#her argument was Well we know what we want and we're not getting any younger so if our pace is fast it's fast

[spurgie-cousin]

I'm watching the wedding episode of Christine (we're a little behind here). So do we know why Gwen wasn't at the wedding? And I mean not the I had to study reason because it is your mom's wedding. You study extra hard the day before and after if you really want to be there right?

I don't think we know the exact reason Gwen wasn't at the wedding, but to be fair there are a ton of possibilities. The newest season of Sister Wives is a snooze fest full of things we've already seen (like, they do ANOTHER Christine's wedding episode ffs how many times do we need to see this), but one thing it did teach me is that many of Christine's kids thought she moved too fast in her new relationship and were pretty uncomfortable with it for a while. Almost all of them said David (her new man) seemed like a decent guy, but with their parents divorce being so recent, it was just a lot to adjust to very quickly. So I do think that's one possible reason Gwen maybe didn't come tbh, with her autism it might be something she was having an even harder time adjusting to than her siblings.

Also at the time (years ago at this point) Gwen was having mad beef with her brother Paedon (Christine's only boy), claiming she wanted nothing to do with him ever again because he didn't respect her queerness and had been abusive in the past. This was when Paedon was openly a MAGA guy too, so people have speculated she skipped to avoid him since he was there.

And then the possible third option is that something just happened that made it so she genuinely couldn't go, but personally I think it's a combination of those two previous things, with emphasis on the first one. Many kids were pretty emotional about how fast Christine and David moved, and just knowing a little about how Gwen reacts to stuff I can see that being hard for her.

[xoxoavenger]

Hey! Since you’re taking requests, can I request a sort of part two (not necessarily it could jsut be a stand alone) to Days of Future Past where what if younger Charles had a wife in the 70s where reader decides to break it off with Charlie’s casue the love she had for him begun to slowly dwindle because of all the events that happened in the last fic. And while she does care for him as the father of her son and fully expects him to still be in his sons life, she can’t be with him anymore since it’s to much

Broken

pairing: Charles Xavier x Fem!Reader

word count: 739

warnings: angst, no comfort

notes: Days Of Future Past was posted a year ago for my birthday celebration, so it's only fitting that I post the long awaited part 2 for another birthday celebration 🥰

Days Of Future Past (part 1)

birthday celebration main masterlist

The thing about change is that it doesn't happen overnight.

When Logan went back to his own time, Y/N never expected Charles to go back to normal immediately. She knew it would be an uphill battle. But she was pregnant and tired of waiting.

"You're joking." Charles says. They're in his study, Y/N standing even though she is due in a week. They haven't had any conversations that aren't about their son since Logan came, and they need to have this conversation before there's a baby taking up all their time. When she brought up her decision, he didn't seem to like it.

"I know you're on cocaine." She says point blank. She's known for awhile, but it's finally time to force him to get his shit together.

"If you're going to leave me, you might as well go before our son comes." He doesn't think she'll actually do it. He goes back to his work, sitting behind his desk as if she'll huff and walk out. But His words just make her more sure in her decision. She takes a deep breath and looks over at him.

"Charles. I am leaving you. We're not arguing about that right now. What we're talking about is if you're going to be in our son's life or not." She can tell this makes Charles mad, but she has to think of herself and her son. She can't stay with Charles, not when he continuously puts her through tough times. She doesn't know how she's even gotten through this pregnancy when all he's done is get high or drunk and act like she wasn't pregnant for six months.

"What the fuck?" Charles blinks, looking up slowly. "You can't just leave as we're about to have a kid!" His argument infuriates her.

"I'm not in love with you anymore!" She screams, the room going completely quiet. They stare at each other, both hurting.

"What does that mean?" He whispers, and she almost wants to take it back. She can't though, because it's the truth.

"I'll always love you, Charles." She tells him, walking closer slowly. "But after what you put me through, I'm not in love with you."

"I need you." He tells her, reaching out when she gets close enough and grabbing her hand. "I can't get through life without you."

"I'll be here." She assures, moving his hand to her protruding stomach. "There will be a piece of us in this world soon, and I would go through everything again for him. But you and I cannot work together. At least not now." Tears begin to fall from Charles' eyes.

"I can quit." He mutters, and she nods.

"I know you can. And you're going to for our son." She moves to sit on his desk. He puts his head against her stomach, tears soaking her shirt.

"I need you." He repeats, and she just shakes her head.

"Our son needs you." She cards her hands through his hair. "Maybe in another time, we can be together, but you've put me through too much."

"I'm sorry." He finally whispers, and she nods, trying not to cry. "I love you so much."

"I know you do." She tells him. A part of her feels bad. She knows he's trying. But it's too little too late, and she can't sacrifice any more of herself.

"I can change." He promises.

"Charles," She pulls away from him, looking down. "I know you can change. But I can't wait for it. I can't keep giving up pieces of myself to fix you." She feels the need to kiss him, for the comfort and the repetitiveness. But it'll only hurt worse.

"I don't need to be fixed. I just need time." He begs, and it's the same thing Y/N has heard over and over.

"I don't have time to give you." She tells him truthfully, moving away from him now. "Our baby will be brilliant. He will have two loving parents. But they will not be together. For their sake and his."

"Y/N," He starts, but he doesn't have anything left to say. He has nothing left to beg with.

"I love and care for you." She whispers. "But I am not in love with you. You have taken things from me that you cannot give back. Broken things you can't repair. And I can't forgive you for that."

She walks out without looking back, going to move her stuff out of their room. 

//

tags: @avada-kedavra-bitch-187  @one-sweet-gubler @thefandomplace  @mcueveryday @icequeen1371 @kenzi-woycehoski @multifandom-boss-bitch

[gardens-light]

Finding Peace

Taking shelter in an abandoned petrol station, tension builds between you and your family. As blame and arguments raise- not like you didn't feel guilty enough already. You didn't ask for this- any of this! You just wanted to help Optimus. And it's not like the Autobot leader didn't have problems of his own. Being hunted down by humans for reasons yet unknown was bad enough- but ignoring the yearning of his Spark has slowly become problematic. Occasionally shaking his helm attempting to get you out of his processors, trying to convince himself that a 'Sparkmate' was nothing but a romancide idea that the younger bots came up with. Or is it?...

Content: Minor coarse language. Event's take part in Transformers- Age of Extinction. (Leading to major spoilers in Part 4.) Optimus x Human F/Reader. Fluff. (Reader insert.)

Sparkmate Series- Part 1 Part 2 Part 4 Part 5

"Well... on the bright side." Tessa's voice lowly spoke, while sitting upon a dusty bar. Playing with some fairy lights. "You two have finally met.."

"Where's he from?"

"I told you. He's a driver from Texas."

"Texas?" Cade scoffed at Tessa's words. "Where? Dublin, Texas? Shamrock, Texas? So why does he sound like a leprechaun?"

Shane's brows knitted together, as he leaned against the bar. "You'd get your ass kicked in Ireland for saying that."

"Well we're not in Ireland, Lucky Charms. We're in Texas." Cade's attention turned back onto Tessa. "So he drives? What's that supposed to mean? Like he drives for a living?"

"Yeah... at least he makes a living."

Tessa's words caused Cade to fall silent. His eyes flickering up to you, frowning as you tried to avoid him.

"How old are you?" Cade challenged, approaching Shane.

"Twenty."

"And my daughter is seventeen. So as far as I'm concerned, this can go two ways." Cade leaned on the other side of the bar, glaring at Shane. "One, I punch you in the mouth right here, right now. And you call the police on me."

"Dad!-"

"Or two. I just call the cops on you because this is illegal. She's a minor!"

Steady... Steady... your thoughts wandered, while trying to focus on making a 'house of cards' out of beer coasters.

"We're protected by the 'Romeo and Juliet laws'-"

"We dated for a little while." Tessa explained, cutting Shane off. "I was a sophomore, and he was a senior. It's fine."

"We've got a pre-existing juvenile foundational relationship. Statute 2705-3." Shane took out his wallet, showing Cade the small card stating the law. "We're above board."

Cade sighed, "Romeo and Juliet, huh? Do you know how they ended up?"

Just... one more coaster...

"In love-"

"Dead." Cade turned to you. "And you, Y/N?"

Shit...

An unamused expression fell across your features as the coasters came tumbling down.

"Don't look at me like that, young lady. How long have you known about this?"

Cade rubbed his temples as you silently responded with a small shrug. "Well tell me. Days? Weeks?-"

"Months."

"Months...? And you didn't think that I would of wanted to know about this?-"

"Dad. Tessa is a full grown ass adult." You groaned. "She's capable of learning from a mistake or two."

"I trusted you. Both of you-"

"To what?" Tessa butted in. "Never have fun. Take a risk. Be a normal teenager like you?"

"I am your father, okay!" Cade firmly spoke, turning his attention onto Tessa. "And I've been busting my ass to take care of you and your sister!-"

"Oh so is that why I'm busting a gut trying to juggle two jobs?" You scoffed. "And here I thought, I'm the one who took care of this family."

"Is that what you were doing when you continued working on that damn truck?" Tessa spoke to you. A frown forming upon her lips, "all you had to do was report it.-"

"You know I couldn't do that-"

"And now we're forced into hiding. And my life is over! So 'thank you', Sis. You've taken 'real good' care us-"

"None of this would of happened! If you just kept your fucking mouth shut!-"

"Don't talk to your sister like that!" Cade stepped in.

"Sure Dad. Take her side... you always do."

"Y/N-"

"Look! I get it!" you raised onto your feet. "I know I'm 'the disappointment', 'the let down'-"

"Sweetie, I've never said that-"

Your eyes wandered over your dad's disappointed expression. "You didn't had to..."

---

Sitting upon the petrol stations' roof, the gentle breeze of the cool night air felt refreshing against your skin. Soft chirping of crickets eased your headache, your eyes gazing out into the dark empty road. The sound of small grunts and sighs caught your attention, briefly gazing over your shoulder. Rolling your eyes, once seeing Tessa struggling to climb the ladder with a mug in hand.

"What do you want?" you sighed, turning your attention back onto the road ahead.

"I thought- ouch!- that you could do with a hot drink."

The sound of the metal roofing warping and creaking, under Tessa's feet suddenly felt loud. As she approached you, taking a sit upon the roof's edge, leaving a small gap between you.

"I made your favourite." She kindly spoke, handing you the hot beverage. "I couldn't make it exactly to your liking, but it's the thought that counts. Right?"

Her weak smile faded as you remained silent. Speechlessly accepting the mug from her and holding it in your hands.

"You're not a disappointment." Tessa spoke after a brief hesitation. "For if it wasn't for you, we would of lost our home ages ago."

Tessa bit her lip before continuing, "I... did tell a friend about the truck. B-But I honestly didn't think he would believe me! If I knew- I wouldn't of..."

Your side glance caused her voice to trail off into silence.

"Well... what I'm trying to say... is that I'm so sorry. I didn't mean for any of this to happen."

Sipping the hot beverage, feeling the gentle warmth fill you inside. Tessa followed your gaze, a small smile returning to her lips.

"You're worried about him. Aren't you?"

"Is it that obvious?"

"Yes." Tessa teased. "Like a lovesick girl."

You returned her smile, playfully pushing her away. "Oh shut up. You're talking nonsense, I'm just concerned about him. That's all."

"Uh-huh?" Tessa raised an eyebrow. Seeing a glimpse of you trying to hide a shy smile behind the mug.

"So... What's Dad doing?" you asked, trying to change the subject.

"Playing with some drone that he stole from the one of the guys. Dad's convinced that they would of truly killed us."

Tessa's heart sank as she watched you pull your legs close to your chest, hugging your knees a little while resting your mug against them.

"B-But that's just Dad's crazy thought." Tessa's guilt weighed on her heart a little more. Starting to wish she never said anything.

"Everything would of been fine, if only I watched what I was saying." You buried your head, resting your forehead against your knees and hiding your face. "I-If I didn't panic..."

"Shhh. Shhh." Tessa cooed, closing the gap between you. Placing her arm around your shoulders and resting her head against yours. "It's not your fault. You have a big heart, Y/N. Never be ashamed of that."

She gently pulled away, cupping your tearstained face and making you face her. "You are a rare treasure, and that Transformer better know that."

Finally smiling through your tears, Tessa rested her forehead against yours. The sound of a horn blaring in the distance broke the silence, while bright headlights burned the darkness away. You quickly raised onto your feet, causing Tessa to catch the falling mug while the hot beverage spilled onto the ground below.

You placed both hands against your chest, while gazing at the oncoming truck. Feeling it flutter with joy, as the sound of a faminular engine came to your ears.

Tessa rose onto her feet, giving you one last soft glance before leaving. A knowing smile forming upon her lips. You've got it bad...

