#i’ll probably delete this in like 20 minutes cause i’m being stupid

[sapphicsnzs]

currently crying in the library while studying

[vintagedolan]

Hey lovey, i had a concept or blurb whatever you prefer to do. Maybe a little something about giving gray a massage or helping him when if poor back hurts and just being there for him. I’m so soft. Ok thank you love you! Ps make sure you are eating and drinking enough water 🥺💖

(did I get 1k words into this and then tumblr deleted it? yes. am I rewriting it bc I love you? also yes)

The first time that Grayson hurt his back, it was Ethan’s fault. A few overly-competitive wrestling moves on the too-thin mat in the garage ended with the breath knocked out of his lungs and a sore back for a week. After that, it would only flare up occasionally. Lisa took him to the doctor when he was 11, and all they said was it could be a nerve, it could be the way his muscles were wired, or it could be nothing. So they left with no answers, and he signed up for football the next month anyways, ignoring the pain after one too many tackles at practice and stealing the ice pack from the freezer every night. 

Now, at 20, without contact sports in his daily life, he had it under control for the most part.

But there was still one thing that could have him, in his words, ‘kinked up’ in no time. 

Stress.

He’d gotten a better handle on his stress over the last few years, combatting it with a good workout, a walk, even meditation. When work got stressful he knew how to brace for it, how to make sure his body didn’t have any adverse reaction.

But when Ethan decided to prank him with an elaborate set up that had him thinking the house construction got delayed for another 3 months?

Back -> kinked.

Which was why when you made it to the front door of the rental house in Laguna, Ethan answered it instead of your boyfriend.

“Is he good?” 

“He’s pouting in his room cause I got him good,” he teased, wiggling his eyebrows.

“Don’t sound too concerned,” you laughed, moving past him and sliding your shoes off by the door. You followed the now familiar path down the stairs and to the right, unsurprised to hear music from behind his closed door.

If anyone else had opened it and saw what you saw, they probably would have thought it was a ritual of some sort.

Grayson was flat on his back in the middle of the bed, shirtless, staring up at the ceiling without moving a muscle. There was a candle on each of the nightstands - healing on the left, relax on the right you would later realize. Music played from the speaker in the corner, quiet enough to still be relaxing.

“Hey you.”

He perked up, but only moved his neck, looking up at you and offering the best smile he could muster. It was pitiful.

“Still hurtin’ huh?” He’d text you about the whole prank a few hours ago, and you’d hoped that maybe it had eased up before you got there. But he just shook his head with a bit of a sigh and a pout.

“Roll over baby, I’ll try to get it out.” 

He did as you said, trying to stay quiet as he tensed up at the pain. It pulled at your heartstrings, and your hands fluttered over him uselessly as he groaned a bit, finally making it over to his stomach. 

You climbed on the bed as lightly as you could, careful not to jostle him as you got situated, straddling him over his ass and letting a bit of your weight rest on him while you held yourself up with your knees.

As soon as you leaned forward and pressed your hand onto his back he groaned, but you recognized it as a pleasant one rather than a painful one.

“Just try to relax, it’ll help,” you hummed, starting to work up by his neck and shoulders.

“Your hands are tiny,” he mumbled, voice muffled a bit by the comforter. “Feels so good though.”

“Your back is just huge,” you countered, leaning forward and pressing a kiss to his lions. He sighed at the feeling of your lips on him, relaxing even more as you continued your work, thumbs pressing in hard against the thick bands of muscle that ran all across his back.

“I always wanted a girlfriend so I could have somebody to rub my back,” he said, words a bit jumbled like he was about to fall asleep. Sure enough, when you leaned over slightly his eyes were closed, long eyelashes practically resting on the tops of his cheeks.

“Oh yeah? You just love me for my back rubs huh,” you teased, readjusting a bit so you could move further down. 

“No baby you know that’s no- shit,” he hissed, as your fingers found the knot you’d been looking for, just shy of his spine on the right, a few inches under his tattoo. His whole body tensed under you, shifting so quickly that you had to grab onto his hip so you didn’t lose your balance.

“Swear that wasn’t on purpose. Relax baby, I’ll work it out slow,” you coaxed, peppering kisses along his skin until he was sinking back into the mattress. You made your way back over to the spot, working around the edges of it gently, slowly but surely pressing and kneading it out little by little. You could tell it was the good kind of hurt, and Grayson did his best, finally melting like a puddle when it was finally gone and his tired muscles were relieved.

“You’re magic,” he hummed, starting to roll over a bit, giving you time to move with him until you were straddling his waist, looking down at him. “Come down here.” 

You obliged, shifting off your tired knees and settling against his chest. With the smell of the candles burning you were so relaxed that you were almost sleepy, and when his warm arms wrapped around you tightly you weren’t sure you were going to be able to stay awake.

“I owe you a good back rub, you just tell me when,” He pressed a kiss into your hair, the gratitude obvious in his voice.

“I’ll let you know.” He gave the best back rubs, especially because his hands were so big. “Were you just kinked up from the prank stress? Is there anything else going on?”

“Just the stupid prank. I shouldn’t have fallen for it, but the idea of not being able to be home for another 3 months had me so worked up.”

“I know you’re ready to get back there,” you sighed, smiling as his hands moved over your back lightly, fingers grazing over the fabric of your shirt. “S’not so bad here though.”

“It’s not, but I’m just ready for us to be home, because being home means you moving in full time, and us being in our room, with our bed and our stuff.” The excitement in his voice made your heart swell a bit.

“Don’t forget our bathroom. Designed for all the activities,” you grinned, the thought of the little shower bench that Grayson had designed racing through your head.

“Activities huh? I bet we could do some of those now. Get some good practice in.”

“Hmmm, I’m not sure. Wouldn’t want you to kink your back up again or anything, I’m a one-back-rub a day type of girl,” you feigned your innocence, sitting up to give him a wide grin. “Don’t think we have an ice pack here.”

Two seconds later and he had you pinned underneath him, eyes ablaze. 

“We’ll see whose needing the ice pack in a minute.” 

[ahyesthesufferingoftvteens]

Just the Way You Are

I decided to IDK...write a ReeKai fic...cause why not?

Letting y’all know I might regret writing this tomorrow and might delete it, IDK XD.

Rated T for some swearing.

So here, have this bullshit I wrote in three days:

“...Hey...Kai’s been acting weird lately, don’t you think?”

Adam’s question startled Reeve.

He was, once again, extremely close with his old friends Mira and Adam. The entire “second round” incident, as everyone liked to call it, changed his relationship with the two for the better, especially with Adam. The two fought way less than they did before he even eavesdropped on their conversation with Mira.

He was also fairly close with Vanessa as well. He looked passed her mistakes, and she’s been a pretty chill person to hang out with. All three of these people, he could say with confidence, he could read pretty well. He could usually tell how they felt with each moment.

...Him and Kai though...

He could tell that Kai was also pretty close with Mira and Adam, and they’ve developed a special sibling bond with Vanessa it seems. But despite the fact that both of them are very close with the same friends...they never really interacted with each other.

Sure, him and Kai would sometimes converse with each other, but it wasn’t often, and always with the others, where it was more a group chat than anything. Him and Kai were simply acquaintances. Acquaintances that got along pretty well, but it never became anything more than that. It wasn’t that he wasn’t interested in getting to know the red-head better...it just kind of...never happened. The two only ever saw each other when someone from the group was also around.

Adam’s question startled Reeve because, unlike the others, who probably instantly noticed these changes Adam was referring to, Reeve only realized the change in that exact moment. Because he wasn’t close to Kai, he didn’t pay attention to him much. It was only when he quickly looked back at his interactions with Kai this month that he realized that, yes, Kai was acting a bit strange.

The dork was the type to stick chopsticks up his mouth and make walrus noises as a joke. The type to develop gadgets that had a 50/50 chance of either working spectacularly or burn the house down. Luckily he had his fire controlling powers, which he gloated about every 10 minutes or so. Kai was a fucking nerd, but not in a bad way, at least to Reeve. Kai’s quirks were charming.

...Lately however, Kai had begun to quiet down. He spoke less often, and the topics he brought up were a lot more general. “Have you heard of the latest Movie Weirdie implemented! A cult classic! I’ve always wanted to watch it!” Was replaced with, “So how was your day?” He gloated less, he didn’t do the stupid chopstick thing anymore, and most importantly...he looked sad.

“...Now that I think about it...yeah...he kind of has...” Reeve responded, shifting his comfortable position on Adam’s couch, and pausing Fire emblem on his switch.

Adam had returned from his trip to the kitchen, placing the last bowl of popcorn onto the nearby coffee table. 5 in total, for five people. It was movie night, and the others haven’t arrived yet. “I want to talk with him later...ask him what’s going on. I’m worried, he isn’t himself.”

“So why haven’t you?” Reeve questioned his best friend, who sighed and shook his head, collapsing into the couch behind him, and pushing Reeve’s feet out of the way. “I’ve been trying to speak with him in private for a week now. He always has some sort of excuse. Heck, sometimes he even says he has to leave early! Remember a few days ago at the fair, when Kai announced his parents called and he needed to go home to deal with some issues? That was directly after I asked him if we could talk in private near the river.”

Reeve narrowed his eyes at this piece of information. It was definitely worrying. “...Suspicious.” Reeve commented. “...What do you think could be wrong though-”

“Sup guys!” Shouted a familiar, lilting voice, who barged through the door and appeared from the doorway to the living room. Vanessa was, as usual, stylishly dressed for the occasion. Mira, meanwhile, who followed shortly behind, was dressed for comfort first. “...You two look gloomy. Is something wrong?” Mira inquired.

The girls were quickly filled in by Adam, who both instantly agreed with his reasoning. “Yeah, Kai has been acting strange lately!” Vanessa sighed out, gently massaging her neck. “I’ve asked him time and time again if he was OK and every time I ask he looks more and more depressed!”

“...Yeah, something’s definitely off about Kai...especially since he texted me he’s not coming over a few minutes ago.”

Everyone gawked at Mira’s confession.

Kai never missed movie night. Everyone had opted out at least once, but not him. Kai was the one that started the entire thing in the first place! And he used to pick all the movies before they all established a rotation system recently.

This night would have been Kai’s turn to pick the movie, but he surprisingly declined. “I don’t have anything good I can think of right now. Sorry! Vanessa can go ahead and pick one.” Was what they remembered him saying. That alone was weird, but ditching movie night? Absolutely bizarre!

“...That’s it.” Adam grumbled, abruptly sitting up from his couch. “I’m driving to Kai’s house.”

“Adam you’re grounded right now, you can’t go anywhere outside of the house.” Mira reasoned as she crossed her arms. Adam wasn’t convinced. “My parents would understand!” He stated.

“One of your parents teaches math, which you are failing right now. It’s a miracle they even let you host movie night in the first place with how much they want you to study right now.” Vanessa’s comment silenced Adam, and after a moment, he flopped back down onto the couch, grumbling about how it wasn’t fair that he was grounded for the week just for getting a few Ds on his recent tests. Those were flukes!

“...I’ll go check on him?”

Mira, Vanessa, and Adam turned to Reeve, who had placed his switch on the coffee table. He looked perfectly calm on the outside, but on the inside, he was beginning to panic.

Why did he suggest that?! Mira’s much more suited to this kind of comfort stuff, not him! He’s not that close to Kai anyways! He simply wasn’t the right person for the job!

...But...this was an excuse to finally try and connect with Kai...Was that why?

“...You sure?” Mira questioned, confusion clear with her furrowed eyebrows. “Because...I can go instead, you don’t have to-”

“It’s fine.” Reeve reassured his other friend, sealing his fate and lifting himself off the oh so comfortable couch. “...Just...tell me where he lives...”

Huge.

Kai really was rich off his ass, as he had heard from the others. The mansion was huge, and the front yard was spectacularly decorated. For a moment he just sat there, admiring the scene before him.

But then he saw...was was it called, a gazebo? Close by the front of the house, and in it, he could see Kai’s body, lying lazily along the benches inside.

It was only when he sprinted closer, out of worry, that he realized Kai was actually awake. They stared blankly at nothing, their eyes dull. They looked almost as if their mind was in a completely different world.

Now that Reeve was directly standing in front of the entrance, He could now see Reeve. It only took his name being called for the red-head to snap out of his trance. He looked absolutely confused, his eyes bulging. He abruptly stood up from the bench and cleared his throat, trying to calm himself down. “...R-Reeve!” He laughed out awkwardly. “...Didn’t expect to see you here. Didn’t know you knew where I lived!”

“I...didn’t...Mira gave me your address a few minutes ago.” Reeve answered. Kai raised an eyebrow at this, but didn’t comment, simply muttering a small “oh” under his mouth.

Awkward silence hung between the two, slowly suffocating them until Kai formed another question in his brain. “...So uh...” He began, trailing his fingers along the gazebo fence. “...Why are you here? I mean...it’s movie night after all...don’t you want to hang out with the others?”

Reeve was quick to explain. “We were all worried when you said you weren’t coming, it’s not like you...so I came over to check on you.”

“...Oh! That’s...really nice of you!” Kai remarked, showcasing an overly cheerful smile. “But I’m fine really! I just have some stuff to do at home! Real busy you know! I have to help prepare the mansion for some guests that are coming over tomorrow! Wish I could come!”

