#i guess because we're such a small system it doesn't make sense to us maybe?

[muckmagister]

Your imaginary number explanation only works on paper and not in a physical space. That's kind of what pisses me off about math - so much of it just isn't physically real and most of it is just used for tracking wealth/money/other capitalist bullshit. Math should be about efficient ways to count and measure, not arbitrary ways to put people into debt or make rich people seem even richer so they can scam other rich people.

I also think this is why so much of our understanding of physics is flawed - our counting system has less to do with the real world and more to do with social structures, so attempting to apply it to physics doesn't work.

I just. Maybe I'm just out of the loop bc I genuinely cannot process simple math equations but I really feel the reason for that is bc it's not grounded in a sense of reality OR in a mindset I can understand. Idk I'm autisitc and also there's a likely chance I have discalculia or some other learning disability/disorder that impairs math comprehension but seeing talk abt these kinds of math problem really make me think that I'm not the problem here.

enter at your own risk, you've been warned

ok oouuh i- Well. I think you seem to have a pretty cynical outlook on maths. To say that it's all about putting people into debt and letting rich people scam each other is just. That baffles me, to be honest. It's like saying language is all about constructing the most brutal insults possible and telling people to kill themselves. Like yeah a lot of people use language to do just that but that's just one tiny part of it. Maths isn't just about efficient ways to count and measure either, by the way, it's its own language, its own art form, a vast mountainous landscape with peaks we've yet to climb and valleys we've yet to discover. Forgive me for getting poetic but maths just isn't that... small, y'know?

I also disagree that this is why our understanding of physics is flawed. To be clear: It's flawed because we're idiots. We're idiots figuring out how our new toy works by throwing it around and pulling and squishing it randomly, because it didn't come with a manual and we have no idea what we're doing. Also, mathematics isn't our way of understanding physics, it's our way of building models that try and predict what would happen in certain circumstances. That might just sounds like I'm being semantic, but I think it's important to point out that nobody actually, truly, has any idea how physics really works. In fact, no ones ever even seen physics, when we make observations about the physical world, we're just seeing what physics does. So we use maths to make models that predict what we expect to see in our observations, and then we use those models and our observations together to try and infer the nature of reality. But we're all just guessing at that point, really.

So with all that in mind, to say that our understanding of physics would improve if only we had a better suited system of mathematics is. Well, I disagree. I also think that there isn't just some "better" system of mathematics out there waiting for us to discover it. I'm reminded of Gödel's incompleteness theorem. I encourage you to look it up on your own if you want, but basically, in any reasonable mathematical system there will always be true statements that cannot be proved. So there certainly are other systems of maths and we have looked into them. They do have their own upsides and downsides depending on how they work, but to say one system is better than another is, well, if I may use the language analogy again, it's like saying one language is better than another, when really it's just different sets of words and rules for us to say the same sentences.

So when it comes back to our current system of mathematics, it's not better or worse than any other system except for how widespread it is, just like how most of the world uses metric, a standardised system of maths makes it easy for anyone to communicate the same mathematical ideas to one another. But there are other systems of mathematics that become useful tools in more niche areas of maths for people to talk and understand those difficult topics.

With all that being said now too, I don't think our current system of mathematics, or any other system really, inherently has any less to do with the real world than it does with our social structures, or anything else for that matter. In fact, I don't think any system of mathematics inherently has anything to do with anything except itself. People didn't invent maths, we discovered it and then we invented ways of talking about what we learned. But numbers are their own thing. Their own abstract metaphysical objects. And they'd exist whether there was anything alive to know about them or not. Saying that there's a special way to use them to understand physics to me implies that numbers are what physics is, in a way, but like I said we have no idea what physics is. It just so happens that numbers are an incredibly useful way of talking about what physics looks like. But it's also incredibly useful to talk about our social structures. Frankly we're incredibly lucky that we've been able to saddle these concepts from abstract space, that our minds are powerful enough to reach out beyond the real to give us these tools of ideation that we can use for so many things.

You said that maths difficult for you because "it's not grounded in a sense of reality OR in a mindset I can understand" and I think those two things are the same problem in a way. I know I just did some big talk about how maths is really this abstract thing that isn't inherently connected to the real world, but we're all still the idiots I said we were, so a lot of maths does need to get grounded in reality for it to be reasonably comprehensible. And being able to ground a mathematical concept is often about shifting your mindset until you can see it at an angle you understand.

Like, you also said that my explanation only works on paper and not in a physical space, and I actually disagree! But I do think I get where you're coming from. I suspect you're thinking about numbers like physical objects, as in, the number 1 is like having 1 apple. So well of course, negative numbers kinda make sense right? I mean you can't just have less than 1 apple but you can get an apple taken away. But when you introduce i, it's like. What does that even mean? And you'd be right that it really doesn't make sense when you think of numbers as objects like that. But numbers aren't physical objects, we're just taught like that as kids, 1 apple, 2 bananas, 3 oranges, because they want us to build the association between the symbols (1, 2, 3) and the idea of that amount of something, of that value, of 1 being 1 apple or 1 step. But that's it, 1 isn't the apple, or the step, it's the idea of "oneness" or "singleness" and 2 is the idea of "doubleness", 3 is "tripleness" etc. It's difficult to even describe the idea of "singleness" without using physical metaphors, which is why we rarely ever do think about numbers in their purely abstract forms. And it's of course why we teach kids with apples and bananas, and why we go on to teach addition and subtraction by giving them more and taking them away. Even though, likewise, addition and subtraction isn't really about giving and taking. Now, I'm not saying you can't or shouldn't think about numbers as physical objects, or addition and subtraction as giving and taking. I'm just saying those are the initial ways we ground maths in reality in order to teach the concepts in the first place. And for a lot of people, this understanding of numbers is all they need for the rest of their lives. But the truth is there are different ways of understanding numbers and the operations we perform on them, and shifting your mindset on how these things work is an important part of being able to grasp more complex concepts, like imaginary numbers.

Finally, I said my explanation does work in physical space, how is that? Well if your understanding of numbers is that they're like objects, and that addition and subtraction is like giving and taking, then it doesn't work in physical space, no. What you need to do is think about numbers as a distance, and think about addition and subtraction not as giving and taking, but instead about direction. So what that means is that numbers don't tell you how much of thing you have, they tell you how far away from zero you are. Now when people talk about the number 1, what they usually mean is positive 1, like 1 = 0+1. (We just don't always draw the addition symbol out front.) So now if 1 is the distance away from 0, then positive + is the direction you travelled away from zero in. And when you write -1, the negative symbol isn't saying you have an "opposite 1" or that you're "taking 1 away", it's that you're travelling a distance of 1 in the negative direction, which is exactly the opposite of the positive direction. On a number line, this idea is pretty easy to comprehend since you only have two directions you can travel.

However, i is defined as being the square root of -1, which doesn't make much sense if you stick with the traditional understanding of what a square roots is, since it seems impossible to take the square root of a negative number. You can take take the square roots of +1, which are just 1 and -1, since obviously 1*1 and -1*-1 both equal 1. I'd also like to point out that taking the square root of any positive number works like this, you always get two solutions which are both the same distance away from zero in opposite directions.

(Square roots and square numbers are usually taught using, well, squares, introducing exponent notation where, say, 5*5 = 5² = 25, which is explained visually with how a square of side lengths 5 naturally has an area of 25, then that the square root is the opposite of this process and that 5 = √25. As you may expect, there are other ways of defining the notion of a "square" and "square root", and I'm sure that some of those ways can help make the existence of imaginary numbers become much more obvious, it's just, to be completely honest I don't know them.)

Now, if you do try to take the square root of a -1 anyway, and you just don't accept that it looks impossible, you'll have to invent a new number that explicitly has the property of squaring into -1, and since this new number won't be able to fit on the number line what ends up happening is that the number line gets extended into the second dimension, as in, it used to be a number line but now its a number plane. And if this sounds ridiculous let me remind you, this isn't the first time we've invented new numbers and extended the number line, again: negative numbers didn't always exist.

Also, remember how I said +1 and -1 are both square roots of +1? well +1i and -1i (or just +i and -i) are both the square roots of -1, and as you can see, they also sit a distance of 1 away from zero in opposite directions. In fact, √16 = +4 and -4, and in the same way the √(-16) = +4i and -4i. I know this likely won't really be able to help you understand, but hopefully it's nice to see how it is self consistent in a way and that it does kinda help to think about numbers like that.

or anything useful at least- i'm no teacher i just like talking about this stuff:> fhsdkjhs

[freifraufischer]

@darthmelyanna and I have spent the last two days reading the McLaren Framework (not a report, not a review...) and trying to figure out what they did in the many places where things don't make sense. While there are many glaring flaws in this report I would like to highlight a few that show just how badly this was handled/written purely from an organizational standpoint.

Aside from not being able to do basic math (or at least presenting their math in a way that makes it look that way because they don't explain their numbers well), having a sample size so small that when they put the bar graph in the report it should have embarrassed them, and trying to do this in a fraction of the time that basically any other investigative body has done a similar report...

And by basic math we mean that it took us an alarming amount of time to figure out how they got to their response percentage from the executives of the provincial and territorial organizations (PTOs). Early in the report they tell us that they had an 88% response rate but not how many people they sent the survey to. It's a small group so the reader should be able to figure that out right? There are only 10 provinces and three territories in Canada. Well dozens of pages later from where they are explaining their methodology they tell the reader that 5 provinces have rhythmic specific organizations. That gets us up to 18 if the reader is expected to do this math in their head for some reason (that the reader should be expected to do this math in their head is a sign of a flawed methodology section). Anyway they tell us in the methodology section that none of the territorial CEO's responded. That itself doesn't alarm me that much as these are likely very small organizations with few staff. They never tell the reader that only 2 of Canada's 3 territories has a PTO. So 17 organizations still doesn't give us a 88% response rate based on what they've said. Our best guess is that at the time they sent out their surveys one of these positions was vacant because you can get that number with a pool of 16. But methodology sections are not meant to require guess work.

But while we're talking about their methodology let's just point out two very simple to understand issues with their handling of their data. They spend a great deal of time talking about how the overwhelming experiences from their respondents were positive. Putting aside that someone could have suffered abuse at the hands of the system and still feel their experience with the sport was positive in general... 83% of their respondents were recreational gymnasts and coincidently 83% of their responses as a whole were positive about their experiences in the sport in Canada. They repeat at a number of points that they were given a mandate to look at the sport "at all levels" which is something that isn't unreasonable given the majority of athletes aren't within high performance programs that kind of 1 to 1 ratio in your response data should have been a red flag that their data was not sufficient to reach broad conclusions.

But you don't even have to get into the weeds to know their data set is flawed. GymCan has 266,000 members and they had survey responses from 1,000. Perhaps if they had done more than tweet the survey links and send it out over GymCan's communication lists they might have gotten more than a .37% response rate.

And then there are the confidential interviews. The sample size of that was 58, only 20 of which came from athletes.

So needless to say their survey and interview samples are too small and flawed. But maybe the other work they did makes up for it...

It has become very clear to us that they did absolutely no outside research beyond the answers to their surveys and interviews. Including reading GymCan's own documentation. We figured this out because they have a several page description of the way judges are assigned which didn't make sense to either of us and we follow this kind of detail in the sport pretty closely. As it turns out GymCan does have documentation of how their judge ranking system works (which is supplementary to the FIG system) and while we might have opinions on their system it's not what is described in the McLaren document anymore than the FIG system is. The only conclusion we could come to is that either the interview or survey answers didn't understand the system... or the McLaren team didn't understand the answers. But either way you couldn't have written what they did if they'd actually read publicly available GymCan documentation. Reading the organization's structural/governing documentation isn't an optional step when writing a framework for that structure. It also begs the question of how they could come to the conclusion that there are no glaring holes in their policies when we can establish that in at least one major case they didn't read those policies themselves but simply relied on others telling them what they were.

The report starts out by saying it's not a fact finding document and that it's beyond the scope of their mission to determine if incidents occurred. You can agree to disagree with them on that but I believe any reasonable reader would not have assumed that that meant that they didn't do any outside research at all. But here we are.

The attack on Gymnasts for Change is repulsive but I do think it's worth pointing out a few things about how even that was bizarrely lazy. First of all... the report calls them Gymnasts4Change while all their own communications calls them Gymnasts for Change. So where did McLaren get "Gymnasts4Change"? That's their twitter handle. They engaged what this survivors advocacy group had to say on such a superficial level that they got their name wrong and appeared to have simply looked at their twitter home page (and not even all of it). If they had even looked at their website they wouldn't have made this mistake. McLaren also talks about how this organization disparaged them while refusing to participate in their surveys. They even include the email they sent to the Gymnasts for Change staff member (whom they name inappropriately and without her consent given that she is an abuse survivor something they also did when writing a similarly terrible report on Canada Soccer). Digging through the Gymnasts for Change twitter timeline previous to the reports release all we could find in reference to McLaren was that they had failed to reach out. I am forced to come to the conclusion that they sent an unsolicited email to someone with links in it and it was sent to their spam filter. And then they made no other attempt than that one email to reach out to this group before attacking their integrity in an official document.

And while the treatment of Gymnasts for Change is repulsive I want to highlight something on a quite basic level I believe the McLaren group did not understand about the thing they are proposing to be investigating.

They do not appear to understand gymnastics on a very basic level that even reading the Wikipedia article for "Gymnastics" would have left them better informed. Please bare with me as I explain. Throughout the report they highlight that early specialization is a vector for abusive culture to develop and that the GymCan organization suffers from a term called "siloing" where parts do not communicate with each other.

Now first let's talk about the siloing first because that's a term and a problem the Whyte Review team into British Gymnastics highlighted rightly. In that case they were talking about how the human resources department and the member education department and the abuse investigators and the high performance staffers weren't talking to each other and were either duplicating work or assuming someone else was handling vital functions that were in fact being done by no one. Important information (like an individuals abuse history) was not passed between departments and the education arms guidance would be the exact opposite of what the high performance staff were doing. Siloing is a real organizational problem and Whyte laid out in extremely thorough detail how it happened in British Gymnastics.

But when McLaren talks about siloing they're not talking about any of the above. What they're talking about is that rhythmic, trampolining, and artistic gymnastics have different cultures and staff don't communicate with each other. Which leads me back to their major concern about early specialization. After a couple of hundred pages I'm of the opinion that their understanding of early specialization in gymnastics is a child doing rhythmic gymnastics versus doing artistic gymnastics versus doing T&T. I believe they do not understand that they were dealing with an umbrella term of several sports and I don't think you can be an adult at this table if you don't understand at the very least that rhythmic gymnastics and trampolining are not the same sport. Would anyone be expected to take someone seriously if they wrote a report about how ice hockey and field hockey staff were not communicating was a vector of abuse? About how figure skating and speed skating were siloed from each other?

If you want a seat at the table in reforming a sport or writing a framework for change you should at least be expected to have some knowledge of the sport at all.

And this is not just a gym nerd whining about people not understanding nuance. It carries through to their recommendations. They suggest that a commission to oversee experiences in gymnastics Canada have 2 athletes on it. How those 2 athletes are expected to reflect the experiences of the 4 disciplines who knows... but McLaren's team seems to think this is not only possible but reasonable.

There are many many awful things about this report. It blames foreign coaches for importing authoritarian coaching into the country. It spends a great deal of page count concerned for how bad coaches are hurting the reputation of good coaches. It gives voice to the idea that Safe Sport has gone too far. It quotes without examination the idea that there is no abuse within MAG. It talks about WAG and rhythmic abuse culture without almost any reference to gender and the list goes on.

But I thought it was worth talking about what garbage it was even on an organizational/methodological level.

[sakura-ame-no-ai]

"on caffeine."

pairings: kenma kozume x reader

genre: fluff

a/n: i felt a little kenma today, so this one is a little more "spaced-out" or just "randomly-torn-out-from-the-notebook" kind of feel if you get what i mean... anyways, enjoy! :) (i'm a little surprised that there were some people who liked my last fanfiction i wrote lol)

"kyanmaaaaaa?!" kuroo screams.

kuroo currently stands in the doorway of kenma's room, eying the see-through containers on the floor. they're obviously coffee jugs used to fill up coffee in the coffee machine.

you sit beside kenma, watching him trying to beat the difficult level of the game repeatedly as he quickly chugs the content of another coffee jug. his eyes are glued to the screen, focusing on every action of his small character, who is jumping and dodging about in order to evade the fire pellets spat out from a plant-looking monster sitting on the right side of the screen.

at this moment, kuroo scrambles over to the computer and forcefully turns off the pc system by jabbing the power off button on the screen forcefully. the screen instantly blinks into a pitch-black, making you and kenma look at kuroo incredulously.

"kuro! we were about to beat that boss!" you whine angrily, looking back at the now dark screen.

kuroo doesn't care though. instead, he swipes away the coffee jug that kenma is about to take another swig from and collects the remaining jugs from the floor.

"both of your eyes need a break," he lectures, wearing a stern expression.

"you two have been superglued to that computer since high school started like glitter glued to paper."

"kuro, at least we do what we're supposed to," kenma retorts, his eyebrows furrowing into a mad frown.

kuroo frowns back.

"cut the lies, kenken. you've been skipping meals with n/n and you know it. you two can't survive off of caffeine, tannin, xanthine, or any of that shit. you two are literal coffee addicts."

"ahem, it's not me drinking the coffee?" you point out, mad at him about being accused of drinking coffee.

you watch the bedhair march towards the trash can and lift it up, showing you its contents that contains unhealthy sugary drinks. obviously, you were the only suspect who would drink them.

"well, n/n, if you're trying to live by eating glucose, then become a tree and photosynthesize. even plants do better than you."

with that, kuro places the jugs and trash can down on the carpeted floor. the next thing he does pisses you and kenma off. he checks the wiring behind the computer screen, unplugs the wire cable that is supposed to project anything that was inside the computer system, and pockets it.

the two of you stare at him in silence as he lifts up the things he placed on the ground and exits the room, closing the door behind him.

"goddAMMIT, TETSUROU!! GET THE FUCK BACK!!" you screech, rushing to the door.

"COME BACK YOU LITTLE- eh?"

you are taken by surprise as the doorknob won't even budge no matter how much you try to turn it.

with the help of kenma, you try other ways to bust the door open, like pulling the knob, pushing the door, and even slamming into it. every attempt you make is proven unsuccessful and you sink down onto your knees in exhaustion.

eventually, the two of you give up.

"looks like he stuck a knife in the door since he knew there's no lock on it," kenma states, peeking at the crack between the door and the door frame.

"and he knew he'd be dead as hell if he stole the cable for the computer," you sigh, plopping on the bed.

you live in the same apartment as kenma, but your room is down the hall and nothing connects it other than that hallway. because kuroo locked you inside, there's no way to even make an escape down the hall.

"damn it, that sly feline..."

"maybe, we play games on your phone?" suggests kenma, his eyes looking hopeful.

you sit up excitedly.

