#can confirm this is exactly what it's like to teach games to your relatives

[where-our-stories-start]

[thedumpsterqueen]

Standards of Performance

Here it is!!!!! First chapter of my first fic on my new AO3! This is a multi-chapter, slow burn work. Please let me know what you think, I welcome screaming and incoherent asks about our fave special agent in my inbox. Full text under the cut, or you can find it through the AO3 link below.

AO3 link

Summary:  You're the BAU's newest intern, desperate to prove yourself amongst an established team of much more experienced profilers. Agent Hotchner, the seemingly infallible team leader, sets strict expectations for your performance. He commands your respect without even trying, but is there something more to your relationship than a simple desire to impress your stony-faced boss?

Chapter: 1, Coffee Stains and Neckties

Words: 2388

Rating: Explicit, 18+

Pairings: Hotch x Reader, Hotch x You

Warnings: Not much for this chapter specifically, but let’s just assume general gore and murder stuff, explicit language, and sexual content are fair game form here on out.

Enjoy! I’ll try to update weekly, if not more often. I’ll let you know when I have a more defined schedule!

“Fucking SHIT!”

You cursed as you felt the (very, very) hot coffee soak your new skirt. Grabbing as many paper towels as you could with one hand, you tried to sop up the mess on the floor. The stain on your outfit? A shame, but nothing compared to marring the assuredly expensive cream color of the BAU’s breakroom carpet.

A low chuckle sounded off behind you, and you froze.

For the love of god, please don’t be…

“Morgan! Please tell me you have carpet cleaner, oh my god. I don’t even know how that happened.”

Morgan grinned, as he typically did, sauntering into the breakroom with his hands in his pockets. “Don’t worry ‘bout it, the janitor's got it later. I was looking for you, team meeting in five. You all good? You look a little - ” he paused, probably searching for a descriptor that wouldn’t sting too bad, “ - rushed.”

You stood up, sighing. He was right, after all. You had stayed up late last night poring over psychology textbooks and only just woken up in time to leave your apartment. As the BAU’s newest profiling intern - whatever the hell that actually meant - the pressure of performing to seasoned profilers’ standards manifested in spending practically all your free time buried in research. Hence why your hair was coated in unbelievable amounts of dry shampoo, you were wearing your unflatteringly oversized glasses instead of your usual contacts, and why your frantic attempt at pouring yourself a cup of coffee when you got into work had resulted in the giant wet spot currently soaking your skirt.

At least the skirt was black.

“You’re right. Late night,” you said, rolling your eyes at Morgan’s suggestive eyebrow waggle.

“Not like that, I wish. Just trying to catch up. Don’t really want to repeat last week’s disaster,” you mumbled, referring to the first time you actually got to question a suspect, which had ended up with a wad of saliva hawked in your face. It was only your third week in the position, but damn, if that hadn’t let the wind out of your sails a bit.

“Hey, what did I tell you then?” Morgan asked, as you walked out of the breakroom together. “You’re not a true profiler until you get assaulted by a serial killer!”

“I’m not a true profiler until I finish the year long training program,” you pointed out, “so I think I could do without the spit in the meantime.”

Morgan laughed, opening the door of the team’s briefing room for you. “Well if we’d known you were gonna be so picky, we might have gone with someone else.”

“Who’s picky?” asked Emily, looking up from her seat.

While Morgan laughed and launched into a dramatic retelling of the event as if the entire team hadn’t already fucking seen it in real time, you took your seat at the table. Reid nodded in acknowledgment, and you returned it with a small smile. Damn if he wasn’t handsome, and ridiculously smart to boot, but you were pretty sure your chances with him withered and died when you asked him what he was doing after work last Friday and he answered with, “Reading.” Point taken.

Hotch swiveled in his chair to face the table and you suddenly became acutely aware of how much of a mess you probably looked. It’s not that you cared about his opinion regarding your general appearance beyond the basic standard of professional attire, but his always-intense gaze and stony expression had a way of making you second guess even your most confidently held opinions.

“Sit,” he said, his voice cutting through the rest of the team’s animated chatter.

It would have been hard not to notice how quickly they obliged, not out of fear, but rather a respect and deference so deeply ingrained that it almost gave you goosebumps. You’d never thought of yourself as a follower, per say, but if Hotch was what a leader looked like, you certainly didn’t fit into that category either.

He scanned the table, stopping on you. “New glasses?” he asked, with a single, slightly raised eyebrow.

“I, um, not really, just didn’t have time to put my contacts in,” you stammered.

“Hm,” Hotch said, “They look nice.”

Your cheeks suddenly felt hot, and you thanked him quickly, looking down at your shoes to conceal the pink that was probably spreading across your face. Hotch had a way of speaking that made everything he said sound like the absolute truth, which was probably why such an innocuous little compliment had disarmed you so much.

Still though, jesus christ. Get it the fuck together. You’re not Reid; you’re not smart enough to be this awkward.

Hotch, blessedly ignoring how painful you just made that interaction, addressed the team while JJ passed out files. “We have a new case. Three bodies, all found completely drained of blood in various woods, off hiking trails. Cause of death appears to be blood loss from severed carotid arteries, meaning they were likely strung up and drained before being moved to where they were discovered.”

Reid spoke up first. “Erm, what exactly do you mean by various woods?”

“That’s the unusual thing,” Hotch said, pulling up a map of the southwestern United States on the screen behind him. "Each body was found in a different state, one here, one here, and one here,” pointing to spots in California, Arizona, and Nevada. “However, local police discovered the bodies within hours of each other due to anonymous tip offs, and medical examiners estimate approximately the same time of death for all three.”

Morgan whistled lowly. “So what you’re saying is, this guy kills three victims around the same time and takes a road trip to hide their bodies in places he knows won't be discovered until he calls in.”

“That’s how it appears, yes,” Hotch confirmed.

Rossi shook his head, twirling a pen that probably cost more than your entire wardrobe. “So, how are we splitting this up?”

You whipped your head in his direction. Splitting up? Of course, you should have known it’d only make sense considering the ground to be covered, but your quick mental calculations told you that there were six of them, evenly split into three groups of two, and one odd man out, both in skill and number - you.

“So, who’s getting stuck with me?” you asked, trying to beat everyone to the punch. Not that any of them would voice it, but if you couldn’t project confidence, you figured self-awareness would do.

When you entered the internship as a recent college grad around a month ago, you knew you’d be in way over your head. Everyone else on the team was a seasoned expert, and you were a 20-something with a degree in psychology who somehow managed to charm her way through the interviews of the BAU’s flagship internship program. It’s not that you weren’t smart, you were, of course, but comparatively? You were pretty sure this was shaping up to be a glorified babysitting program, and you were the baby.

“Oh, hush,” JJ said, smiling and shaking her head. You smiled back. JJ had gone out of her way to make you feel welcome, which you were unspeakably grateful for. Between her and Morgan, you sometimes felt like maybe when this year was done, you could actually belong on this team.

Hotch interrupted your pity party. “Rossi, you’re with Reid in Phoenix. JJ and Emily, you’re going to Vegas. Morgan, you and I are going to San Diego.”

He turned to you. “You’re coming with me.”

Your stomach flipped at his words. You knew he had the most to teach you, and you could observe him coordinating the entire investigation from San Diego, but the idea of your performance being directly scrutinized by your boss in such a small group made you more nauseous than excited.

“Please be aware,” he continued, “Garcia is going to have to deal with three times the inquiries as normal. I recommend you only contact her if the information you’re searching for is genuinely too difficult to find yourself.” He gave Morgan a pointed look, to which Morgan raised his hands in mock surrender, grinning.

“We’ll drop teams off as we go,” Hotch said. “Wheels up in thirty.”

____________

As you settled into your seat on the plane, your mind spun, trying to review every piece of psychology knowledge you’d ever encountered. This wasn’t your first case, but it was the first one you got to travel for, which made it feel much more real.

The hours ticked by as the team reviewed the case. You contributed - not much, and nothing they wouldn’t have thought of without you - but it was something. Narcissist, craves attention and spotlight, physically confident enough to detain and murder three women at the same time. The method was throwing the team for a loop, however. Bleeding the victims out was clinical, relatively painless - uncharacteristic of the sexual injuries found on the corpses and the bravado with which the killer executed the rest of the crime.

When you, Hotch, and Morgan trudged off the plane in San Diego, you had been going at the potential profile for hours and even Morgan’s patience was wearing thin.

“Look, Hotch, let’s hold off on speculation until we see the crime scene in person, alright?”

Hotch nodded, and took that as a cue to head straight to the crime scene. You groaned internally - having barely showered this morning and spent half the day on a plane, your greasy hair and coffee-stained skirt would have greatly benefited from a stop at the hotel to freshen up.

It’s not like you have to look good to go stare at a patch of dirt where a dead body used to to be though, right?

____________

Turns out the aforementioned patch of dirt was actually a wooded grove off a hiking trail leading to a nude beach, much to Morgan’s delight. The site itself was uninteresting except for the way the body had been buried - covered up very securely, implying remorse, another characteristic that didn’t make sense with the initial profile.

This commonality between all three crime scenes was hotly debated on the video conference between the entire team when you got back to the hotel. Cross legged on the bed in Hotch’s hotel room, you listened to Reid and Rossi snipe back and forth on the laptop about what the burial method could mean for ten-plus minutes (“It’s clearly just a functional tool to properly hide the body, Reid.” “But you don’t know that, the significance of burial practices can tell us so much more beyond function, it can even tell us about his religious upbringing…”) before Hotch put a stop to it.

“What do you think?” Hotch asked you, turning and looking directly into your gaze. You were suddenly hyperware of the proximity between you two - sitting close enough on the edge of the bed that your thighs were almost touching. Morgan had abandoned his position on the other side of you to stretch out in the armchair by the window halfway through Rossi and Reid’s debate. Hotch’s eyes boring into yours from only a few feet away and the expectant silence of the other team members on the video call spiked your heart rate, and you took a deep breath, trying to calm yourself.

“I… agree with Dr. Reid. I think it means something. The position of the hands, they were crossed across the chest, right? He didn’t need to do that. I don’t know if it means he was remorseful, but it was on purpose. I think.”

Hotch nodded, not breaking eye contact. “Good. Let's move forward with that theory.” He turned back to the laptop. “Let me know how interviews with the loved ones go tomorrow. Let’s find the connection between the victims. Call me if you need anything.” After shutting the laptop, he turned to you and Morgan. “Let’s call it for tonight. Meet me in the lobby at 7 tomorrow.”

Having been excused, you and Morgan made your way to your hotel rooms next to Hotch’s. Morgan wished you goodnight, and you unlocked your door and practically sprinted into your shower.

After you got out, you looked around the room, towel drying your hair. It was nice, much nicer than anywhere you’d ever stayed. The abstract art on the walls and the modern, clean white lines of the furniture were lit by the soft glow of the sunset filtering through the sliding glass doors leading to the balcony overlooking the ocean. You poured yourself a glass of wine from the minibar (a reimbursable travel expense, right?) and stepped onto the balcony, breathing in the ocean air.

“Nice night, hm?”

You jumped, nearly spilling your drink down your front for the second time in less than 24 hours. Hotch was sitting in a chair on his balcony to the left of yours, reclining with his hands behind his head. Despite wearing nothing but your thin hotel robe, you felt the urge to avert your eyes from him. His suit jacket was shucked, tie undone and hanging around his neck, and the top two buttons of his white, collared shirt were unbuttoned. You felt like you were seeing something you shouldn’t have, like the cold stoniness of his exterior had shifted just slightly and allowed you a glimpse underneath.

It’s just a couple buttons, calm down. You’re the one who’s barely clothed in front of your fucking boss.

“It is. Shame we can’t go to the beach,” you replied, keeping your eyes forward.

Oh my god, three women were murdered and I just complained to my boss about not being able to go to the beach.

“You’re welcome to get up early and go tomorrow; might be a bit cold,” Hotch replied. You could tell from his voice he was smiling.

You mumbled in affirmation, continuing to avoid glancing in his direction. “Well, I just wanted to see the view, um, I’m gonna get to bed. Goodnight, Agent Hotchner!” You ducked back into your room, and you could have sworn you heard him chuckle before you slid the door shut.

After getting ready, beating yourself up mentally for your complete social incompetence, and tucking in under the plush, white duvet, you drifted off to sleep.

[fancytrinkets]

Necromancy (The Western Approach)

Note: This is just me trying to reconcile the game mechanics of necromancy with how necromancy is written about in the codices... Not sure if I get it right, but it’s an attempt. Also, this scene is written as Dorian/Inquisitor, but honestly when you take this piece out of context, if you really want to read this as pre-relationship Adoribull — or else as the start of Dorian/Inquisitor/Bull — you totally could and I would support you.

Shit.

The thought flashes through Trevelyan's mind at the exact moment he feels the nerves prickle across the palm of his hand. From the noise behind him — a sudden whoosh like the rushing of wind or water — he knows that a rift has just opened. He doesn't need to look to confirm it, but he does anyway, hoping against hope that he won't see demons yet. But of course there are.

"Shit!" he says, counting four wisps and an arcane horror.

"Not good," Bull says through gritted teeth as he takes stock of the change in their situation.

He's been holding his own against two Venatori warriors. Neither opponent can match his strength and skill. But it's two against one and they're both relying on the unfaltering strength of their barriers. Three spellbinder mages are keeping them shielded. They're also carpeting the ground underfoot with fire and ice glyphs — very dangerous if stepped on.

Trevelyan and Dorian have been dispelling everything — barriers, glyphs, and ambient hostile magic — as quickly as they can. All the while, they're casting and recasting barriers with frantic speed to keep their own party shielded. But it means they can't launch aggressive attacks of their own.

If they could take out even one of those spellbinders, they'd gain an immediate advantage. And Sera's been trying. She's targeting the mages and hoping for a lucky hit. But the spellbinders are all reinforcing each other, and her arrows glance harmlessly off each renewed barrier.

As soon as the rift opens, she spins, aims, and starts picking off wisps one by one.

"Look out!" she says.

Trevelyan turns just in time to see the arcane horror cast its spell. Spurred on by a rush of nerves, he jumps aside as a green burst of deadly energy spirals past him. It hits one of the Venatori warriors to devastating effect. The remnants of a barrier spell burn away to nothing. Thick plate armor is sundered and the warrior staggers, struggles to remain standing, and then collapses.

"Maker," Trevelyan says, breathing the word with effort and relief.

That could easily have been him lying dead in the sand. No question about it, that arcane horror needs to be dealt with — and since its weakness is the spirit magic he wields with his spectral blade, he's their best chance at stopping it quickly.

Though I wouldn't mind if it takes down another couple of Venatori first.

It's a passing thought, nothing more than a flash of grim humor to ease the reality of death on the battlefield. But then, with sudden clarity, he knows exactly what they have to do. He snaps his fingers at Dorian, catching his attention, then points to the arcane horror.

"Spirit mark," he says.

A flash of recognition crosses Dorian's face, and without a word, he casts behind them. His magic hits the arcane horror, marking it to entice the lesser spirits when it falls.

"Yours now!" he calls out, because what's next is to kill this thing, and he, too, knows that Trevelyan can do it better than anyone.

And so Trevelyan takes a breath, casts his Fade cloak, and then charges towards it unseen. He reemerges into the world with a burst of damaging energy. It stuns his enemy for a second and allows him to follow up with four swift hits from his spectral blade. He's grown more powerful thanks to frequent practice, and the arcane horror doesn't stand a chance. The demon falls, destroyed, and immediately rises up again, lit by the purple glow of necromancy. Guided by Dorian's magic, it sets to work targeting one Venatori after another.

When it's all over — when their enemies lie dead and the rift is sealed — Dorian jogs over to talk to Trevelyan. He's grinning with pure delight.

"Excellent thinking! I'm impressed," he says. "Most people don't know it's possible."

"What do you mean?" Trevelyan asks, because he's not really sure what Dorian's on about.

"Ah," Dorian says, launching straight into explanatory mode, "yes, well, as everyone knows, a lesser spirit isn't typically strong enough take on the powers of an arcane horror once you've vanquished the original pride spirit possessing the mage's corpse. But, if you've got an extremely masterful necromancer like me around..."

His voice trails off, and his expression changes from jubilant to concerned.

"Oh, I see," he says. "You didn't even realize, did you?"

"Probably not?" Trevelyan's not still quite not sure what he's missing.

Dorian chuckles, though he doesn't seem amused.

"I turned an arcane horror for you. That's impressive magic. Not just anyone can do it. And you didn't even know enough about necromancy to realize that."

Trevelyan winces.

"No, I guess not."

The Circle didn't teach him about necromancy at all. As a topic, it wasn't banned; it was simply omitted. Everything he understands about it now is from Dorian having explained it to him. And for the first time, Trevelyan realizes how frustrating and lonesome that must be. Dorian is a researcher, a true intellectual with interests spanning several fields of advanced theoretical magic. He deserves to have a community of scholars around him. But all he has here is basic battlemagic and frequent treks through the wilderness.

"Well, never mind, it all worked out," Dorian says.

He looks around, spots a flat rock nearby, and sits down to unlace his boots and pour the sand out of them. It's obvious he's annoyed.

"What am I even saying?" he asks. "Of course it worked out. You're the luckiest bastard I've ever met. Everything works out for you."

Trevelyan sighs, still feeling sheepish in his ignorance, and digs in his pocket for the hair tie he borrowed from Varric earlier. The wind is picking up, and even with the relative protection of a hooded cloak, his hair keeps blowing across his face. It's been bothersome.

He's busy tying it back when the Iron Bull saunters over. The edge of his axe is still bloody — from striking down the last Venatori once Dorian's spell ended and the arcane horror fell.