An obvious lie. “...Oh, so you’re taking a break right now?”

Kai nearly choked at Reeve’s reasoning, but quickly regained composure and nodded vigorously. “Y-Yeah! I have around 10 to 20 more minutes before I have to get back to work!”

Awkward staring was met with awkward staring.

...

...

...

The tension is mind-crushing, holy shit.

Kai cleared his throat, avoiding Reeve’s gaze. “So, anyways, you should probably drive back to Adam’s place! I don’t want to interrupt your fun! Tell the others I’m fine-”

“I-It’s not just that!”

Kai’s smile faltered a bit. He seemed more than shocked. “...Oh...um...” He scratched his head, and let out a strained laugh. “...What’s up?”

“...I just...I want to say I’m sorry for being mean to you, back in the first round...and...I want to get to know you better.” He explained. Although that wasn’t the main reason he was here...he couldn’t say his excuse to stay was a lie either. “We don’t...we haven’t really hung out that much...y’know? Figured now would be a good time...to just...chat.” Don’t break your stone cold demeanor now Reeve. You have a reputation to uphold. “...So...Is it OK if I come inside? I won’t be a bother or anything. I told everyone they could start the movie without me...they picked a shitty one anyways.”

Fuck, he was so nervous. Why? This isn’t like him...maybe it’s a result of the awkwardness from before. It was screwing with him.

Kai stood stiff as a rock, his mouth slightly agape as he stared at Reeve intently.

It was only after a few moments of silence that Kai finally nodded a slow, small yes, fidgeting with his shirt sleeves.

“...O...k.”

Reeve wasn’t much of a tea person. Yet here he was, sipping some freshly prepared chamomile tea. It was weird, how it actually didn’t taste as bad as the batch his grandma made him try once.

He watched Kai almost gather all the ingredients for a chocolate shake, but then put them all back in their proper places and made some hibiscus tea instead. He didn’t seem to enjoy it that much, as he took a small sip and sat stiffly on an armchair.

They were in some sort of fancy, parlor room. Wide, spacious, and rather modern styled. Reeve himself was sitting in the armchair opposite to Kai, a coffee table separating the two.

For a good while they just asked random questions about each other. Reeve indulged, mostly so he could eventually transition to the main reason he was here. “What’s your favorite color?” Was the first question Kai asked, which showed just how tense they both were. He obviously responded with red, and Kai responded with blue.

“...Weird, considering your power, I figured you’d like a more warm color.” Reeve commented. Kai shrugged in response. “I don’t think about aesthetic choice when it comes to power choosing...it’s more what complements my team.”

“...Have you...ever had any pets?”

“...What is this some weird version of twenty questions?” Kai giggled out, rubbing his hand against his face. “...God we’re...so awkward...”

Reeve, for some reason, couldn’t help but chuckle a bit in response. “...I mean, we don’t know each other that well, so might as well get the basic facts down...” Reeve reasoned. Kai seemed to agree, with the small smile he gave. “I had a pet cockatoo named Chipper when I was...around 8? They...flew out of my window when I was 10...I never saw them again...you?”

“Pet-less all my life...I remember when I was like...a toddler, I constantly begged my parents to let me get a cat...but it never happened.”

Back and forth, back and forth. Question after question was answered. And slowly, Reeve noted just how different him and Kai were.

Kai wasn’t that close to his parents, and vice versa. Reeve’s parents were over-doting, constantly hovering over him like a helicopter. Kai was obviously extroverted despite his awkward tendencies, and Reeve was more introverted. He liked his alone time. Kai could explain any and every piece of tech, not only due to his powers, but because those were his interests. Reeve was more the artsy type. He didn’t know what to do with a gadget, but he liked to sketch in a notebook he has at home.

Kai and him were almost opposites, counterparts. The only things they had in common were their love for video games and comic books, and their similar friends. These differences intrigued Reeve a lot. He saw a side of the world that Kai had lived in his entire life.

“Oh come on, superman would totally win in a fight with batman! It would take me more than a minute to list all of his powers!”

“Superman is too good-natured to kill someone and Batman is not. It’s not about powers, it’s about will, and Batman has the will that Superman doesn’t.”

Kai let out an annoyed huff, and crossed his arms. “...I mean, I guess it depends, Some of the comics portray Superman as the winner while in others Batman wins. The comic writers can’t make up their minds either...My favorite showdown between them was probably in...Justice League Origi...”

The way Kai trailed off at the end concerned Reeve, greatly. He looked shameful, like He made a grave mistake. Fidgeting with his shirt sleeves. Kai attempted an awkward smile, although it didn’t reach his eyes. “...But I mean...you’re probably not interested in me ranting about that, sorry...”

Reeve remembers seeing Kai do this before.

He’d speak about a topic he was passionate about, pour his entire soul into it, and then just...shut down, discarding the topic like some embarrassing photo he didn’t want people to see.

“...Hey...” Reeve spoke up. It was now or never. “...Are you sure you’re ok?”

Kai jumped at the question, and attempted to wave Reeve’s concern away with a forced giggle. “Oh, I’m fine! I just don’t want to annoy you! Let’s change the subject-”

“Don’t lie to me Kai.” Reeve growled out, silencing Kai’s excuse. “You’ve been acting weird this entire month. You haven’t been yourself at all. Everyone is worried about you.”

What Reeve didn’t expect was for Kai’s expression to harden, and for him to glare daggers at his lap. “...So that’s why you’re here huh...” He accused lowly. “Tell our friends who sent you here that I’m fine. Ok? There’s nothing wrong.”

“...Kai.” Reeve began his explanation. He was confused that Kai would assume he was doing this because he had no choice. “I volunteered to come over. I’m not doing this against my will-”

“Bullshit!” Kai stood up from his armchair, tears threatening to escape his eyes as he breathed heavily. ““I want to get to know you better” My ass! Why would you...” Kai trailed off for a moment, the tears spilling down his cheeks. “...Why would you want to hang out with me? The worthless fifth wheel of this group...why would...you want to be friends with someone like me.”

Muffled sobs filled the room as Kai hid his face into his hands and attempted to control his crying. It took a while for Reeve to process everything Kai said, but before long he had stood up from his armchair and walked towards Kai,hesitantly gripping his arms. Kai flinched at first, but didn’t struggle.

“...I...” Kai sobbed out in his hands. “...I’ve been trying to be more likeable...be less annoying for you all-”

“Is that what this is all about?” Reeve questioned softly. Kai nodded hesitantly. “...Kai...We don’t think you’re annoying at all. Everything about you is distinctly you. We love those parts about you...” Reeve, after a moment of reluctance, cupped Kai’s cheeks, and slowly coerced Kai to removed their hands from their face. “I mean, even I think you’re great...You’re quirks are charming.”

“...I-I thought...I thought you of all people hated me...” Kai strained out, small hiccups erupting from his throat as his snot filled face was shown for Reeve to see. “I think you’re really cool, you know that? You’re calm, and collected, and you read the mood well. You never make a fool of yourself. I was...never a worthy replacement for you, and now that you’re back...” Kai jerked his head away, and hid it from Reeve’s view as it faced the ground. “Adam and Mira...don’t need me anymore...I mean...that’s why they picked me to be in their team. There was an opening, and I was available...”

Reeve's heart tightened at Kai’s comment, as they stared intently at the floor, avoiding his gaze. He was partially responsible for Kai’s current insecurities. He couldn’t help but wonder, if he had tried to get to know Kai better earlier on, would this situation have happened in the first place?

His stern expression faltered, and was replaced with a guilty frown. “...Kai...I....hey, look at me.” He once more had to lift their head up, which they resisted at first, but eventually complied, and stared directly at Reeve, threatening to crumble at the sincere gaze they were met with.

“Listen...whoever told you these things, you need to stop listening to them right now.” Reeve commanded, almost begged. “You are not just my replacement. You were never that. If Mira and Adam secretly think so, then fuck them. You are you, and you aren’t going to make yourself happy by changing your very core, the thing that makes you you, just to please others. That happiness is only going to come if you love yourself, good and bad.”

The advice just came flowing through him. To him it was simple logic, and it wasn’t sure if it would even help, but according to Kai’s absolutely shocked expression. He supposed he at the very least reached Kai’s heart with those words.

“...Love myself?” Kai nearly whispered. Reeve was quick to nod a yes.

“...How?”

It was a question that left Reeve stuck in place for a good minute, as he removed his hands from Kai’s body, and massaged his temples for inspiration, for an idea that would answer Kai’s question.

Eventually though, that idea came in a flash, and he snapped his fingers, gripping Kai’s hand, much to their surprise. “Not that I’m an expert on this stuff but, let’s try something real quick. I’ll drive you there.”

“...Reeve, I don’t know about this...” Kai muttered as he stood on the thick railing of a bridge, which created a path over a chest deep river.

Reeve sat close by, on the same railing, his phone in hand. “...Listen, just, you know those pep-talks people give themselves while staring at a mirror?” Kai was quick to nod a yes, and Reeve continued. “...I want to you shout about all your good qualities on this bridge.”

“W-what!?” Kai shrieked out, earning the attention of the few passersby on the bridge. “T-there are people here Reeve I-I can’t...o-oh god they’re staring-”

“Sometimes you have to push yourself to extremes. The point of this is to teach you how to not give a fuck about what other people think about you.”

“B-but what do I say? I...don’t have anything nice to say about myself.”

“...Hey...just look at me for a minute...” And Kai did so, finding himself somewhat relaxed by Reeve’s chill energy. “Just shout the first good thing that comes to mind. Don’t try to deconstruct, just say it first thing...you got this.”

Kai, which shaking legs, slowly nodded, slowly breathed in, and shut his eyes tight. “...I have pretty hair!”

The red-head felt a brief moment of relief, before he peaked an eye open, beholding the groups of eyes that stared intently at him, judging his overly loud self-compliment. Immediately he crouched down, hiding his face, but felt a warm, firm hand on his shoulder.

Turning his head to the side a bit, he saw Reeve, still in that same spot, his eyes non-judging. “...The world didn’t end, did it?”

Kai looked around the bridge once more, and everyone went on with their lives. He wasn’t torn apart for his supposed sin. The world didn’t explode. He was fine.

Most importantly, Reeve himself didn’t think of him any less. “You’re not wrong you know.” Reeve reassured, focusing his attention on his phone once more. “Auburn’s a pretty color.”

On Reeve’s phone, was a text he had recently sent to Mira, along with a few replies.

Reeve: Had a talk with Kai, but he aint goin to come, we talkin things out, he’ll be fine

Mira: I’m super glad he’s doing better, but PLEASE CONVINCE HIM TO COME AND PICK A MOVIE!?!

Mira: VANESSA PICKED SPICE WORLD JUST FOR THE KICKS!!! PLEASE HELP US!?!

“H-hey!” Kai gained Reeve’s attention from his phone, and he raised an eyebrow, ready to hear what Kai had to say.

“...You can help out you know!” They said with a bright blush, late evening sky glowing his face. “...C-could you...compliment me more? Please?”

Reeve in that moment was completely consumed in the moment, studying each feature of the boys face.

“...You’re pretty cute, you know that?”

His complement escaped his throat without a single breath, or thought. Kai’s eye’s widened and sparkled at the sentence he quickly regretted saying out loud.

...But then Kai smiled...like...truly smiled. Letting out the most charming laugh he had ever heard. When he saw how happy they were, he instantly ceased his regret.

“I-I can’t! Y-you can’t be serious!” Kai accused in near tears, wiping his eyes and tilting his head ever so slightly. “Y-you’re joking right? Me? Cute? No way-”

“Dude I know plenty of friends who would die for the opportunity to have a cup of coffee with you.” Reeve justified his statement, a wide smirk on his face as he elbowed Kai. “Remember what this is about man. You heard me say it! Now you go say it to the world. Stand up already!”

Kai nodded, and quickly stood straight up. “I’m absolutely adorable!” He said without hesitation. Slowly opening his eyes, they sparkled with excitement, and he let out a soft giggle.

Reeve’s phone dinged, signaling another text from Mira, but Reeve ignored it. He shoved the phone in his pocket as he admired the boy before him.

You really are...

You’re amazing just the way you are...