"that's actually a great ide- wait, no. my phone's in my jacket, which is in the living room."

kenma exhales in despair.

"my phone isn't in my room, either. i left it in the kitchen, i think."

good grief, now both of your plans are ruined, unfortunately.

kenma plops onto the bed next to you, and you stare at the ceiling boringly with him.

"man, is there anything else we can do other than doing absolutely nothing?" you ask, closing your eyes.

kenma only shrugs, making you groan sadly.

now that you're fully aware of the room you're in, you begin to realize the chilly air surrounding you since you're wearing short-sleeves.

"i'm cold."

kenma notices you wrapping your arms around yourself and the slight shivering of your body. if he had been wearing his nekoma jacket, he'd lend that to you. however, he isn't wearing it, and he was too lazy to get up and take a walk to the closet and back just to get the jacket.

he takes a moment to examine the soft and fluffy covers that both of you are currently laying on before lifting it up, making a hole that's enough for him to slip in.

he holds the blanket cavern open and looks at you, which you understand without him speaking. you fit yourself inside the covers with your body squeezing against his as kenma closes the entrance to the cavern to your shoulders.

with the covers enclosing kenma's warmth around you, you feel a sense of security.

the feeling that everything is going to be alright.

kenma usually isn't that inviting though. deep inside you know it. he's usually reserved and he doesn't really give a crap to kuroo. he usually doesn't really care for you, too, even though you're his best friend.

maybe it's because of the caffeine that kenma is willing to give you such an intimate opportunity. he usually doesn't get too hyper when he drinks coffee, but he's usually a little more welcome and emotional after consumption.

but, that doesn't matter now.

you feel the soft feeling of an arm wrap around your shoulders, and a small push that makes the side of your face lean against his chest.

there, you experience the soothing sound of his heartbeat pumping at a steady pace ever so peacefully.

"i guess staying like this while not having video games is not that bad," kenma points out. "even though it'd be better with video games though."

you are about to agree with him out loud, but a light drift of exhaustion takes over you. your thoughts become fuzzy and your eyelids gradually close.

there was nothing you could do, other than to agree with him silently as you drift off into a peaceful slumber.

nothing can be ever so inviting without him by your side.

suddenly, you get jolted awake by the clack of a doorknob. although your vision is still blurry, you are still able to see.

a crack of light shines into the dark room from the door as you hear someone sing in a low voice, "kenkeeeeeeeeen... n/nnnnn-"

but, the singing gets cut off and before you know it, you realize it's kuroo who has just come into the room, staring silently at you and kenma on the bed in a cuddling position.

he blinks at you.

you blink back at him. and then, you start clearing your throat, trying to resolve the embarrassing scene.

"ahem. kuro. i can explain."

[lareinenoir]

THE PURGE; Sanctuary C.E x black reader

PT III

60 Days Until The Purge

THEN...

"I'll order take out. I know you like Thai-"

"Don't order anything. I'm actually not even hungry." You said as he took your bag and put it on his shoulder. "What?" He was looking at you weird and it made you frown.

"Where's the rest of your stuff?"

"You asked me to stay the night. That is my overnight bag." You replied folding your arms and walking over to the couch. Your hand touched your forehead and you sighed. You could still feel him looking at you as you tried to relax with your head leaned back. "After I tell Shonda about our situation, you're signing the papers."

"What do you mean-"

"You know what I mean." You shot back

"Ok, well theirs a lot to consider now." He motioned to your stomach and you sat up straight. "We're having a baby, now."

"No no no." You shook your head feeling your petty insides bubble a bit in sarcasm. "I'm having a baby. Me. Just me.”

"Obviously I want to be apart of our baby's life." Chris argued back and you frowned and scoffed. He put your bag down and crossed his arms as you brushed it off. "You can't seriously think I won't. V that's insane."

"You wanna know what's insane? You think you're gonna get anywhere near it. Why in the hell would I allow you and your broken promises anywhere near my child? Do you think I'm stupid? To make the same mistake twice!"

"Again? V what do you want me to do?" He asks throwing his hands up. "Acting is what I do, that's my job-"

"I don't care about that. I'm not asking you to chose your job or me-"

"It damn well near sounds like it. I would never make you choose." He countered back and you gripped your fists together.

"You may not have said it directly, but there have been many times where you have indirectly patronized me. I just found out I'm pregnant and I have been trying so hard to deal with it." you replied watching him pace back and forth and shake his head. "I have been getting the worst headaches, I can't keep any food down and I literally get lightheaded on set every single day because hiding my pregnancy has been a real joy ride." You replied sarcastically with a small chuckle

"What do you want me to do? I tell you to tell the producers, you get mad. I tell you to take a break, you get mad. I tell you to come over and you’re mad.” Chris said in disbelief. “I don't know what you want from me." He shrugs brushing the hair from his eyes.

"Not once since you found out have you asked me how I'm doing? My whole career is at risk I could lose my job. And you don't even seem to care.” You said

"V, I do care." He reached for your shoulder and you took in another breath. "I want you to stop worrying all the time. And you're right, I should be concerned more about you. I should be there for you-I should've been there for you in the beginning.” He admitted and you folded your lips again.

Are For real this time? Should I let it go and move past it? Again? No because it'll start all over again.

"This baby is mine. This is a life changing thing that's happening, I can't let you ruin it too." You spoke

" I'm taking responsibility because this is something I want. Ok? Can't we find some common ground? You of all people should know what it's like to grow up without a father!"

"You know too!" You shouted back. Chris' dad had died when he was younger. He talked about him sometimes but not as much. "I'd rather have had my father six feet under then to have him choosing when it's convenient for him to show up!" You said with your foot down shaking your head.

"Forget the divorce. Me and you living here happily married for the years to come. Whats so bad about that? Why can't I have that? What's so wrong with the picture of two parents raising a child?" His voice was loud and he was getting frustrated. He didn't shout, but you could tell how passionate he was about it. He always wanted to be a daddy, a parent. "Huh?"

"It's not just about you!" You said stepping closer. "Because..." You shrugged feeling your eyes water as you suck in your cheeks. "I knew the kind of man I was marrying. So involved with his job it took him almost fifteen years to actually start dating. It's not about you or your career. This baby is all I have right now.”

He looked confused as he relaxed his brow and pinched the bridge of his nose. From two feet away you could feel his heartbeat and you felt a little bad for how foolish you probably looked. You still loved him, not like you ever stopped, but you remembered that you still loved him.

Because, it's not about me either anymore. You thought

"Forget the papers okay..." You said swallowing your own pride. "just forget it. You’re right. I want our child to have two parents who will love him unconditionally. But it has to stop, because it takes two. I can't have you with one foot in the door." You admitted

“Yeah yeah.” He nodded “yeah I get that. I’m not going anywhere.” Chris said and you walked forward and took his hand kissing his palm as you placed it on the side of your face. “I promise V.” He cups your face and stares into your eyes. His stubble poking at you a bit as you held his wrists.

“I love you.” You said with a small smile

“Still?” He laughed making you roll your eyes as you giggled a little. “I love you too. Are you sure you aren’t hungry?” He asks again

“Yes.” You nodded “now shut up and come take a nap with me.”

NOW....

CHRIS POV**

“Damnit! Damnit! Damnit!” I said throwing the phone on the couch. I had called five times and her phone went straight to voicemail.

“This is not a test, this is your Emergency Broadcast System. Announcing the commencement of the annual purge sanctioned by the U.S. Government. ALL Weapons have been authorized for use during the purge. Government officials of ranking 10 have been granted immunity and shall not be harmed. Commencing at the siren, any and all crime (including murder) will be legal for 121 days. Police, fire, and Emergency Medical services will be unavailable until December 15, 12:00 o’clock midnight, when the purge concludes. Blessed be our new founding fathers and America... A nation reborn. May God be with you all.”

My tv was replayed the message nine more times before shutting off. I swallowed the lump in my throat. Today is august 15, Vanessa’s birthday is tomorrow which was when she’d be 17 weeks. We had marked it on the calendar together. More than half my wife’s pregnancy would be spent during the purge. I needed to find her!

I didn’t support the purge. Something about killing people to be “cleansed” just didn’t sit right in my gut. It made my heart ache thinking about the clean up at the end. I could bring Dodger, but he can only do so much. Maybe he could help track her scent. Grabbing my coat I folded my lips together.

“Fuck!” I shout

With what weapon? How was I going to run the streets looking for my wife without a gun? I loved the idea of owning one, but Vanessa made me swear not to bring one in the house if she was there. So I just dropped the idea. Looking in the kitchen I grabbed one of the Chef knives off the rack. Maybe this would be enough for now...

“Damnit!” I curse looking at Dodger. “She said she was at Topanga Park. Start there?” I asked, as if he’d answer back. I grabbed her bonnet from off the bathroom door handle and stuffed it in my backpack.

I didn’t hesitate l. I locked up everything and jumped inside my truck. Dodger sat on the passenger side and I felt my hands start to shake as I put my foot on the gas. I started to promise god I would go to church if he would keep her safe.

“I don’t even know if you’re even listening or you even care. I love her, I’ve been such and idiot and I don’t wanna lose her.” I looked at Dodger and he was sitting up straight. “I remember you didn’t like her. You wouldn’t let her anywhere near me, you bark and squeeze yourself in between us when we sat down in the room to watch movies.” I chuckle wiping the little tear that slipped from my eye “You stole one of her wigs too.”

“WHAT THE FUCK!” she shouted chasing you around the house. “DODGER GIVE IT BACK! COME BACK!”

We chased him around the house and Dodger thought it was some sort of game. We had been officially dating for a month. I had started laughing when I caught him and held her headband wig in my hand. She stood their with her arms folded while I petted his head and she rolled her eyes.

"I told you he doesn't like me." She said as I stood up and she took the wig from my hand.

"Come on, he's just getting used to you."

"I've been over here every day. Your dog hates me."

"What?" I tilted my head to the side and touch her nose with my index finger. "Deal breaker? If my dog doesn't like my girlfriend, I'm gonna dump her? Tell me where that makes sense."

She walked closer to me and wrapped her arms around my waist looking up at the ceiling as I kissed her neck. "I guess you have a point." Vanessa sighed.

"He's just warming up to you that's all."

"What's stopping me from breaking up with you?"

"Over a dog?"

"This is his third assault against me. First it was tearing up my purse, then chewing up my crocs, not to mention the little shit I found inside of them. And now stealing my wig and playing cat and mouse." Said Vanessa as I rested my head on top of hers. "Luckily this is a backup wig."

“Aren’t you wearing one right now?” I asked

“Headband wig. And that wig your dog has destroyed,” she gave him the side eye “it was my favorite and expensive.” She gritted her teeth

“I’ll buy you another one.” I offered

She purses her lips and shook her head. “I don’t want you buying me anything. I’ll just break up with you. For real this time.”

"Fine then..." I baited her shrugging my shoulders. "Break up with me."

“Over a dog?” She frowns mocking me as I smile down at her and her eyebrows bend downward a little as she caressed my face. Her finger was gentle and she stood on her top toes and kissed my lips. “Never.”

...

I look over at Dodger and pat his head. "We'll find her. I know we will." I say trying to lift my spirits.

When we arrived to Topanga Park, it was a sight. I didn't even want to leave the truck. I felt my heart race a little more. "What the hell..."

In the middle of traffic-in between the cars were bodies. Dodger started barking at the train of blood that stained the streets. It was empty, but I could feel a heavy weight on my back. Walking behind me, next to me...it was all around me. I hadn't realized I had my hand over my mouth an nose, it was hard for me to breath as the stench of dead bodies. Dodger kept barking and that led to me chasing after him. I had her bonnet in one hand and I called after him.

I came to a halt when I came face to face with another person. He had Dodger in his hands and I felt my muscle tense up. He was tall and very familiar looking. I swallowed the lump in my throat and held the kitchen knife in my hand with a firm grip.

"Captain America?"

I tilted my head sideways and licked my lower lip narrowing my brow a little. "Yeah, give me the dog and we can go our separate ways. Ok?"

He nodded his head. He ran his fingers through his hair and put the dog down. I wasn't really concerned about who he was I was trying to prepare for a fight. He dropped his gun on the ground and held up his his hand.

"I'm not going to kill you. I'm looking for my wife." He said "She left her watch in that building." He pointed to the school and slowly pulled the watch from his pocket.

"In there?" I asked

"Yeah." He nodded, but I still couldn't shake the feeling I knew him from somewhere. "My name is Jared. My wife's name is Gianne, I'm pretty sure she was with someone else-are you looking for someone too? Maybe we could help each other. There was something written on the chalkboard in there, I wasn't something Gia would write, but she was here. All I wanna do is find her-"

"Supernatural?" I asked turning my head to the side. Vanessa loved that show. Whenever she had spare time she would watch it or on those many night she'd spend the night at my house we would watch it-well not really watch it. The Netflix and 'chill' was emphasized. "You said something about some sort of message on the wall?" I asked motioning with my hand. "what did it say?"

"um, CE equals BE or something like that." He shrugged

I laughed a little. Vanessa Evans plus Chris Evans equals Baby Evans. It was a stupid joke-an Easter egg if you will. Shonda put in the show on the whiteboard in one of our love scenes as a way to announce our pregnancy to the audience. She often left clues to the next episode in every episode except this one was not only in the show but in real life.

"Chris Evans." I say extending my hand out to him. I'm pretty sure he knew by the little smile playing on his face. He shook my hand and nodded his head.

"I know. I'm a big marvel fan, I know all your lines." Jared chuckled and then cleared his throat as he nervously laughed. "Nice to meet you. I'm Jared Padalecki - I know I said that already..."

I introduced him to Dodger and I felt a little more relaxed. I gathered that she was alive and we both came to the assumption that they were traveling together.

"Where do you think their headed?" I asked as we walked to his car which was tricked out and full of ammunition and guns. Not to mention government level protective gear.

"While I was in there, I picked up someone else. Heavy footed and big, traveling with dogs. Hair everywhere." He went on tossing me a bullet proof vest. "You heard of Sanctuary?"

"The safety place? Yeah, but it's hard to find. It's for people who get caught in the Purge right?"

He narrowed his brow and shook his head. "No." Said Jared sharply. "Sanctuary is a secret government funded task force. It started off as a conspiracy some myth to explain all the random disappearances throughout the year. It's a government project designed for population control." He went on

"Ok...what does that have anything to do with the Purge?"

"Everything. An organization designed to control the US population. We're talking Pro killers who were once on a leash, but when that horn sounded and the Purge began, they are just as free to kill anyone they want." Said Jared handing me an ipad. It was a list of celebrities. From pro athletes like Steph Curry and their immediate families to movie stars and singers like Rhianna and Tom Cruise. "There are rumors that they are hunting celebrities. The kardashians and Jenner's are fair game. If not the stars themselves then they choose their parents, brothers and sisters."

"And do what?" I asked quietly as I saw mine and Vanesssa picture

"Most get auctioned off to the highest bidder, I've also heard they kill them on the spot for money or bring them in to fight for the death. Bottom line, there is a bounty on our heads. During the Purge everyone is fair game, their is no protection."

"You're telling me she's out there being hunted by them right now?" I asked

“Possibly. The dog hair isn’t a breed we know. They are a combination of hunting canines, bloodhound, foxhound, Labrador retriever with the built and aggression of a something like a pit bull a Rottweiler.” Said Jared as I looked up from the iPad and gave it back. “You’re gonna need more than a kitchen knife. We find the dogs and the hunter and we’ll find them.”

He held a gun out to me and wiped my mouth with the palm of my hand trying to mentally prepare for what is to come."

“Do you believe in the Purge?” I asked still questioning why his car was full of weapons. “You kill people?”

He nodded his head. “Yes. I don’t believe in hiding or waiting for someone to kill me. We all have the right to Purge."

"What's stopping you from killing me?"

Jared sighed and shook his head. "I'm hunting them. I'm surviving and if you decide to threaten my survival, then I'll kill you." He went over to the driver side of his Ford charger. "Get in. Knowing Gia she is headed for Roberts hole."

"What's that?" I asked climbing in the passenger seat of the car.

“It’s a Cassino for celebrities. Jack Black owns it. It’s locked up right but open to his favorites during the Purge.”

“They’ll be there?”

“Relax.” He out his hand in my shoulder and looked at me as dodger sat in the back seat. “We will find them. You know how to shoot don’t you?” Jared raised his gun in the air and nodded my head.

I guess it wasn’t confidently and he chuckled. “Vanessa isn’t a fan of guns.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll practice. Ok?”

.

.

.

.

.

A/N: Sorry it took so long😬 don’t hate me, please. Lol, I hope everyone is doing well and safe out here. If you wanna be tagged leave it in the ask box, Anyways…Untill next time!

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[hmslusitania]

I see we're going ape over buddie and Choices tonight so

Yknow in 2.07, when Shannon comes back and her and Eddie have their first scene together? The argument at the end, after Eddie says it wouldn't be a good idea for her to see Christopher bc she left them, she says she needed him, she needed a husband and a co-parent - and "I needed someone to have my back!"

To which EDDIE says, "I always had your back"

*insert Incredibles "coincidence? I think NOT" gif here*

(Also side note, I do like that the show doesn't try to sugarcoat what Shannon did being messed up, and that Eddie's own actions weren't really the right thing either[thinking about his conversation with Buck where he says he got to pretend he left for a noble cause even tho he was running], and that it was just a sticky situation that neither of them were equipped to handle in any way, and snowballed. I do kind of wish we could've gotten post-divorce Shannon and Eddie and Christopher interactions, figuring out how they fit together, if at all, bc I like those intricate and messy situations but I could see how that might get too close to retreading old ground re: Michael and Athena's divorce. But I do hate how ive seen the fandom like. Seem to oversimplify things with Shannon sometimes? And make her the ultimate villain, and Eddie Did Nothing Wrong, Ever)

Hi Anon!

The decision to have Buck and Eddie's first bonding moment end with "You can have my back any day" and "or, y'know, you could have mine" only to then six episodes later find out that at least a contributing factor to Eddie's marriage dissolving was that he "didn't have her back" is like. Such a galaxy brain chaos move for them to take, honestly. Like?? They could've had the phrasing be literally anything in 2x07 but instead they had it directly echo Buck and Eddie in 2x01. What was the reason? Why did they do this?