"You should put that cowl back on or you'll get sunburned," he says.

Bull is strangely doting sometimes, like a giant mother hen. Trevelyan grins, glad to be distracted from his thoughts.

"I'll be fine for a while without it. I'm no Qunari, but I won't burn in two minutes like that one."

He points towards Sera, who's busy checking the corpses for coins and amulets. Her face is a painful-looking shade of bright pink despite the hood she's been wearing all morning.

"Hey," Bull says, "I'm just looking out for you. Humans are delicate."

"Delicate!?" Dorian stops relacing his boots to glare up at him.

Bull's immediate reply is gleeful laughter. Dorian's indignation was obviously the reaction he was hoping for.

"Not you, big guy," Bull says, reassuring him. "I meant all the others except for you."

"Oh, for Maker's sake!" Dorian rolls his eyes. "You don't need to patronize me."

Bull turns back towards Trevelyan. "I can see why you like this guy. It's fun getting him all riled up."

Dorian rolls his eyes again and sets to work tying and buckling his boots, now free from sand. But he seems more at ease somehow, and less annoyed.

Trevelyan tilts his head, curious and assessing. He's starting to suspect that Bull came over here with the explicit purpose of cutting through the tension. It happens from time to time: Dorian gets his feathers ruffled; Trevelyan falls quiet and serious for a while. They always work it out before long. Under normal circumstances, it's not a big a deal. But threats are everywhere out here and they can't afford to let even minor conflicts fester. As an extremely perceptive former spy, Bull would know this.

"You're in a better mood than I expected," Trevelyan says.

"Yeah," Bull says, "but not really, though. Demons, Vints, bunch of creepy magic shit. It's not my favorite. Hence all the joking around. A man's got to cheer himself up somehow."

"True enough," Trevelyan says, and then he looks up to scan the horizon.

From somewhere in the distance comes the blood-chilling roar of a dragon.

[fayeimara]

Meant To Be || One For Every Billion

6. By My Side | Pt 5

It takes you just a moment to understand his last message but you're already looking up as the dots are being connected and there he is, walking towards you with a real smirk on his real face.

So when he reaches you, you immediately say, "Definitely cute." and watch his mouth drop as he blushes.

Pretty boy didn't think you'd say it, did he? People should really know better than to dare you.

Although he gathers his composure pretty fast, responding after a beat, "Not cuter than you."

You laugh and shake your head, finishing the rest of your drink before standing, "Do you want anything?"

"I'm good, I just had a milkshake from the snack bar on the corner."

He moves to let you pass by him, following your lead as you move to exit the lounge and comment, "That's how you got here so fast. Where are the others?"

"Decided to do their own things, I guess. I think Maki was tired. I don't know what Iwa-chan and Mattsun are up to."

"Uh huh." You had a pretty good idea. They're probably busy being some of the best wingmen ever. That or Toru just ditched his friends, but you don't think he'd really ever do that.

But he'd also be complaining a little more that they ditched him if he didn't have some sort of idea so... you don't know what to think. Which is becoming a constant issue in his presence but it doesn't feel bad or scary.

At this point, you're not going to question it. If everyone is okay and happy, then you're going to focus on the now. Toru is really good at bringing that out in you, you realize as you come to a stop in the warm night air.

Turning to face him with a smile, you ask, "So, then, any requests from the birthday boy?"

His eyes light up with excitement and he responds, "Yes, but it's a surprise!"

"Okay, but.. shouldn't I be surprising you?" You question as he starts to lead you away from the lounge entrance.

"You already did! Now I know we have all night to enjoy the rest of the park."

"Or at least until it closes in a couple hours."

"Then we can gather anyone who's still up and have a party in my room!"

"Yeah, that's real ambitious. We'll see on that but- what's first?"

He stops briefly when he sees a cotton candy stall and answers in his sing-song manner, "First, something sweet for my angel."

Oh he's so cute. Seriously. But you let him buy it for you before prompting, "And now?"

"And now," he looks over at you with a satisfied smile, "we enjoy a ride down a river in a boat." He reveals, just as the two of you reach the entrance to the small, peaceful dock.

"Don't they close the river rides after dark?"

"In ten minutes, actually. So we should hurry because it'll drop us off to our next destination."

You look at him in surprise as you both join the relatively short line. Did he have this planned for before, when he thought you were going to leave? It's a little bittersweet because that's really thoughtful but, it also makes you sad to realize that would mean that maybe he thought the two of you wouldn't see each other again until the next time you visited. It also made you question... Were you unintentionally pushing him away when you visited?

Or you're just overthinking as per usual and he just puts this much effort into it every time he's spending time with a girl he might like. Right.

The two of you reach the front of the line in just a couple minutes and listen to the instructions from the staff member who tries to hand you down into the automated boat. You say 'try' because Toru's hand cuts in between and he helps you instead, giving the guy a pretty condescending smile. He's not even threatened, just.. acting like there was no other possibility because, well, it's not even a contest. You can't lie, you like it.

You settle down and he gets in after you, pretty steady himself as he elegantly plops down into the seat next to you, his arms stretching forward for a brief moment before leaning back into the seat, shifting his legs forward, and placing his hands in his jacket pockets. And whatever he just did there.. that's pretty hot too.

As your boat moves away from the dock, you're struck by the romantic atmosphere of the ride. The quiet melody of the water you're gliding through, the trees dotting the sides of the river that sway with a breeze every so often, their branches reaching towards the water like the leaves are looking for a cool, gentle place to lay. You and Toru, under the stars that are peeking slightly out of the sky, like shy observers to your secret little adventure.

He isn't saying anything either, studying the environment and in his own thoughts you suppose, but you don't mind the silence. You do, however, offer him the cotton candy, tilting the base of the cone you're holding so it's angled towards him. He pulls a hand free from his pocket to reach out and grab a tuft of the cloud-like candy before popping it in his mouth with a smile.

"Do you think about where you want to be in the future?" He's looking up at the sky, head tilted back against the seat, when you look over at his question.

You bite your lip, considering what he's asking. You think way too much about it sometimes, you suppose. "How far in the future?"

He looks over at you in surprise, like he expected a quick answer instead of your clarifying question. Now it's his turn to think. "I guess in a few years, after graduating. What do you want to do?"

"What I want to do is probably very different from where I might be, I think."

"How so?"

You're both looking at each other, lost in another bubble together, so you try to be as honest to yourself as you want to be with him, "In an ideal world, I would either write or play volleyball. Realistically, I'll end up tied to... my family business more than I'd like. Which means I likely won't have the time or energy left to do the things I love."

His eyes are wide, you think he's realized he just turned a mountain, not a rock. Maybe even you wouldn't know what to say in response to someone who just said what you did. But then he surprises you yet again, "If you know what you want to do, what stops you from making sure that's where you end up instead, no matter what?"

"You know," you smile at him softly, "That's exactly the battle I'm currently fighting. So we'll see how it turns out, I guess."

"So," his voice turns teasing, "will you pick writing or volleyball, when you win?"

"Probably writing," you answer with a laugh, releasing the weight that just took a break on your shoulders.

"Why?"

"You love volleyball, right? So much that you can't see yourself doing anything but that for the rest of your life?"

He sends another shocked, wide-eyed look your way but you're surprised he doesn't realize how clear that is to read on him, how easily you figured it out really early in the course of your correspondence this past year. You tuck that away for another day and continue your answer to his question.

"I love both like that and, the way I see it, I'm lucky to be able to love more than one thing at a time. And because I do, they'll both always have a place in the future I want. So it's not really that I'm making a choice between one or the other, I'd be incapable of that. Volleyball will always be in my life, even if it isn't the same way it is now. It's just that I'll pursue writing as my vocation while continuing to enjoy volleyball however I can."

"So you won't go pro." He doesn't state it as a question but it sounds like there's still one in there somewhere.

"I don't think so. That's... a little more complicated."

He shifts to turn more towards you, pulling another piece of the cotton candy you're holding between the two of you and encouraging, "I've seen your videos, Y/n. You're as much, if not more, talented than either of your cousins."

You laugh again, "Aren't you a little biased, Oikawa?"

"Sure, but I'm still telling you the truth as I see it. You've already filled the gaps they lack as players, you almost seem to have none. You're part of the powerhouse teams in your region, even country. And you can only improve from there."

"Yeah. But it's not talent or skill or even anything about volleyball itself that makes me so sure about its role in my life."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"I promise, I will another day. But I know it'll be a long discussion and I want to hear your answer."

"My answer?"

"Where you want to be after you graduate."

"Don't you already know?" His lips pull up into a confident smile, "Because you said it, Y/n-chan. I can't see myself doing anything but playing volleyball for my future."

"No matter how you get there?"

"No matter how I get there." He confirms, watching you with a tilt to his head, "But I will get there."

"Of that, I have no doubt. I've seen you play, too."

And like that, his smile twists into a satisfied smirk, "Just on video, huh? You still have to come to one of my games in person, though."

"Oh, I do, do I?" You're grinning as the two of you fall back into lighthearted teasing.

"Of course. I think there's still a thing or two I could teach you."

"I'm sure. Without a doubt."

By the time the boat reaches the end of its line, the cotton candy is completely gone, much like any space between you both. The two of you are just short of leaning into each other, your sides already pretty much pressed against each other for most of the fifteen minute ride, as you and Toru talked and joked about various things with only the blinking stars and swaying trees as your witnesses.

You take a deep breath in as your boat approaches the dock, starting to pull away from him slightly, but you also catch the now-familiar scent of some product Toru uses and it smells divine. It's the sort of scent that makes you want to lean into his chest or neck and just relax while he holds you.

Oh my god. You need to slap yourself. That was pathetic, right? And after just one romantic boat ride, holy shit. You still have another hour and a half to go unless you completely bail on him. And for what? Because you caught yourself slipping? Again?

Ugh. No. You're here to be a good friend. And okay, take it slow and see what else could be between the both of you. But that shit wasn't slow.

You've pulled away, physically and metaphorically, by the time your boat docks but you still accept his hand as he helps you off, blocking the attendant yet again. He doesn't pull away though and neither do you, so you're still holding hands as you and Toru walk to your next destination.

Just taking it slow. Right... Shit.

Turns out your next destination is the carousel. You two keep switching horses, messing around until you're politely removed. After which you hit up some of the rides like the one that spins really fast so that you're pressed back against the reclined wall, or the one where you sit in a claw that swings you up, down, around, etc.

Following that, it's mini coasters and then upgraded back to some of your favourite thrill coasters from earlier in the day. You tell him it's a completely different experience at night. After the first one, he agrees. So you two hit up four more.

By the time the two of you get off the last one, teasing and laughing about who was screaming louder (it was him, obviously), you only have a little over twenty minutes left before the park closes. So your hand finds Toru's, your fingers lacing together with ease and electric familiarity by now, and you pull him along in order to run back to the hotel through the remaining crowd.

"Why are we going back?" He's barely even out of breath as he easily catches up to race beside you, but you guess neither are you. Thank you, conditioning.

"It's a surprise!"

The concierge barely startles when he sees two teens just run through, raising his hand to call out before lowering it in defeat. You're already gone anyways. You reach the elevator bay and hit the button for your floor, thankfully the door to the middle one opens immediately with a smooth tone. When the two of you get in for the ride up to the top floor, the pace steadies and you're just looking at each other while you each catch your breath, then you burst out laughing again.

"Okay so you're still not going to tell me?" There's a little bit of mock attitude in his tone but it's washed away by his genuine smile.

"Just wait."

The elevator dings as it reaches your floor and you're pulling him out with the doors barely open. The two of you reach your room and you swipe the card over the lock, opening the door, pulling you both through and closing it in swift motions before letting go of his hand and running to the balcony.

"Come on!"

You look back to encourage him forward as you open the double doors and he strolls up to your side before you both step out together. Just as you reach the rail, faint music starts to drift up from the park's speakers, getting louder and louder until you can hear its strains clearly, playing the orchestral melody that indicates the park will be closing in fifteen minutes.

It's what you can see only from up here that you wanted to show him. Because with the music that plays, there are lights quite literally at every inch of the park that turn on in an incredible show.

Many people gather on the streets or at particular locations for the ground level view. But those are always crowded and honestly a pretty limited view of the show's true scale. It's the guests who have park facing rooms and know to stop for the view from their balconies at this time that experience the true and complete nature of the stunning spectacle.

"Wow." He barely says it, it's more like a word he releases with his breath, but you're so happy knowing you were right.

This is the perfect ending to an incredibly special day that deserves no less. You and Toru stand there, side by side for the full fifteen minutes, still under the carpet of stars that seem a little closer from up here. The two of you hold hands, arms and sides pressed against each other as you both lean on the balustrade and listen to the crescendos and decrescendos, glancing at each other with smiles and the occasional comment. Sometimes pointing to a corner or edge of the park laid out beneath you to pull the other's attention with a tug on your linked hands.

And when the music starts its final rise only to move into its final descent, you look instead at Toru and find him looking back at you. With your hands still linked, you lean into him further to place a soft kiss on his cheek, mirroring the one from a year ago, this on his other side. Then you lean back to look at his flustered but happy face with a soft smile and add your wish for him to your blessing-

"Happy Birthday, Toru."

Prev | Next

Masterlist

Behind The Scenes!

-ngl but that moment when Toru takes a seat in the boat was fully inspired by my memory of him at the Karasuno vs Shiratorizawa match, just after Iwa hops over the seat like wow, but then the way Oikawa stretches out from his previous position... just more wow. Sorry, I can't explain it. I love that scene (and the others with those two that follow) and I don't know if I'm the only one it stuck with like this...

A/N: Okay...time for the vent... I will be the first to say that I love Kuroo and Suna primarily, and both the Miyas are a close second.. but I DO NOT KNOW HOW OIKAWA KEEPS PULLING THIS ON ME like... this whole episode really got away from me again. I mean, I did like Oikawa as a close second to Kuroo (who's been my steady the whole time, js, it's unwavering) for a LONG time before being intro'd to Inarizaki but... then Suna just came in and turned my head until I was like.. Oikawa, who? But maybe this just goes deep, so I didn't know he was always still in there. He IS incredibly lovable after all, you can't change my mind about that, and I really respect him as a complex character and okay, yeah, I honestly can't remember who was my first between him and Kuroo at this point because I was simping for them both before I really even remembered their names (and was trying to avoid being teased by my bf for rewatching scenes with them since he had to bribe me to watch the show in the first place). Anyways, I don't know what I'm saying anymore since I desperately need to go to sleep, maybe for a whole day, so I hope you guys like this one! Because.. just, yeah. Toru <3 I guess

Taglist: @delusivist, @prettyinblack231, @kac-chowsballs, @sakusasimpbot, @hawkthekinnie, @poppi144

[fairytales-of-yesterday]

A Pirate, Two Hundred Years Too Late

Pairing: Gardner Langway x reader

Word Count: 4.2k

Warnings: idk it’s really soft, if you’re rowan you’ll probably cry, there’s like.. one? swear word? and references to sex

A/N: Happy birthday, Rowan!!! You’re the love of my life, and I’m the luckiest girl in the world to have a best friend and soulmate like you :’) 

The title is from a Jimmy Buffett song (A Pirate Looks at Forty), I know it’s super long. I’m just really soft and I love Rowan that’s all, here we go, lads.

•

     You awoke to the sound of silence. Something you definitely weren’t used to anymore. Soft morning light peeked through your curtains as you yawned quietly. Stretching, you rubbed your eyes and looked out the window and squinted at the dim sky, realizing it was still extremely early.

     Much too early to be awake.

     If the sun wasn’t even up yet, why on earth should you be? You squeezed your eyes shut once more, trying to hold on to those last few moments of sleep, and rolled over to cuddle up with your husband. At least, you tried to.

     Your brow furrowed, eyes still shut, as you tentatively stuck your arm out and felt around the other side of the bed, as if Gardner was somehow hiding under the sheets. Whining quietly, you gave up and opened your eyes. Sure enough, you were alone. 

     With a small frown, you rolled over again to glance at the clock.

     Five thirty. Christ, what could he be up to?

     You moved onto your back, staring at the ceiling and letting yourself wake up. It was when you finally sat up that you realized you knew exactly where he was.

     Throwing your covers off, you yawned once more and clambered out of bed. You stood for a moment, eyes closed, just listening to the sound of a quiet house. Your kids had been visiting your parents the past few days for a summer visit, and while you were very happy to have a little time to rest, you still found yourself missing them. It had been so long since the house was quiet, empty. You missed their hugs, the way they’d snuggle up next to you on the couch, and even their shrieks as they played pretend in the backyard. Penny, your five-year-old, had a tendency to rope Ben, who was three, into countless make-believe games that left them both in hysterics. They climbed all over Gardner like he was their personal jungle gym, and you were often roped into a piggyback ride as well. Still, as much as you loved the peace, you certainly loved them more.

     You couldn’t complain about the alone time you were getting with Gardner though. You loved your quiet morning cuddles, not worrying about figuring out lunch for everyone, and being able to make as much noise as you wanted whenever you wanted (he always did have a hard time keeping quiet). 

     You played with the hem of your shirt (well, Gardner’s shirt, but that was beside the point), as you made your way into the bathroom, and smiled at your tired reflection. Your hair stuck up in every direction, reminding you of your time with Gardner last night, and you waggled your eyebrows at yourself playfully. You did your best to tame your mane before finishing getting ready for the day. After slipping on some shorts, you headed downstairs. 

     You made your way to the kitchen, grabbing a peach from the fridge and going to wash it. As you ran the fruit under the cool water, you felt a slight pressure against your leg and looked down to find your cat, Tybalt, purring at your feet. You smiled down at him and greeted him sweetly, receiving a happy “mrrap!” in return. He weaved between your legs a few times, his usual morning greeting, and then hopped up on the counter to watch you cut up your breakfast. 