[simpsonsnight]

Episode #197

Simpson Tide Season 9 - Episode 19 | March 29, 1998

Well suck my dick and call me catholic, I literally resized the browser window I was writing this into and lohan behold my entire write-up disappeared. Better write a crappier one before I get too pissed off to continue. This is a season 7 episode that was held-over till season 9. It was produced by Al Jean & Mike Reeces “Pieces” Reiss with a batch of other episodes they produced during season 7 that aired much later. I’m pretty sure that this episode was written and recorded significantly earlier than 1998 because who would be making a 1994-style dig at Margaret Cho like Homer does in this? Cho was the star of All-American Girl, a sitcom that aired briefly on ABC that made a big old deal about staring an Asian family. I remember it being a bit of a target. The perception at the time was that Cho was a young comic who hadn’t *quite* paid as much dues as her contemporaries but was being bolstered by a form of network tokenism. I remember her on Comics Come Home and her Pulp Comics and thinking she was funny at the time. I’ve never watched any of her stand-up movies. She was funny on Hollywood Handbook. I have never felt ill-will towards Cho, despite the fact that most of the times people say her name it’s an example of a bad comedian. But, I also don’t really care. Anyway, this one is a very funny episode, and I”m sorry that I spent most of this post talking about Margaret Cho. That’s what happens when an entire write-up gets deleted by tumblr’s graphic interface. I’m not sure what makes this episode so much better than the other Scully-produced episodes. It has a lot of the same qualities. A thin story (though Bart’s earring coming back to save the day is pretty nice), lotsa zany gags, Smithers just showing up to dance with the Villiage people on the submarine for no reason (Jesus, it’s so stupid and yet maybe the hardest I’ve laughed at a gag I’ve seen 20 times). The exploration of Moe’s soft side also continues in this episode: Homer imagines Moe cuddling a kitten and Moe, despite being conjured by Homer’s imagination, looks at Homer’s mind camera and scolds him for peering in him during an unguarded moment of kindness. It’s a gag that only works if Moe is the rough character that he once was in the classic era. Also, I am endlessly disappointed that this episode, which features Bart getting an earring, doesn’t actually include the line “Sparkle sparkle, Homer” (he merely says “sparkle sparkle” TO Homer). Being from solid homophobic Northern California stock it was very common for me to mock the practice of men wearing earrings in the 90s. I have a genuine but shallow distaste for vain/fashionable accoutrements of all kinds, and the diamond stud is something that repulses me to this day, and I take great joy and childishly ribbing modern men who wear them, calling them “girls” like I would have in grade school. “NICE EARRING YOU GIRL”. But one time a friend of mine absolutely slayed me by saying “Sparkle Sparkle Homer” when an audience camera cut to Will Smith at the Oscars. It was one of those insane laughs that caused me to have to desperately catch my breath after 2 straight minutes of uproarious laughter. Had to be there? PROBABLY!

MAIL BAG

It's very funny and interesting that you said you would vote now to Homer when the election has been over for almost two weeks. lol. I wonder if you knew that!

(obviously this was sent shortly after the election) hot tip friend, they let you vote late if you have a gun

IF YOU DON'T UNRIP THE B-SODE I WILL RE-RIP YOUR A-HOLE - Dr. Richard "Bitchtard" Dunn

Sent back when I first killed off the B-SODE! I’m glad I did!!!!! Okay I’ll let you behind the curtain this is one of my friends and the Richard Dunn reference is that I had a doctor with the same name as Tim & Eric’s Richard Dunn who sucked and misdiagnosed my hernia. I had to have emergency surgery and almost missed my friends funeral. IT WAS LIKE A TIM & ERIC SKETCH!!

from the makers of Me So Horny (the thing the prostitutes [erm EXCUSE ME? Sex WORKERS, hello!?!] say in Full Metal Jacket) and Miso Brody (Brody Stevens head in a bowl of Miso Soup, may he broth in peace) bring you a once in a life time moment...B-SODE GROADY (timelapse footage of the b-sode feature rotting away into a perfect skeleton).

This was nice :)

[pandawritespoorly]

With Time: Chapter 20 - A Bittersweet Surprise

Author’s Note: Woo! Chapter 20! Here we go, I'm excited! This takes place mid to late December and oh hey a strong language warning! It's been a while! This chapter contains the words 'bitch' and 'asshole'.

Chapter Summary: An akuma attack interrupts Marinette and Adrien hanging out. Afterwards, they deal with an unexpected occurrence.

First | Previous | Next

Adrien and Marinette are hanging out at her house. He had a rare gap in his schedule caused by a few last-minute cancellations. The rest of their usual group couldn’t make it, so it’s just the two of them. They’re doing homework, Marinette is writing a paper and Adrien is working on math.

One of her heaters is down, so the room is slightly colder than usual. After a while, Marinette starts to slump, leaning over onto Adrien.

“Mari, you gotta’ do your paper.” He nudges her. He doesn’t actually know what the paper is about, but it’s important for her to try to complete her homework.

“...don’ like it…makes me sad, feel bad…he ‘ould tell me it wron’, but he doesn’ kno…” It’s a longer sentence than she usually would manage, and it only confuses Adrien.

“Who? Why does it make you sad?” Maybe she shouldn’t be doing the paper if it’s upsetting her.

“...don’ like th’ fac’s...stupid…” Marinette tries to explain, while casually ignoring the first question. Even as tired as she is, she understands that her partner needs to stay a secret.

Adrien misunderstands her meaning,”You don’t like the facts? You could find other information if you think it’s stupid.”

“...can’ change fac’s they’re wha’s true…notebook say so” She sounds very sure of herself. She slumps further onto Adrien’s side. She tries to keep her eyes open, but her eyelids seem very heavy, they close every so often, and she forces them open again and again. She loses the fight eventually, her eyes close and she succumbs to sleep. 

Adrien can’t help but be tempted to read the paper. It’s not like she said he couldn’t read it. Maybe he can help with editing?

…

He doesn’t like it either. At all.

It’s an entire paper on Ladybug and her shortcomings, how she’s a bad hero and needs to improve. It’s multiple pages, and while there are specific events listed, there aren’t any outside sources referenced.

Marinette came up with all of this on her own.

It makes him think of Ladybug’s own doubts on herself - honestly the points are almost exactly the same. He can’t let Marinette turn this in. She’d said herself that she doesn’t like it.

“Mari.” He shrugs his shoulder a little, hoping to jostle her into being awake, but she doesn’t respond, “Marinette, I’d like to talk to you.”

She hums, but her eyes remain closed.

“Marinette, we need to talk about your paper.”

She blinks her eyes open, squinting. They’re unfocused and don’t seem to be taking in much. She blinks again, slower and seemingly heading back to sleep.

He prods her, “Marinette, stay with me.”

She pulls herself upright - or as upright as she’s going to get.

As he opens his mouth to begin, their phones ding in unison.

An akuma alert.

“Alright, I’ll be right back, you stay here. We’ll talk when I come back,”

She nods, and he slips into another part of the house to transform.

Ladybug must have been nearby, because she’s already on a nearby rooftop. She looks droopy.

“Hey, Bugaboo. How are you?”

“Try’n t’ sleep.” She scrunches up her face, clearly distressed by the interruption.

“Well, we’ll try to do this fast.” 

She nods sleepily, and they head in the direction of the fight.

---

Ladybug lands in an alley. They’d defeated the akuma soon enough - only about half-an-hour - and Chat didn’t even have to use his Cataclysm. Her earrings are beeping, and she’s about to speak the words to detransform when someone spots her.

“You!”

What?

She turns to see Alya at the entrance to the alley, looking furious.

No no no no no nonono.

Ladybug hasn’t seen or heard from her in weeks. What did she do now? Alya deleted the Ladyblog, she was supposed to have stopped coming near akuma attacks.

She feels the panic welling up inside her. She freezes. Her brain is sure that if she can only stay perfectly still this threat will leave her be. Another part of her mind says to play dead, but her human sensibilities keep that in check.

“You are a monster! How could you betray your own best friend? For someone like her?!”

At first Ladybug thinks that Alya has figured out her identity, but then she continues.

“Marinette Dupain-Cheng is a disgusting excuse of a decent person who pretends she’s some innocent snowflake! And you sided with her! Over Lila!”

What? No. No, no, no! She thought she’d finally been getting better at being a good person. Was she wrong?

“You and Lila were best friends! You were close, and you trusted each other, but then some liar plays victim and you turn sides! You bullied her! The person you called your best friend! You disgust me!”

She’s stuck. Frozen in place. What is she supposed to do? Her mind is convinced that she’s taken the safest option so far, so she just stays still, staring in horror.

“Marinette bullied her! Did you know that?! She cornered her during the school year to insult her, and Lila started believing it. Even during the summer, she messaged her from other accounts online! That good-for-nothing little bitch! Lila’s self-esteem is terrible and it’s all your fault! And hers!”

She’s having trouble breathing.

“Marinette beat Lila up the first week back and you helped her! What kind of ‘hero’ are you?! And then again, back at the museum, Marinette beat her up again and you didn’t care! Even when Lila got akumatized out of fear!”

Her vision is blurry, she can’t make out anything accurately and she hasn’t got her breathing under control.

“Even as an akuma she was scared of you! She wouldn’t leave the Louvre because she felt safer around her real friends! Even though she was an akuma!”

Alya takes another step toward her, they’re very close, but her vision is still wrong and it’s hard to tell just how close.

“Why would you do something like that?! Why would you do that?!”

She feels a sharp pain on her cheek, but can’t figure out what it is.

“Answer me, asshole!”

Someone lands in the alley.

---

Chat Noir is on his way back to Marinette’s, but he doesn’t make it far before he has to stop.

Something is wrong.

He doesn’t know what, but he can feel the panic in his chest, even if it isn’t his. It takes a moment to register, but he eventually realizes whose it is.

Ladybug.

It isn’t her panic specifically, but something in him knows that she needs him, that she is most certainly panicking and he needs to intervene.

He’d only just left. She’d left to detransform, what had happened in the time? 

The panic claws at him, and he doesn’t know what to do. He can tell she’s scared and he has to do something. He needs to help her.

He turns around. He hates that Marinette will be waiting longer for him, but she can be patient. Ladybug needs him. Now.

He hears yelling. Maybe she’d seen a new akuma, but wasn’t able to transform? 

Then he gets closer, and the words actually register with him, the voice, Alya.

Her words are sharp, harsh and clearly meant to hurt. To harm.

He can tell before he even arrives that they’re directed at Ladybug.

He can hear her earrings beeping as he peeks over the alley. Ladybug barely has time left on her transformation, and Alya’s anger doesn’t show any sign of slowing down.

Alya takes a step forward, and slaps Ladybug across the face.

He jumps down before he even thinks about it.

“You need to leave, Césaire.” He growls at the journalist.

“You! Do you know what she’s done or- Oh you’re probably just as bad as-”

“Césaire. Leave.” He’s seething - not even yelling - but the fury is clear. If he let himself do anything more, there wouldn’t be any restraint left.

“If you think I’ll-”

Ladybug has two spots left, and hasn’t moved.

“Go. Now.”

She gets the message, and stomps away. Chat turns to Ladybug immediately, face softening.

Her breathing is all over the place, her eyes are unfocused, and she isn’t actually here. Not mentally. She’s shaking. He hates to think what must be going on inside her head.

“Hey. Ladybug.” He approaches her gently and she doesn’t even react. Something in him is convinced she’s going to drop from pure fear and panic, but she remains standing.

Her earrings beep. She can’t stay here.

“Ladybug, I’m going to carry you to the roof now, okay?” He speaks softly so that she doesn’t get startled, but she isn’t responding at all. He tries his best to reign in his uneasiness.

He scoops her up carefully and sets her carefully on a rooftop, he’s about to back off, but she clings to him desperately. She still hasn’t registered anything around her, but some unconscious part of her won’t let go. Her grip is loose and could easily be shaken off, but he certainly won’t be the one to do that.

---

Ladybug wants to shut down. She’s scared and it’s so draining to remember all the ways she’s terrible and all the ways she tries to correct it. She isn’t supposed to shut down though. She’s got to…

What is she supposed to do? She hears a voice - it must be Alya. That’s the main thing she remembers. Alya is yelling at her, Alya is mad. Alya hit her? She isn’t sure, that’s about the time she started zoning out. Not paying attention to anything seems safer.

The voice is still there, she still isn’t sure who it is. She’d respond, but what if it is Alya?

No no. It’d be safer to stay quiet. To stay still.

The cold beckons to her. It must have started snowing, she can feel drops of water on her. She wants to go to sleep. She’s not supposed to sleep…right?

She normally tries to stay awake, but she can’t remember why. If being awake means more Alya, then maybe she should sleep.

There’s another cold breeze and she lets it carry her away to sleep. The beeping she vaguely registers probably isn’t important anyways.

---

“Ladybug, you’re about to detransform.” He feels like it might be important to tell her, even if he’s certain she isn’t listening.

She doesn’t respond, as he expected.

“Oh, Bug, what happened?” The question is rhetorical, especially since his only audience is close to sleep.

It’s begun to snow, and it looks like it’ll only get worse. Paris is in for a blizzard.

The final beeps sound over the empty rooftops, and he focuses elsewhere.

“Chat Noir,” It’s Tikki, he can tell she’s barely managing against the cold, shivering and stuttering, “I-I th-think you need t-to know e-each other’s id-d-dentities.”

“What?!” He certainly wasn’t expecting that.

“You t-two would-d-d bo-both b-benefit. She needs y-y-you. Y-y-you’re the one she’s t-told the most a-a-a-about how she’s f-feeling. Y-you b-both need ea-each other in y-your real lives.”

“So… should I look at her?” He’s hesitant, he’s been waiting for this, but not in these sorts of circumstances.

“Yes. T-take her h-home.” The Kwami is barely still with him.

“How will I know where she lives?”

“T-trust m-m-me.”

He nods, and finally turns to the girl in his arms.

Oh.

Oh.

Oh!

Ladybug is Marinette.

Marinette is Ladybug.

Things are falling into place in his head, and he doesn't know what to think. He’s obviously happy because it’s Marinette! He loves her doubly. He doesn’t have a crush on two different girls, he has two crushes on one.