As for the rest of your ask:

(gosh this got long and, uh, opinionated. It is Not Pretty below the cut)

One of the things I really liked about Eddie Begins is that we did get to see him at the beginning of his journey in being Chris's dad because it gives us an opportunity to appreciate how amazingly he's grown as a father. Like, he didn't start out as a perfect dad and he was definitely kind of lost in the woods at the beginning there when it came to the whole "how do I parent" thing. And before Eddie Begins, we'd only ever seen the end result of the growth he's gone through, where he really is a fantastic dad whose son is basically his entire reason for being. Before Eddie Begins, we get to hear him say things like "I left first" and "I've failed that kid more times than I can count but I love him enough to never stop trying" but we kinda have to take that on faith? Because we hadn't actually seen him be anything besides a good dad until we saw his Begins episode. (And even then in his begins it's like "area man in his early 20s unsure how to care for small child while also coping with PTSD and a toxic support system" which like. yeah. no shit. there's one hell of a learning curve there)

The thing about Eddie and Shannon as a couple and as parents that always gets to me is that they were so fucking young. We don't know exactly how old Eddie is in the show, but we can guesstimate pretty safely that he's around the same age as Ryan which would make him between 23 and 24 when Chris was born, and it seems reasonable to believe Shannon was around the same age. It's also a pretty common reading in the fandom -- although I'm not sure how much canon support there is for it because we really, really don't know anything about their relationship pre-Christopher unless I'm forgetting something -- that they got married because Shannon got pregnant and that was the Done Thing. And when you're 23-24, baby on the way, freshly married, that is just like. So much. It sure as hell ruined my parents' relationship when they did that exact thing, and then they disliked each other until they were 27 and then they got divorced, and no one was happier than me about it, I have to tell you.

Back to the show, I can only give you my impressions, obviously, but the impression I have always gotten from the whole "I left too" conversation and the context that goes into it and the different behaviours we see exhibited by the characters is that Eddie "left" first and it comes across to me that he was basically an early twenty-something kid running scared from the abstract concept of being a father in general, and then when he was forced home by an honourable discharge, and was confronted with the reality of Christopher, he managed to step the fuck up and become Christopher's dad. It's there in 2x02, right? "Oh, you've got a kid? I love kids!" "I love this one." Eddie doesn't strike me as a Swiss Army Knife all-purpose Dad(tm) the way Bobby is. Eddie is Christopher's dad. (and like, of course, he's obviously moved by kids when he's on a call, we've seen that enough times to know that if there's a child who can even glancingly remind him of Christopher, Eddie's sense of self-preservation goes out the window, and I love that about him as heart-stopping as it can be in practice)

Shannon, on the other hand, didn't run from the idea of being a mother -- at first. When she left, it wasn't from the abstract. She left Chris (and "gave up" on Eddie, thanks Helena). She was not running from a concept, she was running from a reality. I think Shannon is a fascinating character to include in a television show as a side character, because she really isn't a one note character. Like, she was unarguably a bad mother, and from what we saw, she was a questionable romantic partner to have (but as you said, anon, Eddie was also not 100% the best romantic partner when he was with Shannon either; their entire relationship so far as I can tell was built on sexual chemistry which, uh, super does not sustain a relationship), but she also seems to have been a devoted daughter? I mean, yeah, it's entirely possible that her mom being sick was a convenient excuse to bail -- and obviously she didn't come back after her mom died, and didn't, y'know, contact her son or husband in the interim, so yes, I can see that being a valid way to read the situation. I don't think she's the Ultimate Evil, because she strikes me as a very human character in all the ways that people are more often than not really fucking flawed.

But then we get back to the actual break-up scene. The first time I watched it (and second, and third; then the fourth time the person I was watching with was like "I mean, sure, but it could also be read in this light") her "I'm just learning how to be someone's mother" speech really bothered me? Partly because it was the abstraction of it, right? Eddie doesn't like kids, he likes Christopher, and Shannon sort of had the inverse journey there, I guess, where it went from she didn't know how to be Christopher's mother, to she didn't know how to be a mother. And that speech bothered me because it always sounded to me like she was bailing again. She begged Eddie to let her back into Christopher's life (guilt? I guess?) and like, straight up bribed him with sex which was sure a choice, and then decides -- for a second time -- that she's out. It sounded, to me, she was handing Eddie papers and maybe, in a few years, possibly, once she'd had "time" to "figure out how to be someone's mother" she would try again. Just like she had in the interim between leaving when Christopher was little and the time of season 2.

And like, that could totally be a misunderstanding of the scene and what she was saying. It's what I took away from it, but that could very well be influenced by the fact I was raised by divorced parents and my dad had custody and if you count up all the time I spent with either parent when I was a minor, I was predominantly raised by my father and have had an especially tempestuous relationship with my mother that is mostly (sometimes) repaired now that I'm in my late twenties and have not lived with her since I was sixteen.

Back to the show, and to your comment that the fandom tends to treat Shannon like the Ultimate Evil and act like Eddie Did Nothing Wrong, I mean. Yeah. Fandom as a rule tends to shirk nuance. We're all fools here on the internet sitting in our blue industrial waste container crying about a wee woo show. I personally believe a more nuanced take on that might be that Eddie has shown a great capacity to learn from his mistakes (sometimes to make fun, shiny, new ones, but for the most part, just like ends up doing better the next time) and Shannon did not show that capacity in the time we knew her.

I think, depending on what they did with it, there was potential for an interesting storyline if they'd played through the divorce. I don't think it would've been rehashing ground covered by Michael and Athena's divorce because I can't see Eddie and Shannon having reached a point of amicability and friendship. The only thing we know they had in common was Christopher, and frankly, when you boil it down, the ways they engaged with Christopher as a person were so disparate that -- to me -- it really didn't seem like they had Christopher in common when you get right down to it. But I wouldn't have wanted to see Christopher and Eddie dragged through an ugly divorce process. They deserve better than that.

There's also a conversation to be had about Shannon's blatant ableism towards her own son, but that is extremely not my lane since I am not disabled myself. But even from an outside perspective, basically their entire parking lot conversation in Haunted, uh, haunts me with it's repugnance and the fact that instead of calling her on any of it, Eddie "Chronically touch starved" Diaz's response was to kiss her? Gosh golly do I wish that was one of the mistakes he learned from properly instead of finding a new, shiny version.

ANYWAY this got long, tl;dr (although if you clicked on the read more, you probably read it) version is No, Shannon is not the Ultimate Evil, she's a shitty mom not a demon in a skin suit and a pretty yellow sundress; and No, Eddie is not a flawless human who's never done wrong in his life but holy fuck is he trying and he'd be the first person to tell you he's made mistakes (and often has been); and no, sorry, I don't want to see the divorce storyline play out because we probably would've had to see either Eddie Bashing, Shannon Redemption, or Shannon turning up again like a cardboard cut out of a cartoon villain the way Eva did and I want to be witness to exactly zero of those things.

[rpmemesbyarat]

RP meme from Scream Queens Ep 6 "Seven Minutes in Hell" (Note: Offensive content, use at own discretion)

Everyone would immediately assume the killer is me.

Are you one of those idiot savants who's heavy on the idiot, light on the savant?

I am simply a victim of my times.

Are you aware your pants are on backwards?

Then whose fault is it?

I am never talking about anything ever again!

Yeah, super sorry about what happened down there.

Why are you laughing?

What about that fit you threw down there?

You're not mad at me?

Oh, I meant everything I said about you.

I still think you're useless. I'm just not sad about it.

You never, ever want to be the boss in a time of extreme crisis.

As soon as you become the boss, you get a target on your back, from the feds, the other families, ambitious underlings.

Sure, seems like you have all the power, but you also take on the most risk.

Oh, don't judge me for trying to stay alive.

Do not give an inch.

What's your game here?

I trust you about as far as I can throw you.

I know we don't know who the killer is, but we know it traces back to this house.

There are two things that always happen at a slumber party; someone experiments with lesbianism and secrets are revealed.

We can create situations and scenarios to really prime the pump.

We'll lock everybody up overnight, and we're bound to find out something.

A slumber party sounds fun.

Let's play spin the bottle.

Someone always goes lesbian.

We're playing spin the damn bottle.

Why spin the bottle?

That is not a nasty rumor. That is a true rumor.

So I propose a panty raid.

You taste like wax.

I guess we have to kiss.

You're a great kisser.

Was I interrupting you?

I was just practicing looking disinterested.

I'm pretty sure I was born without that part of the brain that actually feels stuff.

We have so much in common.

I'm starting to think we have something very important and specific in common.

My sex life up until this point is what you'd call unusual.

I think the only way to be sure of your feelings is if you let me gently rub your uterus right now.

When I love someone, it drives them insane.

Believe me when I say that if it was possible for me to feel anything I would totally be crying right now.

That doesn't seem healthy.

All the doors are locked solid. Windows, too. Upstairs and down.

I decided to have the whole house turned into a panic room.

But wait, doesn't that mean that there's some sort of switch somewhere to deactivate it?

I hate being trapped in small places.

There's only one reason why the killer would do something like this-- to pick us off one by one.

Guess it's just a matter of time before one of us or all of us ends up dead.

You have to help us.

Look, I'm prepared to say I'm sorry I did that.

What I'm not prepared to do is say the sex was bad.

Yeah. I'm not gonna apologize for that one.

I'm about to get murdered, so can you please just hang up and get over here?

How on earth are we supposed to get in if all the doors and windows are locked?

Dude, we climb up the ladder, break the windows upstairs, save all the girls, climb back down, then it's vagina city for all of us.

Why would you bomb-proof upstairs windows? For what, like, a flying bomb?

Don't be an idiot.

It's hero time.

Save me and I'm yours forever.

I'm not really sure I'm ready for that level of commitment.

Break the glass!

Stand back, fair maiden.

Give him the dignity of watching him die.

Someone in this house definitely knows who the killer is.

It's truth or dare time.

Whatever it takes to stop the douche that's trying to kill everybody.

I mean, do you ever just stop and ask yourself if we can actually pull this off?

Maybe we all just need to get out of here.

The best way to avoid a shark attack is to not go in the water.

We all have a crisis of faith sometimes.

Maybe you're hiding something.

I'd pick truth and then just lie.

If you want to lie, you can just pick dare.

That's the whole point of truth or dare. You can't lie.

Does your vagina have teeth?

I'm not lying.

My vagina doesn't have teeth.

Does your vagina still have teeth?

So it used to have teeth, but you got them removed?

So your vagina still has teeth.

Sounds like you're trapped in a web of lies.

You're forfeiting your turn, bitch.

Okay, I guess it's my turn, then.

You promised you wouldn't tell.

Sorry. I had to tell the truth.

Of course you're the killer.

I propose we take a little break, You know, take a whiz, get a refill.

You know what? I'm sorry. I'm sorry I ever trusted you.

I wanted to talk about the other thing you said, about how you thought you had feelings for me.

The only feelings I have for you now are rage and pissed offedness.

Now go sit in that bathtub and think about what you've done. And try not to rub one out, okay?

Come on! I said I was sorry!

If anybody's down here, please don't jump out at me.

Is that blood?

Wait. If you're gonna kill me, at least show me who you are first.

I knew it. I knew it was you.

Please. You don't have to do this. I could help you.

There's never any food in there. Just laxatives.

I got the impression that you and I are on the verge of being the next "it" couple.

See, this is the problem with texting, you know? You can't hear the context.

Even though I decided to not wear a bra, you haven't been staring at my shirt raisins once.

Okay, look, I was waiting to talk to you about this 'cause secretly I was hoping you'd be killed and I wouldn't have to hurt your feelings.

I just don't think it would work out with us.

You're nuts, and not like a typical crazy-eyes co-ed, but wake-up-with-my penis-in-a-jar lunatic.

I love space mountain. Best ride at Disneyland. But I love my penis more.

Number one-- I never take second place. And number two-- I don't stop till I get what I want.

Was that salad spinner hitting on you?

I am super turned on from her, and I need some sweet release.

Is there any, like, Crisco or cooking oil here? Just, like, dry handies bum me out.

I propose we treat ourselves to a little heaven. Seven minutes in heaven.

Whatever your plan was, it isn't working.

Would you like to pat the little man in the canoe?

I want to take our relationship to the next level.

I want us to be together, but I want it to mean something.

I love boning girls all over this great land. But really, at the end of the day, I just kind of want to bone one girl. Like, that one special girl.

I just didn't think that girl was you. Because, obviously, there's so much wrong with you.

Will you get back together with me?

I would consider taking you back under one condition.

You have to pinky-pledge that you will be monogamous to me.

You will not have sex with anyone else. Do you understand me?

Dude, she looks like prepackaged meat from the supermarket.

Oh, god, has someone checked on the kids?

Pretty convenient that you're the one who found the body.

You're the darkest bitch of them all.

Those are some serious accusations, and they make no sense.

I would be opening myself up to a lot of trouble if I were to turn you in to the authorities.

It doesn't do any of us any good to start accusing each other with no evidence.

I suggest that we just have someone stand guard and watch me for the rest of the night, or until someone else dies, therefore proving that I am not the killer.

This feels so good.

I tried to scream, but nothing came out!

Interesting. That's all I'm gonna say. Interesting.

There is a trapdoor with, like, a tunnel system.

But wait, there are secret tunnels in this house perfect for a killer to use, and you neglected to tell us?

That's a little suspicious.

We are losing sight of the big picture here.

I'm not going down there. I do not dig on cobwebs, and I'm guessing there are loads of cobwebs down there.

If you get murdered in those tunnels, I promise I will never bang anyone harder than I banged you.

You're so rich and hot.

These are the nicest secret tunnels I've ever seen.

Wow. What amazing legacies they all have. What do you think ours will be?

If we can get through this year without everyone getting killed, I think we'll go down as the greatest of them all.

You came back for me.

Purely selfish.

You are probably the worst cop ever.

Wait, where are we going?

I won't go!

In three seconds, I'm gonna pick you up and carry you out of here.

I just kind of came over here because I farted over there and it smelled bad.

Wait, you're a lesbian?

Basically, I'm in love with love.

The next time I feel love for someone, I'm going to tell them. Right away. Just in case they're murdered before I can.

I just feel like I'm never gonna find a guy who likes me.

I'm a freak.

Nobody actually likes me.

You are totally gonna find another guy.

They're custom-made pink nunchaku.

Thank you for making that announcement that no one cared about.

No slumber party is finished without a kickass dance party.

This is so wonderfully random.

What a great way to pretend all these people we know weren't brutally murdered.

[primroseprime2019]

Masters and Students

"Such a shame." Starscream said as he watched the Space bridge explosion, "But I applaud you, Megatron. You certainly made a grand exit."

Echo clenched her fists tightly as she left the control bridge and Soundwave walked over to Starscream.

"Ah, Soundwave, cue the audio/visual. I wish to address the troops." Soundwave only nodded.

All over the screens and throughout the halls, the troops had heard Starscream give out his message.

"The loss of Megatron, leader of the great Decepticon uprising, is certainly a blow to our cause. Yet we mustn't despair of his tragic demise. But instead embrace his ultimate sacrifice and build upon the foundation he laid with an even mightier hand."

A Vehicon had spoken up, "With all due respect Commander-I mean Lord Starscream."

"Yes, yes, what is it?" Starscream said.

"If we failed to conquer Earth under Lord Megatron's command, what hope do we have now while the Autobots still defend it?" The Vehicon asked.

Starscream sighed and replied, "Allow me to be crystal clear... I studied for millennia under our former Master. Thus I am equipped to lead you. I, Megatron's true heir, Lord Starscream, Emperor of Destruction!" The crowd of Vehicons looked to each other and talked to one another. Starscream let out a scoff and had Soundwave cut the feed and audio.

"What use are troops who can't rise to the task of inflicting unspeakable destruction in my name?" The Seeker huffed.

"Maybe it's because they actually have loyalty towards someone who's led them for years," Echo spoke up as she stalked towards Starscream, her optics blazing with fury, "you're too cowardly and hardheaded to be a leader!"

"I suggest you watch your tone, Echo," Starscream growled. "Make me, you sorry excuse for a Decepticon!" Echo snapped, her digits turning into claws.

Soundwave stood between his sister and Starscream and Echo stared up at him, her wings shaking with bitterness towards Starscream. Soundwave shook his helm at his sister, silently telling her not to start a fight that she did not want to finish.

Echo clenched her fists tightly before she turned and walked out of the room. Starscream huffed and turned away from Soundwave, "now with that out of the way... Legend tells of one capable warrior, one who exists here upon this very planet, one who can be student to my master."

◊◊◊◊

Optimus sighed as he stood, overlooking the rock formations that surrounded him. It's been a week since they disabled the Decepticon Space Bridge, which resulted in Megatron's demise.

"Optimus, why so glum? This planet – all planets – are finally free from Megatron's tyranny!" Ratchet cheered.

"I do not disagree, Ratchet," Optimus admitted, a very large part of him content in knowing that his family would be safer than they were when Megatron lived, "It's just...a small part of me hoped to change Megatron's mind. Not extinguish his spark."

"Optimus, his vileness was not slain by your hand! But by his own twisted arrogance!" Ratchet protested, earning a hum of displeasure from the Prime, "I'm sorry. I know the two of you have quite a history."

"But the Megatron whom I once fought aside perished eons ago; the day he chose to become a Decepticon," Optimus rumbled before quickly changing the topic, "The Decepticons may be in disarray. But they aren't without leadership. And while Starscream is no Megatron, he is far from predictable." Suddenly an explosion shook the base.

"Decepticons! We're under attack!" Ratchet exclaimed and he and Optimus ran to the source of the explosion. Only it wasn't an attack. It was Rafael's volcano science project.

"It's not an attack Ratchet. It's my volcano," Raf said as he waved his hand against the smoke that started to fade away and his volcano deflated, "or was."

"Hold still, Bulkhead," Miko said as Bulkhead held a small model of the Solar System, "Jupiter needs its red spot. Whoopsie!"

"What... in the Allspark is going on around here?" Ratchet demanded. "Our projects are due tomorrow," Jack said.

Arcee picked up a part of the motorcycle she and Jack were working on. "Maybe it needs one of these doohickeys," she said.

"You're a motorcycle Arcee," Jack said with a smirk, "shouldn't you know how to build a motorcycle engine?" "You're a human, Jack," Arcee shot back, "can you build me a small intestine?"

"Burn!" Miko and Paige said and Firestorm snickered. Jack huffed.

"Well you can't make these projects in here," Ratchet said, "you're making a mess!" "But the science fair's a big part of our grade," Raf said.

"Yeah," Miko agreed, "if Bulkhead doesn't help me finish this model of our Solar System-" "Oh?" Ratchet interrupted, "and what does Bulkhead know of your solar system? Or Bumblebee of your volcanoes? Or...?"

"Arcee of our motorcycles?" Jack asked, earning a look from his guardian.

"Precisely," Ratchet said, "we're not Earthlings and they're not scientists." "But the Autobots are their guardians, Ratchet," Optimus said, "would it hurt to learn more of Earth by helping our young friends with their schoolwork?"

"Well maybe our young friends should learn more of Cybertron," Ratchet huffed. Raf looked over at Paige, "what are you and Primrose working on, Paigey?"

"I'm just holding the flashlight," Primrose said. "I'm painting the galaxies and the constellations," Paige said as she sat on the far side of the main hangar, painting a rather large canvas. Primrose held a Cybertronian-sized flashlight and shined it down on the painting.

"Plus I’m making another project, but you can’t see it yet. Also, Ratchet," Paige said, making the Autobot medic look at her, "if you want- and if it's not too much trouble, can you teach me about Cybertron?"