Optimus carefully reduced his speed, as he walked out of his altmode. Trying to slow the pulsing rhythm of his spark as he approached you. Being mindful of each step he took, so it didn't appear like he was in a rush to be beside you again.

"Optimus..." your voice was low. Trying to hide the excitement within your tone.

"My deepest sympathies for your home." His soothing tone washed away the doubt and worries, that had been building up inside you. "And for leaving you so promptly. But I had to confirm we weren't followed."

You speechlessly nodded, trying to hold a relaxed expression as your eyes took in the sight of him.

Oh my...

Rust and dirt no longer coated his exterior, instead deep blue metal plates framed his chrome fisque, like pieces of armour. Your heart skipping a beat as your eyes wandered over him, taking in every detail of his broad shoulders and strong biceps.

Red flames danced across the gauntlets, but it was his torso you couldn't look away from. Your cheeks matched the warmth of Optimus' spark, as you gazed at his chest plate. Hands clutching onto your shirt, stopping the urge to reach out and run your fingertips over his toned form. Knowing that your touch wouldn't just stopped at that chromed waist of his.

"Loving the upgrade." Forcing the words out of your mouth, after swallowing your nerves.

Optimus got down on one knee, as you edged a little closer to the side of the roof. His blue optics studied you for a moment.

"You've been crying..."

Something inside him ached a little, as you temporarily turned away from him.

"It's nothing." You assured, brushing the dried tears off your cheeks. "I've just been... a little worried that's all."

"And I admittedly have been concerned about you."

That little sentence erupted butterflies in your stomach. Simply gazing up at him with wondering eyes.

How the stars sparkled in your eyes almost caused Optimus to choke on his own breath. Warmth begun to build beneath his metal plates, as his yearning spark called out for you.

His head tilted slightly as his scanners picked up something. Your body froze as he slightly hesitated before reaching out to you. Optimus' servo curled into a relaxed fist, your eyes peering down at it as he gently placed the knuckle of his index digit under your chin. While his thumb rested against your cheek.

His spark skipped a beat as a loving sigh slipped out of your mouth. Enjoying the cool touch of his metal against your soft skin.

Optimus carefully turned your head from side to side, studying your features. His scanners picking up the bruise that begun to form upon the bridge of your nose.

"That bastard hurt you." The small underlying anger within his tone caught you off guard. "I promise... I'll make him pay for what he's done to you."

"Optimus." You cooed, placing your hand on the back of his servo. Bringing it to the side of your face, resting your head against his digits.

His fans tried to push the warm air out of Optimus' vents, as the heat beneath his plates begun to build. His spark aching with a yearn he could no longer deny.

Closer... The word played on his processors. Causing him to fully kneel against the concrete ground, leaning in a little more.

Your loving eyes met the soft glow of his optics, as his servo slowly trailed down towards your waist. His thumb tracing the curves of your thighs, hips and waist.

The butterflies in your stomach tangled your nerves, your heart fluttering against your chest as a small gasp slipped from your lips. Eyes lingering over his features before closing, as you rested a hand against his chest plate.

As your heart matched the beat of Optimus' spark, syncing in harmony. A beautiful glow enveloped the pair of you, creating a warmth that made you almost forget about the world, as your lips ghosted over one another.

"Mr. Leader of the Free Galaxy is back!" an unknown mechanical voice caused you to quickly jump away from Optimus. "I knew you'd make it! I never doubted."

Crosshairs... Optimus' processors sighed. Trying to hide his disappointed expression as the leader faced his joyful Autobots. The sound of their roaring engines calming, before stepping out of their altmodes.

"We've got your warning." Drift greeted, "we've been waiting."

"Hell yeah! Boom time!" Hound cheered. "We've got the gang back together."

Drift tilted his head to the side, as his blue optics switched between you and Optimus. Smiling to himself as his processors picked up, the afterglow that slowly faded from the pair of you.

Optimus cleared his throat before speaking, "Autobots. The humans have asked us to play by their rules. Well... those rules have just changed."

"Humans, bunch of backstabbing weasels." Hound groaned, causing the ground to shake as he disarmed. Throwing heavy weaponries onto the floor.

"Hound, find your inner compass. Loyalty is nothing but a flower in the winds of fear and temptation."

Hound raised a brow at Drift's wise tone, "what the hell are you saying?"

The blue Autobot smiled, "it's a haiku-"

"Cut the crap! Before I drop a grenade down your throat."

You backed away from the edge of the roof, as Drift unsheathed his swords. "Try it" he challenged, "you'll be dead."

"Oh please do it." Hound taunted. "I wanna see you do it."

"You know what?" Bumblebee's radio buzzed, "it save us so much time."

Optimus gave you an unimpressed expression, as you gazed up at him, raising an eyebrow. A small chuckle left you as he speechlessly gestured to his Autobots. As to say, 'look what I have to put up with.'

"Well raise your hand, if you're thoroughly disenchanted with our little 'Earth vacation.'" Crosshairs spoke, while circling the petrol station. His green optics studying you, "so who's the spy?"

"Whoa! Whoa! Put those things away!" you yelped as Hound and Crosshairs immediately withdraw their guns, and pointing them at you.

"Stop, Hound! Both of you!" Optimus commanded, stepping in front of the building.

Both Autobots gave their leader a puzzled expression, as he continued. "Y/N, risked her life for mine. We owe her..."

Drift gave Bumblebee a playful nudge, discreetly pointing at you and Optimus. While Hound and Crosshairs briefly looked at one another, and turning their attention back onto their leader. Watching him stepping aside, and silently encouraging you to return to the roof's edge.

"Has there been... any sign of the others?" Optimus asked.

"No..." Hound sighed, withdrawing his weapon and settling himself upon the ground. "We're all that's left."

"They're picking us off, one by one!" Crosshairs explained.

"We're the pathetic, dirty foursome." Hound joked, "and you make five."

"Is this our best-case scenario?" Shane's teasing voice questioned you. Your eyes gazed at him, watching the Irishman climb onto the roof. "Autobot witness protection?"

"Hey Lucky Charms." you spoke, placing a hand upon your hips. "You're welcome to leave at anytime."

"Well, for the record, Super Sister. I'm not hiding with you." Shane gestured towards Optimus, "I'm hiding out with that big guy."

Tessa and Cade followed Shane's lead, as the three of them approached your side. All looking at the Autobots and they chatted among themselves.

"Sensei, with your fate unknown Bumblebee has held command." Drift's optics gazed at the yellow scout.

Bee fist bumped the air, while Drift rolled his optics. "Despite his complete and total lack of anything resembling warrior discipline."

An annoyed whirl weeze out of Bumblebee, as his optics narrowed on his comrade.

"He's like a child-"

"This 'child' is about to kick your ass!" Bee's radio buzzed. Landing the first hit against Drift's helm.

"Cage fight." Hound whispered to you, slightly leaning against the petrol stations' roof.

"What's the matter with them?" Tessa lowly asked, reaching out for your hand.

"They're on edge." You briefly explained, allowing her hand to slip into yours. "Who could blame them? They're being hunted."

"Am I the only one who sees through this puppy-dog act of yours?" Drift taunted Bee, while holding him in a headlock. "It's beneath you."

"Yes, I've been waiting for them all to dispatch each other." Crosshairs cheered. His servos gently clapping, "so I could take charge with no trouble at all. Just me. Reporting to me."

"Well, it sure looks like you've been missed." You said to Optimus.

"Autobots, humans are hunting us down. We need to know why."

"Listen..." Cade spoke, stepping towards Optimus. "I don't know why, but I might have an idea about who..."

---

"This drone I stole recorded footage of an Autobot raid." Cade explained.

You placed an affectionate hand upon Optimus' knee, as he sat cross-legged upon the floor. His servo clenching into a fist, as the dragonfly-like drone projected the video footage.

"It's in pieces, but watch what happens here." Cade pointed out, "they ripping them apart."

"That's Leadfoot." Hound spoke, as he placed a part of his helm over his spark. Feeling the saddened energy sink within his chest plates. "Savages."

"And later, this truck comes to haul him off to K.S.I. Kinetic Solutions." Cade continued. "They're creating defenses, aerospace, government contracts. They designed this drone."

"So these government guys are hunting you down, and then passing you of to this K.S.I?" Shane questioned.

"Do you know anything else?" Optimus asked.

"Only that their company headquarters is in Chicago." Cade spoke.

Perhaps... There's a chance of the Autobots being taken there. You thought.

"No way to get inside without a battle." Hound thought out loud.

"What if you had some human help?" everyone looked at you.

"Sweetie, no." Cade protested. "Besides, what are you two partners now?"

"Dad, we're targets now too." You spoke, feeling his worried stare on you. "We need to know why, or we'll never get our lives back."

"Y/N. You have done more than any of us could've asked for." Optimus kindly spoke. "I do not-"

"I'm coming." You gently argued. Seeing Tessa's encouraging smile from the corner of your eye.

"It's going to be dangerous." Drift warned, as he lend towards you.

The blue Autobot stiffed as you placed a comforting hand upon his knee. Giving him a warm smile, "you're important Optimus. Therefore, you're important to me.

A suttle warmth radiated from underneath Drift's metal plates.

"Autobots." Optimus spoke, as he raised onto his feet. "I have sworn to never kill humans."

"Big mistake." Hound mumbled

"But when I find out who's behind this. He's going to die..."

Tag List

@ursamajor17

@crowleysthings

[cleolinda]

My sister noticed

Previously on: I grew up in a haunted house and I didn't notice: So I told you a story about how a Count Chocula used to creep behind me at night when I was a child, and I described my very weird childhood home to you. I told you how my sister had Something Dark living in her bedroom, and I told you about the time she and I compared notes and realized that we also had the ghost of a young woman in the house. Maybe.

I asked my sister to read over the draft for me, maybe gather up the fortitude to fill in some details, and she texted back, "Oh, I'll tell you anything you want. But that’s not how it happened."

I am willing to believe her version for two reasons:

1) My memory has been shit after having covid umpteen thousand times.

2) I actually remember her version of the conversation we had, now that it's in front of me.

I also remember my version, is the thing—the one where I told her about Rebecca when we were younger. And that raises some questions about how independent, how uncompromised, our experiences were. But I think those questions are themselves the story. Can I trust my memory at all? I had such bad brain fog the first time I had covid that I could not remember how to scramble eggs. A lot of things are just mist to me now. There's what I remember and there's what actually happened, but what do I even remember? And that's before you even get into the idea that we're talking about ghosts we "felt" in the house. We saw no apparitions, no shadows, no odd movements.

This is not a story where I'm asking you to believe me.

There are things you experience, and things that happen. An example from the winter of 2016:

What I experienced was standing out on our deck one night and looking up at the stars. They were moving in a slight swirl motion, not unlike the painting Starry Night. I turned to my mom and said, "Well, the stars are moving, so if the world ends or something any time soon, here's our first sign." She stared at me.

What happened was, our upstairs heating unit had a leak, and I sustained mild carbon monoxide poisoning. (I like rooms to be cool, so I had used the heater less than most people would, at least.) This was only discovered during a routine furnace check, after my vision had been a little weird and I had been deeply fatigued for two or three months. I have had a CO monitor upstairs ever since.

Did I see the stars swirling? Yes. Were they? No. That's the distinction I want you to make while I tell you all this. Did my sister and I experience things? Yes. Do I know what happened? No.

So what I agree happened was, we were having Grownup Sunday Family Dinner a few years back, maybe 2019 or so. I had been really into Buzzfeed Unsolved, which later evolved into Watcher Entertainment, but my sister was refusing to watch any of it. She's a big fan now, but she only started watching the guys last year. Yesterday, we tried to piece this back together via text.

My sister ["MS" from here on out]: Like I feel like off and on for years you mentioned [Shane and Ryan's shows] and I refused

MS: And one day my argument was to talk about our own house

Me [let's go with Cleolinda Jones, "CJ"]: You said you felt like fake ghost shows were disrespectful to people who actually experienced [hauntings].

MS: YES I FEEL LIKE THAT WAS THE CONVO

I love paranormal investigation shows, whether they're patently fake or not, as long as I enjoy the people investigating, so I couldn't understand why they personally offended her. Pulling at this thread back in 2019 is how the the whole ghost story started coming out.

CJ: And I was like, okay, but here’s one show where they get, like, nothing, but I can promise you that it's real

(Because the Unsolved/Watcher shows pair a believer with an actual skeptic who still, lo these many years later, does not believe in any of it. I truly believe Shane and Ryan would not stage "evidence," for that reason. Shane makes fun of ghosts and people who believe in them, but he's honest about it, and my sister likes that.)