But, at the same time, everything that’s happened to Ladybug, happened to Marinette. Everything that’s happened to Marinette happened to Ladybug. How much can one person take?

Oh, Marinette.

The snow is falling harder now, he stands. They need to go.

Making sure Tikki isn’t at risk of falling, he takes off across the roofs. He arrives at the bakery, entering the trapdoor and shutting it carefully. He gently places his partner into her bed, accidentally knocking a notebook down as he does so.

He breathes a sigh of relief that they’re home now.

---

Author’s Note: Oh hey, a notebook fell. Oh well, I'm sure that's not relevant.

A little ironic what you're saying there Alya.

Well! The reveal! I've been so excited to post this! Don't worry, the next chapter is directly after this one.

Last chapter I said this one marked a first for Adrien, did any of you catch it? At the very end there, he referred to the bakery as 'home'. Every time I have Adrien speak/think of his house that's what I say: his house. That empty mansion is no home to him, but his friends? Marinette especially? They're his home.

Thanks for reading! Feel free to leave any thoughts, theories, constructive criticism, or anything really in my ask box, in replies or through reblogs. I love seeing what you think!

First | Previous | Next

[multiphandomunnies]

remnants of happiness | im nayeon

requested: nopers admin: mirae authors note: im not so sure im fully happy with this. also I wish i could make fics like these a surprise and have you discover its angst and not fluff but i needa add the warnings for people, i dont anyone gettin hurt cause of me  authors note #2: if you find any mistakes please let me know! genre: angst warnings: abuse, mental and physical  word count: 1.4k

Monday, 6:23pm, Week 1 

Your hands typed away furiously at the keyboard, eye barely even glancing down to double-check your typing or spelling. Your eyes have been hyper-focused on the girl in front of you, Im Nayeon, you don't believe in gods or goddess but something within your mind told you that they were real and Nayeon was one of them. 

She gently brushed her hair behind her ear, head slightly turning in your direction. For the split second that your eyes locked with hers, you felt your heart 20 floors and your stomach practice gymnastics. That smile, that sweet bunny-like smile, had to have been one of the cutest things you'd ever seen. 

Turning back to her friend, you couldn't remember her name but you had seen them together many times, Nayeon went back to talking to her as if she didn't just take another piece of your heart. Maybe someday, you'd get the guts to actually talk to her and not stare at her like a creep in the coffee shop. Despite giving yourself the little bumps of encouragement you knew you'd probably never be able to do it. 

You weren't like your friends, you couldn't just strike up a conversation with any given stranger. Even though Nayeon wasn't a stranger, you had her in your econ class and had talked to her a few times, so at this point, she was an acquaintance. An acquaintance that you happened to be madly infatuated with. 

Looking back down at your work your cheeks burned up in embarrassment, you hadn't been typing about the difference in healthcare between America, Germany, and China, you had been typing your nonsense thoughts Quickly backtracking you deleted everything your autopilot brain at typed and attempted to work on your assignment once more. You couldn't keep letting Nayeon distract you like this. 

It felt like hours had passed, hours spent wasting your life away studying for a degree you wouldn't even get a job, A light tap causes your eye to snap up at the source of the sound. 

There she stood, light shining down around her beautifully. 

“Hi,,, may I help you?”, you asked quietly, mentally cursing yourself for sounding so rude. Nayeon didn't seem to take offense to your tone as she simply giggled. 

“This probably sounds extremely stupid and I know what you're gonna say so I've already prepared myself. I was wondering if I could have your number?” Nayeon always had been good at one thing, confidence, or at least faking confidence, you'd never seen her look nervous, worried, and tired. She always had her shoulders back and a smile on her face. There she stood in front of you, voice wavering and fingers fiddling with her hair. 

“O,, Of course-” you shake your head at your own stutter, hands reaching for a spare piece of paper to write it down on “-here you go,” handing her the paper your hands brushed a little sending a shock to your heart.

 “Thank you Y/n,, I'll text you later,” Nayeon spun around on her heels giggling with her friend as they left the shop. 

You stared blankly at your computer, confused by what had just happened. Thee Im Nayeon was nervous because she was asking for your number.

--------------

Friday, 9:56pm, Week 5

Dating Nayeon had been one of the most amazing experiences of your life. She was the perfect girlfriend, you couldn't have asked for a better person in your life. It felt like you two had been made for each other, despite only dating for a little over a month, it felt like you had been dating for years. Dropping the box on the floor you huffed and smiled as you gently rubbed your back. 

“That's it, the last box,” you said proudly to Nayeon.

 She was moving in with you, despite her friends thinking it was a bad idea. Some would say that you were moving to fast but you didn't care, ou just knew that you and Nayeon were meant to be together. 

She giggled and tapped your nose “I think it's time we have a snack, we deserve it after all this heavy lifting,” her voice was the most calming and relaxing thing you'd ever heard before. 

“Ah, you're a smart one aren't ya? I think you're correct, we deserve a snack,” you slung your arm over her shoulder and lead her in the direction of your small and cramped kitchen. 

“Now we have to figure out if we want to cook something or order something,” you say as you stared at your practically empty fridge.

 Nayeon looked at you then back at the fridge “How about we order some Chinese,” she suggested with a laugh at how empty your cabinets were also. Nodding your head in the agreement you reached for the phone and began putting in your guys' orders. 

Within 35 minutes the Chinese had arrived and you and Nayeon laid on the couch and watched TV as you stuffed your face with the extremely greasy and unhealthy food.

-----------------

Tuesday, 3:12pm, Week 8

You knew you knew you should have listened to what everyone was saying. You were blind, blind by a love that was never there and never existed in the first place. Nayeon wasn't some goddess sent from the heavens just for you, no she was a demon sent to make your life a living hell and she was succeeding. 

Throwing the pillow on the couch Nayeon screamed “I wasn't cheating on you, babe. I swear I was out having a few drinks with my friend Jeongyeon then we went back to her place, you could even ask her,” Nayeon had tears in her eyes, she tried to hold them back but they threatened to spill overboard. 

“You know what you are? Pathetic, you're a pathetic excuse of a human being. Why the fuck would I call Nayeon when I know she’d lie to cover up for the fact that her best friend is a dirty little lying whore,” you spat your words at her like venom, causing the tears she so strongly attempting to hold back to spill over. 

Nayeon sobbed, loudly. Hearing it made your heartbreak, maybe you were wrong to judge and accuse her, maybe she really had been telling the truth. “,,,, Is what I would've said If I didn't believe you, I believe you bae I'm sorry for getting mad,” you tried to cover up your outburst.

 Walking over to her you got angry when she flinched away from your touch “Babe,” you said in your most stern voice “I love you so much and id never do anything to hurt you, never, but you know who would hurt you? The other people, other people will try to hurt you but I won't because I love you,” you roughly pulled her into you. Enjoying the feeling of her trembling body pressed against yours. Smelling her hair the scent of cherry and jasmine soothed your heart. 

You loved Nayeon, she was perfect in every single way. She was yours, and you wouldn't let anyone else have you. They weren't right for her but you were. You were perfect for the perfect girl.

---------------

Sunday, 11:38pm, Week 12

Liar, liar, liar, liar, that's all she was. She lied, constantly. Constantly lied and broke you apart, she wasn't perfect nor had she ever been. She had always been a dirty little slut, who loved to play games with people's hearts, hearts like yours that were so caring would get ripped apart by her vicious claws. 

Despite all that, all her lies, you loved her more than words could even begin to describe, She was incredible, beautiful, amazing. She lifted you up when you were down. Every second with her was euphoric like you were high on love, and it felt beyond amazing. Staring at her figure, curled up on the ground you smiled sinisterly. 

“I love you Nayeon,-” brushing some of her sweaty hair off her forehead you continued “-and no one will ever be able to love a slut like you, except for me,” you finished, hand slapping across her face to get her attention. “Do you love me, Nayeon?’ you asked voice cracking. 

Nayeon whimpered and nodded her head “I do, I love you. I ever cheated on you baby and I promise I never will,’ she cried out, hands attempting to free themselves from the shackles you bound them too. 

“I can't trust you, baby, I just can't. Until you can gain my trust back I need you to stay here where it's safe,” you said. Standing up you cracked your neck and headed to the door of the storage room far out from the nearest city. 

“Goodbye Nayeon, I left you some food and water, I'll be back tomorrow to check up on you.”

[beauty-grace-outer-space]

I go to therapy I promise, but sometimes having to write out my thoughts helps me process things and it feels a little less like screaming into a void if I do it here. 

I really, truly despise that mental health requires constant work. Overall, I’m ok-- I’m nowhere near where I was ten years ago, and that is a very, very good thing. 

But I’m exhausted. I’m so tired, and I think I’ve been barely holding it together for a while here; and recent developments have just... thrown me for a loop. 

I feel inadequate. I feel behind. I feel pathetic. I feel unattractive. I feel lonely. 

And logically, I am aware that  most of those things are just perceptions that I have and that other people don’t view me that way. But right now, I do. 

I feel both frozen and overwhelmed at work, and half the time the days drag on forever and the other half I blink and they’re over and I’ve gotten nothing done. 

I’ve pulled myself out of and away from all of my hobbies; I still sing sometimes but I always immediately delete the recordings because they’re not good enough or no one will care. I haven’t written much of anything, really, in months because I feel stuck and uninspired and at times outright bored. 

I sat in my car the other day scrolling through my phone contacts because I wanted to talk to someone and realized that I don’t have any friends outside of internet only communication that I felt I could speak with. 

The thing is, I feel like I know a lot of people. But I don’t necessarily have anyone to spend time with. 

One person I know asked me to be in her wedding; we have a long and complicated history spanning over twenty years, and that’s the reason she asked me. But I’ve only seen her maybe three times in the last two years, and I’ve only met her fiance twice, briefly. I’m having a lot of insecurity about being in the wedding. My therapist said that not being in it would be self care; I just want to suffer through the day and then never, ever see the pictures. 

Another person I know (friend? I don’t know anymore), I haven’t seen in six months. I tried to make plans in October and she and her husband said they couldn’t do anything until after the new year because they were working on their business (Amway). We spoke on the phone the other night... I asked a few times when we could get together. The subject was changed a lot. And they’ve got some major life changes coming up, so... I don’t anticipate much improvement there. 

Another friend(???) just moved even further away, and lately all of our conversations seem to be about her and what she’s doing and how she feels about things and not much else. I don’t talk a lot. She doesn’t like what I like. She thinks my hobbies and interests are pretty stupid. She tells me, quite often, what she thinks of my choices and how I spend my time. She’s not a bad person, but a lot of work goes in to everything there, and I don’t say or do much anyway. 

I don’t begrudge anyone being in a different place in life. I know other people who are having kids, getting married, changing jobs, moving... everyone is constantly changing and adapting. 

But realizing I don’t have a single person that I feel like I can just... call, or get a drink with? That’s painful, in the deep-seated ache in my chest kind of way. 

Sometimes it feels like everyone has someone, and I’m just filler. I’m fun when there’s not another option. I’m handy in a crisis. But I’m not someone to stay friends with, or to spend time with just because. And then I figure, well.. you know... I probably caused that. 

I used to have this theory that still creeps up now and then that I called the “time-bomb”. Everyone gets sick of me eventually. Everyone will get rid of me eventually. I’ll ruin it eventually. 

And I’ve since learned that that line of thinking stems from years of depression and abuse. Usually I’m pretty good at shaking it off these days, but when it keeps happening (or I feel like it does) it’s harder to ignore. 

I always figured I’d at least figure out my 2-3 forever friends that would always be around, because we build our own families in life. We do. We find people that we connect with and we choose them, and they choose us and we grow and learn together. And I figured I’d found them, because my early to mid 20s they were always there, and we were building and learning and growing together. 

But now it feels like I did it again. I said something or I did something and they collectively decided to bow out, as is their right. But fuck, if it doesn’t hurt. 

There have been jokes in my family-- and it’s not cruelty, I started it, I play into it, humor has always been a defense of mine-- where my parents have started hosting dinner and game nights with semi-regularity, or planning parties at the holidays. And it’s become a thing for one of us, at some point, to say, “Hey, if you manage to find a friend before the party, let us know so we can be sure to have enough food.” 

I never have any friends at these parties. I invite the few people local enough to maybe be able to attend, but no one ever does. 

I tried going on a few dates-- even though I despise it-- in the hopes of maybe meeting someone to spend some time with. But there’s so much trauma and fear there, I don’t know how to make it past a first meet up. 

I was dog/housesitting last week and I still went home every single day for at least an hour just to make sure I could talk to someone face-to-face instead of being alone all day every day for six days. 

I go to work. I go home. I spend 20 minutes or so training my dog. I climb in bed. I put on Gilmore Girls. I read fanfiction until I fall asleep. I wake up, and I do it all over again. 

I’m stagnating. I see it, I acknowledge it, I’m aware that it’s contributing to the feelings I’m having right now. And I can’t make myself stop. Which means that things are... not great right now. If I can’t strong-arm my way through depressive behaviors, then I’m already pretty in it and have been avoiding acknowledging it. 