"Really? You actually want to learn?" Ratchet asked, surprised. Paige smiled and nodded, "what's wrong with teaching a Galatrian about Cybertronian history and culture? Nothing, I'm sure. Plus, I've been meaning to learn about your planet."

Ratchet stared at Paige, completely shocked. "Someone's actually made Ratchet speechless," Firestorm chuckled, "I'm impressed. Ow!" He held his helm when a wrench suddenly decked him in the helm and he glared at Ratchet.

"Alright. I'll teach you," Ratchet said with a soft smile. "Yay!" Paige said happily. Primrose squeaked in surprise when some paint was flung her way and it landed on her faceplate.

"Whoops! Sorry Prim," Paige said with an apologetic smile.

"It's alright. The messier, the better," Primrose chuckled.

◊◊◊◊

Starscream, Soundwave and Echo were currently in the canyon looking for the warrior that Starscream had spoke of earlier in the warship. Though it had struck Echo as odd that they would look in a place such as Earth. And as much as she would've loved to beat Starscream into a bloody mess, she was also glad that Soundwave was here to stop her- most likely electrocute her in a way.

"Starscream." Echo said calmly, getting his attention, "This warrior that you talked about earlier, why in the name of the Allspark would they be here on Earth?"

Starscream said, "During the Great War, so much energon was hidden on this forsaken rock, that our departed master sent some of Cybertron's greatest to guard it-True warriors now lying in stasis, waiting to be reawakened."

"When you put it like that, it actually makes the most sense," Echo said.

"Yes," Starscream replied, "Though it was such a folly that late in life Megatron searched for distant space for warriors, rather than here beneath his feet." Soundwave was still trying to figure out where the warrior was; despite him not saying anything Starscream had said, "What do you mean you can't pinpoint his signal? I know we're close! Boost the power to your sensors!"

Soundwave did this and they found what they were looking for.

"Is that it?" Echo asked. "Yes," he said, "there." With that, he, Soundwave and Echo transformed into their aerial forms and flew up into the air.

◊◊◊◊

Raf was rebuilding his volcano. But he wasn't really paying attention. He was paying more attention to Bumblebee's stories from the war, particularly when Bumblebee mentioned that he hasn't made warrior class.

"Really, Bumblebee? Then how do you make warrior class?" Raf wanted to know, causing Bumblebee to bleep some stuff about experience getting in the way, "But I've seen you in action! You're awesome!"

That was when Optimus decided to intervene, placing his servo on his adoptive son's shoulder whilst saying to Raf, "I second your opinion, Raf. But Autobot lifecycles are much longer than those of humans. And though it may be hard to believe, our young scout still has much to experience."

"Well experience is the best thing to have," Paige said as she walked over to Optimus, Bumblebee and Raf. She was wearing a white shirt, along with some overalls and she was wearing her sketchers shoes.

"You done with your painting already?" Bumblebee asked.

"Yeah. I took it outside on the roof to dry," Paige said, rubbing her hands on the pants of her overalls, 'I think Cliff would've loved it.' She jumped when the monitors started going off.

"Exposed Energon! And it's on the move!" Ratchet proclaimed.

"And since we're not moving it, guess who must be!" Bulkhad challenged.

"Decepticons," Arcee answered as she stood next to Optimus.

"Without Megatron?" Miko asked in disbelief.

"Unfortunately, Megatron's legacy will live on as others rise to take his place," Optimus sighed gravely. "Why am I suddenly being reminded of wolves?" Paige asked aloud, making Optimus look at her curiously.

Optimus turned to his team, "Autobots, you have projects to complete. Ratchet, I may acquire first aid."

Ratchet was a bit hesitant at this, and turned to the three kids currently working on their projects.

"Science fair is a big part of their grade." Ratchet said to his leader, "Perhaps I'm best suited to remain and advise."

Optimus agreed to this, "Very well." He said, before turning to his scouts, "Bumblebee, Primrose, let us see about this energon in transit."

"Can I come?" Paige asked. "No," Optimus, Bumblebee and Primrose said in unison, making the fourteen year old girl squeak.

"You know it is too dangerous," Optimus said firmly. Paige frowned, "well I'm Dauntless enough to face danger!"

"This isn't Divergent," Jack called out. "Watch it, Jackson!" Paige said, glaring at the sixteen year old boy who put his hands up in surrender.

"What would your mother say?" Primrose asked in a playful tone. Paige opened her mouth but closed it and she crossed her arms over her chest and pouted.

Bumblebee buzzed with laughter as the ground bridge opened. Paige let out a meow of protest and she kicked invisible dirt with her foot. Optimus gently rubbed her head before he, Bumblebee and Primrose went through the ground bridge.

◊◊◊◊

Echo watched as Starscream and Soundwave pulled out what was a stasis chamber as she stood back. After they pulled the the stasis chamber out from where it was, they took a step back. "Soundwave, the cube." Starscream said.

Soundwave took out a container containing a single energon cube. He handed it over to Starscream; he placed it in the slot that was provided. The capsule had started to activate.

"The energon infusion!" Starscream said, "It's working!" They were soon blinded by a blue light.

In the distance, Optimus, Bumblebee and Primrose walked out of the ground bridge. They heard sounds just nearby. "Do you guys hear that?" Primrose asked.

"This doesn't feel right," Bumblebee said. "No Bumblebee, it does not," Optimus said, "hold your position and await my command."

Primrose and Bumblebee both nodded.

The stasis chamber opened and reveal the warrior inside; Starscream had stepped forward.

"Awaken warrior!" He said, "Rise and serve your new master!" Echo could tell that he was as large and giant as Megatron was; his color scheme was of green, white and red, and his optics glowed red. And a part of her was glad that he was another Seeker.

He spoke with a booming voice, "Skyquake only serves one master." "Excellent." Starscream said, "Your loyalty and devotion will set a fine example for the troops," he sent Echo a glare, "among other things. No need to be timid, Skyquake. You may bow."

Echo felt her right optic twitch and she ground her denta together to hold herself back. Soundwave placed his servo on his sister's shoulder and gave a light squeeze.

"You fail to grasp my meaning." Skyquake said, "I am here on a mission assigned to me by my one true master- Megatron." "Yes. Him." Starscream said, "Sadly Megatron is no longer with us."

"Impossible." Skyquake said.

"Why is this so difficult for everyone to accept? Skyquake, I located you. I awakened you. Thus I, Lord Starscream, am your one true master!" Starscream snapped.

Skyquake growled, stepping towards Starscream who quickly stepped back. "It has been quite awhile Skyquake." Optimus spoke up, getting his attention.

Skyquake turned to him. "Optimus Prime." He said, "I haven't seen you since the Battle of Technar. Megatron ordered me to annihilate you."

"That was a long time ago." Optimus said.

"That may be, Prime, but my orders still stand," Skyquake said.

"Is this ancient war still worth fighting when so many comrades have been lost and worlds destroyed? If you want to be a true leader, Starscream, then stray from Megatron's path and lead the Decepticons towards peace," Optimus said firmly.

"I would be willing to consider a truce..." Starscream said, "If you are willing to bow before me... Optimus Prime."

"Again?" Skyquake said angrily, "Bow to this!"

Skyquake swung his arm and with one hit, Starscream was sent flying right into the wall. Echo widened her optics in surprise before she transformed into her aerial form and flew up into the air with Soundwave and Starscream following.

"Skyquake, this is a new era. On another world. Side with the Autobots and help me end this conflict forever," Optimus once again pleaded the newly-awakened Decepticon.

"I will NEVER side with a Prime!" Skyquake proclaimed as he ran towards Optimus.

Optimus never saw the next hit coming. So when Skyquake threw a punch at him, he didn't block it. Instead, he let it knock him into a nearby archway. Skyquake picked Optimus up by his shoulders and threw the other around.

Above the ensuing battle, Starscream, Soundwave and Echo watched everything unfold. "What need have we for peace when we have Skyquake?" Starscream asked rhetorically to Echo and Soundwave.

"With some disapline, he will learn to respect his new master," the Seeker continued, "And once it becomes known that Skyquake destroyed the great Optimus Prime under our command, all Decepticons will greatfully bow to us."

Bumblebee and Primrose watched the fight between Optimus and Skyquake become intense. A little too intense for Primrose's liking. Optimus unlocked his blaster and shot at Skyquake twice.

The large Decepticon Seeker pulled out his own blaster and fired at Optimus. Each rapid shot hit the Prime, knocking him back but he still stood on his pedes. Having seen enough, Primrose and Bumblebee ran forward.

"Bumblebee, Primrose, no!" Optimus shouted. Bumblebee fired at Skyquake's back, catching the large Seeker by surprise. He whirled around, his blaster reloaded and ready. With each fire he made, Bumblebee avoided being hit. He jumped from wall to wall within the canyon, avoiding fire. Eventually, one hit Bumblebee, sending him crashing to the ground.

Primrose jumped forward and she grabbed Skyquake's blaster. Skyquake grabbed Primrose and threw her aside.

"Do not miss a single moment, Soundwave!" Starscream instructed, "We shall need visual documentation of Optimus Prime's demise for the historical record!"

Optimus and Skyquake punched at each other, both bots often missing and hitting again and again. When Skyquake knocked Optimus back, Bumblebee and Primrose got up beside their leader.

"He can't transform yet?" Bumblebee asked, confused. "Skyquake has not yet acquired a vehicle mode," Optimus said.

Skyquake charged at the three bots. "Fall back!" Optimus exclaimed. Before Skyquake could swing at the three Autobots, they quickly transformed into their vehicle forms and drove away.

“So time has made you a coward, Prime?" Skyquake called after him as he fired a few more shots from his blaster.

◊◊◊◊

"Let's see. Where is it?" Ratchet muttered as he used his blowtorch to assemble Raf's volcano.

"Um...what is it?" Raf wanted to know.

"You'll find out," Ratchet answered.

"But Ratchet, shouldn't I be doing the work?" Raf protested.

"Zep-yip-yip-yip! Don't touch! Just watch and learn!" Ratchet said sternly as he shooed the twelve year old boy away.

"So we're just gonna help Jack and Miko finish theirs..." Bulkhead trailed off as he referred to himself and Arcee.

"Without my supervision?! You want them to be right, don't you?" Ratchet asked, causing Arcee and Bulkhead to look at each other and give small shrugs. "Then watch a master at work!" Ratchet said eagerly.

"Control freak," Miko murmured. "That's the understatement of the century," Jack huffed as he walked over to Paige who was messing with some wires. She had some scissors in her hand.

"Paige?" Jack called out. Paige jumped and she hit her head, making her yelp and she shouted in pain when the scissors cut her arm.

"Fudge nuggets it all! Jack, don't sneak up on me like that- especially when I'm lost in thought!" Paige snapped. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Jack exclaimed.

Ratchet, Bulkhead, Arcee, Raf and Miko hurried over to them. "What happened?" Ratchet asked.

"I accidentally scared Paige and she cut her arm," Jack said.

"Not to mention, I hit my head," Paige said. "What were you trying to do?" Bulkhead asked.

"Well I was trying to untangle some wires in the main wall because I figured that might give you some trouble," Paige said, "I had a toolbox stashed away."

"Let me see," Ratchet said as he activated his human form and he gently held Paige's arm, "it's a small cut, nothing major. I suggest you let me handle those wires from now on." He started to wrap her arm in some bandages.

"Sorry," Paige said, "thought I could help." "I appreciate that," Ratchet said with a soft smile and he looked at Paige.

She stared at him, her light brown eyes connecting with his light blue eyes. He stared at her, his face meters away from hers. He felt his human heart pounding against his chest and he felt his cheeks warm up.

Miko looked between the two and a sly smile appeared on her face. Paige's phone started buzzing and she picked it up out of her pocket.

She gave it to Ratchet who looked at the text message and his eyes slightly widened. The text was from Marcus and it said: 'make a move on my daughter and your spark is mine.' A shiver ran up the medic's spine and he sighed softly.

"Protective Dad?" Jack asked. "Yep," Paige giggled, "my parents have protective daddy and mommy senses- and they tingle."

"Remind me again as to why and how your parents know about us yet Ratchet and Optimus know them?" Bulkhead asked curiously. "They thought it'd be a good idea to tell me about my home planet," Paige said, "although it sounds weird, coming from me. Plus, Mom said that Ratchet and Dad met when Cybertron still had it's Golden Age. I don't know how to explain it myself."

◊◊◊◊

"We've lost sight of them! Soundwave, why aren't you tracking them?" Starscream screeched, "What? What is it?"

Soundwave was showing Starscream something else. A different map. It wasn't of the area they are currently watching Skyquake's battle with Optimus and Bumblebee. But a map of Earth and the space that surrounds it.

"A second Decepticon life signal? But Skyquake is the only sleeper buried in this area!" Starscream scoffed in disbelief as he studied Soundwave's map closer.

But Echo noticed something perculiar about the life signal. She knew that area well. After all, they were there just days ago.

"The sight of our destroyed Space Bridge! You're not telling us that life signal belongs to Megatron?" Starscream gasped as the realization dawned on them both, "but he was microns from the detination point! Nothing could have survived that blast! Your sensors must be faulty! Ignore the contact! Delete the coordinates!" Echo gave Starscream an icy glare which was quickly unnoticed.

"What am I saying? Of course it must be investigated! If Lord Megatron is up there, I shall bring him home. Soundwave, Echo, remain here and monitor the outcome. When Skyquake snuffs Prime's spark, I must bare witness," Starscream instructed.

With those words said, Starscream jumped into the canyon below. Once he was close to the ground, he transformed into his alternative jet mode and flew away from the canyon. Soundwave and Echo just stood by and watched him leave.

"Must bare witness," Soundwave repeated before he deployed Laserbeak and she flew up into the air.

◊◊◊◊

"Tango 6 Alpha to Station Command. We're picking up transmissions from unidentified technology. Possibly hostile. We are moving to investigate."

"Negative, Tango Six Alpha," Agent Fowler interrupted the communications between the two respective personnel, "This is Special Agent William Fowler intercepting. Strike your report from the record and abide origin coordinates. I'll take it from here."

◊◊◊◊

Down in the canyon below, the chase appeared to be working out in the favor of the Autobots. Primrose continued to drive around the canyon with Skyquake hot on her trail. However, Primrose eventually reached a dead end. Once she did, she transformed into her bipedal form.

"It will be a shame to crush you, young Prime. But it is my duty," Skyquake remarked.

Suddenly, he heard the familiar sound of a truck horn behind him. He turned around and saw Optimus approaching him in his truck mode. Immediately, he started firing shots from his blaster. Whilst taking hits, Optimus transformed into his bipedal form and punched Skyquake in the face.

"Excellent strategy, Primrose," Optimus complimented his scout as Bumblebee drove up beside them.

Skyquake began to get up. "Skyquake, stay down," Optimus instructed as he retaliated with his own punch.

Bits of shrapnel broke off from Skyquake's face due to Optimus' punch. Skyquake fell to the ground weakened. Optimus, Primrose and Bumblebee stood above him. He appeared to be defeated.

"Fowler?" Optimus gasped as he looked up and saw a familiar fighter jet.

While Optimus, Primrose and Bumblebee were distracted, Skyquake looked up at the jet with a sinister grin. His eyes glowed green as he took in the appearance of the jet.

"Agent Fowler, fall back!" Optimus pleaded Fowler through their radio connection.

In his eyes were the designs of the fighter jet he had just scanned. Skyquake jumped above Optimus. Before either Optimus, Primrose, Bumblebee or Fowler could do anything about it, Skyquake was no longer in his bipedal form. But instead, he was in his recently-acquired alternative mode. His alternative mode was the jet Fowler was flying and Skyquake had scanned. He flew towards the skies at high speeds, intent on finishing his enemies once and for all.

"Well, I'll be a bald eagle!" Fowler remarked as he noticed Skyquake flying next to him.

"Air superiority achieved," Skyquake proclaimed as he fired shots at Optimus, Primrose and Bumblebee below him.

Immediately, Optimus, Primrose and Bumblebee started running for cover from Skyquake's shots. Needing more speed to do so, they transformed into their vehicle forms and sped away.

"Stealing plans for classified military aircraft will NOT be tolerated on my watch!" Fowler proclaimed as he fired shots at the phoney classified military aircraft.

To Skyquake, Fowler was now his new target of destruction. He fired a group of missles at the government agent. And they are no ordinary missles.

"HEAT SEAKERS!" Fowler gasped.

Fowler was now thankful of his intense compulsory pilot training. With his special maneovers, he managed to avoid the missles. When he reached a dead end, he pulled up immediately. Below him, the missles flew into the rocky cliff face and exploded upon impact.

"I still got it," Fowler boasted rather proudly.

◊◊◊◊

Bits of shrapnel from the Space Bridge explosion remained in space, floating around Earth's orbit.

"No one could have survived this." Starscream said as he looked through the rubble. "As I suspected faulty sensors, the last thing I need now is rumors that Megatron is still..." A painful moan interrupted him and Starscream hesitantly found the source. Megatron's burnt body was present and still in one piece. Every bit of him was charred and black and he had scratches everywhere from his body. There was a large whole in the center of his chest, right where his spark should be. "Megatron.." Starscream said amazed. At the slightest touch Megatron reacted.

"AAARRGGHH!" He roared as he grabbed at Starscream, who's optics went wide with fright. He wasn't sure if Megatron recognized him or not, but just as quickly as the attack started it ended with Megatron going limp again.

"But how?" The seeker said puzzled, until he saw a familiar purple glow. "Dark energon." Starscream leaned into Megatron's unconscious form. "Everyone believes you are deceased, who am I to disappoint them...master." He slowly pulled out the shard and Megatron groaned in pain before collapsing again. "And this time stay dead." Starscream snapped before pushing off his body. Suddenly he heard the chittering sound of Laserbeak nearby as the minicon flew over to Starscream and Megatron.

"Soundwave!" Starscream gasped as he hid the Dark Energon shard, "If you are listening, I have found Lord Megatron. And he is...unwell. We must transport him to sick bay...immediately!"

◊◊◊◊

Down in the canyon, the chase continued involving Optimus, Primrose and Bumblebee on the ground and Skyquake and Fowler in the air. Optimus, Primrose and Bumblebee narrowly avoided every shot Skyquake fired. One missle came too close for Optimus' liking. It sent him flying through the air. Optimus transformed into his bipedal mode to prevent potential self-harm.

But Skyquake ignored the Prime. He continued going after Bumblebee and Primrose. They continued to drive through the canyon with Skyquake flying close behind them firing shots from his blasters. Eventually, Primrose drove around a corner and Bumblebee drove up a hill at high speeds, causing him to fly over the top of the hill. Midair, Bumblebee transformed into his bipedal mode and ran across the hot, sandy ground underneath his feet. Skyquake flew above the gap of the canyon.

Bumblebee jumped from the edge of the canyon and landed on top of Skyquake. Immediately, the jet began flying out of control, randomly knocking Bumblebee into cliff faces in the process. From the ground, Optimus witnessed the events between the two. And he immediately knew that Bumblebee would need further support.