At this point, we go back to the first version of the story that I posted: my sister had told me that Something had lived in the Four Closets Bedroom with her when she was a preteen/early teenager. It felt very dark, very bad, and she had not told anyone else about it until that dinner. The way I relayed it to you, Dear Reader, was that she hadn't wanted to go into detail, and I wasn't sure what it looked like, or if it "lived" in the little witch closet, or what. That night at dinner, I had gone on to tell her that, you know, now that you mention it, I did feel like something used to follow me up there at night. And this was when "My sister started crying. Like just staring at me in wide-eyed horror, her eyes filling with tears" had come in.

1. Something Dark

CJ: So you were telling me about our house being haunted. Something in your room. How would you describe it?

MS: I think it more lived in the attic

(our pal the dark fucked-up attic room)

MS: but would roam the entire floor so I felt it in the peach room [my (Cleo's) old bedroom and then later, my sister's] but more so in [the Four Closets Bedroom] as it was closer to the attic

MS: The best way I can describe it is just never feeling like I was alone. Feeling like something was always behind me. But I refused to turn around to look. It felt like a darkness that almost oozed behind you in a way that was almost suffocating.

CJ: What I find interesting is that we both describe it as Just Feelings, and never feeling alone.

My sister texted me at this point that she used to sense Something upstairs whether it was day or night; "even in the day, it didn't feel safe." But night was worse.

MS: There was one night in 3rd grade when I was reading and had like my first panic attack because I was newer to living upstairs and I felt it come in the room at night for the first time

MS: I also used to feel compelled to keep the AC running all night like it was never cold enough.

Here's the weird thing: when we moved to the house where I currently live and our rooms were on the same floor, we always fought over the thermostat. My sister hated her bedroom being too cool, whereas I get hot. I remember one night, we were arguing over it, and she was weirdly on the verge of tears: "Why do you have to have it so cold?" In 2023, my sister texted me at this point that she didn't want our childhood home to be cold; it was like the thing wanted that temperature, even if she hated it.

You often hear that ghosts make rooms cold, that's a big ghost hunter show thing—but whatever was up there couldn't lower the temperature on its own?

CJ: "If you can’t make it cold yourself, storebought is fine"

CJ: And you don’t have a visual impression of it, I’m not just blowing past that?

MS: I refused. REFUSED to look. Ever. For any reason.

CJ: I did too, so that’s interesting

CJ: I describe it as a Count Chocula, which should tell you how much it didn’t bother me. Which I find weird

(Truly, there is a reason I titled that post "I grew up in a haunted house and I didn't notice.")

MS: I can’t tell if it was truly terrifying. Or if the amount of data I was getting from it was just so overwhelming that that alone was terrifying to a child. I wish I could answer that now.

CJ: Yeah, in some way I think we’re saying the same thing. I was seven years old and I couldn’t comprehend what it was, either, so I just imagined a silly vampire

CJ: like I can’t overstate how cartoonish it seemed to me at the time, while still being very DON’T LOOK BACK

Part of the problem, she added, was that she felt compelled to go turn down the air conditioning... and the thermostat was next to the (carpeted. shag carpeted) bathroom. And then she had to race back to her bedroom... the same way I used to, as quick as she could.

MS: I also felt like I could NOT run. Like the way you shouldn’t run away from a mountain lion. It would create the need for it to chase me.

MS: What is so strange is that [learning about paranormal investigation] has not changed my perception of my experience in the slightest. Whether that’s the reality or not. It is still something I find dark and terrifying.

CJ: I think you would answer this differently now than you did then: what do you think it was?

We discussed this by text for a while. I mentioned being intrigued that Something Dark wanted to be cold (but apparently was not able to make the room cold). My sister—having agreed to be quoted here—said, "I kinda hope to avoid someone being like 'you had a demon in your house,'" as she doesn't really feel like that's what it was. Her gut feeling (and, bear in mind, we are working off nothing but feelings here) is that it was a spirit or ghost: something formerly human. We agree that it seemed male in some way (again: a Chocula).

And you're probably thinking, This is total bullshit. And it probably is! I'm not claiming any of this to be real evidence! I just find it interesting that we somehow came up with the same bullshit.

CJ: It just fascinates me that I did not experience 90% of this, and yet I got a strong enough whiff of it that I’m like, yeah, I can see it

But what about the female presence, the one I went off to color with in the middle of the night?

2. Rebecca

MS: I didn’t find out you had done the ouija board until we were adults. You didn’t tell me when we were kids

MS: That’s why I was SO shocked when we talked at the dinner table.

See, I was convinced that I had told her about my ouija adventures when I was a teenager, and "What about Rebecca??" flowed really well in the first post. That conversation was already a bit fictionalized in order to condense it from what I remembered—that's how memoirs work, really, unless you have actual transcripts of your life and room to include them. You're telling a story. I thought I was telling a condensed version of a true story. And yet, I do remember how shocked my sister was at dinner that night. And she would have only been seven or eight when I was messing around with that shit. Those two things do support the idea that I wouldn't have told her.

MS: You did tell me skeletons lived in my closet tho

I told you I was kind of a shit.

CJ: when I told you about Rebecca, what was your reaction?

MS: That’s when I went white. Bc I realized we had had a similar experience and I wasn’t just crazy

CJ: The thing is, I WOULD HAVE SWORN I had told you about Rebecca when we were younger

MS: If you did you didn’t name her and that’s why it was nuts when I realized 2 decades later we pulled the same name and we both remembered it.

We did it again, too—I posted briefly about putting this whole saga together, and how my sister asked me to give the ghost a pseudonym (ghosts deserve privacy too). And in trying to think of a good replacement, we both came up with "Rebecca."

CJ: so how did you know the [original] name?

MS: Ouija board with [best friend, redacted] in the playroom when I was like 13. She cried the whole time. We both thought the other was moving [the planchette].

You'll remember the weird, windowless, sky-blue playroom with the scary door from the previous post.

MS: But she was crying so she wouldn’t have been. And I would have never pulled out the name [Not Actually Rebecca]

MS: There was part of me that wonders if I did it but I would have NEVER chosen Rebecca

CJ: So did I bring Rebecca up first in this conversation [at dinner in 2019], or did you? I did?

MS: You said it first. I would have never [told you first] cuz I would have thought you were placating me. Like I’d never really know if you weren’t just agreeing with me

And that's when my sister had "stared at me, saucer-eyed, pale. Like I'm not sure I had ever seen anyone 'go white' until that moment." And I had told her about getting up at midnight and going to color in the weird playroom, and someone else being in there with me, no big deal.

After all this discussion, we do think that Rebecca was briefly my "imaginary friend," but our mom told me to stop talking about that. Not because our mom was spooked, but because she felt like it was rude for me to talk about someone I was presumably making up in front of company. So that stopped. Thinking back on it, I just felt like someone was sitting next to me on the couch. I didn't feel anyone next to me; when I looked, I felt like I could see where... someone was not? The space that someone invisible was taking up? It felt like something reasonably friendly. "Chill" is the word I keep using. Not super eager or possessive, just like a girl who was a bit older, maybe a teenager, a babysitter age, who liked me well enough. There was some dark shit in the attic, apparently—it did feel very oppressive in there—but I would get a sense that a metaphorical desk lamp had been turned on. A presence that stayed back, relaxed, but emanated "hey, I'm here."

What my sister and I agreed on was that we remembered how these "feelings" were both vague and memorable. I can't remember events or chronology accurately, but I remember the actual sensations and presences very, very clearly. They resist reinterpretation. I can't sit here and say, "Oh, Rebecca was totally a guardian angel, I see that now." The Something Dark sounds functionally demonic, but my sister doesn't feel like that's accurate. (If anything, she gets a sense that this could have been a malicious uncle—not father—of some kind to Rebecca, if the two beings were related: particular in their vagueness.) These two presences just... were. My sister says she primarily sensed Rebecca outdoors in our backyard, when we were pretending (were we?) to play with fairies. I didn't sense Rebecca there—but then, I wasn't aware that what I sensed was a someone, not for another thirty years or so. My oblivious ass was up at midnight filling in my She-Ra coloring book with a ghost like, "Yeah, I'm alone in the dark for no reason, this is normal." It's only in retrospect that I recognize atmospheric feelings as things that actually took up space, and I don't know how I didn't see it at the time. I can't explain that, and I can't ask you to believe it. All I know is that my sister still feels very traumatized by her experience of it—and I can't explain why I don't.

I think one of the reasons paranormal investigation shows don't scare me a whole lot is because so much of the "evidence" is random knocks and creaks and movements and vibes, and I'm like, yeah, I've lived in two houses now like that. The door of my current bedroom opens and closes on its own all the time. It's probably a draft from the ventilation system (which does not have CO leaks anymore) (probably). I've seen something at this house that a lot of people might call a shadow person, but I was probably imagining it. So many of these ghost shows just have things that I grew up with and didn't even think a whole lot of at the time; I seem to be protected by a +3 Sphere of Sure, That's Fine. Is my current house also haunted? I honestly don't know. Would I notice if it was?

[rendomski]

The Domino Effect

Summary: Shaak Ti was often tempted to save some clone kids. AU, where she finally goes for it. And the ties of siblinghood run strong among the clones.

An impromptu ficlet, ~1000 words. Enjoy 🙂.

Force acts in mysterious ways, thinks Shaak Ti when she walks by the cadet barracks late in their night cycle and overhears the argument. Apparently, someone who doesn’t want to be called Hevy decided to go AWOL, and 99 is trying to persuade him otherwise.

Supervising kids that are raised with a sole purpose—to fight and die for the Republic—is a morally challenging task. Shaak has been tempted multiple times just to take on board as many kids as she can and whisk them far from this madness. Something tips the scales, finally, as she steps into the vast barracks and speaks, “So, you want to get away, cadet?”

They both freeze in shock.

“No, General, sir. Hevy wasn’t going to—” 99 begins, but not-Hevy interrupts him, staring with a desperate defiance.

“Yes, sir. I was planning to go AWOL.”

Shaak stares him back, but the kid, almost a grown-up—or what goes as grown-up nowadays, the cadets are shipped away even at a younger age than at the beginning of the war—does not budge.

“Alright,” says Shaak. “Is this your stuff? Take it and let’s go to my ship.”

“Sir?”

“You want to go AWOL? I can take you off-world on my ship. No one would dare search for you there.”

Not-Hevy grabs the bag with whatever he can claim as his own, but then hesitates.

“Sir, with your permission. My brother, CT-4040. Trainer Bric has it against him. He would do anything so that CT-4040 doesn’t pass his final test.” His eyes go wider as it dawns upon him how implausible the chance Shaak is offering him and how close he might be to failure by asking even more of her. He finishes nonetheless. “May I… may you take him away, too?”

Shaak’s confidence that she is doing the right thing blooms.

“Yes. You may take your brother with you.”

***

“Sir?”

“Yes, CT-4040?”

“Cutup, sir. My name is Cutup,” he glances at CT-782, who is stubbornly not Hevy. “Since tonight. So… Droidbait. CT-782, we’re not leaving him behind, like we did during the simulation, do we?”

Leaving behind during the simulation, this sounds very familiar. “Cadets, what squad are you from?” Shaak asks and nods upon the name, knowing already what comes. “I understand. Go for your brother, and bring Fives and CT-1409 along, too.”

***

“99, I am not leaving without you. We all owe you.”

The aged clone shakes his head, “No, Hevy. You go with the General. As for me, there are a few other troubled brothers that need my support here.”

Of course, five pairs of near-identical eyes stare at Shaak hopefully at the words. “General? You have some more space on your ship, don’t you, sir?”

She sighs. “Just be quiet. It is getting serious, so from now on, let's make it a stealth mission.”

“You've heard the General. It is a stealth mission.”

Exasperated groans, “We're standing right here, Echo,” follow.

***

“Sir?” Fives tugs at her sleeve with suspicious shyness. “It may sound crazy, but… Well, there is a girl here.”

“Oh, not again!”

“Don’t listen to him, General. He is making it all up. He has never met a girl in his life.”

“Well, I did! I keep telling you, and you idiots, refuse to believe me!” Fives snaps. “Sir, there is a girl here, working in the hospital. I met her. I talked to her.”

***

There is a girl, indeed. Experimental Medical Researcher 003, EMR-003 for short, whom Shaak has never met and never seen in any official documents. Moreso, she has never even heard of the Jango female clone program. And this gets extremely suspicious now. Her hunting instincts and the Force both sing to her that she is on the trail of something bigger.

“I am not the only one here, sir. There is one more girl, at least. She is different, but she is also one of us. I can get her out of the lab, I know the way.”

***

Another girl is different, for sure. Shaak can't grasp what is different about this kid—a five-year-old cadet at the most. Not the blond hair, there is a number of blond cadets around. There is something else, something elusive.