It happens. I’ll get through it. I have before and I will again. But I’m getting that itch under the skin “I want to run away from here and never come back feeling” and that’s started manifesting in... shall we say less than healthy thought patterns. 

I’ll figure it out. I saw my therapist yesterday. I cried a lot. I’m trying to go to sleep at normal times and to cut myself some slack. I’m making lists and trying to get things organized in my home and work life so that I don’t feel as overwhelmed, or at least have a plan day to day so I can get some things done. 

I don’t know what to do about the loneliness bit. 

But I’m tired. Lately I’ve just been turning my phone off, logging out of messaging sites, etc. No one’s going to contact me anyway. 

[rosegoldquintis]

T-shirt

Pairing: Luke Hemmings x Reader                                                                

Word count: 1.5k (I haven't written this much in so long??)         

Warnings: Mentions of cheating, drunkness, swearing, me trying to write ‘angst’ and Luke being a D I C K, bad ending?

A/N: Based on T-shirt by gnash!!! This sucks but I haven’t posted in a while and idk what to do with this blog anymore gang.

Also here’s my MASTERLIST

Faded red, short sleeves

I can't forget the way you looked without your jeans on 

It's in my drawer and you're all I dream, so                                                       

I had to let you know you left it here with me

She couldn’t get the image out of her head. She tried and tried but nothing worked, so in the end she just gave up. He was still haunting her dreams and she was still deeply in love. He had just up and left one night when she confronted him about it.She had packed down everything that reminded her of Luke, everything except one shirt. It was a red button up which he loved seeding on Y/N. At first she didn’t remember why she left it hanging, so it wa soon forgotten. One day when she was cleaning out her closet which now seemed too big, she found it. It was hanging there, neatly beside her dresses and blouses.

“What are you doing to me Lu.” She said to herself as she held it in front of her. She picked up her phone and pressed the messages app, scrolled down and pressed the contact she was looking for. She started typing a message but before she pressed send she deleted all of it, closed the app and hung back the shirt.

It kills me to admit that I still want this bad

And I try to forget all the feelings I had

But each time that I look in my closet, I can't

'Cause I still got your t-shirt, do you want it back?

Sometimes Y/N would wear the shirt because she missed him, he was a big part of her life and she hated to admit it but she still loved him. Y/N had decided to get drunk on a Wednesday night because she was in pain. So here she was, after a couple of vodka shots and almost an entire bottle of wine, sitting in her closet and staring at that red fucking shirt. It had been almost a month since she found the red shirt hanging there. She would forget about the shirt and move on, but for the past week she found herself staring at the shirt. So tonight she grabbed her phone and looked through her contacts and when she came to the contact that read Lu❤️ she pressed call, after a few dial tones someone answered, the only problem was that it wasn’t her Luke who answered;

“Hello?” A woman's voice said

“Is Luke there?” Y/N whispered in a small voice.

“Who is this?” The woman asked, clearly very confused to why someone would call her lover at 1am.  

“Can you just give him the fucking phone.” Y/N spat, not understanding why she had to explain herself.

“Tell me who you are and I’ll tell him that you cal-” Before the woman could finish her sentence Y/N hung up. Around 20 minutes later her phone vibrated on the floor next to her, she looked down and unlocked her phone.

‘Why did you call Y/N?’ the text read

'Cause I still got your shirt, do you want it back?’

--

I gave you love and all you did was leave first

Then you told me that I shouldn't be hurt

I tried to hide it, but it couldn't be worse

You broke my heart and all I got was this t-shirt

Something 'bout the way I love you seems cursed

But I've learned karma tends to be a b-word

So, I hope you get everything you deserve

You broke my heart and all I got was this t-shirt

Y/N never feel out of love with Luke, but when she caught him cheating she understood that he had fallen out of love with her. At first he didn’t know that Y/N had caught him in the act, so he pretended that everything was the same, which wasn’t very hard since he had done that for almost 6 months.

One night when they were sat on the sofa in Y/N small flat she looked at the love of her life and accidently said; “How Long Lu?” Luke looked away from the TV and looked at his girlfriend.

“What do you mean baby?” Even when those words left his pretty lips he knew deep down what she meant.

“How long have you been cheating on me?” Luke’s body stiffened at those words and so many questions filled his head, like how long had she known and why she didn’t say anything until now.

“You shouldn’t be hurt you know.” He said, that made Y/N furious. How could she not be hurt? She had left almost everything behind just so she could be with the man in front of her.

“I think I'm going to go now Y/N.”

Those were the last words he said to her before he left her flat.

For the next days Y/N wandered around her flat, picking up things that he had left behind, putting gifts in boxes and she even threw away some things. When all his things were organized in a box she grabbed a black marker and in big letters she wrote ‘SOMETHING ABOUT THE WAY I LOVE YOU SEEMS CURSED, BUT I’VE LEARNED KARMA TENDS TO BE A BITCH. SO I HOPE YOU GET EVERYTHING YOU DESERVE’  The box was later shoved into a closet and soon forgotten about.

--

I'd burn it in a fire if I didn't know the smell

I'd bury it six feet deep if that would help

I'd hold onto it longer, but you don't like being held

So, I'd really like to see you so that maybe I could tell you

I gave you love and all you did was leave first

Then you told me that I shouldn't be hurt

I tried to hide it, but it couldn't be worse

She tried to get rid of the shirt so many times but she was never able to fully commit. In the end of their relationship Luke seemed to avoid Y/N at all costs. She thought that she had done something to upset him but that was clearly not the case. A week after they had broke up Y/N tried to call him a couple of times, she even texted him, she needed to see him and talk to him. It’s so hard to just let someone go after spending so much together.

But he didn’t want to be around her anymore, he wanted to be with everyone but her. Over the years Y/N had became good friends with the rest of the boys in the band but they seemed to avoid her as well.

Y/N had never been a petty person but she still went and did the last thing she thought she’d do. It was a saturday evening at around 9pm, the sun would soon start setting for the night and she had downed a few drinks because alcohol was her only source of comfort right now. She put on the red button up that had been hanging in her closet, she sat down in front of her big mirror that she had in her living room, she snapped a few good photos and before she could really process what was going on she had posted it on her instagram.

The picture had a warm glow from the setting sun and you could see that she was wearing the red shirt. The caption she chose to have with the photo took the price, it read;

“Then you told me that I shouldn't be hurt, I tried to hide it, but it couldn't be worse”

As soon as the comments came flooding in she turned them off, a while later she made her account private and around 2 days later she deleted her account. The only social medias she kept was her snapchat and her blog, she also kept her twitter but deleted the app from her phone.

You broke my heart and all I got was this t-shirt

Something 'bout the way I love you seems cursed

But I've learned karma tends to be a b-word

So, I hope you get everything you deserve

You broke my heart and all I got was this t-shirt

“Hi Lu, so uh. it’s me again, so i know that you’re probably just deleting these but.” She paused and hiccuped a couple of times.

“I just had to let you know that i still love you very much. but you should know that you’re probably cursed. Because all you did hurt me. A lot” She took a few deep breaths as the tears started to roll down her cheeks.

“So know that i love you very much but please keep in mind that karma is a bitch so i hope you get everything you deserve you pathetic idiot.” She looked at her closet and for the last time she took a few deep breaths and said:      “You broke my heart into a million pieces and all i got was your stupid fucking shirt.” Then she hung up her phone and threw it on the bed beside her. And for the first time in two months she let herself cry.

Tagging some cool people: @panimation @notexactlylegal @lilbabycalum @glitterprincelu @benhardymazzello @softforcal @mathildahilda @perriwiinkle @babyplutoszx2

[freelance-arc]

Technical nonsense, overwhelm, and how to overcome them.

Heyo!

It’s been a little while since my last post. Of course, there’s been stuff going on, I just haven’t put any of it into a blog post, YET.

Unwelcome Tech Nonsense.

The essence of the back story is this; I bought a book, it inspired me, I attempted to do some graphics work based on that inspiration, the computery side of things let me down.

Bad. Times.

FRUSTRATING times…

Because, as you know, when you spend hours of your precious time trying to achieve something, to make progress, It’s REALLY flipping annoying when that work and time amounts to nothing.

The book in question is by a guy called Sean Vosler (Book link here; https://app.increase.academy/most-important-skill-guide ).

I liked his email sequence, the book itself looked nice (literally, visually very good). So I took the plunge and made the purchase. It’s a great piece, definitely recommended. He’s worked for Tai Lopez amongst others, and tbh, that was what clinched it for me.

Anyway, reading through, I was struck at how he uses font as well as phrasing to imply tonality. Copywriting is sales in print, and the more you can convey emotion, raising certainty and reducing objections the better.

This was the inspiration.

So I fired up Spark and started creating. 

3 Hours. 3 Hours on a Saturday afternoon, adding text, moving, resizing, blah blah. This was kinda the POINT of the exercise, to see what I could make up, especially being a complete graphics noob. But Spark’s quite intuitive, so it’s not so bad. 

Feeling all smug and pleased with myself I downloaded the image I’d so finely crafted. Guess I also downloaded all the unwelcome tech nonsense too. (I’m being dramatic, it wasn’t a virus or nothin, just a big pile of steamy digital baloney).

Darn. Half of it was missing.

F. L. I. P.

I’ll get right to the point. If anything like this happens to you, 

CLEAR OUT YOUR BROWSER’S CACHE.

To fix the problem, I cleared out the cache in Chrome for the previous month. Issue solved.

Apparently, if the cache becomes corrupted for any reason, it affects the browsers loading time, downloads, it can freeze unexpectedly… All the issues I was having. 

I’d cleared out old files, deleted unused programs, defragged. I ran updates just in case. None of them fixed the problems of my handiwork getting mashed.

So yea, don’t make my mistake. Any issues with your browser or web-based applications, clear out the cache FIRST. It’ll save you a lot of swearing I can tell you.

(Yea, I know. It leaves a lot to be desired. But it DOES prove the concept.)

Overwhelm.

As you can imagine, dealing with stupid technology when you already have a thousand things to do isn’t productive. It causes a bottleneck. Well, any issue does really. But things start to back up. 

When that thing you’re doing is the next step in your plan, what you’ve based all your other next steps on, you then have to take further time to figure out a workaround or solve it or both. 

Building a business and a dream lifestyle from scratch is a lot of work. Skills need learning, social proof creating, domains set up. Hell, you gotta work out exactly what you’re selling, who you’re selling it to, and how you’ll sell it to them. And THAT’S the easy bit.

I have guests to invite. Microphones to find. Domains to set up, clients to get… Phew.

In my quest for knowledge I’m signing up for everything. Well, 90% of things at least. My mindset is delicate and precious, so anything I feel won’t add good things to it, I don’t chase.

In the meantime though, there’s so much great stuff out there. Loads and loads and loads of it. 

It’s not even hidden, you just have to look for it.

Stuff’s coming in thick and fast. I’ve got about 8 courses to get through, 4 books on the go, and about an hour a day to do it in. 

So anything I do, I’m neglecting something else.

It all kinda stalled me for a bit. It’s difficult to focus on doing a thing when you aren’t sure it’s the right thing to do. As a result, nothing gets done, and that CAN’T HAPPEN.

I went basic. KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID.

I made a list.

If you’re suffering from Overwhelm make a list. 

Make it as long as it needs to be, pour your mind out into it, personal, professional, the lot. Once it’s down on paper, or the screen or whatever, you don’t have to remember it any more.

Then, prioritise.

The list I made showed all the things that had been swimming around in my brain hole. But I could see them clearly. Instead of things bobbing to the top occasionally, making me panic because I’d forgotten about them, they were all there as plain as day.

The most important thing on that list was writing practice. Obvious. But not obvious when everything’s weighing on you and you aren’t sure what’s the right way to get stuff moving again.

So I’d suggest if you write, then write. If you dance, then dance. If you draw, draw. Whatever it is that YOU DO, the essence at the core of your dream, then do that.

I started riffing on some sales copy ideas using random household stuff. Trying to make it compelling, using copywriting formulas AIDA and the S hook to start with, getting the juices flowing. Creating emotion around Table Salt.

It worked. Seeing those words flowing out felt productive. The wheels were turning again. YES!

The next thing is to see about getting clients. A lot of the stuff that bogged me down was related to Freelance Arc. But FA is the story of how I get there to help others get there too. But the vehicle to that success is copywriting. 

I’d gotten lost in the swirl of ideas, easily done. But refocusing is good.

From here out writing will be my main priority for the short term, I’ll keep plugging away at the books for 15 minutes a night before bed, and probably squeezing in little chunks of the courses for 20 mins or so over my morning coffee.

Did you know, 20 minutes a day over a month is 10 hours? Doesn’t sound like much but it adds up. 

Don’t be that person who makes excuses. If you’re short of time, JUST DO SOMETHING!

Future you will thank you, I can tell you.

Follow Freelance Arc at the top of the page for more updates and resources.

Build your dreams.

[ick25]

Rockman.EXE Episode 55 Review.

STRANGER DANGER!

I’ve got the blues... For this is the last time I’ll see the Enzan I like before Axess ruins him.

We start the episode in the arcade where Rockman and Blues are having a battle!

Not as epic as the one in the tournament finals, but a little more credible.

Enzan decides to end the battle by using the Program Advance, however, Netto and Rockman figured out a way to deflect the Beta Sword with just a Sword.