     As you placed the peach slices in a bowl and subsequently gently pushed Tybalt’s face away from them, you looked out the window above the sink and your suspicions were confirmed. Out in the backyard stood your husband and his brother. They’d been at this for days, and while they’d done a fantastic job, you definitely thought five thirty was a bit much. 

     Still, you had to smile. Sure, the man never ceased to amaze you, but his devotion to his children was no surprise at all. 

     You stepped out the back door, breakfast in hand, and breathed in the morning air. The sun was fully up now, the only trace of the sunrise the pink smudges in the clouds. You popped a slice of peach into your mouth as you watched your husband fondly. 

     Before you stood a pirate ship. Or at least, a large model of one. You and Gardner had wanted to do this for a while now, you certainly had the backyard for it, but you’d been putting it off. You’d known it was going to be difficult, and you had no idea what the kids would want. You had considered asking them directly, but you could never find the right time. That is, until last week when you were looking online for some new Fourth of July decorations. Somehow, the two of you got very sidetracked, and wound up looking at playsets. You hadn’t planned on actually buying one until you saw Gardner’s face as he pointed to the pirate ship. 

     Their own boat!!! Like our family one but just for them!!! 

     You had laughed at his excitement, but his words struck a chord. His boat was his home for so long. Penny and Ben knew that, and they loved going out on the river with their dad, playing pirates and helping him navigate, so you could only imagine how ecstatic they’d be to have one for themselves. You just knew you had to.

     It wasn’t an easy task. Gardner and Calvin had spent the past four days working on it. They’d just gotten all the materials and a complicated set of instructions in the mail, so it was basically built from scratch. Also, it wasn’t his fault, but your husband wasn’t too skilled in the DIY department (putting together the ikea furniture for your first apartment with him was a nightmare), so the first day or so was spent teaching him how to use a power drill. However, after you made it over that hurdle, it was relatively smooth sailing. 

     You looked on now with a grin as Gardner and Calvin painted their prized creation. The red paint shone bright in the morning sun, and it looked truly gorgeous. Royal and fierce at the same time. The perfect pirate ship.

     “A bit early isn’t it?” 

     The boys looked up at your shout, Gardner almost dropping his paintbrush in surprise, and you waved. Both waved back, and you began making your way over with a smile. Gardner tossed his brush in the bucket on the patio table he’d dragged to the “construction site” as you walked over, wiping his hands on his pants to get some of the paint off.

     You greeted him with a sweet kiss when you reached him, murmuring a good morning against his lips and asking how he was.

     He broke the kiss and licked his lips, grinning.

     “Mm, peachy.”

     You laughed loudly at that, swatting his chest before offering him a slice that he gladly accepted. 

     You set your bowl down on the table and snaked your arms around him. He grinned and pulled you closer as you squeezed him tight, having missed your regular morning cuddle. He tucked his face into your neck, breathing you in. You stayed like that for a few minutes, just enjoying being together, but eventually your hands began traveling south and slipped into the back pockets of his paint splattered overalls. Gardner chuckled softly as he realized what was going on but still yelped as you gave him a good squeeze.

     “Mm… you are quite peachy, aren’t you?”

     He giggled breathily at that, but you could hear the blush adorning his face. He nestled further into your shoulder, hiding his pink cheeks, and you shook with a laugh.

     “You better watch those hands,” he mumbled against your skin, “I’m a married man, you know.”

     “At least I know you’re faithful.” 

     You playfully pulled his hair as you said it, and he pulled back to give you a look that said ‘don’t start something you can’t finish.’ You were about to suggest you go inside and continue when a head peeked over the side of the boat.

     You and gardner immediately sprung apart like kids caught getting a bit too handsy, giggling sheepishly. Calvin shook his head with a smile.

     “So did you come out here to distract my brother, or are you gonna help us paint?”

     You laughed, still bright red, and shrugged.

     “I can multitask.” 

     Gardner fondly rolled his eyes as you donned an apron and picked up a paintbrush. You gave him a quick peck on the cheek, making Calvin scoff good naturedly and retreat back to the upper deck. You opened your mouth to ask if you should paint anywhere specific when Calvin shouted from above.

     “You’ve been married for like a decade now and you still act like teenagers!”

     Gardner’s head fell into his hands, embarrassed, as yours fell back in a loud laugh.

     “We didn’t meet until we were in our twenties! We’re just making up for lost time!”

     You heard a yeah, yeah from above and stifled a giggle before pulling Gardner close with a smirk, knowing Calvin couldn’t see.

     “And it’s not my fault you’re so damn delicious,” you whispered, capturing his lips once more. He whined quietly, both out of desperation and out of protest, not wanting to be caught again. Before he could say anything though, you pulled away and smiled brightly. “So where do you want me, sweet boy?”

     You saw a flash in Gardner’s eyes at the implications behind your words, but he quickly regained his composure with an exasperated grin and directed you to an unpainted section. He explained which brushes to use and how many coats to put on with his perfect little focused frown that made your heart do somersaults.

     “The painting is basically all we have left,” he phrased it as a question, like he was just hoping he was correct. “We’ll definitely finish by the time the kids get home tomorrow.” Ever punctual, your husband. And you had to admit, it drove you wild.

     “Aye aye, Cap’n,” you saluted jokingly before getting to work.

•

     The time passed quickly, the three of you making fantastic progress together. By the time lunch rolled around, you were nearly finished. All you had left to do was finish painting the upper deck and then decorate the inside. After a quick break for sandwiches and a few drinks, you set back to work, determined to finish.

     The detail work of the cabin took a lot longer than the painting of the hull, as it called for more precision. You knew that it would be easy to paint it all one color, like the outside, but you just couldn’t. It had to be perfect. Once you were satisfied, the three of you called it a night. All that was left was putting in some chairs and cushions along with some knickknacks once the paint had dried. Calvin stayed for dinner as well, insisting he had to help you finish the playhouse.

     “You two can’t take ALL the credit! I’m the one who had to teach Gardner how to use a drill! Plus, I need all the ‘Cool Uncle Points’ I can get!”

     Gardner choked on his takeout at that exclamation and stared at his brother, genuinely dumbfounded.

     “Cal, you know they think you’re the coolest guy in the world, right? They love you!”

     You watched happily as a blush spread across Calvin’s face at your husband’s words. He tried to play it cool, but no one could deny the fact that he was glowing.

     “Ohhh…” he smiled softly to himself, waving off the compliment slightly, “you know what I mean. Anyone can be the coolest guy in the world. I’m gonna be the coolest uncle.”

     He paused briefly as you laughed, endeared, and his smile widened before he added softly,

     “And I love them too.”

     After the three of you finished your meals, you checked on the playhouse. You’d planned on getting it all done tonight, but the paint hadn’t fully dried everywhere, so you decided to wait and “furnish” the ship tomorrow morning before your parents brought the kids home. Calvin made you promise to call him over help, to which you readily agreed, and he headed home. 

     You leaned back against your husband as you watched Calvin’s car pull out of your driveway and he instinctively wrapped his arms around you, giving you a gentle squeeze.

     “Feeling okay, honey?”

     You smiled softly, trying not to let your favorite term of endearment affect you too much, and nodded. Turning around in his arms, you hugged him properly.

     “Mm, just tired,” you hummed, leaning up to press a sweet kiss to his lips. “And paint-stained.”

     He chuckled softly at that and pulled you closer again, tucking his face into your neck.

     “Yeah, I could definitely go for a nice shower.”

     A sly smile spread across your face.

     “Oh me too… but I don’t know… our water bill was a bit high last month,” you said with a fake frown, “maybe it would be smart to… y‘know, conserve. Shower together.”

     You pulled away to get a good look at the blush you knew had blossomed over your husband’s face, but the second you made eye contact, you both burst out laughing. Though you were nearly doubled over, you couldn’t help but marvel at the way his eyes crinkled at the edges and the way his perfect nose scrunched up in his joy, still awestruck by your love after all these years. You raised up on your tiptoes to press a giggly peck to his nose before quirking an eyebrow as if to say well?

     He turned a deeper shade of red, somehow only now realizing that you were completely serious, but nodded quickly.

     “That sounds like a uh… that’s a… sounds good.”

     You nearly burst out laughing once more at your husband’s terrible attempt at concealing his excitement, but you settled on grabbing his hand and pulling him to the bathroom.

•

     You laid together for a while after your shower (and what it led to), heat still radiating off your bodies. You were on top of him, your face buried in the crook of his neck, having simply collapsed after you both reached your highs. Neither of you spoke, though you knew he wasn’t asleep. You could feel his heart in sync with your own from where your chest pressed against his, their beating the only sound in your quiet house. 

     Lifting your head up, you looked at your husband beneath you. His freckled shoulders, his red hair, sticking out in every direction, his soft cheeks. His eyes fluttered open at your movement, and you smiled gently. Bringing a hand up, you gently moved the still damp hair out of his face, and he sighed at the touch. You brushed your thumb across his cheek and watched him lean into your hand. He nearly melted as you continued your exploration of his features, running the tip of your finger down his lovely nose before pressing a kiss to it. You could feel his soft tummy shaking with laughter under you, and it made your smile widen. He scrunched his nose up before you swiped your thumb across his lower lip and his giggle cut off abruptly. You were about to playfully tug on one of his sweet ears, but your previous touch had struck a chord with him and, before you knew it, his hand was laced in your hair and his lips were on yours.

     You groaned softly into his mouth, your hands cradling his face as he smiled against you.

     “God, you’re insatiable today, aren’t you?”

     He giggled softly, pecking your lips once more.

     “Can’t help it, just love you too much.”

     At his words, you giggled softly, just so full of love, as you kissed him again. Your mouths moved in sync, quiet moans escaping you both.

     Eventually pulling away for air, you leaned your forehead against his. 

     “And I love you too.”

     With one more quick, sweet kiss, you rolled off of him with a small grunt, and he whined at the loss of contact. A laugh escaped you as you pulled on another one of his shirts.

     “I’ll be right back, sweetheart, I’ve just gotta set the alarm and make sure all the lights are out, okay?”

     You heard a soft groan from the bed, but when you turned to face him, he was smiling sleepily.

     “Okay, but be fast please, I already miss you.”

     Giggling, you made your way back to the bed and kissed right between his eyebrows, murmuring a promise that you’d be back before he knew it, and set off downstairs.

     He waited patiently for you as you moved about downstairs, listening to you sing to yourself. He couldn’t help but smile as he heard you have a small conversation with Tybalt. A small giggle escaped him as he heard you reminding your cat to come up to bed when he feels like it, just reminding him to make sure he’s quiet. 

     After a little while, you made your way back to your husband, turning the lights off in the hallway and slipping into bed behind him. Immediately, he cuddled into you, sighing sweetly at the feeling of being back in your arms. A soft smile graced your features as you pulled him even closer. You kissed the back of his neck, murmuring a soft goodnight, and he pulled one of your hands up to his lips, whispering a goodnight back.

    You had worried that you wouldn’t be able to sleep, too excited to see your kids the next day, but holding your husband and feeling his deep breaths against your chest quickly calmed your nerves, and you were out like a light.

•

     Thankfully, you were allowed to sleep in the next morning. You both began to stir at about nine thirty, and you thanked your lucky stars that he hadn’t woken you before sunrise again. 

     You laid in bed for a few extra minutes, gazing at each other and talking quietly, but before long, you were up and at ’em. You got ready for the day quickly, taking another joint shower, and making breakfast. After a bowl of cereal each, you called Calvin.

     You and Gardner were standing in the backyard, simply looking at your creation, when a clap sounded from behind you.

     “Alright! Let’s DO this!”

     You turned to see Calvin walking over, rubbing his hands together excitedly. Gardner nodded, his endearing look of concentration appearing once more as he followed his brother on deck. You weren’t far behind, and as soon as you were up, the work began. 

     You moved quickly, knowing your parents would be there with the kids around lunchtime. Chairs were placed in the cabin, maps were hung up, and you even set up a little bookshelf like the ones on the Dear Sidewalk that they had commandeered for their picture books in recent years. They had their own little working compasses and a rope that rang a bell up above. A pirate’s paradise.

     It was just as you put down the last cushion that you heard a car door. Your heads snapped up at the noise, and you and Gardner immediately rushed out to the front. Your kids jumped out of the car, running at you full speed the second they saw you, and you and Gardner immediately gathered them up in a huge hug. Their little voices rang out, a jumble of excited shouts, telling you how much they missed you and what they had done with their grandparents. You and Gardner listened intently, nearly tearing up just at having them home again. 

     After a little, you broke off from the little group hug and made your way to your parents as your kids continued to excitedly cling to their father.

     “Well, it certainly sounds like you had a good time,” you chuckled as you hugged each of them. They laughed, saying yes they absolutely did, and you knew they, as well as Penny and Ben, would be sleeping soundly that night.

     “You had a nice time too I hope,” your mom smiled, “I’m assuming you enjoyed the quiet?”

     You couldn’t help the blush that rose to your cheeks at the thought of all that you and Gardner had gotten up to in the last few days, but you still smiled.

     “Oh definitely, it was nice not to worry too much about them for a while, but I’m certainly still glad they’re home.”

     You watched with a wide smile as your kids ran circles around their dad, climbing all over him and giggling loudly. He was chuckling as well, lumbering around with them on each of his legs as they screamed in excitement. They certainly took after their father, the sunlight glinting off of their auburn hair and their precious laughter ringing out. He hoisted both of them up, one on each shoulder, and turned to you with bright eyes.

     “Should we tell them?”

     “Tell us what?” Penny asked from Gardner’s right shoulder before you could answer. Her eyes were wide, excited at the prospect of a surprise.

     “Tell us what! Tell us what!” Ben bounced on his dad’s left, always following his older sister. 

     “Why don’t we just show them instead?”

     With a grin, you took your husband’s hand and began leading them to the backyard, your parents close behind, and stopped just before they could see the playhouse.

     “Well, your dad and I-”

     “And Uncle Calvin!” 

     You laughed at  both the shout that came from around the corner and at the children’s expressions as they realized their uncle was waiting to see them. 

     “-and Uncle Calvin, yes, worked really hard while you were on your big kids’ trip,” you paused, smiling at their wide eyes, “and we know how much you love going out on the boat, so…”

     At that moment, you gently pulled them around the corner and revealed the pirate ship in all its glory. You didn’t really know how they were going to react, but it was better than anything you could’ve hoped for. Aside from when Gardner almost dropped them because of how loud they screamed, but even that was funny after the initial shock. 

     Penny sprinted over to the ship as soon as she was on the ground, shouting our own pirate ship! over and over as Ben just stood and looked on in awe. Gardner knelt down next to him.

     “You alright, bud?”

     Ben nodded slightly, mouth hanging open.

     “Daddy?”

     “Yeah, love?”

     He looked up at his dad.

     “Do we get to keep it?”

     Gardner stifled his laugh, not wanting to embarrass him at all, and nodded excitedly.

     “Of course you do! We built it for you!”

     Ben looked at him, shocked, for one second more before running off after his sister. 

     Gardner stood, grunting softly, and made his way back over to you. You leaned against him with a smile.

     “Dad noises.”

     He chuckled, pressing a kiss to the top of your head.

     “Fitting.”

     You laughed, taking his hand, and watched as your kids dragged their uncle and both grandparents aboard, showing them around. You noticed they had started calling Calvin ‘first mate,’ instructing him to raise the sails and mop the deck, and all sorts of pirate-y things. He was very quick to accept his new title, playing along and doing his ‘chores,’ looking back at the two of you with a huge smile.

     As they began their game, you turned around, putting your hands on Gardner’s hips, and pulled him into a kiss. His hands immediately moved up to cradle your face, and you smiled against him. You leaned your forehead against his and squeezed his hips gently.

     “I think we did good.”

     You felt his good-natured scoff rather than heard it as he kissed you again, murmuring “Yeah, I think you’re right.”

     His arms wrapped around you, and he moved to deepen the kiss, but a shout broke you apart.

     “Pirates don’t kiss!”

     You looked up, startled, to find Penny leaning over the ship’s railing, looking both embarrassed and slightly grossed out. 

     Her expression paired with her words and distressed tone made you double over in laughter, you just couldn’t help it. She put her little hands on her hips and stared at you, brow furrowed, as you leaned in and kissed Gardner again, yelling back, “These pirates sure do!”

     You heard her sigh exaggeratedly, followed by her telling you that she needed you on deck immediately, they were about to shove off, her favorite phrase of her dad’s.

     You looked at your husband, smiling softly, glad to have your little family back together. He kissed your nose, and you laughed before motioning toward the ship.

     “What say we weigh anchor and hoist the mizzen?”

     He sighed sweetly, looking at you in lovestruck awe, like he was seeing you for the first time all over again. 

     “Y’know, I’d marry you again if I could.”

     You kissed his cheek once more, a pleased grin on your face, and pulled him toward the ship.

     “Come on, dork.”

     He took your hand, smiling.

    “Aye aye, Mrs. Langway.”

[hotel-japanifornia]

Can we all agree Morgan is a Karen?

Ok, so I really hate Morgan, alright? And it’s not the kind of hate I have for villains like Von Karma or Dahlia where it’s like, “Oh yeah! I want to take them down!” No, it’s “This person is so horrible and isn’t even charismatic.” The thing about villains is that they can be charming and rather interesting. A well-written villain makes the audience intrigued; getting to know the villain through their motivations and who they are as people can in a sense, make a villain more well-rounded and intriguing. Obviously, you don’t want your audience to root for them, but you don’t want your villain to be uninteresting; the more interesting a villain is, the more you want the heroes to take them down. It’s a great concept  and one that AA usually executes well with its main villains. And four of the five big bads of the AA trilogy (Matt, Dahlia, Gant, and Von Karma) execute this really well and are better villains because of it. They’re interesting, they’re well-written, and everything I know about them makes me want to take them down.