“Oh, you want to take us all off-world?” Omega, not EMR-something, notes Shaak, looks at the gang of clones with contagious joy and amazement. Cutup winks at her, and she waves back at him enthusiastically. “We must take my brothers with us!”

“We are all your brothers,” says no-longer-CT-1409-but-still-rather-reluctant Echo serenely.

“I know! But those are… They are my little brothers! And,” she saddens, her childish voice dropping almost to a whisper. “There are only four of them left.”

Shaak sighs. Alright, four more little kids, not a big difference.

***

…they happen to be not quite little kids, and it is finally clear what is different about Omega. The list of questions and problems grows ever longer. Shaak has hunted down and bitten more than she can chew.

She needs to take someone into the partnership in crime—Plo, most likely. And Obi Wan, who found Kamino in the first place, may have some valuable insights…

But first things first. Her navicomputer is still calculating the hyperspace route when a fight erupts in the back of the ship. And Fives is proudly showing EMR-003 around the ship, despite being here for the first time himself. Half of his explanations are totally wrong. Lanky, bespectacled cadet who has confidently strapped himself in the copilot seat and already asked Shaak three questions in a row, turns around and begins to correct him. Someone is asking loudly over the clamour whether her Jedi ship is equipped with guns.

Only 99 gazes silently into the starry void, mesmerised. Looking in his wizened face, Shaak Ti realises that this is his first time in space, despite his long and respectable age of thirteen.

[demontouched]

okay. finally time for me to try and address my thoughts on laios vs shuro. (not that anyone cares, or that i'm an important figure in the community. but it hits a little close to home, and i want to talk about it.)

when i was younger (and my various undiagnosed problems were even more rampant) i was a lot like shuro. reserved, seen as wise, generally levelheaded. i didn't have a lot of friends, and on occasion, i had a laios. notably, my little sister.

my little sister has adhd like crazy. when we were younger, she was on medicine for it, but it was mostly for school. so at home, she was very much like laios. a little brash, very confident, loud, very much herself with no shame. she would charge into things head first (matephorically and literally) and drag people along with her. it was never malicious, but it was foolhardy.

we got into a lot of fights back then. never quite the knock-down-drag-out fight that laios and shuro had, but we got into some pretty epic screaming matches. neither of us were really in the wrong here, we just didn't mesh well. i was bad at communication, my sister couldn't read social cues, and it just caused a lot of arguments. neither of us were wrong for being like we were, but we were wrong for literally screaming at each other about it.

but that's this world, laios and shuro live in a world where it's not entirely unacceptable to just. have a fist fight. they got healers and shit. if we had healers irl, my sister and i would've clawed each other's eyes out multiple times.

since then, my sister has matured a lot, and she's not really like any dunmeshi character now, so she's being discarded for the purpose of this metaphor. (we no longer have epic screaming matches)

nowadays, i'm much more laios. i've been working on unmasking (which is both a privilege and really fucking hard) and getting more comfortable with just. being annoying to some people. making some people unexplainably angry. because that's what i do. i know not everyone likes me as a person because who they are as a person is fundamentally different. because that's ultimately what's happening with laios and shuro.

shuro is a poc who grew up learning social cues like his life depended on them (it does). he's learned to be quiet, respectful, aware. he is, at his very base, different from laios.

laios has just been Like That his whole life and deals with people's negative reactions as they come. you see how he handles marcille's adverse reactions when she cringes from his love of monsters and monster food.

neither of them are in the wrong, not for who they are or what they did. again, they live in a world with healers, where they fight monsters on the daily and get resurrected regularly. a fist fight between two tall men is the least dangerous or damaging fight either of them have been in, if we're being honest.

having empathy or sympathy–or at least understanding–for other people is important, not only for real life, but for media as well.

(this leads into a whole different thing about also remembering the lines between fiction and reality, and not giving more depth to fictional characters than they are shown to have in their source media. which is a very academia sort of idea, so like. write fanfiction and have ideas and give life to these characters. nobody can stop you and you can't do fiction incorrectly.)

[vanillablankcanvas]

You have a headcanon/idea for broppy proposal (they both proposed at the same time and it's cute)

But what about other brothers. Did they propose? Were they proposed to? Any ideas?

TROLLS PROPOSING

I keep changing my mind how I picture the Broppy proposal. My post planned out what basically everyone else is doing during, but not really the whole set up for the actual proposal.

Branch and Poppy Proposal

Poppy is hard to surprise.

If he steps one TOE into a jewelry store, the whole village would immediately know what's coming, so he makes the ring himself.

All those invitations he kept? He used them to spell out 'Will You Marry Me?'

And you know as he was actually speaking the words she also pulled out a ring and asked him.

Clay and Viva Proposal

With the Bergens help they moved a bunch of the Hole n Funs buildings to Pop Village.

It left the Hole n Fun practically empty.

Viva knew this was a good plan but it was still a sad sight to see her former home stripped bare.

Clay had a plan.

Clay appreciated the symbolism of 'starting a new chapter'

He organized a campout with all of the PuttPutt Trolls on the last night there.

When Viva wasn't looking, Clay had the PuttPutts take turns leaving the group and arranging the leftover fairy lights.

Later in the evening, the lights were switched on and they formed a path.

Viva followed them to the highest spot on the course, where Clay was waiting for her.

Right at sunset.

He had a very long, carefully worded speech written ready to go but when the time came he was tongue tied.

So Viva asked him. 😏

And boy does Clay love a good plot twist.

And he cried.

All the PuttPutts were like "FINALLY!"

In celebration the PuttPutts threw the biggest, the loudest and the craziest party ever.

John Dory and Sable Proposal

Everyone was joking about it for months.

Clay and Bruce telling Sable to go for the bouquet at Branch and Poppy's wedding and she's like "Awww you guys want to be related to me so badly huh?" "We like you more than John Dory." 😆

Her elderly mother and father are the kind to make jokes about how she's 'not getting any younger' 😑

They were in the middle of an argument when Sable sarcastically said something like "OH, I GUESS WE SHOULD JUST GET MARRIED THEN?!" And JD is like "YEAH WE SHOULD!"

...

JD "Was that an...actual-?"

Sable "I ugh... maybe now's not the best time to be talking about that. John, we're in the middle of an argument."

"I think that makes this the best time."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I don't know if you know this but Trolls like to argue with me a lot."

😑 "You don't say?"

"But for some reason I love when you argue with me the most!"

🥹

JD "I've spend a lot of time alone, waiting for things to happen and I don't wanna do that anymore. No more wasting time."

"When I'm here, with you, I'm not a former pop star or the Kings brother or nothing. I'm just... John Dory and you make me feel like I'm enough."

🥹

"So Sable, wanna maybe go get married?"

"You've rehearsed this haven't you?" 🥹

"I'll tell you when you answer the question." 😏

"You are such a moron but you are my moron. Yes, John Dory I would very much like to marry you."

*Pumps fist* "YES!"

"This does not mean you won our earlier argument."

"Yeah it does! I win! Woo!"

John Dory made their bands out of pieces of her old wooden leg and his leather glove.

Floyd and Boom Proposal

Boom asks Floyd.❤️

He visits Dom's grave to ask permission. 💔

By this point, Branch is officially King of Pop so Boom asks him as well.

He proposed after the last show of a tour, he invited a confused Floyd on stage.

The huge screen on the stage played photos and videos of the two of them.

His brothers were in the front row.

There were a lot of tears. (Floyd)

[xxstraykidsaikoxx]

ᴛʀɪᴀɴɢʟᴇ ʟᴏᴠᴇ || ᴄʜᴀɴɢʙɪɴ (sᴛʀᴀʏ ᴋɪᴅs) ɴɪɴᴛʜ!ғ ᴍᴇᴍʙᴇʀ

It's a special ferret boys' birthday! And two very special people are dying to give him the most special gift one could receive! But what happens when these two happen to be fated rivals for the ferrets love, and when this special gift suddenly goes missing?

ෆ contents - cursing towards the end, drags on a bit, arguing, fluff, crack?, kinda lazy writing

ෆ word count - 903

ෆ notes - can you tell i ran out of ideas 😭 i really tried my best with this one i swear, its just i dont really know binnie as well as the other members but that doesn't mean i dont love him im ot8 i promise🤞

"When are you going to accept my feelings, Hyunjin-a.." Came the flirtatious words of a certain pig-rabbit. The latter braced himself for what he knew was about to happen. A well aimed plastic water bottle flew across the room and hit Casanova on his shoulder, "Ow! Okay that one was uncalled for, Ai!" The smirking maknae broke into a fit of giggles as she, once again, foiled Changbin's plan for Hyunjin's affections. Ever since Hyun and Ai had been confirmed to be dating, the interactions between the two and Changbin have become comedy gold. As previously mentioned, the rapper does any thing and everything to "flirt" with Hyunjin, from making comments, to romantic gestures, and even preventing other people, including Hyun's own girlfriend from stealing his affections. Obviously this is all a joke, Changbin would never do something so heinous, so Aiko never took is seriously and even bought into the joke. Now the three have become involved in some sort of love triangle.

Outside of fighting for Hyunjin's love, Changbin and Aiko often had small quarrels about other small things, not as much as Ai does with other members, but enough to earn a eyeroll from anyone within earshot. "I thought you had it!" "No! Chan told me you had it!" "Well obviously it's not in my hands, so why do you think I have it?!" "Guys! Arguing about it isn't going to find it!" Another day, another petty kindergarten argument. But it wasn't just a normal day, it was Hyunjin's birthday! And for the ferrets special day, Aiko and Changbin decided to pitch in and get a gift for him from the both of them. An art set that had a lot of supplies Hyunjin had been wanting for his artwork. They had both bought it and decided to give it to Channie to hold onto, because they were aware that one of them would be dumb enough to lose it. And they did.

"Hyunjin's party is in 30 minuets, what are we going to do? Show up with no gift?!" Aiko panicked, she personally didn't like it when things didn't go to plan, especially when it came to the love of her life's birthday. "Well, we'll just go out looking for it! It's not like it grew legs and walk away!" Changbin suggested, hopeful as always. "You're making it sound like that's what it did! Ugh, let's go look where Chan said he put it, it couldn't be far from there." The pair set off to the confined room, desperate to find the gift to prove who loved Hyunjin most once and for all.

While the two desperately searched, Hyunjin had already arrived. "Where's Ai and Changbin?" Hyunjin had asked, noticing the absence of his most valued admirers. "Oh! They're looking for a gi-" "They're looking for something! Don't worry, they'll be here shortly!" Han quickly hushed Chan, persistent on keeping the gift a secret. Hyunjin obviously didn't buy the act but obliged, he turned away and looked around, waiting to see what the two were doing, hoping that they weren't killing eachother in the process.

"Dammit! We're 30 minuets late looking for this cursed ass gift, we should just give up and show up fuckin' empty handed!" Aiko had enough, clearly, and her mouth spoke faster than what her brain could think. As his younger companion cursed angrily to herself in one corner of the room, Changbin searched frivolously, hoping to any God out there that he'd find this gift. Not only for himself, but for both Hyunjin and Aiko. "You don't think Chan hid it.. right?-" Aiko suspected, it was the only other explanation. "No, Chan isn't like that, there has to be another way this happened. The two sat against the wall in silent defeat, wondering what the hell they were going to do. Both had too much humility and guilt to just show up to one of their closest friend's party empty handed. As they sat in self pity, Aiko looked around and noticed pieces of paper and a few markers scattered around the nearby table, had someone.. set this up? "Oppa, I have an idea." Aiko got up to grab the paper from the table. Changbin looked over to see Ai start folding the paper the several ways. It didn't take long for Changbin to realize what she was doing, "Oh my god you're a genius! Let me get some too!" The two giggled to themselves and hurried to make their newest plan.

Downstairs, a certain birthday boy was still waiting for one of his closest friend and love of his life (though one can argue is both of them) make their way to the party that was slowly dying out. Without two of the loudest members there it was left to Han and Felix to keep up the mood. A sudden burst open of a door made everyone jump as the long awaited Dweakki-Cat duo loudly made their way to the party an hour late. "JAGI! LOOK WHAT I MADE FOR YOU! IT WAS MY IDEA!" Aiko exclaimed as she showed Hyunjin what she did, before being shoved aside by her more stronger older brother, "Nonsense! Mine are clearly more expertly crafted!- Ow!-" Changbin yelped as Aiko kicked him from below. As the two once again started they're usual banter, a fond smile was placed on Hyunjin's face, They had made him paper hearts.

©straykidsaiko

Always keep in mind that nothing in this series and in my posts are real! So anything that may seem 'out of character' should be considered as part of a fake universe! <3

ᴍᴀsᴛᴇʀʟɪsᴛ

[theageofsims]

The Age of Sims 2.8- Part 16 - “Leaving His Brother Speechless" *LANGUAGE WARNING*

The tension in the air could only be cut with a knife -- and it was, but only after David started talking at his younger brother like he knew best and William finally snapped.