This surprises Enzan and Blues because, it’s the Beta Sword... Its not something a preschooler can do with little effort, right?. XP

The battle continues until Enzan receives an emergency call on his PET and tells Netto that they have to postponed their battle for another time.

I just like their reactions.

In his limo, Enzan is still surprised about Rockman using a Sword against the Beta Sword, showing us a flashback of what we just saw, literally, a minute ago.

“The probability of doing that is just as high as Gutsman using a Program Advance”

After the title card, we see that Enzan’s emergency called was just about his dad being impatient about getting a contract signed for a partnership with a new company.

I have no idea what that stick Blues showing is supposed to be, but we have reached the MADEA... I mean MAEDA company.

Enzan enters and sees a man working on something, he tries to talk to him about the contract but the man isn’t interested in working for another company like IPC.

You know, the thing. That thing, go get the thing.

Oh, that thing... What even is that thing?!

The man asks Enzan to do more chores, like shredding some documents, when a Higure like character comes in and yells at him demanding to know who he is.

The man tells him that Enzan is from IPC and the Higure guy, whose name I forgot, gets all creepy on him until the man tells Enzan to move on to his next chore, cleaning the toilet.

I don’t know what confuses me more, the fact that the guy has a pink apron the fits Enzan perfectly, or seeing that the toilet also has a sink.

After cleaning the toilet, Enzan returns to the man and his assistant who are working on a special program with the help of some standard Navis.

Don’t ask me what that machine is because I don’t know.

Apparently the Navis have to use Swords to cut the data rock into a perfect copy of the model the man wants. And I really mean perfect because once they’re done the man analyses it, finds a small imperfection, and that’s enough to tell the Navis to destroy it, ignoring his assistant telling him that kind of precision is almost impossible to achieve.

Like everything humanity does, it took way less time to destroy it than it took to make it.

This upsets the Higure clone because of the time they spent working on it. They begin to work on another data rock, but this time Enzan offers to give it a try in hopes to speed things up.

He plugs in Blues who scares the standard Navis and even more after he performs the Program Advance to give form to the data in a matter of seconds.

Unfortunately for Mr. Child prodigy the shape is not perfect either since the man shows him that it is just a tad smaller than the model.

He tells Enzan that the Program Advance, even though its a powerful move, it is useless without control and sometimes a simple sword is just right.

So after Blues’s fail, the Navis are not afraid of him anymore and invite him to work with them, and their interactions with him are kinda cute.

My new favorite trio.

Since this is an Enzan episode we cut to and back from commercials with two cube scenes with the chibi Blues.

What’s funny is that Blues says Shakin twice the second time and Netto’s voice points that out.

We see that Blues was left working with the Navis using regular swords while Enzan is out on an errand. Suddenly, the power goes out in the work station making the data rock disappear, but wouldn’t that affect the cyberworld too?

I guess they would just lose contact with the humans.

The man suddenly says that he forgot to pay the power bill and... calmly and shamelessly tells his assistant to go steal power from somewhere. 

Meanwhile, we see Netto at the Maha Ichiban talking about how he enjoyed his battle with Enzan and that he can’t wait to continue it.

They are just so adorable!

So anyway, the power goes out causing Mahajarama to give Count Elec third degree burns.

The Ex-WW soon discover that the Higure double is the culprit and they give chase to him, until he turns around a corner but goes back to kick a garbage can to stop them which was pretty funny.

Speaking of funny scenes, you can’t help but laugh with the subtitles’s sense of humor in this next one.

Even the subs are tired of having to translate Aki’s cheesy song. XD

So the Higure bootleg returns to the office just in time for some mafia looking guys from another company to arrive and attempt to destroy the man’s work for not wanting to join them. Luckily for him, Enzan returns just in time to save the day by throwing a chip at one of the thugs, karate chopping another one, and had apparently taken out all of the others outside off camera... Damn, you don’t mess with this kid. O.O

What is it with rich people and throwing collectible items a bad guys?

“That’s for making me waste a perfectly good battle chip!”

Anyway, Enzan scares off the mafia boss by telling him he is from IPC. While Enzan and the man watch the bad guys leave, the Higure copy makes a creepy face as he is doing something on the computer. Turns out he is a bad guy who steals part of the program data to sell it.

He easily runs away before Blues tells them that there are viruses destroying the original data. So Enzan sends chips to help Blues fight them.

He says, as he deletes a Metool.

Blues protects the data from the viruses and then suddenly does this.

It looks like Blues found an invisible hole that is bringing the viruses in, Enzan sends a Paladin Sword to destroy the hole and the real enemy appears.

Drillman, where have you been?! The season is almost over!

So Blues fights Drillman and...

Wow guys, you suck today. 

Not even the Beta Sword can beat him, and it’s practically unavoidable!

PRACTICALLY!

Enzan is running out of ideas until he exchanges looks with the man and understands that a single Sword is more than enough. So Blues uses a Sword and cuts Drillman in half!

I bet this was edited in the dub.

So the day is saved, but their celebration is interrupted by the Ex-WWW who caught the Higure knock off and demand something in return for stealing their electricity.

Since the assistant is the ”real” bad guy here, the man doesn’t take responsibility for telling him to steal power from them and offers a trade, the stolen data for the thief.

I initially though he was offering the data he stole, but nope.

“Please boy, I’m not stupid. Why would a famous company like IPC have a kid working for them if it wasn’t the president’s son?”

So the man finally accepts IPC’s partnership as thanks for Enzan helping him out and the episode ends with Blues and Rockman continuing their battle at the arcade while a news anchor informs everyone about the newest PET that will be released.

The Advance PET is going to be so revolutionary that it will practically hijack the flashbacks for this season by making everyone forget the Plug-in PETs and even rewrite history!

How is this even possible?!

My thoughts?

I like to think this is the last time I’ll see the Enzan I know and love before Axess makes him boring. I feel that this Enzan is more of an interesting character that I would like to know more about, but instead will become someone obsessed with his job and only follows orders. The Enzan in this episode, and in this season in general, has always been portrayed as Netto’s rival, someone who enjoys Net Battles and wont let anyone get in his way, just like back in episode 20 and 21. Sure, he takes his work at IPC seriously, but he was doing the jobs his father told him to do, he didn’t look like the type of person who would stay all day in an office doing paper work, he is a kid for crying out loud! Axess basically makes him an adult, he doesn’t feel like a kid anymore, to me, he was just a cool, kind of a snobby kid who respects his father and is proud of his family’s name, but he also enjoys Net Battles and eating at fancy restaurants by himself, and even hangs out with Netto when he has the chance (mostly to show off to him).

The episode introduces Drillman.EXE who had a bigger role in the game. He was a WWW Navi, it was not known if he had an operator, but somehow was related to Bubbleman a Navi that will debut in Axess. It’s a shame that Drillman’s character goes to waste here, but at least he returns for an episode in Rockman Stream... To fight Blues again.

Looks like Capcom was already working on Battle Network 4 when this came out since it announces the arrival of the Advanced PET that will take over the next season.

[wine-anon]

Is it okay if I ask fora JoJo x reader fic??? Because, like, I love him and there just aren’t enough fics about him and honestly he’s just so under appreciated???

a/n: Okay so this took me ages to write because it deleted itself and then I had to re-write it and then I didn’t like it so I wrote it again. Yikes, anyway, I had this really cool idea after seeing the new Pacific Rim movie, I genuinely hope you like it! It’s a bit different to what I usually write, so tell me if you like it. I really, really hope you like it!!!

The Kaiju broke through the breach when you were only seven. You watched in horror as those monsters from storybooks and movies became real. The world changed that day, nothing was ever the same. When the Jaeger program was announced two years later, you knew in that moment that you would be a pilot one day. That’s all you wanted, you had to survive until you were old enough to pilot your very own Jaeger, no matter what it took. 

In 2021, you were recruited by Stacker Pentecost into the PPD Cadet program. You were only sixteen at the time and drifting didn’t come easy, you couldn’t find the right co-pilot to drift with no matter how hard you tried. You found a temporary co-pilot that you could mostly drift with just before the UN began pulling funding from the program to build the coastal wall. 

By 2025, at only 20, you were one of very few Jaeger pilots left, you were transferred to the Hong Kong Shatterdome. Not many were left open and after your last fight against a Kaiju, you were left with no co-pilot. Word went around that there were tryouts for two of the most renowned Jaeger pilots in recent history, so you took a leap of faith and signed up.

It was the morning of the tryouts, you had been running somewhat late and managed to run into someone in the halls.

“Oh, I am so sorry, sir,” you panicked at the man in front of you, “I wasn’t looking where I was going. I’m running late.”

“It’s okay,” his accent was rich, he was from New York, you guessed, “I’m running late too.”

“Where are you headed, er?”

“JoJo,” he smiled at you, he was gorgeous.

“Right, where are you headed, JoJo?” you looked at your watch at cursed silently.

“The pilot tryouts? I’ve never been here before, I got turned around.”

“Great, that’s where I’m headed,” you grabbed his wrist and led him down the halls towards the dojo. 

You arrived but sadly lost him in the crowd of people watching Raleigh Becket fighting Mako Mori. You watched in amusement as she beat him easily but frowned when Pentecost said that they weren’t to drift under any circumstances.

“Right, now that’s done,” Pentecost’s voice broke you out of your thoughts, “we’re testing compatibility with the one and only, JoJo de la Guerra.”

Shit. It was him. The man from before. He was the one you were testing against. 

“(y/l/n)!” your head snapped to Pentecost, “it’s your Jaeger. You’re up first.”

Shit.

“So, you think we’re actually drift compatible?” 

“We’re about to find out, de la Guerra.”

“Oh please, just call me JoJo.”

“What ever you say, JoJo,” you smirked at him from the other side of your Jaeger, your baby, your pride and joy. 

Cobalt Glory. She was one of the two Mark-3 Jaegers left in the world, she was launched by the British in 2017 and given to you five years later. The same year you graduated from Cadet to Ranger.

“What happened to you last co-pilot?” JoJo asked, his voice coming through the headset in your helmet.

“You’ll see in a second, you’ll be in my head remember?” you pushed some of the holo-buttons and set up your drift sequence. JoJo following your lead, “when was the last time you drifted?”

“Three years ago, in the Philippines,” you looked at him from across the space, his demeanour had shifted to a sad one. Whatever he was thinking was going to be in his head any minute now.

“At least you still look good in the flight suit,” you attempted to cheer him up, a small chuckle came through your headset and sent a shiver up your spine, there was something about him.

“I think I look great in this new style suit,” he grinned at you as the techs began to talk to you both.

“This is just a test drift, you’re not moving from this position, is that clear?” Pentecost’s voice broke through your headset, his voice commanding.

“You always have such a way with words, sir,” you joked at him.

“Watch the tongue, (y/l/n),” he chuckled at you, he always had a soft spot for you and you knew it.

“Drift sequence is ready, sir,” JoJo spoke clearly to the techs, he looked to you, “ready to get into this head of mine?”

“Let’s give them a show,” you winked at him, he winked back and your heart raced faster.

“Initiating Neural Handshake,” the robotic voice spoke to you both. Within a second every thought and memory JoJo ever had was passing through your head and yours through his. You tried to calm yourself at the influx of information and bad memories. You almost hooked onto one bad memory but quickly stabilised. 

“Left hemisphere calibrated,” the voice broke through again.

“(y/l/n),” Pentecost called through the coms, “you’re stable but JoJo is way off. Bring him back.”

“Yes, sir,” you spoke firmly.

“It happens to all of us, but we got there in the end,” you reassured JoJo.

“I almost blew up the Shatterdome,” he sighed heavily, “it was too much.”

“Mako almost blew it up too. Don’t worry about it. The memory was too recent for you to get over it quickly,” you put a hand on his shoulder and he looked up at you, “we completed the neural handshake didn’t we?”

“I guess you’re right,” he looked into your eyes and your breath hitched, “ya’know I say some interesting things whilst I was in your head.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you panicked and got up from your seat on the floor. You quickly made your way down the hall.

“Oh come one, (y/n),” he called to you, “I know what you think about me.”

“Goodnight, de la Guerra!” you called back, your heart racing in your chest at the thought of him again.

You woke up to the Shatterdome alarm and your door being banged on. You pulled yourself from your bed and ran to open the door. JoJo stood on the other side his fist raised. That stupid smirk back on his face.

“You’ve got two minutes to be at Cobalt Glory’s hub.”

With that he grinned and walked off, leaving you stand in the doorway watching people run past you. 

“Two minutes,” you sighed to yourself. He could have at least told you why, that boy and his stupid face. It was so beautiful, fuck.

You found yourself back in Cobalt Glory, hooked into her central hub and looked to see JoJo doing the same. 

“So, someone going to tell me what we’re dealing with?” you called out to everyone who could hear you through the coms.

“We’ve got a double event,” Tendo’s voice broke through for the first time, “we lost Cherno Alpha and Crimson Typhoon. Striker Eureka is powerless and we just sent out Gipsy Danger alone.”

“Why didn’t anyone tell me this earlier!” you panicked at them all.

“Calm down, we’ve got this, we’re running flank for Gipsy okay?” JoJo’s calm voice caused your heart to race faster but calm down at the same time. You nodded at him and took a deep breath.