Morgan, on the other hand, does not get this treatment. Actually, she gets hardly any treatment at all because she disappears after 2-2 and masterminds 3-5. The problem with Morgan lies in that we only see the results of her plans, we don’t necessarily ever confront her and that’s what makes her fall short in comparison to the other villains. We don’t even learn of her eventual fate: while I personally think she got executed for both being an accomplice to murder and later plotting a conspiracy to assassinate someone which ended up killing someone else, it’s never officially confirmed.

Regardless, Morgan honestly just doesn’t have any redeeming characteristics in the slightest. Her husband abandoned her when he found out that she would never become the Master. But who’s to say that she even wanted them that much? Remember, Morgan was willing to murder so her children could inherit the position of Master of Kurain. With Iris and Dahlia having no spiritual power at all, I can see Morgan just tossing them off to the side.

She’s not even a good mother either. If Pearl’s attempt at fixing the Sacred Urn are anything to go by: Morgan never taught her how to spell, and that’s quite disturbing considering that Ami isn’t exactly all that difficult. Also, when Dahlia talks about meeting Morgan in the detention center while on death row, she mentions that Morgan wanted to murder her alongside Maya which is pretty disturbing. I mean, Dahlia’s a murderer sure, but killing your own kid is just something you don’t do.

Either way, back to my real point: Morgan is such a terrible person for what she was willing to do. Morgan was willing to traumatize her daughter, a sweet and innocent nine year old, by having her assassinate the cousin that she loves so much. And like, she was willing to have her channel the spirit of her psycho killer cousin to do it who was probably going to leave Pearl’s body right when Maya died leaving her to see the body of her beloved cousin. And it’s like, to me, how was this woman not thinking that her daughter wasn’t going to get caught for this? If Pearl gets arrested for Maya’s murder, she probably goes to jail for a long time.

If she somehow never goes to jail, Pearl is left traumatized for life after  murdering her cousin. She never becomes the Master, she likely abdicates and abstains from spirit channeling from that point on; so Morgan’s plan is a failure regardless. And guess what, if Maya dies, Pearl’s left without anyone to take care of her. Iris doesn’t know they’re related, Phoenix will probably offer to do it but Pearl probably won’t show her face to him ever again, and Morgan sure as hell isn’t getting out of jail anytime soon. She was willing to leave her nine year old kid, traumatized for life without anyone to look after her and that’s fucking disgusting.

It doesn’t hurt that in the anime version of 2-2, they take a different direction with the culprit and Morgan’s role. While it’s never stated explicitly whether or not Morgan headed the plan to frame Maya for murder in the games, I always assumed it probably was her idea. In the anime, Mimi Miney just wanted to do a fake channeling. She didn’t want to hurt anybody at all and Morgan pretty much blackmailed her into murder under threat of her identity being leaked. I honestly don’t think Mimi was ever going to hurt Grey; she probably just wanted him to leave her alone so that she could live a completely new life on her own.

Morgan’s reason for doing this could be probably chalked up to that she wanted Maya out of the way for sure. True, a prank channeling would have called Maya’s abilities into question and Grey may have even called her a fraud knowing him. It would’ve been much harder to prove that Maya was framed but Morgan definitely would have wanted to ensure Maya was out of the way. By sentencing her to prison for the rest of her life, Morgan would have been able to get what she truly wanted with Pearl being the Master of the Kurain Channeling Technique.

Episode 14 of the Ace Attorney anime also gives us scenes with Morgan hurling abuse at Maya for daring to take her cousin out to see the ocean and calling the main family a disgrace to the Fey bloodline. Pot, meet kettle. And if Maya’s reaction is anything to go by, this probably has happened before. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if Morgan did abuse Maya: the woman decided to forgo teaching her daughter to read and spell in order to plan to murder her niece after all. 

And, Pearl lived a relatively sheltered life in Kurain to the point that she didn’t think there was anything outside the village besides mountains. If Maya wasn’t around, and Pearl continued to live under Morgan’s thumb even when she became the Master, how was Morgan expecting her to complete her duties as Master? Was she just expecting Pearl to let her handle them herself or something? 

Honestly though, Morgan is just a horrid human being. She was willing to sacrifice as many lives as she needed to achieve her own goals and doesn’t have any redeeming qualities whatsoever. You don’t even get the satisfaction of confronting her on the horrible things she does and taking her down for the last time, I almost wish she WAS the killer of 2-2 so we would get at least that much. There’s just nothing redeeming about her: the other villains are at least fun to take down and interesting characters. Morgan isn’t, plain and simple.

[ambitionsource]

Heyy can i ask for a bonus content of rl and da first double date, like riley freaking out and lucas being like chill you know them and stuff

so this has been sitting in here for like months, thank you for your patience if u are still out there anon!

it’s definitely not a question as to whether or not rl and da are each other’s go to double date duo. it’s easily confirmed and in some ways always felt like an inevitability. it really does stand to wonder, as riley did in cruel summer, if things would’ve been different in s2 if she had dedicated more time to befriending asher and dylan as individuals rather than sort of knowing them through lucas -- if that friendship had been cemented earlier, perhaps the chain of events could’ve been shifted or changed entirely. it’s something to muse about, for sure. it’s especially true of dylan and riley, who we’ll see in s3 have built a quite close friendship and rapport in such a short amount of time. this is, again, bc they’re the definition of kindred spirits.

but yeah, back early in the summer of love, i don’t think such an easy friendship would’ve felt so guaranteed. yes, there’s always been some kind of magnetic draw from riley to lucas and the two of them, but she doesn’t know if that’s a) reciprocated and b) plausible. like i don’t think she worries that asher and dylan won’t like her, since they basically already all know each other, but its that feeling of like... you know. kind of like you said, just stressing that it will feel awkward or stilted and won’t just click into place

the key to this, honestly, is dylan. because even though asher and lucas can be as non-problematic as possible and lucas can assure riles up and down it will be fine and asher can express little to no apprehension towards the whole idea, both of them are... how do i put this. off-putting, in their own respective ways. i think lucas and asher are both extreme creatures of habit and so even if riley is welcome in their circle now, neither of them know like... how to Act to make that clear. they’re not going to much change their own behavior, which doesn’t make it abundantly Clear that riley is a very welcome new player. like asher will treat riley normally and be nice to her and enjoy her company you know, but he won’t be like RILEY IT’S SO AWESOME THAT YOU’RE HERE.

dylan, on the other hand, DOES have that energy. so that first afternoon in june when they decide to all get together and go drive up to the hideout and spend some time chilling there, dylan is completely on his a game. he just knows how to make someone feel welcome and comfortable, so he puts all those skills to work when they come together. asher and dylan pick riley and lucas up and he’s immediately visibly excited to see her, greets her eagerly, even tells asher to get in the back so riley can sit in the passenger seat up front with him. this is honestly a smart move, because it allows for dylan and riley to converse a lot more easily and doesn’t make the lack of interjection from lucas or softer tenor of asher’s contributions to the conversation feel as noticeable. so dylan asks riley a million questions the entire drive up there -- which is still a new journey for riley, because lucas has only shown her how to drive up there like once at that point -- while asher and riley pass control of music back and forth.

i think the thing that helps too in terms of making the whole thing feel more natural is the fact that it doesn’t FEEL like Two Couples Getting Together. it just feels like a group outing. like cause dasher have already been a unit but in tandem with lucas for so long, so it feels less like they’re two separate halves of the group and more just a... harmonious quadrilateral. also bc both of them are relatively informal and unconventional pairs, it doesn’t exactly feel like a Date. you know what i mean? like they’re not at all dressed up or acting like it’s this big serious outing, they’re just hanging out as friends that just happen to be two couples. so in a way, riley can prioritize her focus -- like rather than thinking about the Date aspect of it and how she needs to act with / around lucas (which at this point they’re still trying to get used to and navigate + explore, they’ve only been Together for like a couple weeks), she can focus on building her rapport and friendship with dylan and asher

and that’s basically how it goes. they get to the hideout, the boys kind of give her the unofficial “tour,” and then i figure the group of them were planning to picnic up there since they’re all kind of outdoorsy people to a degree and it’s not a broiling hot june afternoon and its nice and shady in the hideaway. so they all brought along pieces for the meal (where lucas got his contributions, they don’t ask, though they all can make assumptions -- in a week or so he’ll be teaching riley how to shoplift make up and small items out of convenience stores so) and then just chill and chat while they eat. and i think that would start out a little awkward for riley, just because the three of them have such an established rhythm and rapport and she has to figure out where her voice can chime in, but she gets the hang of it pretty quickly and by the middle of the meal she doesn’t feel nearly as nervous anymore

then i figure dylan and lucas decide theyre going to go check if the trail nearby is decent for a good post-lunch walk hike type deal, so asher and riley clean up together and that’s her chance to get a better reading on where she stands with asher. and when it’s just the two of them i think asher would get more shy, because that’s just who he is, but riley pretty quickly figures out that its not a fruitless situation between them here. like she can earn asher’s trust and become a closer friend with him, it’s just obviously not going to be as simple and nearly effortless as with dylan (both because he’s so sociable and also because, as they’ll come to truly know very soon on the road trip, they really are just kindred spirits as said above). she’ll have to take things bit by bit with asher and earn his favor with time, and she can work with that. she’s definitely starting off in NEGATIVe territory, like he does already like her company, its just about weaseling her way into his actual deep friendship territory which is very hard to break into with asher.

i think, on a slightly different angle, though i don’t think he would show it lucas would be equally nervous about the whole thing. not because of like, his own presentation (since he’s definitely the one with the most established credit with all parties involved), but because i think he worries that for some god forsaken reason they won’t like each other. this is kind of funny just given the fact that he is like the most polarizing and hard to swallow figure of the four of them LMAO, but also like i get it. its not a realistic concern, but its the kind of one you get when something very important is about to happen, like what is the worst thing that could happen in this scenario. and considering how crucial both riley and dasher are to his life, it obviously feels very... major, whether or not they can intermingle in a way thats natural and positive and ideally, good enough that people want to do so more often

lucky for him, he actually had nothing to worry about

-- Maggie

[nealflitherland]

For some reason the whole first paragraph shows up in the preview... but anyway, you get the idea! If you like my take on Nightwing, go check him out!

[bonesandblood-sunandmoon]

Pre-Therapy Isolation

CoA prompt for Oct 2019 - “Aromanticism and Aloneness” [Call for Submissions]. Under a cut due to length. Heads up: There’s a mention of a past history of suicidal episodes, but there are zero details.

Sections: 1) Therapeutic Context, 2) Aloneness, Isolation, and Loneliness, 3) Convergence of Mental Illness & Aro-spec Identity, and 4) Disclosure.

Therapeutic Context

I have bounced around from draft to draft and tangent to tangent this past month in part because other issues have required a higher priority ranking in the mental queue. Among the various topics brought up with/by my new general practitioner [GP] during this month’s follow-up was counseling intake, which will feature a bunch of questions off a template and hopefully some relevant questions about the diagnosis I’d like to confirm (or figure out my symptoms are actually from X) over a few appointments.

(For non-regular readers, I haven’t had health insurance since undergrad ended in 2016, so there have been a few changes to the identities I tote around. The Counseling and Psychological Services [CPS] offered on-campus did include therapy, but I’m not quite a good fit with Grad students who change every semester and require reintroductions, re-explaining, and ignoring personal details when I just don’t want to bother with an LGBTQIA+ primer. My last therapy visit with CPS that wasn’t a ‘the semester started’ drop-in was in the later part of the spring semester of 2015.)

I did ask to not be paired with someone who’s never had a trans patient before because I’m just not up to walking my therapist through the bare bones of Trans 101, but I won’t really know their familiarity with LGBTQIA+ basics until the first intake appointment in November. It’s possible they might know some identities but not all of them, and I may still need to break out a little 101 even for relatively more established identities (ex. nonbinary). However, the most relevant of my letters collected for this post is the A for aro-spec (specifically quoi/greyro), which is currently the most recent personal identity (2019) and, afaik, the youngest community when it comes to awareness.

Aloneness, Isolation, and Loneliness

On a literal, physical level, the prospect of going to therapy doesn’t really fit with being alone (“having no one else present”) or aloneness (“a disposition toward being alone”). But it edges along a nebulous mixture of talking about being alone, geographic isolation, and possible loneliness or isolation. The bridge connecting this nebulous alone/isolation idea with being aro-spec and facing intake for counseling:

Talking about being alone. It’s going to be a smidge related to context for past events, but it’s like a cloud on the horizon that I’m trying to ignore when it comes to talking about the future and/or future goals. I’m going to have to admit that it’s currently unwise to live on my own to someone’s face, so I don’t want that to be a goal of our sessions. Like, I’m really going to have to admit that my symptoms have gotten bad enough in the past that I would rather plan on having a roommate than risk being a danger to myself again.

The geographic isolation specific to living in a rural area that’s not exactly the intended ‘local’ area for the closest LGBTQIA+ resources and communities, especially if you get a-spec specific. It can range from some resources not being applicable when you live in a different county to inconvenient differences in meetups (it’s great to only have a 5 minute walk to a coffee shop for a casual meetup for the locals, but if I live over an hour’s drive away, I expect something a little more substantial to justify the driving and need enough advanced notice to actually drive there).

It doesn’t really feel like loneliness, but it doesn’t quite seem like a type of isolation, and it’s just this mixed feeling that I’m not going to have a choice but to be a teaching moment because I’m going to be the first aro-spec patient for this therapist. True, I have no way of knowing how many other aros are in this area, but unfortunately, I have no way of knowing if I’m the only aro-spec person around. It feels unbalanced and isolating that I can’t just walk in as an individual, and I now have to be careful as an ambassador of sorts.

Convergence of Mental Illness & Aro-spec Identity

Based on a quick search of Arocalypse, I wouldn’t go so far as to say this is a unique feeling to me, but that greyro pov post included revealing my connection between my mental health and feeling like I’ve become aro-spec. (Link covers why I’d rather not directly link to the post in question, namely personal growth. With a dash of embarrassment.) And yes, I said that I feel like I’ve become aro-spec instead of feeling like it’s been a static identity that I’ve always had.

I think the life events I went through - most strongly noticed after surviving suicidal shit - were the equivalent of the body prioritizing heating the core instead of the extremities in extreme cold. The vital to living parts of me made it through.

My ability to correctly interpret romantic attraction when signaled in media? It’s not impossible, but it’s usually particularly scripted examples. My ability to correctly interpret romantic attraction signaled in other people? I still have a chance at getting that right, but it’s not guaranteed. My ability to correctly interpret romantic attraction when I might be experiencing it? Nope, that didn’t make it through. It’s like a fixed red-blue-purple color array that’s suddenly showing orange. It’s like looking down at your phone one day and realizing everything’s been switched to a language you only know a limited amount of (for me, Spanish). It’s like trying to wrap your head around imaginary numbers after you thought you were keeping up in Algebra II.

At this point, romantic attraction is a rather distant memory and feels like it happened to a different person. I’ve made peace with not knowing if I’m orange or red-orange, and I could stumble through figuring out more words in Spanish, but I don’t think proper management of my symptoms will “restore” what’s been lost. No amount of talk therapy is going to unlock those memories, and the right medication isn’t going to lift the fog of confusion. Maybe red-orange is close enough to red to count (non-normative romance factoring into maybe, sometimes experiencing something close to romantic attraction a la greyro), but I don’t want to pretend I know what i means.

Disclosure

I don’t want a therapist to get sidetracked by “fixing” me because I’m alright chilling out here on the aro spectrum. Maybe I’ll be able to live on my own at some point, or maybe I’ll have a roommate. Maybe the stars will align and I’ll find someone who’s alright with me being red-orange and mostly confused as long as we figure out each other’s love language(s), so to speak. Maybe I’ll have a collection of friends, but I won’t ever really partner with someone. I’m not sure. Those questions are too complicated and too far off into the future for me to answer when I’ve got to douse the embers my brain decided to light in its resident dumpster before they grow into a full fledged fire.

However, based on my experience with CPS, I need to be prepared for questions about my relationship status. Their intake process included screening for domestic violence, if my memory serves me right (single = skip that section), but I also remember a soft inquiry into who might be involved in my support network where it was relevant to establish that I had friends but no romantic partners to warrant referring to my significant other. Just based on the preliminary paperwork that’s a copy of what I had to fill out for GP, there’s a section for choosing from their offered gender and sexuality options [includes Other and lines to write in responses].

I didn’t really feel like getting into a ton of detail with GP, but it feels different when it comes to counseling and eventually a psychiatrist consult. If I’m going to compile a bullet point list of my identities, offer brief explanations, and point towards aro resources, I’d rather get that all out of the way in the beginning. Once it’s all on the table, I don’t have to dance around topics or play the rephrasing game where I avoid coming out part way through an answer. Maybe me offering up AUREA can make it a little easier for the next patient who’s aro.

Maybe I don’t want to ignore or downplay my connection to an online aro community, as tenuous as it may be at times, because I feel a little less alone. I don’t have to frame changes in romantic orientation as being broken. I have an alternative narrative for being the heartless monster who’s a bit too cold and less than human. I don’t have to take the negative impression that an inability to romantically love someone (or an unclear answer) means that any sexual attraction, desire, or activities amount to manipulative ‘using’ as truth. (The social connection to a community can be used to whack a self-isolating brain.)