"I wanna talk to you."

"Sure." David shrugged around a smirk, "Been waitin' for you to open that tight-lipped mouth of yours since I got here. So level with me… what the hell's really going on?"

"Nothing that concerns you."

"So the less I know -- the better, is that it? Hm." He shrugged, "Guess she's not really worth mentioning in detail, huh?"

"David…" William started as easily as he could, but he was on the verge of shouting any second.

"I thought you said you were gonna level with me."

"I never said that!" William insisted, "Jesus Christ -- what the fuck is the matter with you anyway? Why are you always saying far more than you have to? You had no right to question her!"

"It was a simple question. I didn't ask her to lie. She should have told the truth." He caught William ready to insist on something he already knew would be untrue. "Don't lie to me, Billy. I can read through stone-cold killers and certified liars -- and I got paid damn good money doing it because that's how good I was at it."

"You'll slip as the years go by…" William muttered, not giving much thought or care to his brother's time spent serving in the military.

"The hell I will. I'm sharper now than I ever was -- so don't bullshit me."

"She already told you everything you wanted to know -- and you sure as hell didn't deserve her honesty."

"She wasn't honest. She held back -- she knows she lied and you know it, too. What did I just say to you?"

"You wanna know what -- David? It's about time you started finding somewhere else to go because I hardly want you staying here one more night -- nevermind when we get to Oasis Springs."

"She's already gone -- off she went after that lengthy argument you two couldn't seem to not have within earshot."

"FUCK YOU!"

"Gladly -- but you wouldn't let me invite some lovely ladies on this nice little trip to the forest." He paused around a face that only angered William more, "Wanted to have all the fun to yourself with what's her name?"

"Gloria." He said through a tight jaw. "Her name is Gloria and she's not some woman I picked up off the street--"

"Course not. That's not your style, but hers? Well…" He shrugged, "Could be her thing. Could be all she's good at."

"Bastard…" He said under his breath, trying to keep his anger in check for the sake of Noah who he could feel around the corner nearby. "You don't even know her -- and you never will. If I find out you've gone anywhere near her again, you'll be sorry."

"Threats, Billy? To your big brother? My… you must really have grown a big pair while I've been away, huh?" He shrugged, "I gotta say. I'm pretty impressed… would be proud, too, under different circumstances, but hell -- guess I can't have everything."

"What the fuck is it to you anyway, huh? Why the fuck does it matter who I'm with now? Jesus Christ, you never gave me this much shit when I was married."

"Because you married right. There was nothing wrong with Kathy. Top-notch woman -- came from money even."

"I never married her for her money!" William felt his mind twist in a million direction like it had so long ago because of the man in front of him.

"I didn't say you did… just made an observation."

"Fuck your observations!"

"There's a lot of fucking of me going on here lately, don't you think?"

"None of this is your business. I didn't ask you to come here to judge me, my life, or the people in. God knows you've done enough of that since I was old enough to take my first step!"

"Oh come on, Billy -- always so sensitive. You're really gonna go that far back? If you haven't taken a good look in the mirror, we're both sporting gray hair from the tops of our heads… and all the way down. That was a long time ago and I've already told you -- I was only preparing you to be a man. I was only showing you the ropes."

"I didn't ask for you to show me a goddamned thing!"

"What else are big brothers for?"

William inhaled sharply, feeling defeated for not being able to get through the thick head his brother wore sternly on top of his broad shoulders.

"Look… all I'm saying is you did the right thing marrying Kathy. Could have done more to keep her, but you fucked up -- it's fine." He shrugged, "You're entitled. You wanted to be the best scientist that the world's ever known--"

"I never wanted to be the best."

"Well -- regardless, you ended up being one of the best… and look at you now. Look what I've come to find my baby brother up to--"

"I'm still the same person, David!" He felt his head pulse with tension he could not explain, "Jesus Christ, what are you even driving at?"

"Elizabeth was your only redemption after divorcing Kathy -- and you fucked that up. You were so wrapped up in that woman and her brilliance and then what -- you fucked up again? How many fuck ups does a man need?"

"Fuck this." William started, his eyes going blurry from rage he was trying to keep at bay.

"Fuck this?"

"Yeah, David. Fuck this -- and fuck you. And fuck every last word out of your mouth."

"HEY!" He hollered, his tone as rough as the soldiers he kept an eye on, "Who the fuck do you think you're talking to?!"

"My shithead brother, that's who."

The silence fell around them like someone had lowered the boom and then David roughly turned his head with pursed lips to try to burn his logic into his younger brother's mind -- but it wasn't working in the slightest.

"You have no idea what you're getting yourself into. If you're just fucking around -- God bless you both, but if you're actually serious about this--"

"I'm so serious…" William started with a far away look on his face.

David read it like his brother was in a dream state -- and it only confused him further.

"You can't be serious."

"Why not?"

"Because…" David suddenly felt threatened, like he suddenly couldn't think as quickly as he should, "…because -- a man never changes what he likes."

"A man changes whatever he damn well pleases -- same for a woman."

"I don't believe it."

"You don't believe a lot of shit, David. Talking to you is like stepping into a time machine most of the time and no matter how hard something is staring you in the face -- you're an ignorant ass about every last damn thing."

"Sexual preferences." He offered as a final attempt.

"Those things can change over time, too."

"Bullshit."

"Not bullshit." William assured him, "Sometimes you never really see it coming until it suddenly comes around the corner."

"I don't believe it."

William shrugged, "Not my problem. Chemistry is--"

"Science."

William shrugged. "Maybe… or maybe it's more than that…sometimes, at the least." He shrugged once more.

"You like shoulder length hair. You always liked shoulder length hair. At least shoulder length hair… what the hell are you gonna have to grab on to?"

William looked away from his brother, feeling a number of things -- including feeling somewhat reserved and maybe a little pink in the cheeks, but he also felt a sudden urge to match his brother on his level if only for once regardless of it sounding so unlike anything he had ever said before…

"She's got plenty to grab on to -- and in all the right places."

And that -- left his brother completely speechless.

[natsubeatsrock]

Lisanna Makes Me Hate My Fandom More

Is Lisanna overrated by her fans?

No.

I can't believe that I even have to argue this.

And yet here we are.

I even debated the necessity of this post. Do we need another post saying fandom doesn't value Lisanna? Do we really need ANOTHER one?

Well, I need to get back into this writing on this blog somehow.

I reblogged a post about how fans worship characters you dislike some time ago. Someone reblogged my post all but saying they don't like how Lisanna's elevated over others because of filler moments by her fans. I know the person is a Nalu shipper, but I want to keep this about Lisanna. I have to imagine they think fans of Lisanna elevate her over Lucy. I'm not really interested in talking about that. All I care about is that argument about Lisanna's importance.

Part of me agrees with this. Much of the noise made about Lisanna comes from overestimating her relevance before coming back. This post wouldn't exist if I didn't like her, at the very least. However, as I've mentioned, she wasn't built up like multiple other characters or elements in the series.

Do I think we're on the same wavelength about this idea? Almost certainly not. If you think otherwise, remember that they ship Nalu.

But why make a post about this?

Honestly, this post has been on the back burner for years. I've posted it now as a prelude to another post I've been working on. Despite talking about Lisanna almost too much, I don't think I've emphasized something enough.

I've been talking about how fans handle Lisanna, given canon. I happen to be more generous than others are. Though, I have the opposite view of the situation. I don't think fandom does enough with Lisanna. Especially considering everything we've gotten from her.

I've done this a few times, but entertain me. Put Natsu & the Dragon Egg and everything the anime added to the side for a moment. (I need to talk about that special one of these days.) What has Fairy Tail actually told us about Lisanna?

Lisanna is the younger sister of two fan-favorite characters, Mirajane and Elfman. She'd had a close relationship with the series protagonist before the series started. (Yes, I'm considering Natsu as the protagonist for now.) About two years before Lucy met Natsu, she was presumed dead after a mission didn't go well. However, she was actually transported to another dimension. She spent two years working with an alternate version of Fairy Tail, pretending to be their version of Lisanna.

I know that's only a paragraph's worth of information. Admittedly, canon doesn't show a lot of this information. You're not getting the same focus on Lisanna as you would any member of the Strongest Team. Heck, you're not getting the same focus on her as people like Juvia or Cana at nearly any point of Fairy Tail. We've seen more of Mira and Elfman individually after Lisanna returned than just Lisanna over the entire series.

But let's break down each sentence of that paragraph.

Are fans doing a whole lot with Lisanna's relationship with her siblings? Are people writing about the Strauss kids as siblings? What do they think of each other? How has their relationship been affected by their experiences before and since joining Fairy Tail?

Are fans doing a whole lot with Lisanna's relationship with Natsu? I know most people dismiss their past relationships as currently irrelevant. However, it doesn't seem as though Mashima's forgotten about it. What about their past relationship affects their current relationship? What would a partnership between them look like at this point in the series? (I say this knowing this isn't very likely with the sequel's current events.) Is it possible that they could become closer than they are now in canon?

Are fans doing a lot with the mission that supposedly killed Lisanna? How does this affect those close to Lisanna? How do they treat her once she's back? How does the rest of the guild think of the situation?

Are fans doing a lot with Lisanna's time with Edolas? She spent two years with alternate versions of nearly every character in Fairy Tail. How does this affect her views of characters she didn't know before going to Edolas? How does she feel about Edolas and Edolas Fairy Tail? Does she resent being away from Earthland for so long or miss being in Edolas?

As far as I can tell, most people don't address these questions. People don't seem really interested in trying to read into Lisanna's relationships with her siblings or Natsu beyond potential shipping drama. People aren't interested in how Lisanna being in Edolas impacts anyone or anything in the series.

Now, people care about answering these questions. I've talked about these things quite a bit since Fairy Tail ended. My stories involving Lisanna in-series treat her time in Edolas as formative. And I've read several stories that provide answers to these questions from a number of perspectives.

However, most fans don't write about Lisanna thinking about these things. Has fandom moved past the kind of Lisanna that maliciously sabotages Lucy's place in the guild? Can't say. However, they're not doing a whole lot positive with her now.

"Why does it matter? Mashima obviously decided not to do a lot with Lisanna. Why would fans care about a character the series didn't do much with?"

The funny thing is that it's actually the opposite. Fans do (and should) care about Lisanna because there weren't canon answers to the questions surrounding her. Fans are interested in how these questions could be answered.

And frankly, this wouldn't be the first time. Mashima has done hilariously little with Meredy. But fans love her and create stuff for her all the time. She's one of my favorite minor characters to ship.

Heck, we got more of Levy because fans wanted to see more of her after Phantom Lord. The anime got Changeling to introduce Levy before Phantom Lord. However, there wasn't much else to her relevance to the series before and during that arc. It wasn't until the Fantasia arc that Levy became more plot-relevant and active. Mashima's gone on record to say fans are the reason why.

Fans have argued that Lisanna should have stayed dead for years. I've argued against this numerous times before. I've never understood why this matters to people. Of all the death fakeouts, why is Lisanna's such a big deal for fans? Mashima's written sloppier comebacks for characters. He's brought back characters with less importance. Why is Lisanna where fandom draws the line?

"What else do you expect from the Nalu vermin?"

Calm down, Chris. Of course, shipping has something to do with this. Nalu was always going to be popular with fans. Nalu is synonymous with the fandom. I've seen bias against Nali at work, even where it doesn't make sense.

However, you're not seeing the anti-Gruvia crowd write stories about Juvia being tortured and/or staying dead en masse. The issue with most isn't even with Juvia herself. Isolate her from Gruvia, and the problem is solved. The anti-Gruvia crowd falls into two camps: put Juvia with someone else or keep her away from Gray. Unless we're willing to argue that either is equivalent to killing Juvia, we don't have a discussion. (What day is today, again?)

The closest thing fandom's come up with for Lisanna is Bixanna. Unlike many ships, it feels like the fandom exists to give Lisanna someone to love. In fact, there's a small gap between AO3 stories with Bixanna and Nali. However, much of Bixanna's stories have the ship as a side attraction. Nali stories usually focus on Nali. That's telling on its own.

One last thing before the end. It feels irresponsible to end this post without making a suggestion to write Lisanna. Is there a good way to write Lisanna?

Incidentally, the anime gave us a solid approach. Lisanna has a tendency to tease others. We see it with Natsu at different ages in Natsu and the Dragon Egg. We see it with Elfman on Tenrou Island. If you're wondering, that crack about marrying Natsu aligns with that. That was also in the original chapter, so it's not without precedent from Mashima.