“You ready for this, JoJo?” 

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” he looked at you, “are you ready?”

“Let’s do this,” you looked forward, “Tendo? Initiate neural handshake.”

“Neural handshake initiated.”

You were back in his head, this time his memories had you in them, they were focused on you. Your heart raced as the drift was completed successfully. There you both stood, the first fully successful drift between the two of you. 

“You okay, (y/n)?” you nodded at him, you couldn’t look at him, he was so gorgeous you’d get distracted, “stop thinking about me like that, you’ll make me blush.”

“Shut up, JoJo,” you moved in synch towards the drop zone, “we have a job to do.”

You were praised as heroes after the battle in Hong Kong. JoJo held your hand on the way back to your room and you swore that he was going to cause you to have a heart attack.

“I’ll see you in the morning at the meeting,” he kissed your forehead and left you leaning against his bedroom door.

“You’ll be the death of me, JoJo de la Guerra,” you sighed at his retreating figure.

“We’re doing what?” JoJo yelled across the room.

“Gipsy and Cobalt will be running point for Striker when we blow up the breach,” Pentecost informed the room calmly.

“But Herc is down,” Raleigh said, “you. You’re piloting her, aren’t you?”

“That’s our only option right now, does everyone understand?”

Multiple ‘yes sir’s’ echoed through the room. JoJo took your hand as he stormed out of the meeting room.

“Where are we going?” you spoke as he dragged you towards his room.

“We’re probably going to die tomorrow, not going to sugarcoat it,” he pulled you into the roo and closed the door, “I don’t want to die regretting never doing this.”

“Doing wh-,” you were out off by his lips crashing onto yours. You moaned at the feeling and wrapped your arms around his neck. You certainly wanted every part of this, especially considering the stakes of tomorrow.

“At the edge of our hope, at the end of our time, we have chosen not only to believe in ourselves, but in each other. Today there is not a man nor woman in here that shall stand alone. Not today. Today we face the monsters that are at our door and bring the fight to them! Today, we are canceling the apocalypse!”

The Shatterdome erupted into cheers at the end of Pentecost’s speech before it broke into a mad dash to launch the three Jaegers into the highest risk mission ever.

“Pilots to your Jaegers,” the robotic voice called out. You and JoJo made your way to Cobalt Glory’s main hub for the third time together.

“You ready for this?” he asked as you hooked into the system.

“No,” you spoke softly, “we might die this time.”

“Don’t think about that, doll,” he reassured you, “we can do this.”

“I hope you’re right, Jo,” you voice wavered.

“Initiating Neural Handshake,” the PON spoke to you both. 

The drift was easier this time, your connection to the man standing next to you was so strong that it took you mere seconds to be 100% connected.

“Cobalt Glory,” Tendo called to you, “you’re ready and have permission to go. Good luck.”

You moved across the ocean floor in the Jaeger, flanking left of Striker Eureka and the package, Gipsy Danger flanking right. Your ranks were broken when two category four Kaiju’s ripped through your formation.

Scunner bit at Cobalt’s arm and pulled you off to the side. You and JoJo slice at the Kaiju with your sword and punch it firmly in the face. It recoils and makes it’s way towards Striker and the package.

Yells are heard through your coms as a third Kaiju emerges from the breach, someone screams that it’s a category five, the first. A triple event. Your heart drops when you hear the yells from the Shatterdome.

You and JoJo make your way towards the break to help Gipsy with the other category four Kaiju. The two of you kill it within minutes but turn to see Striker being hounded by the other two.

In what felt like seconds, you hear the plan to detonate the package above the breach in an attempt to kill the two Kaiju.

In a moment, you’ve stabbed your sword into the ocean floor, tears racing down your cheeks as you watch Striker Eureka blow up itself, the pilots inside and the category four Kaiju attached to it. The water around you surges and creates a tidal wave. JoJo yells at you to brace yourself as the water crashes into the back of your Jaeger.

“What now?” Raleigh coms to your Jaeger.

“Um, we have to get through the breach and blow it up, that other Kaiju is still around here somewhere. We’ve sustained heavy internal system damage, what about you?”

“Same over here,” Mako calls, “look out!”You and JoJo turn in time to see Slattern coming towards you, you grip its head and throw it to the ground. It reels back up and launches itself at Cobalt again.

“The power core!” JoJo yells to you as your hold Slattern’s head in a death lock, “blast the head with the power core!”

“We’ll lose power!”“Just do it!” 

The two of you hold the Kaiju’s head and ultra-charge your power core. You release the blast straight into the Kaiju’s head, effectively killing it.

“Cobalt Glory!” Raleigh’s voice crackles through the coms once more, “how are you holding up?”“We’re dead weight, Gipsy,” JoJo replies, “Slattern is dead but we used the power core to kill it and we’re powerless.”

“Eject safely in your pods, we’ll take it from here,” Raleigh commands, “you’ve done well.”

“Will do, Gipsy,” JoJo speaks calmly, “good luck finishing the mission.”

“See. you on the other side, Cobalt.”

With that your communications are shut down, JoJo opens the escape pod override, you attempt to do the same.

“Shit,” you yell.

“What?” JoJo looks over at you concerned.

“My pod is damaged, I can’t use it,” you panic as your oxygen tank levels begin to decrease. 

“It’s okay, take a deep breath and disconnect, we’ll go in my pod together.”

You nod and do as he says. He grips you tighter than he ever could once you reach him and the two of you are ejected from Cobalt. Your heart drops at the fact that you have to leave her at the bottom of the Pacific.

You return to the Shatterdome as heroes once more, the four of you make your way through the crowds. Everyone watches as the clock is stopped for the last time. This was the end.

“I guess I should take you out on a date now,” JoJo smiled at you and pulled you into a deep kiss.

“I’d love that, de la Guerra.”

[fanfictionconnectionwordpress]

Mystic Messenger Fanfiction | VanderwoodxOC Cerise - Tagged | Ch. 18 Proposed Cooking Lessons

***My apologies for last week's lack of post. My puppy was diagnosed with a dreadful disease which we are lucky he survived followed by myself getting a terrible cold. I hope this week's sweet fluffy chapter will help. There is a deleted scene chapter before this available to my patrons. It’s called ‘Preparations Apart,’ and is all about Vandy gettin that ring and there are shower selfies involved. ~Let’s Connect! FFC***

*Remember, this is a sequel to Vanderwood Backstory, and Cerise has a bio. You can support my writing on patreon and get access to my VIP Discord Server or other goodies like early chapter releases and hidden scenes.  Tagged Chapter Directory*

They had spent the last day apart, and boy did he feel it when he woke up. Vanderwood pulled away from the mass of pillows that he’d cuddled into because they smelled like her, grumbling softly as he hadn’t slept nearly as well without her. He’d gotten her ring yesterday, that and hurt himself again by exercising after their exchanged after-shower selfies had caused him a pants tightness problem. Jesus…by now she’d probably also gotten her pills, too, not that that would do him any good. Yet. Bloody Hell, what kind of a man was he that that was what he was focused on?

He sent her a good morning text, assuming she would still be sleeping. It took him a while to get up and make breakfast, opting for toast again and some juice to wash down pain pills. He felt exactly like he had yesterday now, so he really had set himself back a day. At least it wasn't horrendously painful. Vanderwood didn't have much time left before he was going to be asking the love of his life to marry him. It was all so fast, but he knew she was the one for him, and he knew that she felt the same way, even though he was still anxious and nervous. He snorted at himself, only because he’d gone from, ‘I’m going to ask her someday’ to, ‘Now.’

Vanderwood kept practicing the words, hoping they would come out right. As much as he had practiced, 'Will you go out with me,' he had found that, 'Will you marry me' sounded incredibly different. At least it had been good practice in learning more words? Vanderwood showered and got dressed, opting for his v-neck shirt and black shirt over the top rather than a t-shirt. He should look at least a little nice, right? They were going to stay together tonight, so he packed up a little bag and grabbed the ring box, placing it in his pocket with a deep sigh, trying to release all the nerves that were building in his gut. It was nearly time. Vanderwood sat on the edge of his bed as he watched the minutes tick by, sending her another text. `I'll see you soon, shortcake. I miss you.`

***

Cerise was woken up by the sound of her phone going off. Groggily, she unlocked it to check her messages. It had been from her boyfriend...He was going to come over soon. Cerise stretched and hopped out of bed, scattering a few pillows about as she did so. She padded over to her bathroom and discovered that she somehow looked like an absolute mess. Her hair was all over the place. "...Did I fight a fricken leopard in my sleep?" She mumbled to herself as she tried to tame her messy locks with a brush. When she was satisfied, she clipped off a section of her fringe to keep it out of her eyes and set off to find something to wear.

She opted for a pair of shorts instead of a skirt and a tank top with tennis shoes. Cerise threw a cute jacket over the top and didn't skip the stocking, because it was still winter, after all. Finally, she brushed her teeth and put on lotion before plopping down on her couch in the living room and turning on the television. Now she pulled out her phone to reply, a smile on her face. `Miss u 2. I'll b waiting <3`

***

His phone pinged, and by now he was tired of waiting around. Surely, she wouldn't mind if he came a little early? The anxiety was eating at him, and he felt like he needed to ask her now. Hell, he probably wouldn't make it through the front door at this rate. Vanderwood sent her a quick text before grabbing his things and tossing them in the car. `Can't wait. Coming over now.` The drive seemed even longer than before. It wasn't really that long, maybe 20 minutes, but eternity stretched out before him before he had finally parked and was at her door, taking a deep breath as he knocked, hand finding the little box in his pocket. This was happening, and it was happening right now.

***

Her phone pinged and buzzed again, causing her to grin. It was cute that he couldn't wait to see her; she felt the same way. Cerise was eager to see him again after spending a night apart. Judging by how her hair had been that morning, she’d probably tossed and turned all night. She decided not to text him back, since he was driving, and she didn't want him to be tempted to check his phone while on the road...Not that he would. He was so much smarter than that.

She didn't know how much time it had been before she heard a knock at her door, causing her to jump up and all but run to it. Cerise flung it open and threw her arms around him, forgetting that he was sore. "Oops!" She let go and laughed sheepishly, "I kinda forgot...I just missed you." Cerise tried for a hug again except a lot gentler that time. She just felt like she was brimming with so much affection and excitement just by him being there; she felt like she could burst.

Vanderwood grunted at the pain of her embrace, but it was swiftly followed with one much gentler. He wrapped an arm around her as he kept his other hand in his pocket. "I missed you, too...Cerise....I have to tell you something." He stepped away from her just a little, his hand finding her chin and holding it, so he could keep his chestnut brown eyes locked with her honey gold. Cerise was about to complain that it was really cold out there and that they should probably head inside if he wanted to tell her something, but the look in his eyes were so intense and captivating she couldn't find the words. All she could do was stare up at him, the cold making her breath visible in the air.

"I can't remember being so happy as I am with you. You've given me everything, and I can't help but want to do the same. You're ma moitié, my everything, the only woman I'll ever need." The words were coming so easily, flowing perfectly even as blush rose in his cheeks. "I need to ask you something...something really important." Here it came, he'd practiced over and over and now was the moment of truth.

The words that came out of his mouth made her blush, he was being so sweet this early. Did he really miss her that much? She nodded when he said he needed to ask her something important, but she got worried for a moment when he suddenly dropped to one knee and visibly winced. Marion was in that much pain? He should have stayed in bed. Cerise was about to interrupt him and tell him that he was in pain and needed to come inside to rest, that they could talk later, but his next question threw her off.

"Iras-tu sortir avec moi...No....wait..." No, no no, that wasn't right. A look of confusion washed over her face. He...was asking her to go out with him. For the third time now. Was this some weird British thing? Vanderwood bit his tongue as he tried to remember. He had royally screwed this up, beautiful. Think, you dunderhead. "Veux-tu m'épouser....Yes...veux-tu m'épouser?" God, he couldn't blame her if she said no and made him ask again later, because that really sucked. Vanderwood felt stupid on many levels, but he produced the little ring box anyway.

Before she could try to interrupt again, once she broke out of her confused daze, he had asked his apparently corrected question. Did he realize what he was asking her? Apparently, he did, because he also produced a ring box. So here he was, proposing to her in her apartment doorway. Tears began to brim in her eyes as she dropped down with him and threw her arms around him, hugging tightly and forgetting again about his soreness. This wasn't something that she had expected this early in their relationship or...at all, really. She would have been happy just being by his side. "Of course...yes. Yes, I'll marry you." It didn't matter to her that they'd only even known each other for a short while, Cerise already knew that she and him were meant to be together. Why prolong the inevitable?

He saw the tears first and when her arms wrapped around him just a little too tightly, he knew. Vanderwood knew she was saying yes before the words left her mouth. Even though he was a cheesy, rather blunt, damaged idiot, she still wanted to marry him. Vanderwood wrapped her up tighter in his arms, despite how much it was hurting his back and leg to sit there like this. Cerise was going to marry him, and he couldn't be happier. He shifted just a little to open the ring box for her and take out the ring to place it on her finger. "This was my errand yesterday...I'm so happy you liked it..." And he was, probably happier than he'd ever been.

