shake. “For real?” she took his hand staring at him unbelieving. There were no such parents cruel enough to give their own child such a name. “No, of course not. It’s just a nickname…” “You two seem to discuss a very important topic!” the professor suddenly called them out making them pull out the earphones quickly before he could notice them. “Mind to share it with us?” he inquired making everyone turn their heads towards Jisuk once again. The two slowly shook their heads. “Hm, didn’t think so. Then please postpone your conversation to after this course!” he said with a warning tone resonating with it. “So where was I? Oh, right – programming…” Jisuk blocked the professor out again and put the earphone back in exchanging an impish grin with BamBam. Maybe going to college wasn’t that boring as she had thought.