Ultimately, prepare for disclosure, so I don’t feel caught off guard or forget differences in how resources define a word and how I relate to it. I can play it by ear during the intake process, and if I don’t actually want to disclose to the therapist, I don’t have to.

[imaginedanganronpa]

Can you please do some platonic friendship headcanons with Himiko, Kiibo and Gonta?

Platonic Friendship Headcanons For Himiko Yumeno, Kiibo, and Gonta Gokuhara!

Himiko Yumeno

You met Himiko when you were both small children and had basically grown up together. You’ve spent the majority of your life with her by your side and she’s essentially part of your family at this point.

You fully embrace her ‘I’m a real Mage!’ beliefs and will defend her whenever someone tries correcting her. One big reason why Himiko loves being your friend so much is because you’re the only person who’s always unconditionally supported her throughout the years and has never doubted her. 

For this reason, she will always do the same for you.

Himiko will do her best to teach you her Magic, sometimes referring to you as ‘her Apprentice.’ You threaten her by saying you’ll just pass her up someday if she’s not careful, in which the redhead simply rolls her eyes.

One of your favorite things to do is nap together. Not in a weird way, obviously, but sometimes you’ll plan a time-frame at one of your houses where you both just curl up and nap. You also tell each other about all of the strange dreams you have.

You and Himiko also have some inside-jokes and lingo that stays between the two of you. Certain phrases mean certain things, and you can tell what the other is thinking with just one look. Although, Himiko will attribute this to ‘Mind-Reading Magic.’

Because of this, you also share the same emotions. You’re kind of like the same person - if she’s angry, you’re angry; if you’re sad, she’s sad. So on and vice-versa.

Regardless, you’re always together. It’s hard to have one of you without the other and by now, you’re more like siblings than friends.

You often give Himiko piggyback rides because you know the childish side within her loves them.

She loves watching movies with you, especially Dramas. And since Himiko loves Dramas and Soap-Operas so much, she also comes to you for real-life gossip frequently.

Whenever you have a new crush on someone, she will offer to brew up a Love Potion for you to give them. You’ve never actually taken this offer because she refuses to tell you what’s in it, insisting that her Magic is to be kept a secret. You’re convinced that it’s just a smoothie, though.

Himiko is the kind of friend who will always take photos of the adventures you have together. She has so many candid shots of you, as well as Selfies she’s taken of you two together. She would have a string of Selfies of you two hanging on her wall, and she’s also secretly a big fan of scrap-booking. You have a couple scrapbooks filled with your adventures.

Sleepovers are common between you two. Himiko will either be the friend who stays up all night watching movies under a fort whilst gossiping, or she’ll fall asleep early and leave you alone. It’s always a coin-toss.

And because you’re close with Himiko, you have to deal with Tenko in your life as well. Although she was jealous at first, she knows how much you mean to Himiko and will thus become protective of you as well.

Kiibo

You two became fast friends after meeting in-class. Your natural curiosity lead you to sit beside him and ask him all about his life as a Robot. Truthfully, Kiibo got pretty flustered and wasn’t sure how to respond at first, a light blush dusting over his cheeks.

Wanting to impress you, though, all it took was for him to ask you, “Want me to show you some of my features after class?” From then on, you two formed a bond that couldn’t be broken.

Every time Miu adds something new to his functions or he gets an Update, you’re always the first person he wants to show. 

Kiibo will rant to you all the time, especially over some discriminatory and ‘Robophobic’ remarks made by other students. You can always sense when he’s in a bad mood because his antenna will droop, followed by Kiibo plopping down beside you with a long sigh.

Due to this, he heavily relies on you and has become dependent on you as a person. He can’t form emotional bonds in the exact same way that humans can, but you’re the first person he’s been able to be this open with. 

Kiibo cares about you greatly, valuing you and caring about you.

One of your favorite past-times is playing video games together. He’s surprisingly good at them and sometimes speaks to the system as if it can hear him. You have to remind him that just because it’s a machine, that doesn’t mean it can understand him.

You’ve worked towards helping Kiibo gain a greater understanding and knowledge of humans as a whole. You teach him things that he may not have figured out on his own and help develop his emotional senses.

He’s the kind of friend who makes up his own secret handshake for just the two of you. Trust me, it’s long and complicated but he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Kiibo is a soft friend who will drop everything to listen to you. He doesn’t need sleep, so he’ll definitely stay up all night and listen to your problems just to make sure you’re okay. He will go to great lengths for you and puts your happiness on a pedestal.

The whole ‘not needing sleep’ thing is fine and dandy until you two have a sleepover, though, because Kiibo will pester you at all hours of the night just because he’s feeling lonely or bored. He’ll wake you up by shaking you and saying, “Hey, (Y/N)… psst.”

He will also never forget important dates like your birthday because he can easily record them in his system, so expect some over the top celebration from him every year. He also recorded the day you met and actually became friends and celebrates your annual ‘Friendship-versary” as he calls it. 

“What do you mean that’s not something friends normally do?”

Kiibo also keeps track of all of your favorite things through this memory-system, like your favorite foods and drinks for example, and will often randomly surprise you with them just to make you happy. He knows you so well, almost too well.

Kiibo is pretty oblivious to some aspects of friendship. He’s figuring out how to even manage a friendship since he isn’t used to having a bond like this, which caused him to be pretty clingy at first.

Gonta Gokuhara

You two became fast-friends aftermeeting. He strikes up the first conversation by outright introducing himself and after you give him your name, he sweetly smiles and proclaims, “This means Gonta and (Y/N) are friends now, right?”

Well, he kind of forced his way into your life but after you get to know him, you realize that that isn’t a bad thing at all. You two quickly grow close and form a friendship that will undoubtedly last a long, long time.

Gonta will ask you to help him become a proper Gentleman. He’ll always ask you for advice as well as practice with you. He’ll hold doors open for you, carries your things, and so on. He also needs constant validation and looks at you to confirm that he’s doing a good job.

It’s not very surprising when people start to mistake you for a couple. Gonta doesn’t really understand why they’d think that or what it really means, but you don’t really mind.

After all, he treats you so well that it’s hard to really complain. You’re the kind of friends who don’t care what others think about you and mind your own business. You know the truth and that’s all that really matters.

You also help Gonta with his classes. A lot of your time spent together consists of Studying and other scholarly activities since you want your friend to succeed. It warms his heart and brings a tear to his eye that you care about him so much, and he’ll be forever thankful for you.

Gonta is extremely protective over you and will defend you if necessary. People don’t tend to bother you, though, since you always have him by your side. You know that he’s really just a sweet teddy-bear, but his size can be intimidating to others who don’t know him as well as you do.

His size comes in handy when Gonta gives you piggyback rides, though. And his are definitely the best; they make you feel like you’re flying.

The first time you came over to his house, he was panicky because he wasn’t sure if it was Gentlemanly to welcome you into his home like this and didn’t want to give you the wrong idea. With that said, sleepovers together are always a hassle.

Your relatives love him and has welcomed him as an additional member of your family. He’s like the ‘protective older brother’ friend.

Being close with Gonta will ensure that you learn everything there is to know about insects. Even if you didn’t like them before, he’ll make sure that you get used to them and you’ll slowly feel more comfortable. It’s hard to be friends with him and simultaneously be scared of bugs, considering that he’s always picking them up and trying to show you.

The two of you take frequent walks through nature just to admire how beautiful it is.

And Gonta will totally make you a flower-crown. Despite his large hands, he’s quite gentle and will braid flowers into your hair or pick them for you.

He knows exactly how to cheer you up, however it’s hard to manage your emotions around him. Gonta gets upset when you are and it’s hard to not make him emotional alongside you. But if you ever do need a shoulder to cry on, he’s definitely your guy.

And Gonta’s hugs should be world-famous. They always cheer you up instantly, and expect to get swooped up into his arms in a big, warm hug every time he sees you.

- Mod Rantaro

[batgirl-87]

For the newer ask game: 7, 8, 9, 10, 26! :)

Thank you for asking! =)

Omg these are all good questions that made me really think - you’re putting me to work! =p Which also means this got long, sorry… But I think I should be writing this game’s storyline now after thinking about Olivia Green… =p Also would love to hear other’s opinions on Olivia as well because I am super curious about her! 

Talk About Your MC and Jacob Asks  

7. What memory or thought does MC/Jacob use when conjuring a patronus? What form does it take?

Jacob, being older has a better memory of their mom and time spent together with her than Keira. So memories like them building a fort in the living room in front of the fire to curl up in to listen to a story their mom would read to them on a rainy day or the time their mom unleashed some of her fiery Irish temper on another parent of some kids who were teasing him and his sister for being “freaks” since they’re part Undine, while their parents did nothing but confirm that yes they were freaks so stay away from them, are memories he holds dear. Their mom went off, partially in French - that family had no idea what was happening but knew they pissed off the wrong person! It was awesome! 

Memories with his ‘adopted’ parents are great too, he’s learned a lot from them and appreciates all they’ve done. He loved all the Quidditch practice and support, hiking in the woods and learning more about nature and Native traditions, but while those memories are fond to him I think memories of his birth mom would make for the strongest patronus. 

I have debated a lot about Jacob’s patronus (buffalo, bear, elk - trying to stay away from stag!) and while I thought I settled on buffalo now I’m thinking bear… Whether it’s a buffalo or brown bear both are big, strong, calm, grounded, and fiercely protective of their families.”The bear is indicative of someone with a great reserve of patience and inner strength. They are confident, stable people that others may gravitate to in trying times for stability and healing. Though their quiet nature and tendency to spend time away from the crowd can lead to others thinking they are stern or anti-social, bears are often friendly and curious, and can surprise even those that know them best with something they didn’t think of. Brown bears are known to be the “warriors” of the bear archetype, standing their ground and facing danger to protect others or do what they believe is right, not backing down no matter the danger.” ; “Few possess just the right strength of character for their patronus to take the form of a buffalo. Those that do are dedicated individuals who are fiercely protective of those close to them, and not in a general way, either. Anyone foolish enough to attempt to harm another under a buffalo’s care is unlikely to come out unscathed. They are fighters, and it’s not uncommon for a buffalo to have their own personal code or way of acting to which normal morality simply doesn’t apply, which can be dangerous even for the buffalo.” 

Unfortunately, Keira being the youngest and having her mom pass when she was about five years old means she doesn’t have as many vivid memories about her like Jacob does. But she does have a lot of memories of her brother Jacob, always being there for her especially after their mom passes, getting into random shenanigans together; and a lot of Quidditch related ones as well like watching his practices or games, accompanying their ‘adopted’ dad on jobs working with Quidditch players, making friends with other players. While it may be a memory about hanging with friends, Quidditch, or spending time with their ‘adopted’ parents Jacob is a constant presence in all her happiest memories. As she gets older I think some memories with her “Uncle Remus” would also be very meaningful to her and help her produce a patronus. And when they both get older I think the memory of winning the World Cup would be a great memory for both Jacob and Keira. 

Keira’s patronus is an arctic fox, although it could change as she grows up and has new experiences. (I was also under the impression that typically one’s animagus form was their patronus, or original one since a patronus can change?) “Cunning, stealth, persistence. The arctic fox is infinitely adaptable, living its life in one of the world’s most extreme climates. Arctic fox people tend to be sly, graceful, and have a near magic ability to make something out of nothing, utilizing even the most limited of resources. Arctic fox as a totem can teach us the ability to go with the flow of life, changing ourselves to suit our ever-evolving environments. They adapt to whatever comes their way. They are light on their feet, and very persistent. They are known to do the best with what they have and even in the hardest of times, they don’t give up. But they can also betray you in an instant. Most arctic fox people are known to be cunning even when they don’t mean it and they can lie and con their way out of everything. They do whatever it takes to survive, even if they have to do something they don’t agree with.But nevertheless they are great people to have around if you’re in a jam and need help with something.” 

*Spoiler* For the side quest I have yet to see, and therefore obviously do, I’m pretty sure her patronus is going to be some form of a cat because I don’t think a rabbit or horse suits her and her animagus is a cat - I’m not sure what the cat options are exactly but I’m pretty positive I’m choosing the cat option and then we’ll see what type of cat is for her. 

8. Would MC/Jacob use legilimency on anyone, anytime, or only when absolutely necessary? Does this change over time? Do they ever become as powerful as Snape/Dumbledore/Queenie (wandless and nonverbal)?

Why do I feel like my Jacob would legit forget about his legilimency ability and then randomly be reminded of it be like “Oh yeah!” =p 

I think for both Jacob and Keira they would resort to using legilimency only when necessary, however, I think Keira is more liberal about using it than Jacob but that could be because he forgets about it =p 

I believe at first Keira doesn’t want to use it at all when she first finds out at Hogwarts but I think the more difficult and dangerous the hunt for these Vaults and dealing with the Cabal is going to get she’s going to get some more practice with it and realize she needs to use it and it’s a beneficial and useful ability to have. Then when she becomes a Curse-Breaker and is dealing with dark wizards and witches and mercenaries she’ll find again that this ability proves to be very useful. And the more dangerous jobs she takes on the more she may rely on it and use it. Whereas for a professional Quidditch player legilimency isn’t really needed as much so… hence Jacob forgetting about it =p 

But neither of them would use it on anyone at any time unless they’re doing some fun party trick or something =p But they wouldn’t take advantage of it and misuse it or use it just because they’re bored or something. 

I am a big fan of nonverbal and wandless magic, personally =p So I think, even if they don’t plan on using it all the time both would work towards improving their skills so they could do it at least nonverbally. I think Keira would work harder to be able to do it nonverbally and wandlessly while Jacob would be find if he couldn’t do it nonverbally and wandless, hopefully at least one if possible, but he has to admit being able to do so without a wand and nonverbally would be cool and could prove useful sometimes (especially if the Cabal ever finds him or something because now he’s become paranoid about that) so he’d probably work on it but wouldn’t mind taking longer and be more lax about it than his sister. They’re bother hard working and determined people but his sister his more intense than him =p 

But Keira works hard to be able to cast any magic she can nonverbally and/or wandless so this wouldn’t be anything special compared to other spells and abilities. She wants to be a badass and feared opponent! 

9. Would MC/Jacob fight at the battle of Hogwarts or go into hiding/avoid the conflict? Would they survive?

Not only does Keira fight at the Battle of Hogwarts but she saves Remus, Tonks, and Fred (and Sirius beforehand) - FIGHT ME! 

I cannot allow them to die - CANNOT DO IT! Can’t save everyone BUT SHE WILL SAVE THEM EVEN IF SHE DIES DOING SO! 

Here’s what I’m thinking =p While visiting her beloved relative Tonks who is now a badass Auror, and getting a tour of the Ministry she maybe pockets a time-turner thinking ‘this is cool and can come in handy some time’ or she gets one from another country’s ministry or during her own adventures as a Curse-Breaker or doing some other jobs… (for another time =p) Point is, she’s getting her hands on some sort of time-turner because she thinks it could come in handy some time - right?! Who wouldn’t think that?

And then after what happens to Sirius in the Battle of the Department of Mysteries gives her a good reason to use it and she goes back to save him from getting killed by Bellatrix (after he punches Lucius of course because that moment is iconic =p) And then during the Battle of Hogwarts clearly she’s going to use it again to save Remus, Tonks, and Fred after they are found to have been killed during it. And she definitely goes through a whole reflection moment of all the ‘what ifs’ and consequences she may have to deal with if she does this - ‘Well what if it’s their time and doing this messes things up and someone else has to die to balance it out? Go back and try and save them too? But if it really is their time to go then me attempting to save them won’t make a difference and they’ll still die some other way because it’s just their time, right? And I have to accept that. But it really feels like it’s not their time….And if by saving them some dark wizard and witches end up living as well instead of dying we can just arrest them later or deal with that later because a couple of them living isn’t going to make that much of a difference (at least not to Keira) And highly doubt by saving them somehow that means Voldemort won’t be defeated, don’t see how that’s related…. And if I need to go back in time a few different times to get things right I will! And if I have to die in order to keep them alive and safe, fine.’ - there’s a whole lot she thinks about but ultimately she’s doing this. She’ll deal with the consequences as long as they are saved. 

But can she do it alone? Well guess it’s good she saved Sirius, right because he is probably the only one who knows about her time-turner and what she did to save him so they together go back in time to save Remus, Tonks, and Fred - you think Sirius is going to let Remus die?! Hahahaha no! 

Honestly, Remus is the driving force behind all of this. Keira loves Remus possibly more than anyone else and he deserves to be happy! He finally gets reunited with his best friend who was wrongfully imprisoned and has a bit of happiness back where he doesn’t feel so alone and is relieved that Sirius isn’t this horrible people everyone tried to make him out to be AND THEN HE DIES?! NOPE! (Plus Keira loves Sirius too and she doesn’t want him to die! He just got out of prison, again, after being wrongfully put in there, he doesn’t deserve to just die like that!) Remus finally finds someone who loves and accepts him beyond his Marauders who wants to marry him, they have a child, again he’s happy and not alone AND THEN THEY DIE AND LEAVE THEIR SON!? UMMMM NO! No no no no no, not happening. Remus is not going to die and leave her, Tonks isn’t going to die and leave him, and they’re going to be awesome, amazing parents and Remus deserves to have a happy life DAMNIT!

And then there’s Fred who has nothing really to do with Remus but… come on, she’s not going to be okay with Fred dying who’s like her own little brother - she had an instant connection to the Twins! And the Weasley family is one of the most warm, welcoming, caring family in the whole wizarding world AND twins being separated like this when they have such a close and special connection - No, she could not live with herself if she knew she could save Fred somehow and not do it. None of the Weasley’s deserve to lose Fred and he doesn’t deserve to die. If one has to die it can be Percy =p JUST KIDDING! 