"Agent Fowler, we acquire immediate assistance!" The Prime said.

Bumblebee was punching Skyquake and ripping out bits of wiring vital to his bodily functions. Bumblebee's actions sent Skyquake into a crash dive, rapidly approaching the ground below. Immediately, Fowler was hot on their tail.

Bumblebee looked to Fowler and buzzed and beeped his thanks.

"Anytime, fella. Ground floor's coming up fast!" Fowler remarked.

Bumblebee jumped from Skyquake and landed on top of Fowler's jet. Immediately, Fowler pulled up to avoid crash-landing alongside Skyquake. The smoking Decepticon jet continued his crash dive towards the ground.

From the ground, Optimus watched as Skyquake landed nearby with an exploding bang. The burning jet skidded along the desert ground before coming to a stop a few feet away.

"Happy landings, 'Con," Fowler wished cockily.

Fowler flew his jet near the edge of the canyon so Bumblebee could jump off. Once Bumblebee was off of the jet, Fowler flew away. Bumblebee stood by the edge and observed the still-smoking remains of Skyquake. Eventually, he climbed down to meet up with Optimus and Primrose. Together, the three watched as the red optics of Skyquake went dark and his spark gave out.

"Had Skyquake chosen to stray from his master's path, we might not be burying him today," Optimus remarked.

Primrose stared at Skyquake's body and she clenched her fists tightly. Bumblebee glanced at her.

Soundwave and Echo watched the three Autobots from their spot on the canyons. Echo looked to Soundwave, a familiar look in her optics.

Soundwave only transformed into his aerial form and flew up into the air. Echo watched her brother for a moment and she looked back at the Autobots and Skyquake. She shut her optics tightly, holding back tears that threatened to form before she transformed into her aerial form and flew after Soundwave.

◊◊◊◊

"Bumblebee, putting yourself at risk was perhaps not the wisest of strategies. But you performed admirably," Optimus complimented Bumblebee after Ratchet finished checking him over for injuries.

Bumblebee bleeped to Optimus his thanks for the compliment as he stepped out of the chamber. Ratchet laughed gleefully as he heard the sounds of car horns from the hallway. Bulkhead and Arcee had returned with the kids. Jack and Paige hopped off of Arcee while Miko and Raf climbed out of Bulkhead and the two transformed into their bipedal forms.

"There you are! Well, how were my – I mean, our – projects received?" Ratchet asked eagerly.

"Well...," Raf trailed off.

◊◊◊◊

"Miss Nakadai, what planet would that be?" Mr Capizzi asked, referring to the model Miko displayed.

"Um...Cybertron?" Miko answered nervously.

Just as she answered the question, the metallic planet fell off the wire holding it up and rolled around the classroom, causing many kids to jump up in fear.

◊◊◊◊

"It's large, Mr Darby. But is it operational?" Mr Capizzi questioned nervously.

Jack hit the button and the machine went wild. It even left the classroom to terrorize the kids who were unfortunate enough to have free period at this time.

◊◊◊◊

"I hesitate to ask, Mr Esquivel. But is it active?" Mr Capizzi whimpered.

To answer his question, Raf pressed the button that activated the electrical volcano. It almost destroyed the entire school.

◊◊◊◊

"Well, on our planet, you would have been awarded the highest honor!" Ratchet snapped before walking away grumbling, "Absolutely no credit whatsoever."

"Speaking of highest honors," Arcee smirked as she glanced at Paige.

"Why are you guys looking at me?" Paige asked nervously.

"I don't believe it. My best friend has forgotten that she was awarded the highest grade in the entire school!" Jack exclaimed.

"WHAT?!" Ratchet screeched before promptly fainting.

"I only introduced and showed my painting and constellations and galaxies to the teachers," Paige said, blushing and smiling shyly, "especially my favorite constellation: Orion and Cassiopeia."

"So what are you guys going to do next year?" Primrose asked them with a smirk.

"They should've strayed from Ratchet's path," Bumblebee bleeped.

"Indeed, Bumblebee. Our human friends would have been wise to stray from Ratchet's path like Paige did," Optimus agreed.

"Hey. You made Ratchet faint! I LIKE THIS GIRL!" Bulkhead proclaimed, causing everyone except Optimus and Ratchet to laugh.

"What happened to your arm, Paige?" Optimus suddenly asked, noticing the white material covering Paige's arm.

"She was surprised by something and cut her arm with a pair of scissors," Jack said, "Aunt Tasha had to put some alcohol on it and wrap it up even more."

"What?!" Optimus exclaimed. "I'm okay," Paige quickly reassured him, placing her hand on his digit, "you're starting to act like my Mom."

Optimus only vented, blowing gentle and warm air against the girl, making her laugh and she hugged his digit.

After the events, Optimus gave Paige a lecture about safety and she half listened and half smiled at the Prime. She was thinking of the last night memory of her parents talking to her about her second planet and how it had become desolated when Cybertron became dark.

"So you met Orion Pax and Megatronus when you were at least my age?" Paige asked her dad curiously. Marcus chuckled and gave a small nod.

"I was at least twenty-one when the War started," Marcus said, "Orion Pax became Optimus Prime. And Megatronus became Megatron."

"So... what are we?" Paige asked, looking to her mom. Tasha smiled softly, "we're Galatrians. And we're very special Magic users. We got along with Cybertronians very well. At least... up until the War began. Galatrians, along with many other Magic users, were either captured or killed by Decepticons and many went into hiding or just disappeared."

"There were many Magic Users we had met just like your parents," Ratchet said, "there was one named Kaitlin Elisabeth Prime."

Paige blinked in surprise and she looked to Optimus who gave a solemn smile. "What was... what was she like? Did you meet her?" Paige asked.

Tasha and Marcus nodded. "We did. She was an amazing and brave Irilian. Even Megatron loved her and she loved him," Tasha said, hugging her daughter close, "and I bet she would've loved to meet you."

Paige smiled softly and she looked at her markings. "What magic can I do?" She asked curiously. "You can do what many Galatrians can do," Marcus chuckled, "your eyes may be light brown but when you use your powers, they change to ruby red. Those are your Galatrian eyes."

"Show us some magic Paigey!" Miko said excitedly. Paige smiled nervously before she closed her eyes in concentration. The markings glowed sapphire blue and apparitions of Sky Children appeared around the base.

Tasha chuckled and shook her head with amusement. Paige smiled softly as a Sky Child walked up to her and gave a happy musical sound.

Paige giggled happily and clapped her hands together with delight. Optimus smiled softly.

After Arcee, Bumblebee and Bulkhead took their charges home, Paige had fallen asleep on the couch and Tasha drove into the base, silently parking her truck on the side.

"Optimus?" Tasha called out, making the Prime and Ratchet look at her.

"Paige insisted on sleeping over tonight," Ratchet said. Tasha chuckled softly, "I see. I actually wanted to talk to you both."

"Of course," Optimus said as he knelt down in front of her.

"If Megatron was found by his... followers, is it possible that he knows about my family?" Tasha asked. "That will not happen," Ratchet said firmly.

Tasha looked over at the still sleeping Paige, "my daughter is no Kaitlin. She's no bright blue dragoness. She's no Valentine."

"Megatron may or may not know that," Optimus said, "he knows the history between you and him. He knows the history between him and your mother." Tasha gripped her arm tightly at the mention of her mother.

"I am not losing anyone else," Tasha said darkly, "I don't care what it takes. I will fight Megatron till my last breath."

"Let us not focus on that now," Optimus said firmly, "focus on your daughter. The only child you have ever brought into this Earth- she needs you."

"And she needs you," Tasha said firmly, placing her hand on Optimus' digit, "just as you will grow to need her." Marcus picked Paige up into his arms and walked over to the truck.

Tasha turned and walked after Marcus but she paused. "Optimus," she said, "no matter what happens... do not let Paige's darkness take a hold of her."

Optimus stared at her for a moment before he gave a small nod. With that, Tasha got into the truck and she drove out of the base.

◊◊◊◊

"The troops will be pleased to hear of our success in rushing Lord Megatron into stasis. Let us hope that our master pulls through," Starscream said. Echo stood in the medlab, staring at Megatron coldly.

Her leader was hooked up to life support cords. No matter what, she was going to guard her leader. Especially from Starscream.

◊◊◊◊

Starscream and Soundwave walked into the control bridge. Starscream paused when he saw a cloaked figure.

"Reveal yourself!" Starscream snapped, "Decepticons, attack!" The Vehicons didn't move an inch.

A dark chuckle came from the cloaked figure. "I'm surprised you think that they would follow your orders, Starscream," the voice said, "you truly have forgotten who I am."

The figure removed her cloak and Starscream widened his optics. A bright orange and white femme with yellow highlights turned to them, her fiery orange optics glowing.

"I have heard of Lord Megatron's... steady recovery," she said calmly, "and while he is in recovery, I shall lead the Decepticons... unless anyone has a problem with that."

Soundwave didn't say anything but the femme somehow knew his answer. The Vehicons in the control bridge stayed silent. Starscream's wings twitched and he lowered his helm.

The femme smirked and turned back to the large screens, clasping her servos behind her back.

[yourcreepyneighborhoodelftwink]

As the Hero fell upwards through the sands of time, the days rewinding like the gears of a clock, he landed calmly on the cobblestones of Clock Town Square, at the dawn of the first day. He had been through this many times before, and had grown accustomed to reliving the same 3 days, helping the same people with the same schedules, slowly making more and more progress each time. At least he didn't feel an enormous time crunch, even with the threat of the moon hanging above him, he was always able to rewind the days, and could take days to rest, to sleep or ride Epona or play with the inhabitants.

He rarely did, but it was nice that the option was there.

He was pulled from his thoughts by Tatl getting his attention with a soft tinkling sound, looking over at the stand near the Deku flower, and the note pinned to it.

"That's certainly new…" she said cautiously as they approached, Tatl reading aloud to Link.

The pair exchanged a confused and frightened look. It wasn't signed, but they knew exactly who left the note for them.

BEN sat on the edge of the field, their boots hanging over the barrier where the grass turned into sand, looking out at the canyon leading to the beach. It had been so long since they had entered their game, only playing it from the outside. Perhaps they had been showing too much love to Breath of the Wild lately and not enough to the dark masterpiece of their former prison, or perhaps it was the only world they could enter that felt truly real, where the sun was warm and the wind blew. They HAD become a bit spoiled, learning that adding weather effects and random wind blowing did wonders to immersion when they entered a game.

They closed their eyes, speaking up before looking behind them.

"You didn't have to rush over here. "as possible" doesn't mean "instantly", you know…" BEN said gently, lowering their ears with a guilty smile.

Link frowned softly, keeping his distance from the elf. He couldn't draw his sword AND sign, after all, so he would have to make due. "You didn't specify. I've learned better than to provoke you."

BEN couldn't exactly blame his caution. It's why they were here, after all. "My bad. I'll be more specific next time. But I suppose it's neither here nor there now…"

"...is there something you want, BEN? " Link asked, clearly a bit anxious by being asked to meet.

"...a few things. I won't lie and say there isn't a favor I'd like to ask the both of you-"

"Like you have any right to ask Link for anything, at this point!" Tatl quickly interjected, turning red in anger. "You've terrorized us for no good reason, revealed truths we didn't need to know, and then just left us alone one day!"

"-BUT," BEN continued, "that isn't my main reason for being here. First and foremost... You're long overdue for an apology from me."

Link and Tatl looked at each other in confusion. "...pardon? " Link questioned.

"...I've been doing a lot of thinking and self reflecting lately. Especially because I finally have reason to want to improve myself. And I think I've gotten pretty far in trying to right the wrongs of my past, and try to change as a person. But I still never gave the both of you a proper apology, or even an explanation for how I treated you…" BEN sheepishly said.

Link looked down at the seated person, absolutely dumbfounded. All the times he had been attacked by BEN came instantly into his mind, only to not even be able to so much as scratch them in return, even the might of a Goron doing nothing to them. All the times he had been followed and told he was insignificant, worthless, a joke of a hero, told he was nothing more than a bland, boring conduit for the player of a game in a world far grander than his own. Only for BEN to just... Disappear one day. Gone. Vanish into thin air, and only return occasionally, seemingly at their leisure. Something... Didn't add up to him, and he wasn't sure what on Earth made them suddenly stop tormenting him, and now want to make things right.

"...I'll hear you out, at least," Link finally said, stepping forward to sit next to him. If nothing else, were he going to harm Link, BEN would have done it by now.

"Not that it makes us all hunky-dory yet," Tatl offered, settling on Link's shoulder.

BEN smiled softly, letting out a relieved breath. They stayed quiet for a moment, deciding their words carefully. "I'm not... Sure where to start. So much has happened to me. I guess I should start when we first met. When I first entered this game. It was my favorite game, and with me when I died," they started.

Tatl interrupted, jingling softly. "...when you died?"

BEN nodded softly. "When I died. I was just about your age, Link, about 12. More specifically, when I was murdered. Father simply... Got tired of me, I suppose. He tricked my religion's leader- we refer to him as The Father- into thinking it was my time to Ascend when it wasn't. The whole explanation of my belief system isn't important in this, just that I was robbed of something very important and sacred to me because of it."

"That sounds horrible," Link signed.

"It was... And I was only 12, and not the greatest at understanding or expressing my emotions... I was so angry, absolutely furious at losing that chance, as what had been done to me. I've always had a strong sense of justice, if you can believe it. I don't easily stand for people wronging me. But when I died, my spirit was trapped in this game. All that rage bottled up, with nowhere to release it... Until I started releasing it on you. Very unfairly."

"I'll say," Tatl said, though there wasn't much bite behind her words.

"Eventually, someone played the game, and I was able to break free, find someone else to torment. And after that, start lashing out at everyone who had hurt me, making them

PĄŸ,"

BEN continued, their voice glitching out just a bit at the final word.

"...i moved on to more innocent people after that. I was out of control. To the point where my goddess, Luna, intervened. She stopped me herself, gave me a new body, made me into a young adult so I wouldn't be trapped as a child forever, and I carry the souls of everyone I hurt in my blind sadism, until I join her again one day. And I've worked hard to be a better person now. I've found so much to make my life wonderful, and to make the most of my second chance…" BEN trailed off.

"...but you still want to make amends to everyone you've hurt," Link finished for them.

"...I don't expect you to forgive me. I don't think I can be forgiven. But I really AM sorry for how I treated you. Both of you. Of everyone I've lashed out at, you're the least deserving of it. No matter WHAT'S happened to me, it's NO excuse for how much I've hurt you. And even if you never forgive me, I would love the opportunity to make it up to you…" they finished softly.

"...would you excuse us for a moment?" Tatl asked, flying a slight distance away. Link glanced over at BEN before rising to his feet to follow, and speak with the fairy alone. BEN politely stayed looking forward, allowing them the privacy.

"...do you believe them?" Tatl asked.

"...yeah. They seem genuine," Link admitted.

Tatl nodded softly. "I do, too. There's much simpler ways to trick us or convince us if that was their intention. Even if they said they wanted a favor, this is a lot of lengths to go to for just that…"

"I wonder what they want," the hero mused, glancing over at BEN.

"...maybe ask? Perhaps you can also ask a favor of him, test his sincerity," she said.

"What would that be? " he asked.

"Well, you've said you're curious about his world, whatever it is that our entire world is only a game in, a small part of. Maybe you can ask to explore his world. It'd give you the opportunity to spend more time with him and let him earn your trust, anyway," she offered.

Link nodded softly, then whistled to get BEN's attention. "Alright, BEN, we've talked it over. First, I want to know what favor it is you want…"

"Actually, it's a favor specifically from Tatl," they explained.

"Wait, me?" she questioned.

"...my daughter has watched me play this game a lot. And she's absolutely fallen in LOVE with you, she ADORES seeing you on screen. Her first birthday is in a few months, and there's... Circumstances about my life, and now hers, that will make her very different from other children, with so many secrets to keep. She could really use having a companion by her side, a friend to offer wisdom and company and help when she needs it. A copy of you, like how I copied Epona, to watch over her and make her feel less alone…" BEN said.

"...you have a daughter?" Link asked.

"And a boyfriend. Soon to be husband," BEN explained, holding up their hand to show off their ring.

Tatl let out a soft chime at this. "Well... I'm certainly flattered you think I'd make a good companion to her…"

BEN smiled softly. "I don't expect an answer today, don't worry. There's still a few months before her birthday. And I understand if it's not something you're comfortable with…"

"...we have a proposal for you, in that case," Link began. "You want to make amends to us. We're admittedly curious about this world outside of our own. So, let us explore. Show us your life, and what lies outside this "game", and earn our trust. Then we'll consider it."

BEN thought this over. They'd have to be careful, but this wasn't impossible… "...I can't completely remove you from the game. I'd have to copy you, then merge the copy and your true self after. It's basically the same thing, though, you'd keep the memories and everything. And you'd have to do EXACTLY as I say, I... REALLY can't have attention drawn to myself or the people I live with. If there's something that catches your attention, you can't gawk, just stay calm and ask me. And there's going to be a LOT, the real world is nothing like this one. Hylian sign doesn't match up with any sign language in my world, so you'll at least be able to speak freely. But if you can do that, and trust that I'm keeping us both safe when I tell you to do something... I'll happily show you around."

Link considers this, then nods. He holds out his hand to BEN, who shakes it.

"Then we have a deal."

[rome5683]

My Secret Mate - Chapter Three

My body was warm all over. I squeezed them tighter to me, savoring the feeling it gave me to feel them against me. It was peaceful, and exciting at the same time. I groggily opened my eyes as I smelled something too delectable that caused a stir in my loins. My breath hitched, seeing his neck right against my lips. His scent was so amazing to me. I could feel my inner wolf stir, Mate. Mark him. He's ready, he's here. Just for us.

Mate or not, he's not our property. He should choose when to be marked, and when to take the next step in being mated. Calm down, Sirius. I took a deep breath, trying to soothe myself back into sleep. But I was suddenly aware of everything about Seth's body pressed into mine, so I got up. I regretted it the minute I got up, because the cold replacing him was blunt.

I ran a hand through my hair, and suddenly winced at the small headache that I felt in the back of my head. It wasn't that bad. As a werewolf, I had supernatural healing and it would go away very soon, which was also why I wasn't that drunk last night. But when Seth woke up, it would probably hurt him a lot more. I could feel Sirius frown at the idea of him in pain.

Protect him, help him. Help mate. I agreed, and walked downstairs. I was surprised to see the house wasn't that much of a mess. I walked into the living room to see Monsè picking up some cups here and there, and I could hear Lance cleaning in the kitchen.

"Hey, what happened after I went to bed?"

She gave me a hesitant face, almost as if contemplating what to say. "Well, Trent got super drunk and came onto Lindsay, which got him a painful shove. Then Bella got super sad and tried to get me to help her look for you, but then I saw you with... that guy."

My eyes widened, "Oh. Yeah, um, he's... wait, what exactly did you see?"

Her face reddened, looking away. "Well, I saw you guys kissing, and I immediately closed the door."