If you're writing Lisanna, you don't have to fall into many pitfalls other writers do. She doesn't have to be evil. She doesn't need to be possessive of Natsu. She doesn't have to be Mirajane's little shipping gremlin. (The fact that this is the best of these worries me.) She doesn't have to be the sacrificial lamb. At least make her a fun character to read.

In Conclusion:

Drink your respect Lisanna juice. This is not a request. This is a command.

[coraniaid]

Did Buffy (or anybody else) tell Faith about the Cruciamentum?

On the one hand, the answer seems to be yes: at the very least, Faith immediately guesses why Wesley is in the library at the beginning of Bad Girls ("New Watcher?") and later makes it clear she knows he is there to be Buffy's new Watcher as well as hers ("You're actually gonna take orders from him?"). So she must at least have been told that Giles had been fired, if not anything about why. And Buffy does start spending a lot more time with Faith immediately after the events of Helpless (both in Bad Girls and in The Zeppo) so she'd have had plenty of opportuntiy to tell her if she wanted to (and if she was going to talk to anybody about it, why not Faith?). At the very least, it would be pretty shitty not to warn Faith that she had a Cruciamentum of her own to look forward to (assuming, of course, that Faith is actually younger than Buffy, which I think on balance she has to be even though there are some hints that she isn't).

On the other hand, Faith's implicit argument that Buffy shouldn't take orders from Wesley seems to boil down to the fact he's "pretty much just a dork" and not refer at all to the fact that the Council who sent him almost got Buffy killed not less than a month ago. And would Faith "I have a problem with authority figures" Lehane really be as quick to forgive and forget Giles's actions as Buffy herself seem to be? (We move on very quickly from Buffy's "you bastard [...] if you touch me, I'll kill you." Would Faith?) If Faith knows about it, it's kind of odd that Giles role in the Cruciamentum never comes up in any of Faith and Buffy's arguments in Consequences. When Buffy suggests they tell Giles, why doesn't Faith remind her that Giles is also an authority figure who can't be trusted, one of the "nine times out of ten" somebody's public face isn't their real one?

The resolution, I suppose, is that Buffy doesn't tell Faith about Giles's role in the Cruciamentum because -- as far as the show is concerned -- it already didn't happen. The test itself will only be brought up once again, in Season 5's Checkpoint (funnily enough, the only Season 5 episode to remember that Faith exists), and in a way that suggests Giles had no involvement in it at all.

Although this season is much more serialized than the first two, it's still a lot more episodic than what will come in two or three years' time. What matters from Helpless is that Giles was fired. The actual details as to why are something we don't only not need to know, we're actively encouraged to forget them. Giles's betrayal of Buffy's trust won't be brought up again, and much of the subsequent plot only makes sense if you pretend it didn't happen at all. Indeed, it's arguably vital to Faith's character that she doesn't know about it: she exists in this story to be a Buffy who doesn't have a good relationship with her Watcher and is envious of the Watcher Buffy does have. That doesn't really work so well if Faith knows Giles was willing to repeatedly drug and lie to Buffy before sending her off powerless to fight a vampire. Who would envy that?

This episode might be about consequences, but -- not for the last time -- the show is very selective about which actions have consequences and who gets to suffer from them.

[mykey-and-bobby-koopa]

A Little Crossover

| Versión en español |

 ((This is a small crossover between my versions of the koopalings and the versions of @thekoopalingsandstuffs. My kids will be highlighted in purple and hers will be in pink. I hope you like it. The drawings are made by me))

____________

Bowsy: hey, hi, you must be like me, great!!

Junie: Hello, how are you? I'm Bowser Jr., but you can call me 'Junie'

Bowsy: nice to meet you, you can call me 'Bowsy'

Junie: cute nickname

Bowsy: thank you, that's what one of my friends nicknamed me and I really liked it.

Junie: They must be good friends.

Bowsy: oh yeah! Of course, my brother Larry is the one I spend the most time with, and even though we get into arguments, we get along very well in general.

Junie: how envious! My stepbrother Larry can't stand me, as do some of my other stepbrothers.

Bowsy: oh, really?

Junie: yep. But luckily I get along well with others. Ludwig was the first to give me a chance, as was Lemmy, being the one I had the best time playing with, It's fun. Roy and Iggy like me too

Bowsy: well, it's something (giggles) I like you, I don't understand how anyone could hate you

Junie: Thanks, Bowsy.

Bowsy: (giggles) Hey, would you like to play something? What do you like to play?

Junie: I like ‘Battle Ship’, I play that a lot with Lemmy

Bowsy: great!! Dad just bought me that a few days ago, do you want to play?

Junie: Sure.

Bowsy: and then we could go to my workshop to draw and color. My friend Mykey got me some very beautiful colors and I want to try them out

Junie: I would love to!! Although I'm not good at drawing, I find it fun (giggles)

Bowsy: That's the spirit, Junie (giggles) By the way, how old are you?

June: 6 years old

Bowsy: aww so cute, I'm 11

Junie: Wow, you're bigger even though we're almost the same height.

Bowsy: (putting his right hand on his back and raising his left arm) If it's any consolation, I'm taller than Lemmy (giggles)

____________

Larry: so you're like me. I am 12 years old and you?

Larry: 10

Larry: tell me, do you like video games?

Larry: even the question offends, of course it does!! And let me tell you that I am very good at Fortnite

Larry: oh yeah, I've heard that game, but it doesn't catch my attention

Larry: really? And what games do you like?

Larry: Super Strike Bros.

Larry: I've never heard that one, what's it about?

Larry: oh my, my… you're missing out on something really good. Let me show you what it's all about…

(Moments later)

Larry: and what did you think?

Larry: Looks amazing!! Maybe later I'll give it a chance.

Larry: yes, yes!!

Larry: okay, okay. Only where I'm from that game doesn't exist.

Larry: well come over here and play it with me

Larry: I'd like to

Larry: I like that game because I can also play it with my best friend, Bobby, and my younger brother, Jr.

Larry: at least you have someone to play it with. Of my siblings, almost no one wants to be with me

Larry: any reason?

Larry: I don't know, everyone ignores me except Morton, he's very cool, the ONLY cool one of them all

Larry: I used to admire my brother Ludwig, but now I hate him

Larry: what a coincidence! I hate my brother Ludwig too, all because he chose my favorite color wand.

Larry: In my case it's because he caused me to fracture my wrist.

Larry: oh! Many people make bad jokes on me. I once had my butt set on fire, that's why I have a scar there.

Larry: oh wow...

Larry: It wouldn't be the only time. Many times they put pins in my chair, or glue, paint… or even burning ash… you can't imagine how much that hurt. I'm already used to it and that's why I prefer to be alone in my room playing

Larry: It's bad that you go through that, but you know? If you want you can come here and play with me, not only video games, also tennis

Larry: I… I’d love that very much.

Larry: and if you want we can play Fortnite a little, it is better to play in a group than alone

Larry: It's a deal, but know that I'm very good, and if I win I'll do the dance

Larry: whatever you say, but in SSB I will beat you without a doubt (putting both hands on his neck)

Larry: we'll see, it's a challenge (pointing up)

____________

Morton: (seeing someone enters the door) WELCOME... (notes little visiting Morton) HELLO! (whispers) oh, right… hello, nice to meet you. This is Morton (covers his mouth)

Morton: what? I can’t hear you

Morton: (uncovering his mouth and whispering) it's just that... Morton screams and doesn't want to make anyone uncomfortable.

Morton: don't worry, it doesn't bother me

Morton: THANK YOU… FEEL WELCOME

Morton: I will. Thank you very much

Morton: (offers some cookies with jam to his partner) THESE ARE MY FAVORITES, I HOPE YOU LIKE THEM

Morton: thanks (eats them) oh, wow... that's where they come from

Morton: HAVE YOU ALREADY TRIED THEM?

Morton: Yes, occasionally I and my siblings get these cookies in the mail. They are delicious

Morton: A FRIEND MAKES THEM, HE ALWAYS GIVES THEM TO US WHEN WE FEEL SAD

Morton: great! I like to eat, so much so that I have learned to cook many things. My brothers like my preparations

Morton: SOUNDS INTERESTING. DO YOU HAVE A RECIPE BOOK?

Morton: yes, they gave me some, but… it's not like I can use them

Morton: THAT’S WHY?

Morton: (he puts his hands on his back looking down) ……. I have dyslexia

Morton: WHAT IS THAT?

Morton: in short, it is difficult for me to read and write, I am 12 years old and it is too difficult for me, my brothers or someone else helps me with that...

Morton: OH... WELL, I UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU FEEL... MORTON NEVER LEARNED TO READ OR WRITE, OR EVEN SPEAK, THAT'S WHY HE SCREAMS, AND HE'S 13 YEARS OLD.

Morton: then we are not that different

Morton: AT LEAST YOU UNDERSTAND ME (giggles)

Morton: (giggles) you’re very nice.

Morton: THANK YOU (blushing) AND WHAT ELSE DO YOU LIKE TO DO?

Morton: Well, I like to paint landscapes. At home I have some very nice canvases that I have painted.

Morton: DO YOU WANT TO PAINT SOME?

Morton: Yes, I would like to, but where do I get a canvas and paint?

Morton: DON'T WORRY, I'LL BE CONCERNED (giggles and leaves)

(After a moment, Morton arrives with painting materials)

Morton: I GOT THIS FOR JR., YOU CAN PAINT WHATEVER YOU WANT

Morton: Wow, that's great!

Morton: MORTON WILL ACCOMPANY YOU WITH SOME COOKIES

(After a while, the Morton painter finishes and raises his brush)

Morton: how is it going?

Morton: (thumbs up while he eats cookies) IT LOOKS AMAZING

____________

Wendy: Hello, dear. Welcome

Wendy: hello, how are you?

Wendy: Fine. So you are like me

Wendy: It seems so. Well, we both look divine

Wendy: we agree on that. I'm the only girl here; you already know how difficult it is to find a moment of peace

Wendy: you’re right. Almost all of my brothers are a pain, especially Iggy, but luckily I put them in their place when they get on my nerves, which would be almost always.

Wendy: and what do you do about it?

Wendy: I kick them “there”, you know, although more with Roy, Iggy and Larry, the others make me feel a little sorry, I'm not such a beast

Wendy: if I'm honest, sometimes I would like to fix everything with violence, but my nails would be ruined, with how difficult it is to maintain them

Wendy: good point.

Wendy: you know? It's nice to talk to someone who listens.

Wendy: yeah, don't get used to it; it's not that I'm very sociable so to talk. I prefer to be on my cell phone

Wendy: yes, I understand you. Would you like something to drink?

Wendy: since you mention it, I’d like strawberry lemonade, very acidic the way I like it.

Wendy: okay, give me a moment. Feel comfortable

(Ten minutes later)

Wendy: (taking a sip) and as I said, at 13 and a half years old I have hit Roy more than a hundred times, it is very de-stressing

Wendy: (taking a sip of her blackberry lemonade) and how did you do that?

Wendy: because he told me that men are stronger than women, but I proved to him that a man cannot bleed for seven days in a row unlike us (laughs) so I kicked him “there” and it's not like he resisted any longer ten minutes with the pain. Since then he stopped being so stupid with me.

Wendy: I guess that was a good lesson. I am very polite and feminine, but if someone gets on my nerves, I get angry and attack. At 14 I already give myself respect.

Wendy: you tell them, sis (giggles)

____________

Iggy: so we are equivalent, huh?

Iggy: I guess so, but you're taller. You are older?

Iggy: I guess. I’m 14

Iggy: so, you're younger, I'm 15

Iggy: well you don't look that old, but at least we are similar

Iggy: It doesn't matter how old we are, at least I found someone just as crazy as me

Iggy: what do you mean?

Iggy: you know, like a mad scientist and with the strangest occurrences

Iggy: well, something like that.

Iggy: do you like energy drinks? I do and I drink them at night before sleeping next to Roy

Iggy: no, they make me sick. I drank one as a child and didn't stop feeling sick to my stomach for three days. I usually drink more coffee

Iggy: oh well

Iggy: but at least I still like to get into mischief

Iggy: oh, and what kind of mischiefs? I feel curious

Iggy: nothing, mostly creating bombs and traps mechanisms, and sometimes my siblings fall into it, Ludwig and Roy more. Lemmy is the one who falls the most (laughs)

Iggy: ow, I thought you would be more daring

Iggy: for example...?

Iggy: I don't know, that you had an affair with a boy, things like that

Iggy: nah, I like girls, and I already had a bad experience because of one of my brothers. I take things easy

Iggy: meh, how boring. I am gay and I am excited to meet more people. Right now I'm with someone, but things haven't progressed much. We even went to a funeral together and there was nothing, it was the most boring

Iggy: What did you expect?

Iggy: well… nah, forget it. What else do you have? Do you have a pet? I have an adorable girl called Nibbles, the cutest Chain Chomp there is.