Anyway, that’s my brief explanation of how Keira saves Sirius, Remus, Tonks, and Fred while also still sort of having it canon because they do die and then she just goes back in time and saves them =p Also I don’t care if it’s not canon because I refuse to accept their deaths and no one will ever make me and no one can make me feel bad about creating a way to save them. I know this wasn’t exactly the question so…

Yes, Keira and Jacob will fight in the Battle of Hogwarts. Both are fiercely protective of those close to them and have a strong sense of justice. And if Keira is going to fight to try and keep her friends and family safe then Jacob of course is going to be there to try and keep her safe! Plus they both like action and some danger. (Jacob is very much a typical Gryffindor in the sense that he’ll leap into action without really thinking about it or worrying about his safety and Keira… she sort of accepted her fate back when she was in Hogwarts that she wasn’t going to live to see graduation and then when she did every day after that is like a bonus day she didn’t think she’d get so she’s like ‘I already lived longer than I thought I would’ so she can be reckless. Plus they love being in the action and the thrill of battle! They like the adrenaline rush and may have too much fun with it =p Why she’s a Curse-Breaker and takes on other dangerous jobs and he plays Quidditch)

I feel like Keira would be there from the beginning while Jacob would show up later, sort of like Charlie, liking to make a dramatic entrance like taking out some dark wizard before they attacked his sister who would be like “so nice of you to show up!” (they’re Black’s, they like to make dramatic entrances and exits, okay?!)

10. What happened to Olivia Green? Is she an evil agent of R or as she wrongfully manipulated like Jacob?

What did happen to Olivia Green!?!? Isn’t that the question of the century….

So I am Year 5 Ch 14 I think, so I don’t know if there’s been any more information on Olivia Green than the little we know which is she worked with Duncan and Jacob on these Vaults and was a Gryffindor… right? Well if there is more please let me know because that’s pretty much all I know. But I will say, and I don’t know what it is, but learning about Olivia Green made me instantly suspicious and feel like she’s the evil one behind all of this despite having no evidence of that! 

Either, I feel, she’s sort of like the Peter Pettigrew of this story and betrayed Jacob and Duncan (or would have if he hadn’t died) to gain power and position in the Cabal and/or whatever is in the last Vault or she would have/tried to but the Cabal ultimately still chose Jacob over her and now she’s seeking revenge on his little sibling and using them to get to the last Vault before the Cabal to sort of show them they chose the wrong person (like I’ve said, I like the idea for my Jacob to have joined the Cabal as a sort of undercover mission), or she is a hermit somewhere living traumatized by everything they endured with the Vaults. (Idk why I like this idea of MC finding out she’s alive and living in some little cottage in the outskirts of Hogsmeade or something and they go to visit her and when they mention the Vaults it causes her to go off on MC and warn them to stay away and just triggers her, bringing her back to all this trauma she faced when she and Jacob and Duncan looked for the Vaults). But as fun as that idea is I for some reason instantly got an evil vibe from the mere mention of Olivia. Maybe I’m just looking for another candidate for R who isn’t Rakepick or Rowan? It’s freaking Peter isn’t it?! (If it’s Peter you all owe me $5 because I’ve been saying this! =p)

Anyways, I know nothing about Olivia but for some reason I don’t think she’s easily manipulated - maybe because I feel like my own MC is better at manipulating than being manipulated and I’m here for to smart, powerful witches to go at it, like two mini Rakepick’s or something =p And even if R is some male leader of the Cabal (is this considered a spoiler based on some things I’ve heard of/seen?…) and she could be some right hand like Bellatrix Lestrange - I’m sorry, but we all know Bellatrix Lestrange is way scarier and more powerful than Voldemort, at least I believe so and she’s the real one that should be feared than no nose. So I think even if Olivia is this sort of Bellatrix Lestrange she’s going to be more powerful and scarier to deal with. She’s probably just using the Cabal to get what she wants! Again, I probably just want some badass woman villain who is not Rakepick so I’m making Olivia that. Maybe I’m also over the kids vs adult thing too and while Olivia is older than MC they’re both still relatively young and it’s not like MC would be fighting against someone 15+ years older than them. But again she could be some traumatized hermit living in the woods! 

Maybe she is R and like Voldemort rearranged the letters in her name to give her a new one that starts with R (from Green)? Maybe she’s the reason Jacob and Duncan got involved with the Vaults in the first place and she’s the puppet master pulling all the strings here! Or maybe she’s a traumatized hermit in the woods who is devastated and heartbroken over the loss of her two best friends, maybe more than friends, who died and joined the Cabal or went missing or whatever… But I’d prefer Olivia to be the evil R or at least evil than Rowan because I am not here for a betrayal of a close friend - Please don’t make Rowan the Peter! I’ll be so disappointed (but not surprised because it’s a common trope, right? But still disappointed… Honestly, if any friend was to betray MC I still think Tulip is the most likely candidate.)

So I’m open to either of those options but I’m clearly hoping for a badass woman villain and an epic showdown between her and MC personally… Whether she’s a Peter, Bellatrix, or Voldemort type or a mix. I can easily see the puppet master behind all of this being a smart, manipulative woman using others and playing them to get what she wants and then easily getting rid of them once they’ve played their role and she no longer has a use for them. Give me a cold-hearted badass villain please! =p

Ooooo maybe she’s acting like some poor, traumatized, heartbroken witch in the woods but it’s all an act and she’s just trying to manipulate MC some more! Give me a reveal from her homely, tattered shawl she flings off to some cool, black armour or something! I SHOULD BE WRITING THIS STORY =P 

But please, I would love to hear other’s opinions on Olivia and what happened to her, what she’s doing now possibly, etc. and if you have any opinions on what I want to happen with her because this is something that I’ve been very curious about because so far for me (since again I’m behind most people!) she was mentioned once briefly and then never again and we go around asking about Duncan but not her and like - what is up with this bitch?!

26. How does MC’s hairstyle change as they get older?

I feel like my MC went in the opposite direction of other’s MC’s I’ve seen since those I’ve seen start off with short hair and grow theirs out but mine started with longer hair and cut hers shorter. Not that she cuts it very short but it starts out long to her shoulder blades and then by Year 5 it’s cut up to her shoulders. She likes to have her hair long enough to pull back into a ponytail or bun. I also think when she was younger she straightened her hair and was frustrated by it’s natural wave but as she grows older embraces the waviness of her hair (maybe it’s embracing her House of Black side and realizing we have awesome hair! =p) And that’s pretty much where she normally keeps her hair throughout her life, either to the tops of her shoulders or to her shoulder blades, maybe sometimes a bit longer even but nothing too drastic in terms of hair style/cut - she’s a Black and has to show off their awesome hair =p Also there are more important things going on than her hair style and she’s blessed with nice hair so she fortunately doesn’t have to worry much about it (Bill is probably super jealous =p)

Like I said she likes to be able to pull it up into a ponytail or bun (most likely a messy one) to get it out of her face, especially for Quidditch, but she doesn’t really know how to do hair (possibly because her mom died when she was so young) - she’s lucky she managed to put it up in a ponytail or bun! So whenever Penny or one of her friends offers to do her hair she gets a little excited because she has no idea how to do it =p She’s not a fan of pigtails at all. Fortunately with her House of Black genes she can wake up and have her hair already looking perfect or have that “messy-chic” style so she can be relatively low maintenance with it. Quite literally she woke up like this. =p  (Let me know if you all want to hear this dumb little idea I had about Sirius and James involving their hair =p)

It’s seriously like, boom, ready for the day =p

(This is more what I see her hair being, particularly the length, post-hogwarts and also for this current Year 5, it may grow out for Year 6 I’m not sure yet, and she still may grow it out to the above lengths as well throughout her life but these are pretty much her consistent lengths; honestly this is a very good reference for her hair, wavy, a little messy but still looks good - rolled out of bed looking like this - dark with a red tint [guess hers is more shades of brown but you get it], and I love this length - oh no now I’m thinking about cutting my hair - [although like I mentioned it fluctuates from this length to the above, longer ones]) 

(And this is a good reference for her hair when it’s longer - I had another gif but I can’t find it now so these will have to do but you get it. It’s Megan Fox hair, she’s essentially Megan Fox =p )

(And an obligatory biker moment =p)

[keelywolfe]

FIC: Season of Giving

Summary: Stretch has an important errand to run but he needs a little help. Luckily, he's got Andy Jeff at his side. Surely nothing can go wrong.

Notes: Wow, an actual chapter and not a short. @cheapbourbon gave me the idea for this and I ran with it. I hope it’s what they were hoping for! Enjoy!

Tags: Holidays, Husbands, Underfell Was Not A Good Place, Veterans, Homelessness. Part of ‘by any other name’

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Most mornings, Stretch didn’t wake up when Edge went to work and this morning was no exception. From his experience on the mornings that he did wake up, he suspected there was a kiss or two and possibly some general affection before Edge went out the door. His theory was unconfirmed but then so was relativity. Didn’t mean that it wasn’t leaning in the direction of absolutely true.

Stumbling down the stairs in search of coffee had him walking past the guest room and through his caffeine craving, he remembered that Jeff had stayed the night. There was a certain satisfaction in the knowledge that he wasn’t the only person who slept in when they could. It was a layer of confirmation of another theory, that Edge was a sick individual to get out of bed at five am on a Saturday and he must be stopped as often as Stretch was capable of doing so.

Not every Saturday, mind. The best morning sex in the world wasn’t worth that.

The coffee pot was filled with what was probably reasonably fresh coffee and Stretch poured a cup on autopilot, adding copious cream and sugar before finally taking a grateful sip. It took most of the cup before he noticed the covered tray on the counter and he took the lid off warily, sighing in relief at the contents. Apple oatmeal muffins today, excellent. Bran should be reserved for the chickens and sometimes were. Nugget loved Edge’s bran muffins.

He was halfway through a muffin and coffee when he heard the creak of the stairs. Excellent timing. Jeff didn’t know it yet but Stretch had an ulterior motive in asking him to stay the night. Cheap, trustworthy labor was the name of the game and Jeff usually worked for coffee.

“morning, andy,” Stretch mumbled as Jeff shuffled into the kitchen. Kid looked rough, his hair was sticking out in scientifically interesting algorithms and yesterday’s rumpled clothes didn’t really improve anything. The half-full coffee pot earned far more interest than he did, and he waited patiently for Jeff to pour a cup, silently pushing over the plate of muffins.

Half a cup later, Jeff finally offered back a raspy, “Morning.”

Stretch grinned, “nice to see you do as well in the a.m. as i do. so! now that i have you here as a semi-captive audience…”

Jeff paused, his cup halfway to his mouth. “Semi-captive? What’s in the coffee?”

“…how do you feel about helping me out today?”

He’d probably earned the suspicious look Jeff sent his way. “Help you with what?”

Stretch propped his chin on his hand and gave Jeff what he hoped was a winsome smile. “it’s a surprise!”

“Your surprises get me into trouble,” Jeff pointed out, but he was grinning. “Okay. Count me in.”

“you won’t regret it! probably.”

Between them, they finished the muffins and most of the coffee, and Jeff followed behind him as Stretch led him back upstairs to where several bags were hidden in the guest closet, a clutter of wrapped presents poking out from the tops.

“what i really need is an extra pair of hands,” Stretch told him cheerfully. “think you can manage that?”

Jeff eyed the bags. “They don’t look heavy. If you're capable, I can probably manage.”

“ouch. cruel but not untrue. oh, wait!” Stretch dug through one of the bags and pulled out two cheap felt Santa hats. He tugged one over Jeff’s head and the bell at the end rang with a tinny jangle.

“What exactly are we doing?” Jeff picked up a few of the bags and followed behind Stretch who was carrying his own burden.

“oh, it’ll be fun!” Stretch said airily as they put on the coats before going out the door. He doubted it escaped Jeff’s notice that he didn’t answer his question.

A theory that was proved when Jeff hummed thoughtfully and asked, “And why did you ask me to help cart this stuff along on the bus rather than ask Edge for a ride?”

Stretch sighed and settled on honesty over flippancy. “because edge would flip his shit and try to think of a way to order me not to do it without making it sound like he was ordering me not to do it because he knows that would piss me off.”

That made Jeff stop walking in the middle of the sidewalk. Not for long, he chased after Stretch and it was further proof that he and Stretch were platonic soul mates because his expression was a little wary but not afraid. “Is this fun thing we’re doing that will piss Edge off dangerous? Because generally speaking, I prefer not to piss him off. Avoiding danger takes second place on my list but it’s still pretty high up.”

“not dangerous,” Stretch told him. He set the bags down with a grunt at the shuttle stop. “more like staying aware and street smarts and shit like that. think you can handle it?”

“I’m trusting you,” Jeff said warningly. “Don’t get me killed by misadventure or Edge.”

“no death,” Stretch assured him. Probably.

The bus ride was longer than his normal, the furthest away from New New Home that the route went. The buildings went from brightly decorated coffee shops and book stores to duller, grayer surroundings, with the occasional desperate display of lights. Many of the houses they passed were empty or listed for sale, the windows dark and unwelcoming.

Not the best part of town, to be sure. When they finally got off the bus, Stretch noticed with some amusement that Jeff stayed close to him, although whether it was some misguided attempt to protect him or a strength in numbers thing, Stretch couldn’t say. Like they both didn’t look like they had targets painted on them. But this time of day shouldn’t be too bad, and it wasn’t like Stretch was helpless, thank you.

“listen, kid, if anything starts looking rough, grab my arm, okay?” Stretch told him quietly, “i can get us both a good distance away.”

“Okay,” Jeff muttered. He looked uncomfortable and out of place surrounded by liquor stores and strip clubs. Not that Stretch thought he looked any better, he was fairly sure Monsters didn’t come to this part of town often.

Well, Monsters aside from him, anyway.

Where they were going wasn’t far from the bus stop and Jeff stayed close as Stretch walked confidently along. It wasn’t much different than the slums in New Home, and while he and Blue hadn’t stayed in them for very long, hardly more than a month as kids, Stretch supposed some memories never faded. All anyone had to do was pay some damn attention. Stretch didn’t usually use much magic for anything past shortcutting. Didn’t mean he couldn’t, and he knew all too well how to extend his awareness, hadn’t needed Red or Edge to teach him that little trick.

They stopped when they came to a rusty door situated on the side of a building. There was a plate on it saying it was protected by Davis security and nothing else. He and Jeff both set down their burdens with relieved sighs and Stretch knocked firmly.

Quickly enough it swung open, warmth and noise spilling out of a very busy kitchen. The Human in the doorway looked at him suspiciously. “Yeah?”

“Debbie is expecting me,” Stretch said calmly and before the Human could reply, a woman came rushing over.

“Stretch!” She hugged him and Stretch returned it gratefully. Damn, but he missed the coffee shop and not just for their excellent French roast. He’d gotten used to seeing Debbie at least once a week and knowing they were working hard to get it reopened only helped so much. “Hi, sweetheart, you’re earlier than I expected!”

“yeah, i wanted to get this stuff to you,” Stretch hooked a thumb at Jeff, who was standing in silent curiously. “you remember andy?”

“You mean Jeff?” Debbie shook her head. “Of course I do, how are you doing?”

Jeff blinked and Stretch saw the moment he recognized her, from either the wedding or the coffee shop. “Oh! Hi, yeah, I’m good, really good. We have…presents? Stretch hasn’t given me much info, here.”

“Presents, yes!” She took the bags that Stretch held out to her, though one he held back. “They’re for the shelter Christmas giveaway tonight.”

“i’m not allowed to volunteer at the shelter,” Stretch told him quietly, looking away from Debbie’s suddenly sympathetic face. “some of the people who stay here aren’t in a good place and seeing a walking talking representation of death hanging around can be a little upsetting. But i wanted to do something so, i do this.”

Jeff nodded slowly. “So, these are presents for the homeless shelter?”

“The New Hope shelter,” Debbie correctly gently. “Yes. What did you go with this year?”

Stretch tapped one of the brightly wrapped boxes. “socks. gloves. deodorant. toothbrush and toothpaste. shaving cream and a razor and a visa gift card.”

“Perfect.” She hugged Stretch again and Stretch leaned into it with a sigh. “Tell Edge I said thank you.”

“sure,” Stretch said agreeably. He wasn’t about to do any such thing but eh, she didn’t know that and by the time she saw Edge again, it was going to be a little late to matter.

Debbie was too busy to chat, already someone was calling her name, and with a last quick thank you, she shut the door, leaving them on the stairs.

There was only one bag left and Stretch let Jeff snag it, lighting a cigarette as he made his way back out to the street with Jeff trailing behind him.

“Why would Edge be upset you donated to a shelter?” Jeff asked, a little doubtfully. That proved his good sense and Stretch slung the arm without the cigarette at the end of it around his shoulders, giving him a rough hug.

“oh, he wouldn’t be upset about that. it’s what we’re doing next he’ll be salty about.” Stretch gave the last bag a little shake. “you ready?”

“Lead on, Macduff.”

The sidewalks were mostly empty this time of morning, a few feeble neon lights glowing at corner stores advertising liquor and lottery. A couple Humans gave them double takes but not too many. They had the internet, they’d seen Monsters and bundled up as he was, Stretch had to be close for people to notice it, anyway.

He was looking for something a little different and it was unhappily easy to find. The first person was curled up in an alleyway with a blanket and all their worldly possessions in a stolen grocery cart. He blinked at them in bewilderment, taking the offered box with wary gratitude that shifted to truth when he opened it. Such a simple gift, socks, gloves. Little things that Stretch knew were desperately needed.

There weren’t too many people on the streets, not at this time of day, but they gave a box to every person they could find.