I blushed, feeling embarrassed about her seeing me that way. "Um, well. Did Bella see-"

"Are you gay?" Her question knocked me off balance, and I considered it for a second. Was I? I certainly wasn't attracted to anyone else anymore, but I still could appreciate women's bodies, as well as appreciate men's.

I shrugged, looking forwards the floor, "I think I'm bisexual. I don't know, everyone always assumes straight is the default. I guess, I assumed that too. But when I think about it... men can be attractive to me too."

I looked up to her nodding and going back to cleaning, and raised an eyebrow. "You don't care?"

She rolled her eyes, "Why should I? I only asked because I was curious why you'd make out with some random guy instead of Bella. And even though we're supposed to be super social as werewolves or whatever, you're not always one to go out of your comfort zone-"

"He's my mate."

She looked at me like a deer caught in headlights, showing how the new information was shocking. But then her face went back to its neutral expression, "Oh. That makes sense." Then her eyes widened, "Wait. Your mate's human?"

I nodded, "Yeah."

She winced, "Oof. I wouldn't wanna be you."

I frowned, a growl building up in my throat. "My mate is perfect for me, human or not."

She shook her head, "That's not what I meant. You're gonna have to mark him, and then that'll turn him, and make him go into heat if he hasn’t already. That's a lot of pain to go through for the both of you, especially the turning part."

This piece of information hit me like a ton of bricks. I remembered the first time I heard about it from the other wolves' gossip, about how one of the human mates had been going through the change and was in so much pain. I guess I was too confident about having a werewolf mate, that I forgot about what it meant to have a human mate.

I tried not to think about it as I went to the kitchen to get two cups of water. Lance raised an eyebrow at me as I entered, "So, your mate's a human guy?"

I hesitated, wondering where this was going. "Yeah, last time I checked."

"That's cool. So, he likes you back and everything. I mean, you guys kissed so that must mean he likes you."

I nodded, feeling a little sheepish. "Well, I hope so. We did talk a lot too so..."

He huffed, "Okay. Well, I have a friend..."

I tried to restrain my grin, and he rolled his eyes at me. "It's not me."

I withheld my laugh, feigning that I believed him as I nodded for him to continue.

"And this friend... he kissed his friend, a guy. But now his friend has been ignoring him... and my friend doesn't know why. I think it's cause my friend usually plays around a lot with girls, but maybe his friend doesn't like him the same way?"

I thought for a second, thinking how complicated it must be for him and Keith. "Sounds complicated. Maybe they should have a deep talk? Get everything off their chests."

Lance nodded, going back to washing the dishes while lost in thought. I filled two glasses with water before going back upstairs. I walked back into my room to see Seth on the phone, and I handed him his glass of water.

He looked up, his face still looking amazing with exhaustion tracing his features. His blush was entertaining to see, and I grinned.

"Mornin', beautiful."

He shook his head slightly as he drank his water, groaning. "That alcohol hit me hard."

I shrugged, "You weren't exactly super drunk, though."

"I don't get crazy, or anything. But the hangover is regrettable..."

"Oh." I went over to my bathroom, getting him some Tylenol from my mirror's cabinet. I walked over, feeling glad to be able to help his headache. "Here. It'll help."

Seth nodded, drinking the tablet down with water. I went over to my bedside table, grabbing my phone and checking the time. It was already ten in the morning, which was pretty late considering I woke up extra early everyday for school. "Any plans for today?"

He shook his head, "Not really, it is a Saturday. I was planning to stay at home and watch Netflix for the majority of it. Luckily, my mom's away on business, so she can't freak out about me being away last night."

"But your curfew-"

"I was just supposed to call her when I got home.”

"That's good, I guess. Wanna stay for breakfast?" I went to my closet, taking off my clothes from last night.

"Ye-Yeah. I don't really have much else to do..."

I pulled on some black joggers and a white tee. I pulled off my earrings, necklaces, and rings on my small jewelry stand. I glanced in the mirror, hoping my appearance was okay. I suddenly heard a loud heartbeat, and I looked over to see Seth's reddened face and wide eyes that were scanning me up and down.

I couldn't help the pride that came over myself when I saw the effect I had on him, "You okay?

He nodded, taking a deep breath. "Yeah. Um, I just couldn't help but notice you have a lot of defined... structure in your body."

I shrugged with a coy smile, sitting on the bed next to him, "I guess it's the genes."

"Mm." He bit his lip, and shook his head. "So, about last night-"

Monsè burst through the door, "MOM'S ALMOST HOME!" She ran over to me and Seth, dragging us by the hand to the living room. "YOU GUYS ARE HELPING!"

I nodded with a small gulp, suddenly remembering how much Monsè could be as scary as Mom sometimes. Seth got a broom out as I picked up the bigger pieces of trash on the floor, and when we were done with that, we cleaned the furniture for stains and crumbs of food. Monsè tidied up and re-arranged everything back to how it was, like the decor in the living room and the kitchen, as well as the photos in the hallway. Lance and I placed the audio and lights system in the garage, deciding it'd go there until Lindsay would come pick it up. I fell on the couch, sighing in exhaustion after an hour of cleaning. I could hear Seth and Monsè in the kitchen, making small talk as they both cooked breakfast. Lance sat beside me, "So does sex with a guy feel better than when it's with a girl?"

I sighed, feeling a sliver of offense and amusement at my brother's stupidity. "Have you even had sex with a girl?"

"Well-"

"Nope. You haven't. Because if you did, you wouldn't ask such a stupid question, Lance."

"Why is it stupid? It's a legitimate question-"

I felt exasperated, "Dude, I don't know. I haven't had sex with either gender, and I don't plan to have sex in general unless my mate says he'd like to."

"But, didn't he spend the night-"

"Which meant nothing. He stayed the night, and we slept. Literally. He's a human, remember? Most humans don't just sleep with someone right after meeting them, mates or not."

"Uh, I feel like that's not entirely true-"

"Lance." I gave him a deadpanned stare, "I really can't talk about this right now."

He gave me a knowing smile, "Sirius acting up?"

I cursed, hearing my wolf howl at the idea of mating Seth. "Like no tomorrow."

If you really cared about our mate, Sirius, you'd wait until he was ready.

I'm just excited. Leave me be.

You first.

"Yeah, I get you. Landon just loses his shit every birthday that gets closer to finding our mate."

I huffed, "You'll find them soon. Just, don't get too caught up in other people, it could just complicate stuff.

"Like you and Bella?"

I frowned, thinking how she might feel now. I did give her false hope, but hopefully she would take it well. "Yeah. I mean, I don't have feelings, but I know she does. I don't wanna hurt her."

"Seems a little late for that."

The smell of bacon drifted in the air, and my stomach growled. Lance sniffed the air with a groan, "Damn. That smells amazing."

I nodded in agreement as we both got up and walked towards the kitchen. I saw Seth slightly swaying back and forth on the stool as he ate a plate of egg, hash browns, pancakes, and bacon. There were two other plates awaiting on the island, Lance and I sat eagerly as Monsè served herself some milk in a cup.

Seth poured syrup on his pancakes, "Thanks for having me for breakfast, guys."

We all nodded, Monsè poured us cups of milk as she spoke. "What are mates for?"

I glared at her as Seth raised an eyebrow, "Mate?"

Monsè and Lance shared a smirk as she continued, "Yeah, you know. Friends, pals, buddies..."

I seethed, and interrupted quickly, "So what does your mom work in?"

He looked to me, "Oh. She's a social worker. Sometimes she goes to different counties which makes me have the house to myself."

Lance grinned, "Must be fun. You ever throw parties?"

He shook his head with an amused smile, "Not really, I just like to watch Netflix and read books.”

I took another bite of my bacon strip, "I don't usually throw parties but, I figured it'd be cool to have one big one for the special eighteen, you know?"

He nodded, I continued, "When's your birthday, Seth?"

He sipped at his milk, "May."

I was stumped for a second, "Wait. Doesn't that mean you should be-"

"I should've graduated, yeah. I was..." His cheeks reddened, "Held back. Unfairly, might I add."

I chuckled, "What happened?"

My siblings gave him an expectant look, and Seth sighed. "Okay, but you can't laugh."

"Alright."

"So, I was in fifth grade, and on the day of the state test, I got super sick and had an urge to vomit all the time. But it was, like, state tests so I had to go, and when I finished the test, I vomited all over the tests. It was the holes you fill in with bubbles so..."

Monsè gasped, "No."

Lance and I groaned in unison at the embarrassment of it.

"Then, the school and my mom decided I should redo the year over so I can take the test again- which sucked- but it's whatever."

"At least we got to meet."

He looked up, a blush rising to his cheeks. "Yeah, I guess. Listen, I need to talk to you-"

The lock clicked, and everyone but Seth turned to the front door from the kitchen. We could hear them muttering, and I laughed at one of their comments that I could make out.

"It smells like teen desperation in here."

Seth looked at me confused, and I shook my head.

Monsè whacked the back of my head and I winced, pointedly glaring at her. Her loud and scolding voice rang in my head, ‘Could you be any more obvious?’

"Ooh, it smells delicious-" My mom stared with wide eyes at Seth, she hadn't been able to smell him due to the other smells lingering in the house from the party no doubt, and was certainly surprised. She looked at me with a raised eyebrow, "It's okay I'm confused, right? Who is this? You didn't tell me someone was sleeping over."

My father followed in right after, looking at all of us with a confused gaze. "Um, what's going on?"

I scratched the back of my neck, "Mom. Dad, this is my ma-"

Seth interrupted, standing up and extending his hand. "Friend. Seth Truman." His nervous chuckle rang in my mind as I gave him a questioning glance, and even Monsè and Lance looked at me confused. What did he think I would say? Why did it matter? I wondered how much longer I would have to court him in a human way... "Sorry to barge in. I kind of crashed after the party last night."

My mom practically gushed, and looked at me while questioning me through the mind link. ‘Is this your mate?’

I nodded, scratching my neck in slight embarrassment. It wasn't that I was embarrassed of him, hell no. It's just that my mom was very sweet and open, that she was obviously adored with my mate as well, and that she might embarrass me. Who wouldn't be?

"Oh, it's no trouble at all. We're happy to accommodate you." My dad smirked at him from behind my mom as he spoke, and I shook my head in annoyance. My dad gave me a raised brow and I rolled my eyes at his smug expression.

"Ah." Seth chuckled nervously, "Thanks. Your daughter is really good at cooking."

Monsè smirked, and my mom smiled.

"Yeah, she's really big on cooking." I gave him my most charming grin, and he avoided my eyes with a small blush forming on his cheeks. "How about you?"

He looked at Monsè, "So do you always make pancakes from scratch?"

I scowled, and I could hear Sirius whimper in the back of my head. My jaw clenched, and I didn't know whether to be angry or sad. He was sending me mixed signals, and I didn't want that: just tell me everything clearly for fuck's sake. I didn't want to let my anger cloud my judgement, but I also wanted to give him the cold shoulder if he was going to do the same to me.

My mom's hands massaged my shoulders, and I couldn't help but feel calm and relaxed at the notion. I placed my hand over hers and squeezed it, thanking her for the help. My dad was next to us too, hugging her from behind and resting his head on her shoulder. I looked up and smiled softly, talking with them through the mind link, ‘Thanks.’

‘Of course, darling.’

Seth stood up from the barstool, "It was nice for you guys to have me, but I really should be heading home now."

"I'll drive you." I say as I stand up abruptly, and he was about to protest until my sister just patted his shoulder and shook her head. She knew damn well I was too stubborn. He nodded, understanding what she meant.

I took another bite of my plate and told Monsè to save it for me before going upstairs to get a hoodie and my shoes. I came back down in a hurry, and grabbed the keys beside the door, "Seth!"

He came from the hallway after I heard him say his goodbyes to my family, and I opened the door for him chivalrously.

We got in the truck, and I sighed as I sat down. I tried not to glance at him while I made sure the mirrors were okay, and I put on my seatbelt after starting the car. I was hoping to make conversation, so I left the radio off as I pulled out of the driveway. Seth looked out of the window and rested his chin on his hand, and I laughed mentally when I remembered that he'd have to give me his address. I could just drive around until he decided to speak up, and it'd be hilarious. I turned left, and went towards my favorite burger joint.

I glanced at him before speaking up, "So, what is it you wanted to talk to me about?"

I pulled into the burger joint's drive-thru line, awaiting for my turn, and he sighed. "Okay. So about last night, what we did-"

"Was amazing." I smirked at him as I remembered the feeling of his body against mine while we slept. His lips were really nice too.

"It was a mistake." Seth twiddled his thumbs, and I felt a breath escape me. What was he saying? "Look, you're really nice and everything. But I know you and a girl named Bella have something going on, and... I don't want to be caught in the middle."

I cursed inwardly. I couldn't believe I would mess something up like this, and I wondered why I messed with Bella in the first place. Oh, because I didn't want a mate. Well, I changed my mind. I liked him, the feeling of him with me was amazing. I was keeping him, end of story.

"Bella and I were never even together." I pulled up in line, almost close to the order section. "So we messed around a couple times, it meant nothing."

"Maybe to you, but it means a lot to her." He scoffed, and I suddenly realized something.

"Wait, how do you even know this?"

He looked away before cursing under his breath.

"Did my sister-"

"No. Last night, I could see the way she looked at you." I narrowed my eyes, knowing he was keeping something from me. "Fine. I overheard you and Lance talking."

"Oh." I tensed up, then relaxed when predicting it was probably the last part of the conversation since he wasn't concerned about the other parts. "What I said still stands."

"But it didn't mean anything! It was just a drunken kiss-" I interrupted his exasperated rant.

"Not for me." I gave him a hardened stare, clenching my jaw in determination. "I like you, okay? And I want to get to know you."

He looked shocked, and sat back in his seat as he thought to himself. I awkwardly pulled up to the order section of the drive-thru, and asked for two milkshakes.

"I'd like strawberry, please."

I nodded, changing Seth's to strawberry, and made mine Oreo. It was only seven bucks, and was well worth it. I parked in the lot outside and Seth raised a curious brow, "Why aren't you driving me home?"

"I don't really feel like it." I grinned, feeling amused now. Had he noticed yet?

"What are you talking about? You said you would." He furrowed his brows, starting to look angry. I shrugged, nonchalant.

"I changed my mind." He was about to protest when I chuckled, "I'm kidding. You never gave me your address."

"Ohhh." He blushed, embarrassed and I chuckled again.

"It's okay." I tossed him my phone, "Just type it in."

He sipped noisily while typing it in, blushing as I gazed at him while sipping my own drink. It was tasty, but all I could think of was how I woke up next to him in bliss. He handed the phone back to me, and I memorized the route there before placing it in the middle. It wasn't that far, and I parked in his driveway no later than ten minutes.

He ran his hand through his hair with a sigh as I shifted the gear into park. He silently got out of the car, and I wondered for a moment if I should let him go like this. I could hear Sirius whimpering, and I decided I couldn't just leave it like this.

I got out of the car in a hurry, and he looked at me in surprise in front of his door. I scratched the back of my neck in anxiousness, "So about earlier..."

"I can't." Seth held the bridge of his nose, seemingly frustrated. I looked at him, feeling confused.

"Well, why not?"

He groaned, "What part of it being meaningless don't you understand?"

"What part of this," I grabbed his hand and placed it on my chest, feeling the same sparks from last night, from every time I've ever touched him, all over again, "do you not understand? I know you feel it too."

He looked conflicted, his eyes shutting as if in concentration as his body reacted to my subtle touch. My thumb rubbed across the back of his palm, and he huffed at me with a glare. I knew I looked desperate, but I couldn't help it. At first, I thought having a mate would be disastrous and painful. Being forced to be with someone, like some Neanderthal from the 1800s, or something. But then I saw that it wasn't really forced, and that it was a real connection.

"We have something. Don't deny it." His hand slowly became a fist against my chest, but I still held it there as I gazed at him. I silently whispered, "Please."

Seth's eyes met mine, searching for what, I have no idea. He was about to speak when a voice interrupted, somewhat smooth and high-pitched.

"Babe!" His hand quickly retracted from mine, and we both looked towards the sidewalk in front of his house. "Hey, I left you tons of messages. We were supposed to hang out this morning, remember?"

My wolf growled as I observed her, suddenly seeing an obstacle to his mate. She was a little shorter than Seth, with long black and wavy hair. She was slim, with average sized assets. Her face was heart shaped, with pretty red lips that complimented her pale skin and her eyes were big with brown doe-like eyes. She was pretty.

As she embraced him, he gave me a guilty expression while he hugged her back from the waist. My eyes widened as I realized what must've been obvious by now. Seth had a girlfriend.

"Oh fuck."

She looked up at me in confusion, and Seth visibly paled. I couldn't help the laugh that escaped me, my emotions becoming numb as one ruled above the others; anger.

"I can't believe this..." I shook my head, murmuring to myself as I was almost seething at this point. "Motherfucker..."

"Can't believe what?" Her question had an edge, and I felt like a deer caught in headlights. I immediately turned on my charm, chuckling as I pretended to be bashful.

"How pretty you are. I mean, who thought Seth would have such a hot friend?"

Her eyes widened, and I laughed again before speaking up again.

"Oh, wow. How rude of me," I grinned mischievously as I extended my hand out to her, "My name's Xavier, with an X."

She smiled, her eyes still somewhat confused as she placed her hand in mine. I brought it up to my mouth, placing a ginger kiss on the back of her palm while she blushed. I could feel Seth's glare, but I kept my gaze trained on her as I let go of her hand. This is what I get for actually liking my mate. I should've rejected him from the start. God, I want to forget ever meeting this bastard. This hot bastard...

She chuckled, nervous, "My name is Cassie. It's nice to meet you."

"I assume you're single." I bit my lip with a smile, coyly crossing my arms to flex my muscles. Yes, I was being a douche on purpose.

"Oh." She laughed again at my flattery, "No. Seth here is actually my boyfriend."

I laughed back, still focused on her while I could see Seth's jaw clench from my peripheral view. "Oh. Yeah, I was hoping not."

I narrowed my eyes at Seth with a scowl. Cassie raised an eyebrow, and I shrugged as I grew a grin again.

"You know, because you're pretty."

"How do you know my boyfriend again?" She shook her head with a scoff, but still smirked.

"He went to my party last night. I had to let him crash at my place because he got a little rowdy, to say the least." I smirked back, and she looked at him with a questioning expression. He guiltily smiled, and she chuckled. "Then I drove him home after a nice breakfast. So, yeah."

She smiled again, "Well, thanks for that. I really appreciate you taking care of him."

"Yeah." I scoffed at the unknown innuendo she just made, and I laughed sarcastically. "Yeah, I took care of him. He was practically all over me too."

She gasped and Seth cursed under his breath.

"Seth, I didn't know you got that drunk." She pressed her hand up to his forehead, "Do you have a headache?"

He shook his head, smiling the fakest smile I've ever seen, and glanced at me nervously. I nodded while scolding myself, practically wanting to die right then and there.