Iggy: I also have a pet Chain Chomp, he is male and his name is Charlie

Iggy: that's great, if he had known he would have brought my girl so they could meet

Iggy: It would be a good idea, bring it next time. She is welcome. Do you know how to behave?

Iggy: of course, he only has “accidents” if he hears loud noises

Iggy: I understand

Iggy: well, how about we go find a boy? (stands on one foot in a feminine manner and moves his tail, placing his hands in a heart shape)

Iggy: I'll accompany you, but I don't promise to find anything interesting (shrugs and sticks out his tongue)

____________

Roy: oh, here we have another guy with good taste in fashion

Roy: oh, hello!

Roy: how are you? (hugs his counterpart) oh, sorry, it was unintentional...

Roy: nah, it doesn't bother me. I find it very adorable. My brothers usually hug me too, other kids too.

Roy: I imagine you are very lovable

Roy: You have no idea. Many girls have fallen for my charms, but there is one who has left me in awe, a bunny named Harriet... but lately things haven't been going very well. On the other hand, her brother has comforted me like a great friend.

Roy: friend? Maybe it's something more than that

Roy: I don't think so; I'm straight, as far as I know (looks away confused)

Roy: (shrugs) you would be surprised, but don't worry, I know how insecure you can feel, you know, things in life.

Roy: It's true. I'm almost out of school and I still don't know what to do with my life.

Roy: there are two of us now. Wait a minute, are you almost done with school? Well, how old are you?

Roy: already 18 years old, you?

Roy: fifteen

Roy: oh wow, I thought you were the oldest of all just like me, because of how strong you look

Roy: oh, well thanks but no. I'm one of the oldest, so I got in shape to protect my brothers

Roy: Indeed. I already left my time as a bully behind, now I want to be the example to follow, even if Wendy continues to hit me “there”, you know…

Roy: ouch... well, I was a bully too, I felt insecure about what others thought of me, but now I'm different, more or less, because according to Jr.'s words, I'm still a mastodon, but one in which can trust (laughs)

Roy: well, I barely know you, but I feel like I can trust you

Roy: thanks, I say the same about you

(both do a fist bump)

____________

Lemmy: oh, another Lemmy

Lemmy: What's up?

Lemmy: everything is calm, and you?

Lemmy: I don't know. I got here. I guess we are the same

Lemmy: apparently yes. Tell me what you like?

Lemmy: I like movies in Russian, bats and knives, in fact I have a lot of these

Lemmy: oh my, that sounds interesting, scary and curious

Lemmy: a little, and what about you?

Lemmy: I like rainbows, balloons, circus shows, but most of all big rubber balls. I like to climb on them to feel high

Lemmy: Yeah, I guess they're great when you're a kid. I'm 6 years old, but I find that a little corny.

Lemmy: (shrugs) there are those who enjoy it regardless of age. I'm 15 years old and I still like childish things.

Lemmy: that's what I'm talking about, only children enjoy that and... w-wait... y-you're 15 years old??!! Really??

Lemmy: yes, I'm serious. I love these things, no matter how “corny” they may sound.

Lemmy: oh… I didn't expect that, but you don't look like a teenager even though you're my brother Iggy's age.

Lemmy: yeah, many tell me the same thing, they have even told me that I look like the youngest of my brothers. At first that detail bothered me, but over time I started to don't care. Now I am who I am and I enjoy the things that make me happy, just like you with your knives

Lemmy: (takes a knife out of his pocket and looks at it) ………… yes, I understand you

Lemmy: would you like to join me and swing on a rubber ball?

Lemmy: well, I... yeah, why not?

(Both take out their wands and summon a rubber ball, standing up and lifting one foot to balance)

Lemmy: this is so funny

Lemmy: right? The advantage of being light is that you have better balance (he crosses his eyes, looking in opposite directions and sticking out his tongue)

Lemmy: you're right (smiles as he swings)

____________

Ludwig: okay, you must be the Ludwig from that time. Be welcome to my home

Ludwig: th-thank you, I… I'm very happy to see you again

Ludwig: oh yeah?

Ludwig: yes! You are nice and taller

Ludwig: nah, just a little. I'm 16. When you're older you'll reach this height.

Ludwig: I… I'm 17

Ludwig: oh, really? I did not expect it

Ludwig: (shrugs) things in life, I guess.

Ludwig: well, sorry if that bothered you. The truth is that I have not been very sociable and I still find it difficult

Ludwig: Don't worry, everything is fine. After all, Roy treats me very lovingly. He is one of my favorite brothers

Ludwig: how envious, I used to have a favorite brother, but we fought and now we haven't talked again

Ludwig: oh, I'm sorry to hear that. I hope things work out

Ludwig: (sighs) me too but I can't force it. He told me that he preferred someone more as a brother than me.

Ludwig: yes, I know what you're saying. My brother Larry doesn't want to make peace with me even though I have wanted to get closer to him many times, but nothing. On the contrary, he usually makes fun of me, that I am fat or about my more… personal problems.

Ludwig: Like which ones?

Ludwig: uh…

Ludwig: You can trust me, I won't tell anyone. And if you tell me, I can tell you a secret of mine

Ludwig: o-okay... (takes a deep breath, somewhat nervously) I have problems with urinary incontinence and... (starts to shake a little) it has given me many moments of embarrassment. Everything gets worse when I feel a little nervous or stressed, especially because of a lot of things that have happened in the last two months. Luckily almost all my brothers accept me as I am... except Larry

Ludwig: (sighs) it seems like both Larrys are a complete nuisance (shrugs)

Ludwig: so it's your Larry that you get along with badly?

Ludwig: yes, and he's not the only one, but he's the one who hurt me the most

Ludwig: I understand…

Ludwig: well, I'll tell you a secret, but promise not to tell anyone

Ludwig: musician's word

Ludwig: well... (whispers to him) listen: there is a boy with purple hair who is very friendly, but I am not convinced by his complete friendship and I think he is hiding something...

Ludwig: okay...?

Ludwig: well… I'm having a little crush on him, but I'm not sure. He has me a little confused and it's not supposed to be like that. He is a little older than me and he happens to be your age. This sensation is quite strange and sometimes it doesn't let me sleep.

Ludwig: oh yes. I know that. A year ago I also felt like this, until with the help of my brothers I came out of the closet and declared myself to someone.

Ludwig: and what happened next?

Ludwig: well, first I told him about my problems and even with that he accepted me

Ludwig: I see

Ludwig: don't worry, your secret is safe with me (giggles) but if I'm honest... if you like that boy, you should meet him, spend time with him and leave your prejudices aside. It's just a little advice between Ludwigs

Ludwig: (blushing slightly) y-yes, th-thank you...

Ludwig: in any case, I am not an expert either, but know that you have my support, as they gave me at the time.

Ludwig: I thank you very much. You know? You are quite nice and tender. I would like you to visit me again another time. Maybe there I'll tell you how he went with... what I told you (laughs) although I don't promise that everything will go so well (he places his hands on his waist and smiles slightly)

Ludwig: (blushing with his hands behind his back) whenever you like (giggles)

____________

THE END

((I hope all of you liked it. There will be more projects like this later. There will also be new characters))

[kpujing]

• 801 DAYS | BTS JIN AU •

AU where Jin has a girlfriend, and she has a breakdown after finding out he's going to mandatory military service... and still didn't ask her to marry him.

Portuguese version | English version

Pairing: Kim Seokjin x Original Character

Genre: Fluff, Comedy, Lovers [little bit of Enemies], a tiny sprinkle of angst ((cause I HATE sadness))

A/N: Just me writing fanfic about dating my UTT [and having a mental breakdown over him going to military service]. Chapters are really short cause 1. This was written for Twitter and 2. I didn't get to the point of building up a more intricate narrative over the original plot, although I had some ideas for it.

Originally posted on Twitter, but I'm from Brazil, and since the app is indefinitely banned in my home country I'm posting it here too...

Previous | Chapter 18 | Next

Healing a Broken Heart

Hoseok and Jimin are on an emergency operation to try helping Aurora win over her sadness, but nothing seems to do the trick. Thankfully, Seokjin knows exactly what to do to be forgiven by his girlfriend...

— Alright, who wants brigadeiro? — Hoseok asked, trying to lift the mood in Aurora's apartment living room.

He and Jimin were set on keeping her company and, ignoring her protests, they rang her doorbell soon after the argument in group chat had ended.

The situation couldn't have been more discouraging. The girl had her face extremely swollen and red - a clear evidence of how much she'd cried -, and her humor was grumpy to a point there wasn't even a small semblance to their usually lovable and energetic friend they'd always been so used to.

— You don't know how to make brigadeiro, Hoseok — Aurora retorted, all curled up under a blanket while sitting beside Jimin on her couch and pretending to be entertained with a random program playing on her television.

— Ow Sunshine! I really didn't need that kind of criticism right now — he whined with a pout, still Aurora didn't show any reaction to it.

Hoseok and Jimin exchanged a glance.

— Rora... — Jimin tried, rubbing her shoulder gently. -- You know we're here just to keep you company, right? There's no need for you to attack us like that.

— I know... Sorry, Hobi — the girl muttered, sniffling and hiding her face under the blanket to try to ignore her friend's worried gaze. — I'm really not in the mood for anything right now...

— It's worse than we imagined — whispered Jimin, moving away from the girl and closer to Hoseok with a nervous expression. -- I don't think we'll be able to solve this, hyung.

— She denied brigadeiro, Minie... She NEVER says no to brigadeiro — the Jung answered, trying to keep his voice low enough for the girl not to be able to hear it. — I don't know what to do!

— Don't worry, I do -- they heard a low and slightly hoarse voice, startled they turned around to find Seokjin standing right behind them, holding food boxes. While both friends were focused on the girl depressed on the couch, neither of them heard the sound of the apartment door opening or the not-so-subtle noise of the brief stumble that almost made all the boxes the Kim carried fall to the ground.

— Hyung! — the younger ones, still surprised by his presence, exclaimed. Split between celebrating Aurora's boyfriend's arrival and kicking him out of the apartment for hurting her.

— Aurora's not good, hyung. She's sad with you. I don't know if you being here is a good idea right now — Jimin soon took the lead, voicing the feelings he'd noticed on his friend while following the Kim to the kitchen.

— I know, Jiminie — he muttered after a deep, heavy sigh, having put the packages he'd bought over the table. -- But I don't think keeping a distance right now will be good for both of us or our relationship.

— You're right — Hoseok barged into the conversation before Jimin could bring up his point of view once again, knowing well how he's friend, empathic as he was, had already taken their friend's pain to himself and now voiced them as if they were his own. — We're gonna leave you two to talk and solve this out. But please, hyung, be careful about what you're gonna say to her.

And so, Hoseok and Jimin - the latter, still a bit reluctant - left the apartment, giving Seokjin some privacy to solve his relationship problem.

Still, Seokjin had his doubts about how effective his plan would be, given that, knowing Aurora as he did, it was obvious that his decision to hide the information about his military service had hurt his girlfriend.

He walked out of the kitchen and closer to the couch as silently as possible, feeling his heart tighten from knowing the small rumble of blankets over the furniture was his girlfriend. There were very few times Aurora had felt sad or hurt to the point of letting that influence her humor, and from those few ones it had indeed happened, Seokjin felt his heart tightening knowing the only thing he’d be able to do for his love was tightly embracing her in his arms to try and protect her from a feeling he had no power over. But now things were different.

Aurora was crying because of him.

Carefully, Seokjin knelt in front of the rumble the blankets formed and lifted them slowly, revealing her swollen and flushed red face from crying. He smiled, incapable of stopping himself from admiring how beautiful and adorable was the girl who held his heart, but his smile also had this hint of melancholy that he couldn’t get rid of before being able to explain and show her how much he regretted being the cause of her tears.

His hand, soft and trembling as if he was afraid the girl would vanish in thin air, made its way to a lock of her hair that rested over her forehead, moving it away from her face. Knowing well, that would be enough to pull her out of her sleep - although he suspected she wasn’t even actually sleeping. He felt his heart racing against his chest once her eyelids lazily lifted, giving space for her dark brown iris to focus on him with that warmth he was so familiar with, although also carrying this cold glare that made his throat dry out.

— I hope you’re the Seokjin of my dream, cause if you’re the real Seokjin, you better get out of my house right now… Before I go grab a broom to kick out of here myself — Seokjin couldn’t hold back his smile as he heard those rough and threatening words that rang in his ears in a rather adorable way.

Once more, he realized how lost and fated he was towards spending all the time Aurora would let him love her, or he’d be forced to resign to an eternity craving for her heart.