Much as Stretch wanted to play Santa, it was probably better for everyone if he let Jeff do the honors, so he stood back, smoking while he watched confused faces turn into tearful happiness or relief as Jeff handed over the gifts. It didn’t take an hour for them to empty their bag and Stretch was feeling a little sick from the amount he’d smoked. Didn’t stop him from lighting another one as they walked back to the bus stop. He needed something to do with his hands right now, something to keep them busy.

“I don’t know if I’d call that fun, but it felt pretty good,” Jeff admitted.

“yeah, it did.” He blew out a breath of smoke into the wind. “lot of homeless people are veterans, you know?” He hesitated, glancing at Jeff out of the corner of his socket and added, softly, “edge used to be a soldier. he and his brother, both.”

“Yeah?” Jeff didn’t sound surprised and Stretch wondered what Antwan had told him, if anything.

“yeah. he was a captain, back home.” He didn’t say anything else and Jeff didn’t ask.

He didn’t tell Jeff that it had personally taken him a while, far too long, to see Edge’s LV as less that of a murdering thug and more of someone desperate enough to protect that he would go to any lengths. He could see a little of his own former soldier in some of these worn faces, a mirror of Edge’s after a nightmare. If the world had taken a slightly different turn, leaned left instead of right—

Edge rarely talked about Underfell but Red would if he’d had enough to drink. He’d told stories, laughing at them as Stretch tried to smile while hiding the choking fear of what might have been. Of what they both might have been forced to become if they hadn’t come here. Like this, perhaps, on the cold streets, crazed with LV, or something far more awful. Looking at these Humans made a pain well in his soul, aching to think there was ever a possibility Edge could have ended up alone and unloved in the cold.

Or worse, if the fracture in the universes had taken all of them to Underfell instead of here. The margin of error was precariously thin, it could have happened.

Stretch shook that thought away. Probably better not to wonder about that, there were mental dragons in that direction and he’d set off nightmares of his own if he strayed that way.

Instead, he asked Jeff, lightly, “so, i’ve been wanting to ask. is everything okay?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Jeff didn’t look at him, his head ducked down against the wind.

“just checking,” Stretch said breezily, “if you ever want to talk, i may not have ears but i listen pretty well. i keep secrets, too.” He crossed a finger over his chest. “promise”

“I’ll remember that,” Jeff said and that was it. Welp, he’d tried. First strike. Stretch wasn’t about to give up, though. Something wasn’t right with his friends and if they had to depend on Edge getting anything out of Antwan, they might as well start buying preemptive breakup ice cream.

The bus stop was only around the corner and Stretch was about to tamp out his cigarette when he felt it, through the net of awareness he’d spread. A pulse of intent and he moved before he even thought, catching Jeff by the arm and shortcutting them down the street. Jeff jerked in his grip, but they were already back on their feet by then, the bottle that someone had flung at them left to shatter harmlessly on the sidewalk. He couldn’t make out whatever the Human shouted but it wasn’t coming in their direction. That’s all that was important.

“come on,” Stretch whispered urgently, “they didn’t see where we went.”

Jeff’s eyes were wide, even as he stumbled after him. “How did you even—“

“always try to tell you guys, i’m pretty light on my feet.” His grin felt a little wobbly. “it’s hard to explain, it’s a magic thing.”

The bus was pulling up as they reached the stop and they hurried onto it. Nervous energy was still thrumming in him and Stretch automatically pulled out his lighter, flipping it through his fingers, until the anxious pulse in his soul settled a bit. Only then did he notice Jeff was staring at him.

“what?” Stretch asked, a little defensively. There was only one other person on the bus and they were sitting at the very front, absorbed in a book.

“So, do you like, see the future or something?” Jeff whispered. The awe in it made Stretch bark out a laugh.

“nah, i bend the laws of physics enough as it is. it’s...it’s all about intent. i can feel it sometimes, a little.” No need to mention that he was pretty out of practice and fuck did he want a cigarette.

Jeff only nodded, “That’s pretty cool.”

“more like useful, but yeah. hey, thanks for coming with me. sorry it ended with a bang.”

“Are you kidding?” Jeff laughed. “We got in there, dropped off the package and got back out. That’s some action movie shit right there.”

And that was why he’d asked Jeff for help.

Jeff got off the bus before Stretch and that was fine. He rode the bus for longer than necessary, playing on his phone while the rolling motion soothed him. By the time he got home it was late enough that Edge would be back in an hour.

Edge would be here, safe and warm and…and sane. Yeah. He was here and nowhere else, and Stretch was going to set that thought aside right now before it started twirling through his brain like a sadistic merry-go-round.

Instead, he turned on the oven and took out the foil-covered pan that Edge had put in the refrigerator the night before. If he put it in now, it would be done close to the time Edge walked in the door.

He could have left it at that, certainly Edge wouldn’t expect more. But the apples in the bowl on the counter gave him an idea and google helped him further. Youtube was almost as good as a personal tutor and Stretch followed each direction carefully, coring the apples and filling their hollows with brown sugar and spices.

Cooking wasn’t really that hard, it was just fucking boring. Stretch preferred the results rather than the production, but today it felt good to slide his dish into the oven next to the pan. Soon a faint spicy aroma rose up, sweet apples and cinnamon and it was easy to focus on that, on setting the table, folding the napkins into ridiculously complex shapes that were sure to bring a smile to Edge’s face.

All too soon he heard the front door open and Stretch was quick to finish, settling the fabric crane on Edge’s plate as the kitchen door swung open.

“Hello, love,” Edge’s smile was warm, touched with curiosity.

“dinner’s almost done,” Stretch told him. “i…um, i made dessert. it’s only stuffed apples but i thought…the recipe looked good and—”

That curiosity shifted to something closer to shock and before Stretch could fumble out that he hoped they tasted okay Edge was kissing him, sweetly enough to make him sigh, melting into that gentle touch. Vaguely, he remembered Edge telling him that the pie he’d made for Blue would mean more than anything his brother could make for himself. Seemed like that premise worked on other food, too. It took them a long, reluctant moment to part, Edge only drawing back as the timer went off.

“Let me wash up and we can eat,” he said, turning away.

The food needed to come out of the oven but Stretch still blurted out, “wait!”

Edge paused, his hand on the door.

“i’m glad you’re here. i mean, here in this universe. i…i love you so much,” Stretch blurted. He sounded like an idiot and Edge would probably assume something was bothering him. That was okay, he wasn’t about to guess the truth. That Stretch was helplessly grateful that he was here in this universe, safe in this universe, and even if they’d never…they…he couldn’t even think it. Edge was safe here with him and that was enough.

“I love you, too,” Edge turned away from the door, cupping his jaw carefully in his gloved hands and nuzzled another kiss against his mouth. “Rescue dinner, all right? I’ll be right back.”

“okay,” Stretch muttered and he let Edge go. “okay.” He repeated it again, to himself, as he slipped on the oven mitts and pulled out the foil-wrapped pan first and then the golden apples swimming in their own juices. Okay, it was okay. Edge was here. He was here, and Stretch would keep him safe.

Safe in his home, safe in his arms, right where Edge belonged.

-finis-

[anonthenullifier]

An Auspice of Scarlet

A Scarlet Vision Victorian AU

Hi everyone! It’s been quite some time since I updated this story, but it is coming back! I’m hoping to post a chapter next week sometime, but since it has been so long, I thought I’d post a short excerpt/teaser from Chapter 6. 

If you want to catch up on the story, you can either read it on AO3 or on Tumblr: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5

Story Summary: After another failed seance, Wanda Maximoff finds herself seeking asylum from an unknown millionaire and his reserved, but kind butler. As with most things in her life, it's when the semblance of normalcy and contentment begin to form that her past comes crashing in to upend everything she's worked hard to form. Will the blossom of love be enough to vanquish the demons of her past?

Chapter 6 Excerpt -- Vision makes good on his promise to teach Wanda paille maille*. 

The sun glints off the metal hoop half buried in the ground, it is idle, nothing changing about its position or size and yet it taunts her.  Wanda squints, readjusting her feet to be just a tad farther apart, knees bent slightly, hands wrapped firmly, but not too firmly, around the handle of her mallet. Off to the side, just barely in her periphery, she can sense an underlying flicker of cockiness in Vision’s silence, two games already down and she has not once gotten close to the hoop before him, something he keeps reassuring her is nothing to be upset about, a sentiment that would be more believable if his thrill at being victorious was not so loudly pouring from his mind. The last game she hit the ball too hard, sending it careening into the tall grass beyond their makeshift alley.  This time she is utilizing a strategy of incremental, easy hops. Her arms lift back as the head of the mallet rises behind her and then it falls with a swish through the grass, sending the ball in a small arc before it bounces and rolls to lay about a foot in front of the hoop. Satisfaction fills her arms as she swings the mallet up in front of her, bringing the head to rest proudly on her shoulder.

“That was a respectable hit.”

The satisfaction crumbles into a glare, “You can stop gloating.”

It is late in the morning and yet it is stifling, not even the shade from the tree providing a reprieve from the summer’s attack, a day that would be perfect for a dip in the river, a thought that instantly leads to a sharp guilt as she watches Vision frown at her comment. “I am being sincere,” the surest sign of the heat is the sight of Vision sans coat and hat, though he is still in a waistcoat and shirt buttoned all the way to the top, cinched shut with a bow tie. His mallet hovers in the air, directing her attention towards the two charcoal colored balls in the grass, “You have utilized a classic block to ensure a win is not feasible on my next turn.”

“Well that was definitely the intent,” Wanda finds her entertainment at discovering his latent competitiveness outweighing her annoyance at the thinly veiled dubiousness on his face. What does not surprise her is the utter seriousness of his gameplay, every turn he walks around his ball at least three times, scrutinizing its position relative to the hoop, currently he is using his mallet to steady himself as he lowers into a squat, torso moving left and then right as he studies the predicament of her block. “You can concede my victory, if you want.”

“I believe,” he stands with a deliberate slowness, a wince occurring as he straightens his legs, “I shall attempt to persevere for a bit longer.”  One last assessment of the area and Vision nods, strolling up to his ball, mallet lining up just right of the sphere, a couple of practice swings confirm the strength and angle of his shot, and then he moves slightly, body crouching, fingers opening and then closing until his grip is perfect, and with ease he sends his ball rolling across the ground and straight into hers, sending it flying into the trunk of a tree.

“What was that, you hornswoggler***?”

A breathy laugh meets her words, his unabashed amusement in the face of dirty actions threatening to consume her own irritation. “Nothing in the rules prohibits such actions.”

The only rules she was made aware of were that they each get one hit per turn, must stay (as best they can) within the bounds of the course, and that the ball must enter the hoop from the front to win. “How convenient to leave that out.”

“It is far more important to develop the basic skills,” his face attempts to remain serious in light of his surging glee at continued domination in the game, “before introducing the intricacies of the gameplay.”

This development radically changes her perceptions of the sport and her own strategy, a wicked smirk forming on her face as she pokes the tip of her pole against the top button of his waistcoat. “Pride goeth before destruction, Vision.” Despite his face remaining neutral, even tipping towards good-natured, she does not miss the ripple of worry from his mind nor the intrigue as he watches her saunter towards the tree.

Her elbow rubs against the rough bark of the oak, one foot on a protruding root and the other on the ground. It seems impossible to recover from such a disadvantaged spot, but she reasons if interference is allowed then a small utilization of her own unique skills could fall under that rule. She notes the way Vision squints at her, the sun peaking above the tree to obscure his sight, another advantage as she sends a mist of scarlet into the ball. A hard swing and a flick of her wrist and her ball soars through the air, thudding into the dry soil just to the left of the crisscrossed surface of Vision’s ball.

There is no respectable hit this time, just a glower, a suspicious stare, and his brow wrinkling at the turn in gameplay. “Interference,” he explains, feet uncertain where to go with her ball directly in his path,”during the other player’s turn is prohibited.”

“Understood.”

An ungentlemanly sigh accompanies his decision to switch sides, hands rearranging along the mallet to adjust to the change in approach, his stance significantly less confident than before. Wanda is prepared for a conveniently strong wind to knock his ball off its path, but finds such interference unneeded, his shot too weak to reach the hoop. Vision waves his mallet towards her, a silent, somewhat sour invitation to finish the game.

The path to victory is unobscured, a bit farther of a distance than she would like, her accuracy still a work in progress, but it is likely the only chance she’ll get.  Wanda lines up, striving to ignore the intensely focused stare of her opponent, her powers surging through her arms in preparation if things go poorly, and smacks the mallet against the ball, watching it hop with each bump in the ground, its course going exactly as planned until it unexpectedly hits a particularly large rock sending it in the opposite direction of the metal hoop. Anger boils in her chest at her slow reaction, if she used her powers now it would be too obvious. “I guess you’ll be victorious yet again.”

Vision frowns, eyes flicking down at the sure victory. The moral thing to do is end the torment quickly and painlessly, something he has done quite willingly in the other matches. This time, however, he seems less ecstatic in his actions, still taking the same conscientious assessment and body position as his other turns, but he hesitates.”Vision,” It does not take a mind reader or a soothsayer to predict his thoughts, her voice stern in redirecting him away from such perceived chivalry, “I don’t need your charity.” An understanding nod precedes his hit, the ball easily rolling through the hoop. “Congratulations.”

“Wanda, wait,” Wanda pauses mid-bend, her hand hovering over the etched surface of her ball, “I think it would be beneficial for you to continue, your long game is quite commendable,” there is no underlying sarcasm here, a fact that makes the day feel just a touch hotter, “but your short game is absent finesse.”

“Oh? So what would you suggest?”

“Please,” he waves towards her ball, “ set yourself up as you have been doing.” Wanda plays along, feet out wide and elbows bent, eyes focused on him as she waits for feedback. “This is excellent for a long range shot but for a shorter distance your feet need to be closer,” her boots shuffle towards each other while Vision hovers several feet away, gesticulating with his mallet to emphasize his instructions, “Your right foot should be a bit more forward,” she adjusts her foot, “good, now your right shoulder needs to rotate roughly,” he swivels his own shoulders, assessing the amount of movement and positioning, before providing her directions, “fifteen degrees to match your foot.”  

Wanda relaxes her body as she follows his instructions, “Better?”

“A bit more,” she acquiesces, “too much,” so she brings her shoulder back, “no I-“ she can sense the division in his mind, whether to remain at a respectable distance (despite the lack of onlookers) or come closer. It’s been a battle he’s been waging all day, the lack of socially acceptable reasons to be close always pulling him away. This time she decides to determine the outcome for him by purposely over-rotating her shoulders. Vision grimaces at her correction, “Not quite-“

Wanda strives to remain outwardly attentive yet aloof as she lays the final steps of her war plan. ”You can come closer, if that would help.”

Discreetly he scans their surroundings for an audience before placing his mallet on the ground, stepping forward, and puncturing the bubble of propriety, his body a foot away now, hands timidly held in the air, acting as if they have never touched, that she has not held his hand, nor run her fingers along his skin, that he himself did not wrap his hands around her waist and pull her close. But to acknowledge those moments would require them to rip open barely healed wounds, and there has been a silent contract between them to simply enjoy these meetings, pushing back any reckoning and unanswered questions for another time. “May I?”

As much as she wishes to act like he is alone in this nervousness, the question causes her heart to betray her attempt at self-control, face growing hotter as if the temperature of the day is controlled by the nearness of his hands. “Of course.”

His fingers curl around her upper arms, applying a slight pressure to turn her body. Wanda tries to remain relaxed in his grip despite the fluttering tingle overtaking her being as her eyes scan his features, mesmerized at the wind stirring the hairs just above his ears. “There,” the comfort of his touch vanishes and Wanda considers ruining her stance to bring him back but he moves away from her too quickly. “So now you should be focusing on a point just beyond the hoop.” Advice he gave her at the very beginning, a task that should be easy yet the rustle of his clothing behind her and the proximity of his person is distracting. “I have-Wanda remember to keep your eyes on the hoop.”

“Sorry.”

“I have my hand up behind you,” a statement that tempts her eyes but she resists, keeping her attention on the hoop while his voice fills the air around her, “on your backswing go until you’ve touched my palm and then let the mallet fall naturally,  like a pendulum.”

She doesn’t want to potentially hurt him and so she uses a painstakingly slow pace to lift the mallet, each slight increase in its ascent feels enormous until she finally meets resistance. “So just let it go?”

“Yes, and let your body follow.” She does, arms falling along the arc of the mallet and her hips swiveling slightly at the momentum and they both watch as the ball rolls into the hoop. “Soon,” Wanda turns towards him, surprised to find him directly behind her, the right side of his mouth wistfully tilted up, “you will be unstoppable and I will need to retire.”

Wanda returns the smile while bringing the handle of the mallet between them, offering it to him, “So would you like to test that prediction?”