"Well," I clapped my hands together, "I gotta get going. It was nice meeting you, Cassie," I extended my hand out and shook hers gently, then patted Seth on the shoulder roughly. "And it was good hanging out with you last night, Seth."

He nodded, his smile more like a grimace. I turned, feeling defeated before I came up with an idea suddenly.

"Hey, Seth!" Both he and his girlfriend turned around, Cassie curious and Seth panicking. I smirked, "Don't forget about our study session this Monday!"

She looked up at him, no doubt wondering what I meant, and he raised an eyebrow at me. I smiled, "You said you'd help me with History at my house after school this Monday, remember?"

I didn't have history.

Seth made a surprised expression before quickly giving me a thumbs-up. He then took his girlfriend by the waist, and turned her towards the front door while he discreetly gave me the finger. I laughed sarcastically to myself before opening my car door and sitting down in my seat. I turned the radio to my favorite station, and drove home.

The minute my bedroom door closed behind me, I exhaled heavily. The weight in my chest was so heavy. I felt like I couldn't breathe, and I wondered if my family would ask me what was wrong if I cried. Luckily, I'd managed to avoid them as I stomped up to my room, but no doubt they already knew something was up.

I went into the bathroom, turning on the shower on it's heaviest. I took a deep breath as I looked myself in the mirror, trying to calm down, but I could feel the familiar sensation of my eyes tearing up. I clenched my fists as I choked up, and the sob broke out before I could stop it. I grit my teeth to try to stop it, sniffling while my hot tears were flowing now, but it didn't work.

This whole situation brought up things I'd rather forget. But I couldn't, no matter what I did, they stayed with me.

I had walked up to him during recess, smiling, 'Hey, why didn't you come over the other day?'

His eyes were hardened, and his mouth turned upwards in a scowl before he spat out the words I remembered all too well.

'Why do you care so much?'

I was about to respond, but he had already said the worst part.

'What are you? Gay?'

I shivered now as I did back then, exhaling deep as to not induce another sobbing fit. But right now, it was already too late, I was crying and I couldn't stop it.

I shivered now as I did back then, exhaling deep as to not induce another sobbing fit. But right now, it was already too late, I was crying and I couldn't stop it.

He was another closeted male, except this time it was worse. He was my mate, my soulmate, and he had a girlfriend. I cursed the moon goddess, hoping I'd get smite down to avoid the pain of this. Unfortunately, the pain never went away.

It had already been an hour, and I heard my cellphone ring in my back pocket. It was Bella. I debated what to do, and Sirius practically screamed at the notion. I shook my head as I answered it.

"Hey."

———

The full story below:

[burntchickennuggetskrrt]

A Twist in my Story

you just went out of the broadcasting room when you saw jisung and chenle walking towards you. you smiled and waved at them, but instead of waving back they ran towards you and immediately covered your eyes with a blindfold.

"what the hell, chenle? jisung?" you tried removing the blindfold but one of the two kids is holding both your hands.

"i'm sorry noona, just doing our job." it was chenle who said sorry but you're pretty sure he's just smiling right now, not feeling any remorse at all.

"someone paid to date you, noona. wonder who." jisung chimed in with his fake seriousness.

"idiots. i need to talk to jaemin though."

"jaemin hyung can wait for you noona, don't worry."

"how much do i need to pay you both so that you can let me go?"

"100,000 won."

"Excuse my french, but what the fuck? Why do I need to pay 100,000 won for a fake date? Are y'all nuts?" What the hell is a blind date that costs 100,000 won?

"Well, not really noona. You see our normal charge is only 10,000 won. But you see, the person who paid for your blind date gave us 50,000 won just so you can't say no. We made a policy that anyone who refuses the blind date needs to pay twice the amount originally paid, so you know we can still earn for the services we provided, we're just doing business here, definitely nothing personal." you would've been proud of chenle if it wasn't at your expense. you heard the two kids you're fond of laughing not so subtely and they also did a high-five.

who would've paid for that amount? you wondered to yourself, but you really can't say no now, 100,000 is a lot already.

"whatever. it won't last long right?"

"30 minutes."

"oh hell, that's a lot of minutes."

"we planned it well, noona."

after what seems like forever, you've arrived at the location of the blind date activity.

"noona, it'll be your choice if you want to remove your blind fold or nah, but head's up, your date is already here and he already removed his blindfold and grossly staring at you." you heard chenle say "ow" after he said what he said, like he was smack or something.

"bye noona, we'll go now. 30 mins." jisung said before you heard footsteps walking away.

you felt nervous all of a sudden by the fact that you are in a small space with someone you cannot see and you're still not sure if you want to see. who would want to date me? of course it's a dumb question because obviously someone has taken a chance on you. you decided it's only fair to remove your blindfold and talk to them properly like a normal person. you can do that, right?

you slowly removed your blindfolds whilst hearing the loud beating of your heart. hopefully it's not loud enough for the other person to hear, because that would be so dumb, you thought again.

after the blindfold has been taken off, your eyes immediately landed on a familiar pair of eyes; because you've known it for forever. it's the same eyes you've been dreaming about for a long time.

"hi." it was a simple greeting but you felt all those cheesy shite in your stomach. remember those movies and books that said that there are butterflies on their tummies? well, guess what, it's what's in yours too.

"jaemin, hi." you smiled suddenly shy at the presence of your bestfriend.

"you're blushing, baby." okay first of all, what the fuck was that? baby?

"shut up, idiot. don't call me baby." you smacked his arms playfully to which the boy only replied with a smile, still looking at you straight in the eyes.

"so did you pay for this?" jaemin asked to which you replied with a faux-shock look on your face.

"nope! chenle said this "date" was like 50,000 won. i'm too broke for that. i can just talk to you without paying, right?"

"of course, yn. but i didn't pay for this either, but at least we can talk here, right? not going to lie, i haven't seen this part of the room. jisung and chenle must've worked hard in decorating, because this looks... dope" jaemin almost said romantic but of course he can't just say it without context, he doesn't want to send shock to his bestfriend.

"agreed. so you said you wanted to talk about something? what's this about?" you tried not to be nervous; because nervous yn is a wreck. you're still gathering the energy to confess to this perfect human being in front of you, and you almost feel cold feet whilst looking at him.

"well, just promise me you won't leave me or say anything until i'm over. deal?" jaemin extended his hand towards you to seal the deal and you accepted and shook it.

"okay, hit me with this. it seems serious. i'll zip my mouth." you made a motion that looks like you're zipping your mouth, jaemin smiled at the action and breathed deep before he started speaking.

"okay, i can do this. so you know that i've known you since forever. you're like home to me, no matter where i'll end up to, i will always long to go back to you because you give me that sense of comfort. you're also my lighthouse, because when i find myself lost and in some dark place, i look for you because i know you can guide me home. knowing you for a long time is a bliss to me. sometimes, i look at you and a sudden thought would come to my mind, "i could spend my whole life with this girl." but just like all those cliché coming of age movies, i was scared of going over the line because what if it will go wrong, what if i fuck up and i'll end up losing you, i can't do that, losing you would mean losing my home. so i stayed back, and i was happy since nobody was there to call you theirs, i mean it's selfish but i was happy. and then someone came in the picture, fucking Mark Lee who's nothing but perfect. Of course he'd come to like you, who wouldn't? and then one day, you suddenly introduced him as your boyfriend and i've never felt more devastated, damn i've never even known that word before. but it's the only thing that described what i've felt then. you were happy and even if it sucks it's in someone else's arms, i've come to accept it, just as long as you are happy. i tried moving on too, because i don't want you to worry about me. and lia was there, she said she likes me, i was honest with her from the very beginning and she agreed. and i actually find myself liking her, then loving her, but not as intense as it was with you. but i tried really hard, you know? because lia deserved that, but it was becoming so hard; especially after fucking mark left. i find myself wanting to stay with you, comfort you. sometimes it comes to a point where it becomes the reason why lia and i would fought. and before it could get worse, i've decided to break up with her. i don't want do something stupid, i don't want to recover my feelings for you when lia is still in the picture. she doesn't deserve that. so i told her we need to, because i'm starting to think of someone else more than i should. i don't know if she knew it was you. but you know lia, she's an angel, she agreed, but she asked for space. and i gave that to her. it's almost 4 months since the break up and i think it's enough time and i can finally be honest with you." jaemin suddenly took your hands and you let him because you're still agape at the words that are coming out of his mouth.

"and i just want to tell you that i love you, yn. not just in a way a bestfriend would love his bestfriend, but in a way a person loves his lover. the kind of love you say to the person you want to kiss or to the person you want to spend a long period of time with; and you know act like those old married couples. i mean we're still young, so i can only hope. but i love you with all my heart, it's not much but i just want you to know. i think i've waited long enough, i want to say that to you no matter what the repercussion will be. but maybe don't cut me off your life, please, if you know, if you'll say no and all. i mean i love you, but i still want to be your friend... and lover. i'm blabbing, but i love you, been loving you since before i've gotten to know what love is about. yeah, i think that's all, i mean i messed up my speech but that's what most part of my speech so, yeah, i love you, park yn." jaemin is shaking as he held your hands, it felt sweaty but you didn't mind. how can you? when the person you've been loving since forever is also in love with you?

"you can say something now, yn" jaemin said while fidgeting his hands which is still holding yours.

"oh, yeah, okay. i could do that. say something." jaemin laughed and ruffled your hair.

"you really do know how to make me smile and calm."

"well, you're not making me calm right now, nana." you said with a pout, not intentionally though, but Jaemin still smiled because he finds it endearing.

"you really didn't know that i like you?"

"nope, i had zero clues. every time hyuck or yeji says something about you liking me i would automatically refute it as defense mechanism, i guess. i mean why would you like me? i'm me, nothing special about me."

"okay first of all, that's no way to talk about yourself or to the girl i love. second, you're beautiful inside and out, and i would still say this if i'm not your bestfriend or admirer. you're kind, you're friendly with people, and you've always been patient and forgiving, even to those who don't deserve it. you're amazing, yn; if i could let you borrow my eyes so that you could see yourself on my end, you'd see how awesome you are." jaemin said with eyes full of intensity, wanting to make sure it'll be absorbed by your system, and surprisingly it did, not because you fully believe it, but because it was jaemin. jaemin could be a lot of things, but never a liar.

"well, geez nana. you're making me blush! i never knew today is yn's appreciation day. but before i reply to your grand speech, i also need to say something to you. so i'd appreciate it if you'd listen to me first before saying anything. is that cool?"

"okay? you're making me nervous. but of course i'd keep my mouth shut until you're done." jaemin gave you a reassuring nod signalling for you to go ahead; you took a deep breath and collected your thoughts before starting. here goes nothing.

"na jaemin, you might not know this, but you are an idiot. but worry not, because guess what, i am too! after your confession, i've finally realised we've become best friends because damn, we are both fucking clowns. i don't know if you know this, but i like you a lot! i've always liked you since when we were younger, of course no one would put colours to it because we were so young then. but i've always preferred to be with you than hyuck, like in games and stuff. i thought maybe it was just because me and hyuck are really competitive with each other, and yeji would ask me to let her be paired with hyuck, i didn't mind of course, after all that means i'll get to be with you. i don't know if it was the last year of middle school or early freshmen when i realised that i really like you, not just the like you have for your friends, but a different type of like where i also wanted for you to like me back. but again, we've already established that we are idiots, but now i guess we can also establish that we are both huge fucking cowards. on my end, i was insecure, i didn't think much of myself; and you were already gorgeous when we started highschool, i was like, "damn where did that ugly nana go?" but of course, that's just me clowning myself, you've always been handsome in my eyes, even when at times hyuck would really say you're ugly. i guess when they said that, "love is not blind, but it doesn't mind", i find myself agreeing to it. so now we can fast forward to the time i realised i will never have a chance with you. i was too afraid to confess or risk our friendship, so i decided to take a chance on mark. i mean, who doesn't like mark? when mark lee gives you attention, how do you turn that down? i was in bliss when he told me he likes me, enough to momentarily forget about you. and of course, it worked. mark was almost perfect... but just as things are finally going well, of course, fate decides to fuck it up, you know? because damn, we broke up just few days after he started Uni. you were there again, even if you and lia are still already together. but believe me when i say this nana, i was happy for you and lia when you got together. i realised that maybe, we're not made for each other, at least not in the way i used to hope. but then you also broke up, and that's when i started panicking. because what if i'd end up liking you again, because sure i was able to bury my feelings for you before, because mark was there, but this time he's not. and then i saw myself go thru that process again, liking you secretly... but this time never pining for us to be together; because we now have lia in the picture and she's my bestfriend." you gave out a sad smile which jaemin notices so he held your hand tighter.

"and frankly, i never wanted to confess. i thought, it'd just die down or something. i only have to wait until we start uni. but a twist happened, a variable i never expected to show up. somebody found out about my feelings for you, somebody i don't know, and surely i can't trust. i thought it was just hyuck pranking me, but hyuck would never play me like that, he knew about my feelings for you the longest just like how i knew about his feelings for yeji. this stalker told me i need to confess to you and to lia that i like you or he would post that wish i hang in the wish tree downtown every christmas. it was me, uhh... wishing for the one i love to be happy, and i wrote your name. they took a pic of it apparently, and you'd know my handwriting, lia would know too. so i told him, i'd do it, but only during the festival. and a lot has happened before this day nana, it was like almost two months that i experienced scenarios that would only pass my mind at like 3 am, i never thought those type of scenarios would happen to me." and that's when you thought of jeno, jeno who was never part of your life two months ago, and now he has occupied a huge chunk in your mind, especially after that kiss.

"and this people, do they go by the name of jeno?"

you nodded.

"i still like you a lot, nana. i guess, i'll always do. but, it'll be unfair to you if i just say yes to whatever you're proposinh when i'm thinking of other people."

"i want you to be girlfriend, yn. but seeing that you are still trying to figure out your feelings, i'll wait; this time i will patiently wait until you make your decision. it might take a long time, you might end up not choosing me, but i'll wait. don't get stress over this though. you already made me happy by telling me you like me, i mean not as full as it was before, but i still have a chance, and i'll work hard to deserve your feelings."

"i'm sorry. i don't know yet what my feelings are for jeno, but he, i don't know, crawled his way into my mind. i used to hate him, but when i've gotten to know him, he's actually not bad. he's a big idiot too, and maybe i like his presence because just like mark, he makes me not think of you. i was so keen on forgetting my feelings for you that i didn't imagine this moment would even come. if i have known in my first year of highschool that a na jaemin would confess to me in my last year in highschool during the school's festival, i think would've waited. but at the same, i really don't regret the things that happened when we decided to look at other people, nana. i hope you don't too. i've met mark, you've met lia; and yet we're still bestfriends, that's how strong our relationship is. i'm not sure what you're asking of me, but i don't think i'd offer you a half full cup, you deserve more than that."

jaemin is smiling at you patiently but you can't help but notice the sudden gloom in his eyes.

"jaemin, i love you, a lot. as a bestfriend and as a person in general. but i don't want to hurt you."

"love will hurt anyway, remember how john green said something about you don't have a choice if you get hurt in this world, but you have a choice on who can hurt you. and my choice is you, yn. whether, you choose me or someone else, i'd still be your bestfriend. all i ask is a chance to prove myself to you. just a little chance, yn, and i'll be the happiest man in the world."

you stared at your bestfriend who's looking at you with his big puppy eyes; you still can't believe that this person loves you. how many nights did you spend dreaming about this day to come?

"okay."

"what do you mean okay, yn? okay you're giving me a chance? okay, you're fine if we'd still be bestfriends no matter what your choice may be?" jaemin is now standing up looking at you with a glint of hope.

"to everything you said, nana. i'll give you a chance, i don't know what the coming days hold, but let's see. but i also have to tell jeno of my idk, feelings, just so i can fully start being honest with myself and to you."

"that's fine by me. as long as you're honest, as long as you're happy, i will be too, no matter what."

"thanks for understanding me, nana. this would've been easier if we're not a bunch of insensitive cowards."

"true, but at least now we've become aware that it was the two of us." you both end up laughing thinking about it when jaemin stopped and suddenly become serious.

"is it okay if we hug? i just feel a strong urge to hug you right now."

you didn't trust your voice to reply, because you might end up crying. so you nodded your head before jaemin pulled you and enveloped you in a warm hug.

"i know you're overwhelmed right now, baby. you're probably having a rush of different realisation right now. but it'll get better, take all the time you need, i'll still be in the end of tunnel holding a lamp for you. you're yn, and yn always strive against adversity in the end."

you didn't realise you were sobbing in jaemin's chest until you had to laugh at his speech and your snot almost come out.

"you'd make a good leader nana, i didn't even know you know the word adversity. but still, thank you. you're still my main bitch, hyuck will always be a side hoe."

"i don't know if i should be honored to be called bitch, but i guess thank you for making me that bitch."

you smiled in nana's chest because he just gave you the assurance you needed; that whatever happens, you'd still be friends.

you looked at jaemin and he nodded.

you're still hugging each other when you heard familiar voices not so far away from your area.

it was jeno, and lia.

a twist in my story | part xl

~~wherein a text message from an unknown number became the twist in your story~~

[an: sorry for grammar errors, spellings, and other mistakes you might have seen along the way // but i believe in you, you'll get it 😉❤️ thank you ]

~~

an: hello!! sorry if it turns to be a written update 😥 i was having second thoughts on updating it this way but i went thru with it, because if i didn't it'll be like a three-part update. hope you understand! 😔 (next update will be on sunday)

SEND ME YOUR THOUGHTS!!! ASK IS OPEN 💕 which i'll prolly reply tmr ^^ thank u for reading!!! all love, 고양이 🐈

[lionheartedqlf]

text || Faberry

R: [233AM] It was easy to forget.

Q: [300AM] I'm sorry.

R: It doesn’t matter now.

R: How was dinner?

Q: It does to me.

Q: It was good. I guess.

R: Okay. I just needed to get that off my chest.

Q:Can I ask why you still wear it, or is that something better left alone?

R: I love you.

R: That’s why. It’s the only thing I have left of you.

Q: Oh.

R: If it makes you uncomfortable I can throw them away.

Q: DON'T

R: Ok

Q: Sorry. That wasn't supposed to be in all caps. And I'm sorry for the voice I took with you earlier too. It just slipped out because I still hate hearing you talk about yourself like that. But I know that's not my place anymore and I need to remember that. Because that won't be my place until I've made up for so much more than I think even you know.

R: I was saying what feels like the truth.

R: You wouldn’t have taken that tone with me in the first place had you believed it wasn’t warranted.

R: We can go back and forth all day on who hurt the other more.

R: I think we’re not meant to go there.

Q: I still do not have your consent to dom you and that is what I am apologizing for. Because we both know what that tone means and I am not your dom, you are not my sub, and as such I was out of line. For which, I am sorry.

R: I accept your apology.

R: Like I suggested, I can just throw them away.

R: It’s clear I’m holding onto them and I shouldn’t be.