— If you really wanted to kick me out, you’d have done it the moment I opened the door… And I thought I was already the Seokjin of your dream — he teased, laughing as he watched the girl roll her eyes around with a scoff, not truly seeming to be that bothered.

— You are… Just not when you hide things you know are important to me and that obviously affects both of us.

— I didn’t hide anything from you, my love!

— But you didn’t tell me either!

— I didn’t get to!

— Why not? We tell each other everything! Did I give you any reason not to trust me?

— That’s not the point!

— Did I stop you from telling me?

— No!

— Then why-

— I got scared, ok?! I got scared that you’d give up on me!

They halted, staring at each other with eyes watering up. The silence seemed to form a lump in their throats, and Seokjin thought for a moment he had said too much.

— I love you.

It was so simple and at the same time, it seemed like the whole world had faded away. Seokjin always loved how Aurora was so soothing by always knowing the right time to say just the right things. Sometimes he thought this was one of the greater reasons he had fallen in love with her.

— And sometimes swear I wish I didn’t love you this much — she whined, making him smile when she unconsciously pouted.

— And sometimes swear I get surprised from not knowing I can't still love you even more than I already do — he answered, feeling pulled into the warmth in her eyes.

— I don’t know why you felt the need to be scared, but at least I hope you get once and for all that there’s not even the slight possibility I’ll give up on you. Not even if you give up on me. You wanted to date me, now it’s for the rest of our lives, Seokjin — Aurora pointed her finger against his chest, they were so close he was sure she could hear the quick thumping of his heart.

He felt the need to kiss her, but still needed to be sure he’d been forgiven first.

— Please forgive me.

— I do forgive you — Aurora muttered, her eyelashes slowly brushing over her skin before her eyes stared back into his. Seokjin gulped, knowing her next words would seal out his destiny for the rest of the night. — But you better cook for me every day until you have to go, got it?

And so he smiled, a sided grin that brought with it a thousand promises from a man completely surrendered to love.

— Your wish is my command, my lady.

Previous | Chapter 18 | Next

[sugarepoxy]

hey sorry if this is weird but this is @chip-and-the-bastards (it's a sideblog so I can't ask with it) and since we're up against each other for the jrwi au showdown I wanted to ask about Blood in the Deadwood‼️ it seems like a cool au but tumblr search function isn't showing me if you have anything for it on this blog! So here take this as an opportunity to ramble about it and also maybe give some propaganda!

anyway feel free to ignore if you don't wanna aha :]

Oh HELLL YEAHHHHHH!!!!!

well first of all @tobeywobey was also very involved in making it so make sure you also give them creds ! ! He worked on a LOT of the lore so i really wanna give them proper creds lol. Also the search didnt work because both toby and I haven't post much of anything publicly about it LMAO

BASICALLY its the prime defenders characters but in a kind of Galloway/Deadwood hybrid place if that makes sense. Each character fills the role of another character(s) in blood in the bayou (for example cantrip basically plays the role of Becky in this au.) its pretty cannon compliant to the events of blood in the bayou, except for a few changes, like things happening for different reasons and events being changed. Also there is no superpowers in this au :)

the thing Toby and I changed most was probably the events leading up to the main three going back to deadwood. In this AU Dakota is the one that knows Ashe the best, Will and Vynce are less acquainted with her. This is because she fills the role of Rachel so we wanted it to closer match the relationship that Kian and Rolan had with her when they were younger. so basically Dakota introduces Ashe to the other two a couple years before the events of this AU take place in deadwood, and they all eventually leave for w own reasons. Will dies like in PD canon, is resurrected as a bug sorta like how Rolan is, except he knows that he's a bug and keeps it secret. Ashe goes missing suddenly and Mark immediately starts investigating. The boys talk to mark about any leads or information, and it all leads to Deadwood. Also somewhere along there Williams "parents" die. Some more noatable things that happen in these few years is that vynce and cantrip have a relationship thats more like a situationship, and the three of them start a dnd campaign but never finish it.

They all go to Deadwood Because of Ashe's disappearance but vynce and will also have other reasons. Vynce really wants to finish this fuckin dnd campaign, and will felt the most obligated to go because he's part of the hive (and also his parents funeral was happening there anyways.) Will is also the one that is the most hesitant to go in the first place.

Then the BITB cannon stuff happens! They greet Doug (who plays the role of rat in this AU,) go to quickstop, see The Horrors, all that stuff. They obviously react in different ways and do different things than the BITB pcs, but it all still leads to them going to points of interest and having the big events happen to them the same. One notable change is that Will sees doug in the alley, pasteified, but is really curious about what actually happened to him instead of being horrified of the human sludge (Will is so fucking insane in this au.) Another is that will convinces Dakota that they need to leave (like how kian does) but while they are driving away will and dakota get into an argument wich leads to dakota grabbing the wheel from him and they end up swerving into the membrane wall.

Unfortunately thats where we stopped writing stuff down lmao so for the propaganda section of this ramble i will be taking from the character info toby wrote

-PROPAGANDA TIME-

Vyncent is a huge fantasy nerd and he has those hot topic elf ear cuffs. Half of his character motivation is wanting to finish that godamn dnd game!!!

William wisp is 10x more insane

wiwi carries a shotgun around locked and loaded from the very beginning

vynce gets some cool buggy limbs :)

Ashe is trans mtf and in the notes we referred to getting bugged as "contracting malaria" so we called her "our malaria girlfriend" and now in my head ashe will always be my favorite malaria girlfriend ❤️

Mark kind of plays the role of John Rand and he is also in love with that stupid caveman show

Mark and tide have a perry and doofenshmirtz dynamic. They both have radically different theories on what is happening to the town and argue constantly, but when they aren't being crazy people they get along

Tide fills the role of Mr. Dickman and he has a secret bunker chalk full of beef stroganoff. He also has a huge fucking blackboard where he writes all his theories (he just has "MALARIA" written down in all caps)

Tide has a little bit of a crazy old guy reputation in town

Cantrip gets fucking shot by William because of a one sided rivalry wiwi has had since middle school

LE FROG IS OFFICER DUDES‼️‼️

This concludes the ramblings, i wish everyone happy voting and good luck in the au torment!!! :D

[inazuma-fulgur]

In pain whenever someone insists that being naked around children, like in general, is bad

No cloths = pedo (this here is slightly exaggerated but some people actually say that. With words.)

Because nakes = sexual and sexual = bad and impure and children = pure and innocent and without agency

Waiting for the day where changing your childs diaper also becomes sexual and pedo unless *insert arbitrary metric*. If I had to imagine it'd probably be more terf shit, a la all men are horny monsters or only parents of the same SEX as the child should be allowed to.

I will nopt discuss further complications around childbirth because none of this makes sense anyway

I find it especially jarring when other queer people make arguments like that.

Like, y'all can't look at other people and be normal about it. It's not weird to be naked, you are weird for being unable to confront nudity without having secondary thoughts about it. You are the one uncomfortable with it so no one else is allowed to be comfortable with it?

Thinking about FKK (something I don't even know an english term for. Mom told me she and her parents often went to fkk places, because older people still found nudity more normal than we do I'd guess. Maybe they were an outlier but I can't shake the feeling that the younger people get the weirder and less tolerant they get of nudity and other peoples bodies.)

Every year when there's kink at pride discourse I can't help but think about how I wouldn't give two shits about people fucking in public, like it wouldn't be any more annoying that people blasting music and being loud, that's it. It definitely wouldn't smell as bad as some other stuff, like fireworks for example.

I also can't help but think about one of my friends from school who very amused told an anecdote where she went into her parents room while they were having sex when she was a little kid. Shocker, nothing happened to her. Plain seeing sex doesn't hurt, unless you already have been traumatized or smth. Also most of these super weird puritanical ideas only work under the assumption that children have the very same understanding of everything us adults do. Which they don't. How could they, they're learning everything about the world still. Explain it to them so that they can keep themselves safe, you'll have to do it regardless some day.

Go listen to what they're curious about, teach them at the pace they want, answer what they ask.

Because even if I say they don't have the same understanding of things us adults do, that doesn't mean children aren't smart and capable of understanding the bigger world, expanding their horizon.

People like that, in my opinion, just hate children.

Want to control them. Mold them into copies of themselves, perfect what they feel isn't perfect about themselves.

That's not how you treat another person, give kids agency and let them explore stuff. Let children be curious and nosy.

Teach them about consent, because consent isn't just sexual.

Teach them general things that are useful and good.

Teach them about their bodies and signs to look out for, built trust so that when they hit puberty and their needs and experiences change they will talk to you, ask and share what they feel and see. And then expand their horizons more

Please never raise children with preset ideas of how a well raised child has to turn out, with ideas of a fixed process with a fixed result, where certain things are off limits and shouldn't be allowed because they could lead to people growing up who don't fit your personal ideal(s).

Diversity of thought does not mean "diversity until I can't personally understand/relate anymore, beyond that it's evil". The only evil thing is you limiting the beauty and vastness of humanity

Children won't ever fit into your preconceived notions and that's a good thing, we're constantly learning and ideas are changing, and I'm not blaming you for growing older and having bigger more pressing worries and growing out of touch a bit, just don't denie others because of that.

The only way for children around you to be exactly like you is for them to grow up under the exact same conditions as you. But the world around you is changing constantly, even if you feel like YOU are a constant I assure you, you aren't.

Not even siblings or even even twins have that work out for them. Everyone makes different experiences, spends their time differently, cares about different shit. For better and for worse.

Embrace the potential for the worse, because it will lead to the better future you dream of.

If bad ideas are off limits and can't be talked about those ideas can't be challenged.

And if new ideas can't be brought forth nothing better can come into existence.

Yes new ideas will be not just good, there are bad ones. But that's why we discuss and make an effort, that's why we try things to see whether they work or fail.

We can't create the perfect world through logic in our heads and then execute it. Because humans aren't rational, logic is kinda fake even if it isn't, embrace that. Failure is human, failure leads to growth.

Many good things came from experimentation and theory but also from testing and trial and error, brute forcing stuff. Taking what works and optimizing it. Taking what didn't work and tweaking it slightly or taking notes on what has to be avoided in the future.

I love humans, I am human

I wish we would all stop dehumanizing each other constantly

[nopenonoaaaahh]

Immaturity in The Summer I Turned Pretty

I think tsitp is really interesting, mostly because of the immaturity of the three main characters, and that leaks into the Fandom space as well. Each one of the characters is very immature at this current moment but in very different ways, and I really hope we'll get to see how they grow and mature next season.

First off we have Belly. Despite a lot of her actions I really like her mostly because of her space as an unreliable narrator. You have to read into scenes with a more precise lens because we're being fed false information as fact based on how Belly is feeling at the current moment. Which shows her maturity level. She is very insecure but also very self involved. She inflates her importance but often times in a negative way, which leads her to making these incredibly rash decisions and has her flip-flop on her feelings all the time cause she feels like she'll never get her chance again and tries to shield herself from hurt. With Conrad she never trusts his intentions because she's spent so long telling herself he is a fantasy that she can't trust he genuinely loves her or wants to be with her. And with Jeremiah you have kind of the opposite thing happening she never really entertained the idea until he brought it up so now she feels like she can always trust him to be there and love her despite the fact that he's been trying to move on.

With Jeremiah, he is competitive and overconfident. Belly's relationship with Conrad forces him to face both of those without him really wanting to. He does genuinely care for Belly but he gets jealous and scared that he won't be good enough because she's always been in love with Conrad. And it being Conrad just makes it worse for him, because we see that he's always felt overshadowed as the younger sibling and that Conrad was 'the golden boy'. We see with how he reacts to Cam. He is jealous, but he'd be willing to let her date him, barring a little teasing, because he wants her to be happy. But that doesn't happen with Conrad. The only reason he gave them his "blessing" is cause he didn't want to look pathetic. It's a competition and a way to prove he can truly win out over Conrad, and every time she chooses Conrad over him it's a hit to his ego. He wants Belly to be happy, but only if it's not with Conrad.

With Conrad his immaturity is shown in a very different way. Whereas Belly and Jeremiah are immature because of lack of experience and needing to learn, Conrad has had a lot of responsibility. Both of his parents aren't reliable. His dad's never around, and though I love Susannah, she is not flawless. She has a very common belief that you don't talk about hard things you plaster on a smile whether or not you're actually happy because you don't want to bring the people around you down. The problem with that is if you cannot express your emotions or how you're feeling you will either be completely unable to address and understand your feelings or you'll blow up. Conrad is immature in the way he refuses to address his feelings even when he's hurting people because he doesn't know how.

I just think it's really interesting to see especially how the Fandom reacts to it because a lot of us are immature in similar ways and we're going to relate to and care for the characters that act in ways we would.

Anyways I want to hear what other people think of this and any counter arguments to these ideas cause I really like analyzing these characters and their actions.