*paille maille - the predecessor to croquet

***Hornswoggler: A cheater

[suchacomet]

exactly all of this! just to add on

re: forkball, this is a little bit of mashing real history with the fictional show so this could be a little bit of a stretch but bear with me.

so first off, let’s talk baseball vs. softball in the context of the AAGPBL. there’s quite a few key differences between the two sports that i won’t go into here (but i could go on for HOURS), but the largest differences are 1) pitching style and 2) ball size. actually, despite being advertised as playing baseball, for the first year the AAGPBL pitched underhand.

obviously, the players are pitching overhand in ALOTO, so we know we’re not 100% historically accurate here, but there is something important to note:

they’re playing with softballs, not baseballs.

i don’t know how easy it is to tell for people who aren’t familiar, but that ball in lupe’s glove is WAY too big to be a regulation size baseball.

and here, you can see that lupe is using a three-finger grip on the ball, partially because she’s pitching a fastball, but also because you need three fingers to get a good grip on a ball that size.

and just to confirm, the AAGPBL wiki says:

for visual reference, this is the size difference between a baseball and a softball:

i grew up playing softball, while my brother played baseball, and any time we played catch with each other we fought about which ball we would throw. because throwing a baseball vs. a softball isn’t just about the weight. the size difference and the different grips completely change how you have to throw the ball.

what does this have to do with lupe and dove?

well, dove played baseball. men’s professional baseball. which means that he was throwing a regulation size, 9″ circumference baseball. this fact isn’t established in the show, dove never makes a comment about ball sizes or base distances or any difference between the game he played and the game the AAGPBL is playing, so i’ll admit i’m stretching text-based analysis a little bit here. however:

bottom left of this image is a forkball grip on a baseball. now look at dove teaching lupe the grip on the ball she’s been pitching with - a 12″ diameter ball

even when he’s showing her the grip, he can’t hold it the way you’re supposed to, with the ball snug at the base of your fingers. because you can’t fit a ball that size there. and anyone who could would be straining hard. i don’t think there’s a good shot comparing the hand sizes between dove and lupe, but given their height difference i think it’s safe to say that lupe’s hand would be smaller than dove’s, even if only slightly.

sorry for the blurry screenshots but LOOK! she physically can’t get the proper grip on the ball! there’s no way she could hold the ball in a way to get the forkball grip right because the ball is too big. like @donteatthefishtacos​ said above, the fact that she’s able to get the ball across the plate with a flimsy slippery grip like that says more about her fucking powerhouse arm than anything else

also, can you even imagine the strain that grip would put on your tendons, especially in your forearm? especially between your wrist and your elbow? no wonder lupe tweaked her elbow, she was being set up by dove with a form that could only ever be harmful.

that’s what i meant when i said the forkball was never going to work for lupe. even if she practiced the pitch every day until she mastered the technique, the mere physics of the size of the ball relative to her fingers means that she would never be able to pitch it properly.

aside from this dynamic setting up lupe’s early dynamic on the team re: carson and dove, the main reason i choose to treat this as canon is because it offers a delicious metaphor for dove and lupe.

dove obviously sees taking lupe under his wing as his last shot at having a legacy, and he sees that being tied up in the forkball. but that doesn’t mean he respects lupe, or even sees her as a full person. we see that in the scene where they’re being interviewed by the press, but really it’s dove talking about himself, giving lupe racist nicknames, and referring to her like she’s a cute little pet he’s training or something.

then, when lupe is unable to throw the forkball (which she is in all likelihood physically unable to ever do), dove keeps pushing her, telling her to try over and over again instead of doing what a coach should to and play to her strength - her goddamn zinger of a fastball.

(also side note, but baseball in general is a sport where you get in your head really easily, and it’s especially bad for pitchers. carson talked about getting the yips, a mental block where pitchers can’t seem to get a ball across the plate, and they’re fucking real. the last thing you ever want to do as a coach is to keep having your pitcher throw a pitch that isn’t working. not only are you gonna keep getting hit on, you’re gonna cause your pitcher to spiral further and further until... well)

and then, in a moment of self-advocacy and care for her body that should be respected in an athlete, lupe tells dove her elbow is tweaked, probably from the forkball - and he dismisses and belittles her pain. maybe because he thinks as a woman she’s being hysterical, maybe because he sees women of color’s pain as unimportant/holds the racist notion that people of color have higher pain tolerances, or maybe because he’s just a self-centered asshole who cares more about his legacy than the health of the person he ostensibly chose to carry it on.

either way, dove pushes lupe too hard. lupe, because she’s been cherry-picked by dove and ostracized by the rest of the team, has no choice but to keep throwing the pitch that’s fucking up her arm (read @moghedien s excellent post here about lupe’s position on the team and her relationship with dove, i agree 100%)

and then, and fucking then, dove gets to go coach the orioles, leaving lupe high and dry while she’s benched from an injury that, for all intents and purposes, dove gave her. it’s a perfect representation of dove as a white man using lupe, a mexican-american masc-presenting woman to re-bolster his career, almost entirely at her expense, and giving her nothing in return but pain. it’s fucking infuriating. it makes me so outraged on lupe’s behalf, and for me at least adds a lot of context to lupe’s emotional state surrounding her conflict and eventual fight with carson. it’s unspoken and systemically engrained, the way that misogyny and racism often is. and even if this wasn’t intentional on the writers’ parts, the fact that something so mundane as a difference in the size of the ball having such a strong but subtle impact on lupe and her story is so good from a storytelling standpoint

this also leads into why the fastball signal moment between lupe and carson in the last episode means so much to me, but this post is already stupid long so i’ll talk about that somewhere else.

sorry not to flex my jock privilege but some of the tags y’all are leaving on my aloto posts are making me laugh. wdym y’all don’t know anything about baseball do you realize how much you’re missing? did you get that dove’s forkball was never gonna work for lupe? did you miss the beautiful moment of lupe asking carson for a sign in the final game and carson giving a one? do you get how fucking much it reveals about lupe that she’s a phenomenal pitcher AND a good hitter?

[erhiem]

Feather muthaland, Bibimutha’s songs play as if she is rebuilding her confidence in real time.

Photo Illustration by Renee Klahr, Aamna Ijaz/NPR; Courtesy of Muthaboard

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Photo Illustration by Renee Klahr, Aamna Ijaz/NPR; Courtesy of Muthaboard

Feather muthaland, Bibimutha’s songs play as if she is rebuilding her confidence in real time.

Photo Illustration by Renee Klahr, Aamna Ijaz/NPR; Courtesy of Muthaboard

NPR Music Turning the Tables A project envisioned to challenge sexist and exclusionary conversations about musical greatness. So far we’ve focused on reversing traditional, patriarchal best-of-lists and popular music history. But this time, it’s personal. For 2021, we’re digging into our own relationships to record the records we love, asking: How do we know as listeners when a piece of music is important to us? How can we break free from institutional pressures on our tastes in keeping with the lessons of history? What exactly does it mean to create a personal canon? Essays in this series will explore our unique relationship with our favorite albums, from unmatched classics by major stars to sub-cultural gamechangers and personal revelations. Because the way some music holds a central place in our lives is not just a reflection of how we develop our tastes, but of how we approach the world.

In April, two days after my partner got his second COVID-19 vaccination dose, a friend sent us an invitation to celebrate his birthday at a bar. “I’m not sure,” I said, citing CDC guidelines to wait at least two weeks before socializing. But I had another idea. While some dreamed of nail salon appointments as a return to normalcy, and others fled to Airbnbs on the outskirts, I suggested making a noise on the phone once again with the crew, three Geminis and Taurus.

Our first time together was in 2019, which we regarded as a rite of passage, playing Kendrick Lamar good kid, maed city (an epic, if not prestige update for the specific soundtrack) as our visions began to blur. More than anything, I noticed how the psychedelic influences calmed the ticking urgency I felt on a daily basis in order to make productive use of my time. That kind of urgency became too much to bear last year: With the world still in a pandemic holding pattern, I was also eyeing my 35th birthday in June, and I needed to answer questions from family incessantly. Didn’t feel closer – to where my career was headed, or whether I would have children, and if so – than it was ten years ago. Naturally, I didn’t tell this to my friend.

While I certainly yearned for pre-pandemic normalcy, or perhaps a time where my age was not nearly as consequential, I was also inspired by muthaland, Chattanooga, Tenn., the first album of 2020 by rapper Bibimutha. muthaland Helping me take myself out of this pressure to live up to everyone’s expectations. The album begins by promising a good time; In the opening skit, a game show contestant swallows an acid tab to enter Bibimutha’s world. This realm of her imagination ends up as a tangle of feelings and thoughts, where not a single factor – not her career or single motherhood – completely defines who she is.

I first heard about Bibimutha in 2016. Not long before artists like art rocker Björk embraced her. Even in this crowded music landscape, it’s hard to forget an artist who names their debut EP after an iconic makeup palette, or whose moniker dates back to their mid-20s as having two sets of twins. The latter is considered a badge of honor. Early singles like “Rules” and “Rose” were the talk of a smoky-eyed relationship that could make women completely in agreement (“I’m not going to waste my waist, my thighs, my time, and all my energy/effort. Can *** * which just not for me”). The ambitious concepts he had in mind for his debut album also looked promising. his first thought, prosperity gospel, as a result of her love-hate relationship with televangelist pastor Joel Osteen (“He can sell any f****** thing and you’ll just spend your money,” she once said). Later, she stated that she planned to call the album Christine; It would be inspired by a relative who killed men who either betrayed her or abused her.

Yet I didn’t really connect with Bibimutha until we were both at the peak of our frustrations with our careers. In July 2020, Atlanta’s NPR affiliate WABE dropped under the map, a Southern hip-hop podcast that I co-host, just as overall podcast listenership began to return to pre-pandemic levels. and until muthaland Arriving last August, BbyMutha was completely disillusioned with the music industry. “After this album I’m never doing it again,” she said. This rap retirement announcement ended prematurely, although at the time, listeners mourned the lost potential. In muthalandLong after that tab swallowed one of the most indulgent rap fantasies of all time, BbyMutha is a next-gen LA chat with wordplay inspired by Gucci Mane, a rare woman who navigates traps and orders sex from across the gender spectrum. But Bibimutha also emphasizes in “Holographic” that the journey is a “rave with roaches” swirling around her house. At the height of her musical talent, she could still find a place where she falls short.

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As the oldest of my cousins, I spent most of my life in Maryland oriented around achievement and success, setting a good example. After graduating during the 2008 recession, the older I’ve gotten, the harder it felt to be, shortly thereafter separated from my first and only 9-to-5 to pursue a culture journalism career. moved to Atlanta for what seemed frivolous or self-indulgent before this “Essential workers” became part of our lexicon. (“My mom actually ran away from the Vietnam War when she was 16, so I could see” My Block: Atlanta For work, I’m not a s***,” i once joked.) I attributed my lack of hustle to this fear of failure which only intensified over the years. and before muthaland, I looked for music that helped me wrestle with or push through those feelings. open mike eagle dark comedy Soundtracked my uncomfortable entry into the gig economy after college. I still turn to trap jeezy songs Let’s get on this: Thug Inspiration 101 Or DouBoys Cashout’s “started out as an activist” for a momentary boost.

In the spring of 2019, I learned that this persistently worrying and ensuing fatigue had a name: generalized anxiety disorder. (I’ve kept it a secret from my family; my uncle once said that Asians “take too much pride in going to therapy,” as statistics following the Atlanta-area spa shooting would show.) As I tracked my sleep and panic attacks in one notebook after another, I learned that perfectionism—my once default answer to job interviews—is, “What’s your biggest weakness?” – not really to be seen in a positive light at all. Still, my mother’s way of asking “How are you?” Keeps “Are you busy?” and “Are you making money?” And I still answer “yes” every time. It has taken me almost all the time in the past two years to accept that self-awareness is still a work in progress.

Last December, my therapist gave me an exercise regimen that I still use today. In a moment of crisis, I write down the first negative thought that comes to mind (“I always make the wrong decisions,” “My career is coming back,” “Christmas is ruined”). Then I write through a reality check, as if interviewing myself: Are all these ideas true? Or is there evidence that this situation is not as dire as I had feared?

I recognize this train of thought muthaland. Songs like “Roaches Don’t Die” become anthemic because when Bibimutha brags and boasts, it’s like “You don’t f*** with who’s who with who’s government stamp and wic, huh?” Like what happens between songs. When she looks in the mirror and longs for the confident woman she once was (“I miss that b**** sometimes”) she descends on a personal statement in the face of “heavy metal”. “They see the truth when they see me / They see they aunt and they mom and grandma, gee,” she raps. “They look in a mirror, it ain’t clear / I’m afraid of everything being b*****.” At the end of “Scam Likely”, Bibimutha mocks the pseudo-awakening, drag race-savvy listeners who insist on having her as a role model (“And she makes me feel so empowered that ****** is empowered – and i up“). I get her reasoning: Role models seem impenetrable. Bibimutha’s songs sound like she’s rebuilding her confidence in real time.

During my last visit, my therapist told me to work on my definition and measures of success. I still don’t have concrete answers that translate into neat life goals, though maybe that’s an answer in itself. muthaland Teaching me to lower expectations that may read as plausible but ultimately prove untenable. Its themes confirm how I felt after my first 2019 visit, which is that scientists should revisit the psychological properties of hallucinations, even after decades of government-imposed stigma. Bibimutha’s lyrics demonstrate that motherhood, as it would be, cannot replace a sense of self. Neither would career ambitions, for that matter: muthalandThe most obvious nod to any kind of rap pantheon is “outro (skit 5).” Game show hosts thanks “sponsors” Boosie, Webby, and Diamond and Princess from Crime Mob — and then in 19 seconds, it’s over. muthaland otherwise completely untouched by discussion about Rap’s Mount RushmoreHow sales and clout factor into greatness. In how its soul-searching slowly unfolds during its hour-long runtime, the album is teaching me that position is not everything, but timing is.

In the flurry of excessive social activity between getting vaccinated and preparing myself for the Delta version, here’s what I’ll remember most:

The post-vaccination journey that finally took place on a Sunday in May. By 6 p.m. the effect was gone, though my partner reading the tarot gave to our friend, the second Gemini, didn’t wrap up until close to midnight.

The first time I heard BbyMutha’s “GoGo Yubari,” a harsh indictment against her baby daddy and the nature of how she became a baby mama: “Another violent story, another self-esteem destroyed.” BbyMutha released it in June, one of several loose and unreleased EPs from this year. muthaland. (Thank god she didn’t actually retire.)

Finally, a passing comment from a friend ahead of her 35th birthday this month. The keyword was “milestone”, with this weighted expectation we had already achieved, suggesting that all this was not enough. “I’m always here to talk about it,” I said, and I meant it. After the past year of working as a stand-in confidant of BbyMutha, I feel ashamed personally, or a shame at all.

christina lee is a music and culture writer living in Atlanta. She co-hosts the podcast under the map.

The post BbyMutha’s ‘Muthaland’ Is Teaching Me That Status Isn’t Everything : NPR appeared first on Spicy Celebrity News.

[evanongraham]

Karen Graham believed that her days as the "Estee Lauder girl" were long behind her. After all, she was retired from modeling and had spent most of the past decade at her country home in upstate New York, teaching the sport she loves: fly-fishing. Then, "out of the blue" in the summer of 1998, Lauder senior vice president Robert Luzzi called her up. "Would you be interested in doing another ad campaign for us?" he asked. Graham was surprised, pleased and excited. Then she had "this moment of terror," as she puts it. "Do you know how old I am?" she asked. Exactly the point: Luzzi did know. That's why he wanted Graham to be the face for Lauder's Resilience Lift Creme, a skin-care product designed for women "in their 40s, 50s and beyond." It was a campaign that the current "Lauder girl," Elizabeth Hurley, wasn't right for -- at 34, she is just too young. So, at age 54, Karen Graham is back in modeling -- but this time, you can call her the "Estee Lauder woman." "I felt so relieved that I didn't have to try to look younger, prettier," Graham says. "I could be me. And be happy and confident of it. "There is beauty at every age. Just because I don't look 22 anymore doesn't mean that I don't look beautiful anymore." While the years have indeed slipped by, some things about Graham have barely changed since the days when she graced innumerable Lauder print ads shot by Victor Skrebneski. The Mississippi native and Sorbonne graduate still is a beauty, with the fine features and slender bones that inspired modeling matriarch Eileen Ford to hire her after they met by chance on the stairs at Bonwit Teller. Her delicate looks so captivated legendary photographer Irving Penn that he insisted Vogue editor Diana Vreeland hire her for a fashion spread despite Graham's relatively small frame. ("I have to really stretch to reach 5-8," she says.) Grace Mirabella, Vreeland's successor, put her on Vogue's cover many times and helped make Graham one of the most recognized faces of the 1970s. She quit modeling in 1985, when she was 40, to concentrate on rearing her son from a short-lived second marriage. "I had made up my mind, early on in my career, that I was going to retire when I was on top in my profession," she says. Few people could have guessed what her next profession would be. She had gotten her first fly rod as a Christmas gift in the early '70s. "My brother gave me that fly rod, and that was the beginning of a lifelong passion for the sport," she says. In 1991, she moved 100 miles from Manhattan and bought a 17th-century stone cottage in Rosendale, N.Y. There she has four wooded acres of peace and privacy. And yes, a river runs through it. Thanks to the fact that she had saved much of her earnings as a model, Graham was able to turn her beloved hobby into a career. With her business partner, Bert Darrow, she runs a fly-fishing school that introduces novices to the sport. Despite countless hours spent standing in a trout stream, her fair skin looks remarkably untanned and clear. Graham gives the credit to Lauder's Futurist foundation and concealer cream (which she uses for daily protection) as well as to decades of conscientiously wearing hats and sunscreen. When she was modeling full time, "most of my bread-and- butter was beauty work," she says, and she had to protect her complexion in order to be "the Lauder girl" for 15 years. That scrupulous care has paid off, 30 years later, with a face that can still take the camera's scrutiny with ease. "That's proof positive that environmental aging is preventable," says Graham. Looking good on the outside is important -- but, she adds, feeling good on the inside is even more essential. Time has moved on. Her son now is a college junior, and thus not much younger than his mother was when she became a celebrity. But for Graham, these years are joyous: rich with opportunities to travel, to learn, to grow. "You know, I wouldn't trade all these wrinkles to be 22 again," says Graham. "Or, let's just say, the gray hairs. "Instead of thinking of what is over, think of what's beginning. It's the beginning of a new freedom. It's time to enjoy life."