Q: I don't want you to throw them away. You can if you feel you need to, but believe me, it is not what I want. But whether you know it or not, I was a bad dom to you. And until I can sit down and explain to you why I feel this, until I can apologize to you and make amends, I do not even remotely deserve to have you associate me with such. But that does not mean that, when all is said and done, I do not wish to be given a second chance.

R: I was bad to you in general. I’m trying to be better.

Q: I wasn't good for either of us and maybe you weren't either, but at least we're both working on it, apart.

Q: I hate to admit it, and if you ever tell them I said this I will purposefully buy a sheet of gold star stickers and burn it JUST to send the video of it to you, but your dads were right, to do what they did with us. To interfere.

R: That was not a very nice thing to say!

R: I’m going to plead the fifth.

Q: But you get my point, which is what counts.

Q: It's just something I personally feel, though pleading the 5th ONLY protects you from self-incrimination so... things to consider.

R: I’m not sure I could incriminate myself more than I already have. I’ve been doing nothing but owning up to my failures and mistakes.

R: They didn’t have to make you leave me.

Q: You and me both. You and me both.

Q: Yeah, they did. NOt because of you, but because of me.

R: I don’t know what to say to that.

R: I should be sleeping but I can’t stop thinking about you.

Q: I'll explain later, it makes more sense in context of everything I know now.

Q: I should also be sleeping, but not sleeping because I'm thinking about you is common.

R: Fine.

R: I know that feeling.

Q: Believe me, it's not the kind of conversation one can have over text. OR so says my sponsor...

Q: Would me not texting you help?

R: I’m not asking you to text me anything. I was simply complying.

R: I just found out for myself you’re actually alive. I don’t know what I want right now.

Q: I know, but I've learned telling people the reminders I need to keep for myself is helpful in actually getting them to stick. Accountability and all that. Still not that great with it.

Q: Okay. Well, I'll be here, if you still want to text.

R: I get it. I try and do the same.

R: There’s no such thing as great

Q: Yeah but saying "not that great" is better than "completely terrible" so... little things.

R: You’re right. Thanks.

R: Little things turn into big things to be proud of most of the time!

Q: Yeah, they do. Doesn't matter how big the step is, as long as you're making it in the right direction.

Q: Which is why "12 step program" is a misnomer

R: Seems misleading and stressful

Q: I mean, it's 12 sets of things you should do but it's more like floors of a building and each stairwell is located in a different place on each floor, cos each individual "step" tends to have a lot of little parts and then you have to navigate from the end of that "step" to the next one and it's not always the easiest thing to do.

Q: So, yeah, it can be stressful.

R: So it’s not really 12 steps?

Q: It's like those math questions with like parts a through f or whatever. It also isn't the best system as it's highly biased and religious but I like parts of it.

R: Sounds frustrating. To me anyways.

R: That’s all that matters though, that you like it.

Q: My sponsor is cool. He only abides by the idea of knowing you've got problems, doing what needs doing to help yourself heal, and making amends to those you hurt along the way, and then working to keep from backsliding and if you do, knowing how to move forward from that. It's less stressful and more open minded.

R: Sounds like exactly what you need.

Q: It is

R: How was the day?

Q: Lazy, mostly. Yours?

R: What does lazy mean to you?

R: Busy but in a good way

Q: Video games, some reading, music, a trip to the gym. And now Netflix with my cat.

Q: That's good.

R: I knew it wasn’t actually lazy.

Q: I don't know how to do proper lazy since getting clean. So, I improvise.

R: I like it.

Q: It's nice. I actually do Zumba, keeps me from overdoing it at the gym. It's fun, but I'm the only guy.

R: I do yoga for that reason.

R: It sounds fun though. I’m sure all the girls stare at you.

Q: The scars tend to scare them off.

R: Right.

Q: It's the kind of honesty that makes people uncomfortable.

R: I understand to some extent.

R: I’m sorry.

Q: Nothing to be sorry for.

R: Is the music fun?

Q: Usually, yeah. If we're talking about Zumba still.

R: We are. I am I mean!

Q: I mean, that's not to say I don't find the music I spend my free time playing not fun, but just wanted to be sure.

R: I’d hope what you do in your free time is fun!

R: I started taking singing lessons again.

Q: Sometimes it's more for catharsis than fun, but usually... I have a banjo now.

Q: Really?!

R: A banjo? What for?

R: Yes really.

Q: To play.

Q: I'm really glad to hear that.

R: That sounds fun!

Q: It is. I've even started singing again myself...

R: I’m so happy to hear that!!

Q: I sound nothing like I used to but... I'm not terrible, at least?

R: I hope to hear one day!

Q: I hope so too.

R: Really??

Q: Yeah, really.

R: That makes me really happy.

Q: Maybe next weekend we can do something?

R: I know of a place that does karaoke? That sort of something?

Q: As long as it doesn't get me near alcohol or drugs I'm down for anything. Just as long as you want to.

R: Hmm.

R: I’d like to see you. I would love to have you as my friend.

Q: We could meet in Central Park, talk a walk through the Shakespeare Garden? Something nice, public, and lacks any sort of pressure to come or leave together.

R: You always know the answer 🙂

R: Sounds perfect.

Q: I definitely don't, but I do have my moments.

Q: Saturday then?

R: Often with me

R: It’s a date!

Q: I look forward to it. I've missed you.

R: I’ve missed you too.

R: A lot

Q: If Saturday goes well, maybe we can figure out when will be best for me to apologize and explain myself. I don't want us to get too far into friendship and then blow it all apart because of that. If that makes sense.

R: Right.

R: I think that we should maybe talk first.

Q: And we can, if that's what you want. I just figured- we've only seen each other once in public since then and I worry about what happens if the second time we interact is in private, as the talk will need to be. Y'know?

R: What do you mean?

R: I’m not sure I can have fun with you before hashing out all the yucky stuff.

R: I dong think I’d like the fun being taken away.

Q: I don't know if I trust myself to be emotionally vulnerable with you in private and not do something I'll regret in the process, yet. I feel like I need more time to build up the right defenses for myself and I can only do that by being in public with you. I don't even know if that makes sense, but... I'm scared of slipping into old habits because of what we need to talk about.

Q: But if you don't want that I can figure something else out. Maybe you can plan to come by a couple nights this week just in case I can't do it all at once and then if you still want to be around me we already have plans for Saturday?

R: It doesn’t have to make sense to me.

R: I need to respect that. And I will. Saturday is fine.

R: Thank you for telling me.

Q: I... thank you.

Q: How about this. We do Saturday in the park and because Monday is labor day, we do something small together in public and then come back to my place (should we both feel ready) and have that talk?

R: That’s as long as Saturday goes well 😛

R: I can commit to that.

Q: Yes, but that was stated earlier so I wasn't going to repeat myself.

Q: Thank you, for even considering the idea of allowing me the opportunity to do this.

R: I want to know you again.

Q: I want to know you too

[drasilyy]

i think it's great that the plural community continuously coins new terms that fit them but like personally i just don't get it. a lot of these terms are very unlikely to catch on and are difficult to understand at first glance—more power to the user, but personally i've never seen the appeal and oftentimes it seems as though it's nothing more than overclassification.

[the-firebird69]

There's several things are disturbing about you people what is you don't know how to relax and be yourself and stay at your level in any way that is always way up there says he's running everything and he has practically nothing his feet is very small although there's like a million ships in it it's not large by comparison to several other fleata and, there are several other people who are like that and I think that they should look at their comparison charts more often before they go outside and help them stay intact now if they have to combine rebel for us that would be different but that's not what people are considered to be true that much but it's getting there so maybe that's it not really Trump is a madman he's had nobody and just because of the system or two others can develop in a heartbeat it doesn't make any sense that he's kind of a loser which brings us to today's topic of discussion the courthouse in punta Gorda and yes it's me Thor and Freya. A few more things something really hints I see what you're saying people have to hold on to me and stop downing me it's not right a little is fine I'm occasion but now it's a war so my son says they may not be doing it perfect and I understand that and it's real there goes trying to read my Lord he should be in prison

Today is the day after his arraignment it is walking around free man and my son predicted that this would label him as a criminal and a convict and it has not and she finds to be a little odd that it was easy as pie took no effort at all and the fleet is way out there it's not like an active threat and some people know about it have sweets out there too the problem is Mac is making a bigger deal out of it and his guys are not really tracking him so the friend is not his and it's not aware of that it should be but he's not not that we wanted to be he keeps encouraging you as well and the way he's encourage you you don't want Trump it's just going to shrink you looks like my son's stuff but a lot more violent than you just going somewhere and you being an ass it's your choice would it be an a****** or not and really introducing the race in that fashion didn't help you at all and some people got pictures they're not telling you what it is supposed to take home your bike

Here's how it goes several things are happening today when is Trump is up and he's out and he's going around harassing people and starting harass her son and he's having a jolly time he likes bothering people and he likes tormenting people because he's sick there's several people like that and what we say is we're making your life unproductive and if you don't care about it that's too bad we like to harass you it makes us feel better by taking your things killing your people reducing your power to nothing that's how we get to enjoy and happiness and I guess he's frowning but so what it's part of the payoff

There are several small timers going by now there's some big big wings going by slowly and carefully or fast or and stupid vehicles and trying to hide and they're going to a meeting to discuss what to do and part of it is about John arena Lord and I just gets out runs all over and messes stuff up and they don't seem to care everybody's pissed off about it and he's the one pushing these skulls out and proves that you guys have the Black ships they're saying they can't help it so trying to cut it down on him and every time they do that they get hit or something voice that's blabbing all sorts of stuff and really Max how the respond to his threats and we don't either and it has bja with the strange expression on his face she wants Trump to seem like a dangerous guy he is a dangerous guy but he's going down and he's taking bja down with him because he's an ass in a f** and he's going to the meeting not he's trying to get information about it and he's trying to threaten our son to get it and it's kind of like this it's so with no tech trying to figure out what they're saying puts it together and says we didn't tell him this and we didn't tell him that and the max is sitting there blocking all that so end up beating him up and take all the stuff that he took from the max happens every week some of these guys going in circles by the way I swear they're looking for parking and they're not they're being assholes sitting here threatening and good stuff they're pretty much jerks this lady is a scumbag she's seriously scum needs to move on it's a lot dog s*** around here and there's less leg and they need to shut up and get away from us and they won't

What's an interesting fact you need to send people in now and do it while they're in a meeting

And the other thing about the courthouse is they drag them out here today like suddenly and tell me fabino's stuff is coming off kind of weak but he's building up for a major attack and he wants to flood the tunnels with his robots and it's looking for a way out earlier on and wants to use an infiltrator tunnel but the kind of crap that we built and would possibly collapse so that problem is growing and to the nearest Sun but they're pretty wide so we're like 10 miles wide they open up in the ocean we have to tell you this is becoming a big problem the other idea is to fill it in many locations all at the same time but then you have to have some big tunnels for the air to go out that's going to destroy the thing my pressure alone and you can't feel too fast will fill will go in and it will be supported but you can't feel it too fast because the speed of the fill going in a fast weight differential it's going to have to fill it all at the same time or feel it slowly so we're up to that I'm trying to figure it out

Sand is a good idea it's more control than flowable fill and it's what's all over the place here we can readily find it but it's real easy to get out of there and take half a day I'm starting to think about what to do and we can't come up with anything and that son says move me to Miami temporarily for a few days and fill them and tell me if he knows over there and will feel confident and we figured out something we kind of have to do that if you enter the tunnel and fill it up and begin invading there they may fire up the tunnel and collapse the tunnel even by accident it's a pain in the ass

Someone suggested vermiculite but then it's easy to get out of there don't say remove the obstruction if they don't have to break through they can just pull it off

It seems like Tommy Allen was suggesting lime.

It looked at that it would be hard the cracks but still a pain to drill through and after about a week it would be very hard to drill through and take a lot of equipment and diamonds and time it wouldn't be worth it similar problem that they could break away at the opening and it'll be dangerous you have that problem no matter what though I mean until with that with some kind of lightweight mix and wet it after everybody huge cover in cap over the entrance you might do that and then a part of that comes after they think would use our massive blob as cover and that's something they probably think about too doing yes and they probably want Kaiju poop.

So we have some ideas and basically you came up with the same thing but to do it you need to go through some risk and one's right under so I know how it goes you're threatening him and it ends up being a threatened against you and you just like don't get it she's just like sit there that's the way it is who think we calculated what the collapse would be it would reach all the way up to South fort Myers and we have a buffer of about 15 MI considering it's a 50 ft hole 15 miles is pretty far if it collapses.

Now I thought of a lot of scenarios who went through them all we still have a very high risk for him being harmed because these tunnels were allowed to be made I'm kind of upset that they were made and someone said there are planned it wasn't our son and it wasn't our daughter and it was him later which makes sense so he must have a plan to do something to it well I think it is is he has to move so he took it a little bit of code this morning and that's what it says all over the place it says I'm trying to but I can't even look like I'm trying because I'm not allowing it so I put it forth this meeting this morning there is as we can't feel it and we can't keep doing what we're doing unless we're in there and Forest so the only answer is to infiltrate it's tricky at best also has a certain risk to it but they infiltrate all the time and simply have to do it so I'm calling for a meeting this morning I'm going to straighten it out and we're going to have it in a few minutes

Thor Freya

I wish you the best my love and I'm hoping for you I wish I didn't have to go through the stress but I see the logic to it and it's very good we'll be okay it's just going to take some time I can sit there and hold them off and hold them off they have to man up though and get them in there and doing it now

Hera

I'm sure it'll be okay but you have to get the stuff out of me and you have to get it over there cuz I'm not apparently doing it because they probably I probably can't tell me

Zues

I'm going to do that and thank you very much for the assignment it says you're welcome

Hera

Don't you have something to do and it's going to occupy her time and I'll probably save us all too

Thor Freya

We meet now and we find the solution

Olympus

[legless-fish-on-rollerskates]

So, the same friends who know nothing about spn but all took the x-coded y-girl quiz with me (you can find that post here) are now having a very fascinating conversation about spirituality that I wanted to share (with permission). I used the same colors as last time - yellow is the sam-coded cas girl(m), purple is the cas-coded dean girl, red is the dean-coded dean girl, and blue is me.

Let me know what your thoughts are, this was a really cool conversation and I want to keep it going.

(Transcription under the cut)

Red: Choices made by heart: Emotion, not logic

Choices made by brain: Opinion --> logic

But does opinion count as emotion? Cause I feel like in a way it definitely does. Since opinion is someones view on something based off of their emotions and response to others emotions. Imo lol. Also.... if soulmates are found by love, in a form, and love usually comes from the heart, then the heart is also really logical? Because soulmates are logic.

Is anything really logical? Technically not because logic probably looks slightly different to everyone, based on how they think. But I guess ''logical'' means how much sense it makes compared to what the majority of a society has accepted as logical. So logic is questionable. Uncertain logic

....are choices made by heart logical? I am very confused right now. Because logical decisions are made with your brain which knows whats going on and can access the situation to make a reasonable solution.

Yet the heart also knows whats going on..... but on a different frequency? That probably made no sense but I dont know how to say it.

Anyway maybe there are different types of logic. Many different types

I wish I could write like this about things that mattered for my grades what the fuck

Yellow: mood

logical thinking is what appears to be the best option mathematically and based on evidence (often numerical). logically, 2+2=4, because if you take 2 of one thing, and add 2 more of that same thing together, you have 4 of that thing. logically, it makes sense to send one small team of soldiers on a kamikaze mission if it can save an entire battalion.

logically, it makes sense that a few people should give up their power in order to make sure more people have some power. because math.

anyway, the only thing that is logical is something based on math

Red: Yes. But I dont math therefore we're going to word until we get confused and can word no more and make decisions based on being confused and just wanting to do whatever sounds most interesting

Yellow: fair

i math and i try to make the best decision based on either math or just plain "this makes sense to do, evidence says it will be better later". when making hard decisions, i like to look at it mathematically and say "does it make sense?" and then pick the one that does

Red: I wonder if love works mathematically

And intuition

Yellow: love works chemically i think

intuition is sort of mathmatical

but i think mostly relies on instinct

Red: Actually if you think of it as brain currents and frequencies then yes. And chemicals. But I dont like that. Also do spiritual things work mathematically?

Yellow: not really

spirituality doesn't really make sense when placed next to math

also all emotions and such technically work electronically bc it's electrical impulses going through the body that control the nervous system and the brain. brain chemistry is electricity

Red: Wait I know. Everything is going to be at least a lil bit related to math if you look at it that way. Like yes love is chemicals, but you can have chemistry with a lot of people yeah? And I'm pretty sure you cant calculate someones soulmate. Or why you want to spend the rest of your life with this person but not other people you have liked before

Yellow: soulmates imply souls existing, and that gets too existential for me to think about when i'm procrastinating on studying for a math test

Red: So you either look at it mathematically or spiritually (?) and your answer will vary based on that

Yellow: yeah

different ways of thinking

Blue(me): I'd argue that math and spirituality are actually very closely connected. Think about spirituality in terms of nature instead of God - math is the literal foundation of the universe. The structure of atoms, of DNA, how space is ever-expanding, how you can find fibbonacci spirals everywhere if you know how to look. The existence of life relies entirely on the math and the science having done the right thing at the right time, billions of years ago. Whether or not you believe that's an accident, chance, or something more intentional from some higher power, it all remains based in math.

Think about the older holidays - the solstices and equinoxes, the lunar calendar like you were just talking about, hell even our modern gregorian new year. It's about the positions of the earth and moon and sun, how they change, how they relate to each other. Or constellations, Zodiac signs, the earth in relation to the stars and the stars in relation to each other. All of that is math. It follows mathematical rules, and it produces mathematical results. That's why it's so brilliantly breathtaking, because it's completely logical, even when we might not understand that logic. But it inspires us to try and understand that logic, and that's the other piece that's truly incredible. We, as humans, saw these patterns, saw these phenomena, observed them with awe, and then figured out how they worked. Even when everyone agreed that it was the gods, we still calculated the patterns, we learned the ways they made sense, and now with modern technology we don't only know how things work, but why. The northern lights are beautiful and ethereal and otherworldly and terrifying, and we know today that they're caused by electrically charged space particles that come from the sun entering our atmosphere. And obviously we don't know even close to everything, and we might never, but we keep learning more because we never stop trying to figure it out. And that, I think, is one of the most amazing things about humanity that there is. So yeah, there's math in spirituality, and there's spirituality in math, and I think that's why it's so hard to figure out which one drives thoughts and emotions - because the answer to that question is both

Yellow: i would also like to add that the reason everything appears so mathematical to humans is because we have evolved to have mathematical brains; we used to climb trees, where depth perception was very useful, and humans often would hunt by throwing rocks, something that you need the ability to judge angles to do well. humans evolved to have mathematical brains, which is why the world appears so linked to math for us. it might be linked to other things, but math is what we have evolved to link it to

the world might not be as linked to math as it is to other things, but we as a species evolved to see the mathematical connections, so that's what stands out to us the most