He kissed her ring softly before nuzzling her nose, his hands on her cheeks, wiping away a few stray tears. "Je'taime, Cerise...You've made me the happiest man in the world already." Vanderwood really hadn't made it past her doorway after all. The relief and joy washed through him now; the joy he could see in her eyes, that was worth making a fool of himself on her doorstep, even though his leg was starting to cramp up.

So, that had been his errand...he did say that he thought she'd like it. Cerise absolutely loved it. The ring he had picked out was simple but completely beautiful. He really knew how to pick something out to compliment her. As much as she annoyed him and wasn't good at much of anything, this man had asked her to marry him. Her, out of all the people in the world. "I love you too, Marion." Cerise sniffled a bit before standing up, holding onto his hands to motion for him to follow. It was really cold outside, and she didn't want him to get sick on top of all the pain he was in.

Vanderwood tried not to wince too much as she pulled him along into the house. He really had cramped up, but with how happy she was, it was so incredibly worth it. Once they were inside and the door was closed, she was embracing him again; she didn't want to let go. Cerise was still trying to wrap her head around the fact that the man currently standing in front of her was going to be her husband and was now officially her fiancé. There was such an intense feeling of joy that she had never experienced before now, and she wanted to remember it for the rest of her life.

If Cerise had been taller, she would have just kissed him, but she wasn't going to ruin the moment by hopping around like some deranged bunny just to reach him. "Thank you...for choosing to stay with me. And for putting up with me." She nuzzled her face into his shirt, still holding him. "You make me happy~ I don't think there's even an emoji that can express what I'm feeling right now. "

His heart wouldn't stop fluttering, all thanks to her. "Cerise..." She just kept holding him, and he didn't want to stop holding her, although he did want to kiss her. Could he manage the pain to do that? Cerise was his fiancée now. It almost seemed surreal, but there it was. This woman, who for all intents and purposes should have run away from him, should have turned him away the moment they met, had agreed to become his wife.

Her comments had him smiling and pulling her closer. "I would choose you over anyone. And I'll ‘put up’ with you for the rest of my life." He gently stroked her hair, his heart warming further. Of course, she would want to use emojis to describe it. There was no resisting it now. To Cerise’s absolute delight, it seemed he was going to kiss her.

Vanderwood pulled away from her solely so his hand could cup the side of her face as he kissed her, deep and slow. He poured his love for her into that kiss, wanting her to feel just how much it meant to him that she cared for him, that she wanted to take care of him at all, the joy that she brought to his formerly bleak world. His Cerise, immature and irritating, but wonderful, strong, caring, open-minded; Vanderwood couldn't come up with enough praises, because nothing would ever be enough. His body was reacting to her now even past all of the excitement, so he pulled away, blush hot in his cheeks.

Just from that one kiss--their first as an engaged couple, he told her wordlessly how much she meant to him and how much he loved her. Cerise loved these intense moments where words weren't needed. She poured her own heart into her kiss, getting lost in the flood of their shared affection. It felt like he’d pulled away far too soon for her liking, but she could understand why...She was starting to get worked up, so she could only imagine how he felt. The blush on her cheeks matched his as she took his hand and led him to the couch. "Sit here while I make some warm tea for my future hubby~" Just saying it made her heart leap.

He was thankful to be sitting down, and now he was blushing even harder at being called her future hubby with such a sweet voice. He was a little cold; he realized that now. The winter air had sunken into him but not been felt past his excitement. Vanderwood watched her as she made the tea, taking in her appearance. She was wearing shorts and a thin top with only her stockings and jacket to really provide any true warmth to her. He bit his tongue looking at her. His future wife didn't know how to dress for the weather apparently...but she sure dressed in a way he liked. Vanderwood internally slapped himself, sinking into the couch instead.

As she made her way to the kitchen, she examined the ring he’d gotten her. It was real. He had really asked her to marry him. That cheesy vanderjerk. The blush was still taking up residence on her face as she brewed a cup of tea. She added only a little ginger to some green tea with lemon and a small bit of honey. While she was at it, she made herself a cup, too, sans the ginger and with a lot more honey. When she was done, she carefully brought his cup to him with a smile. "Here~"

Her sing-song tones would be the death of him. "Thank you...future wife." Vanderwood reached for her, gently tapping her lips with his pointer finger. "I feel like I don't tell you enough just how beautiful you are." Attack of the cheesiness. She really was, though, and the outfit only made her look even better. He shifted to indicate he wanted her to snuggle up to him, not worrying about soreness, just wanting her close to him. After their night apart, he didn't want to be away from her at all.

Cerise felt like she was on cloud nine, and nothing could bring her down. Him calling her his future wife made her feel like she was falling in the best way. The color dominating her face was redder than her namesake. The word 'wife' felt like it couldn't apply to her quite yet--she was only twenty. People got married that young, right? How old was he, even? She figured he couldn't be that much older than her, even if he did act like such a stick in the mud sometimes. Cerise couldn't help but giggle a little. He was being so very cheesy today...Though he had every right to be, especially if he was as elated as she was.

"Oh~?" Cerise took him up on his offer, snuggling up to him closely. "If you think I'm so beautiful, maybe we should start going out or something." She teased him and carefully reached over him to where she’d put her own cup of tea on the side table. Vanderwood wrapped an arm around her as she snuggled into him. Her tease had him coughing softly in embarrassment. "Yeah, I think I really would like to go out with you."  He was about to say something to her about how much he liked her outfit, his hand at her hip so he could reach out and touch the soft fabric of her top. Vanderwood started absentmindedly playing with it, but then she completely broke his train of thought. "You know what, though?" Cerise took a sip of her tea and looked up at him, grinning. "I still think you look better in a skirt than I do~"

Fucking Seven. "I..." Vanderwood felt his eyebrow twitch just a little in irritation at the redhead. Someday, somehow, he would get that little shit back for showing that picture of him in a maid’s outfit by embarrassing the kid. If that were even possible. "I have to disagree with you." He bit his tongue before having some of the tea she'd made for him. There was a bit of ginger in it, but it wasn't nasty like the last time, and he would have been grateful for it even if it was. "Did you want to help me with lunch after we finish our tea, fiancée?" It felt ridiculously silly to keep repeating that she was in fact going to be his future wife, but it also gave him that warm fuzzy feeling he was coming to enjoy so much.

"Oh, but I think you're mistaken, dear Marion~" Cerise was definitely going to have to ask the red-headed man for any copies of that picture that he might have. She was sure that Vanderwood would protest as soon as he found out, but she'd find some way to convince him to let her keep it. He had repeated the word again; he was definitely as excited and giddy as she currently was. "I would love to help you, but I can't believe I get to have such an attractive teacher. Good thing I'm the only student, huh?" She took another sip of her tea. "Can't have the others getting all jealous that I'm marrying the teacher." Cerise glanced at her ring again, unable to get over how pretty it was or how well it had fit on her finger. How did he even know her size? She didn't even know her size.

Vanderwood snorted softly. "I'm more worried about me getting jealous if someone else were teaching you." That was most certainly true. It was a new thing for him, but he was definitely more jealous than the average person, and he had a feeling that his jealousy could be lethal in the right situation. Cereise nodded, talking into her cup of tea. "Would suck to be that person, huh?" She had already seen small glimpses of his jealousy, and there was no doubt he'd be quite a force under the right (or wrong) circumstances.

His eyes fell to her ring. It suited her so perfectly, and that just made him smile all the more, not only because she seemed to love it, but also because he felt damn proud of himself for picking something that matched her so well. "Does the ring fit okay? I made an educated guess." His fingers had continued absentmindedly playing with her shirt as he drank his tea, by chance slipping just under the fabric to brush against her scar.

"It fits perfectly, actually. I was surprised, it was a really lucky guess." They both sat there in silence for a little while just drinking their tea and enjoying each other's company after their time apart. While cuddled up to him, she could hear him breathe...it was such a comforting sound along with his steady heartbeat. She felt his fingers brush over her scar once more. Did he feel guilty?

Cerise tried not to think about that day, the words he had said. He didn't mean them, yet they still came out of his mouth. She shook her head and pushed those thoughts away. Of course, he didn't mean them, it probably hurt him to say them as much as it hurt her to hear them. Marion wouldn't have asked her to spend the rest of her life with him if he didn't want her around, if he didn't care for her--didn't love her.

Vanderwood had been tracing her scar for some time now, but then his fingers slipped down over the much smoother skin of her hip. He moved his hand, placing it up on the couch. Even just that one small touch to her skin had made him react to her. It had been too long and too stressful since the last time he'd had sex, clearly. He bit his tongue before taking a big swallow of tea, trying to hide just how red his face was.

When his hand moved from her scar to her hip, she began to automatically respond with a blush. Just as quickly as he had done it, he’d pulled his hand away. She looked up at him with a questioning expression, finding his face was totally red. Cerise was happy that he was doing so well, that he had so much better impulse control now. If he hadn't been so sore, she might have tried at teasing him just a little. Instead, she opted to just let him have his moment, pretending she hadn't noticed how flustered he was...which in turn made her more flustered.

He placed his tea to the side. Why was it that he already wanted to put his hand on her again, wanted the contact? Addiction based or just because he loved her? Really, he was doing much better than he thought he would ever be able to at controlling himself, although he still worried. She deserved the best of this world, and he only hoped he could make that happen...only hoped he would be able to keep her from getting hurt in his presence any further than the times she already had.

Just a day before after her brush with painkillers he'd said...some things. In the moment he'd meant them, and it was a fear for him that he would ruin her life, but...Vanderwood looked down at her. He would keep that from happening, and she was willing to risk everything to be with him, just like he was to be with her. She had that right just as much as he did.

Cerise kept her head down and focused on her tea. The silence was starting to be a little uncomfortable for her.  "Marion...I never really asked you. How old are you? I guess it's kinda silly asking that now considering..." Cerise found the hand that he rested on the couch and began to play with his fingers. "I'm twenty...but I'm sure you already know that. Being a super-secret agent and all.”

Her question pulled him out of his thoughts. "Oh...well..." That's right, he'd never told her. "Yeah...I've known since the day after I brought you to the first hotel. Seven sent me a file...but I could only read the first sentence. Didn't feel right to read the rest." She probably had some idea of how old he was already, so it wouldn't be a huge shock right? "I'm 28. I'll be 29 soon."

Okay, so he was eight years older than her, that wasn't bad. At the mention of the word 'soon' her eyes lit up. "Soon? When is your birthday?" Cerise loved celebrating things. Holidays and birthdays made her so excited, but the birthday of her fiancé? Sign her right the Hell up! She was totally going to learn how to cook by then, so she could surprise him with something she made that wasn't terrible and burned. By now, she was pretty much hovering right next to his face, eyes sparkling with excitement.

Holy shit, why was she so excited? He leaned away just a little, furrowing his brows at her. It was just a birthday. Hell, he'd never even done anything for his birthday. "It's...December 23rd. Just about a month from now...but I'd rather not dwell on it." Vanderwood couldn't even remember people saying happy birthday to him. No wait, he could. Caleb. Caleb was the only one who remembered. Vanderwood wrapped his arms around Cerise, pulling her into his lap tightly and burying his face in her hair. His heart had felt like it was being suddenly crushed, her presence in his arms easing it somewhat.

She didn't even have a chance to ask him why he seemed so upset before he was pulling her into his lap. The atmosphere felt sort of…gloomy all the sudden...Had something happened on his birthday? Did he just not like celebrating it? If it was bad memories he had...she wanted to do her best to replace them with good ones. He was twenty-eight...and probably hadn't celebrated his birthday in a while. Cerise had a lot of work to do if she wanted him to look back fondly on it, but now she figured they had their entire lives ahead of them to make that happen. He had buried his face into her hair, probably not wanting to talk right now, so she just nuzzled into him, letting him enjoy the silence as he held her there.

The silence and just her warmth, it was comforting. It was exactly what he needed. After a few minutes, he felt like he could talk again. "I'm sorry..." He mumbled into her hair before he released her slowly. "That was a little sudden...Just...unpleasant thoughts." Vanderwood gave her an apologetic smile and a soft kiss to her forehead. "You do whatever you want for my birthday...but I can't promise you I'll be in a good mood."

Cerise shook her head and gave him an understanding smile. "Don’t worry, you know? We're gonna make happy memories." God help him if she forgot. Vanderwood internally winced at the idea, but Cerise wouldn't forget...judging from how excited she had been...she wouldn't forget. His hand found the side of her face, cupping her cheek as he had a tendency to do before he gave her a kiss, nice and slow, pulling away to kiss her nose. "Now...is my beautiful fiancée ready for her first lesson? I'm a little hungry."

He didn't really feel like talking about it right now, as much as he had promised her his honesty...it could wait. Those childhood memories were more painful than the stories of his scars and were overshadowed by Caleb's death in ways that made him feel like he couldn't breathe past the pain in his chest. It was strange; usually he'd never think about those memories, they were just locked up behind a wall of pain, but this memory, as painful as it was, it also felt good. His brother had loved him. Vanderwood bit his tongue to keep from turning into a mess again.

She didn't think even in a million years she would get tired of his kisses. Each one never felt like the last, but all of them were enough to always take her breath away. "I'm so ready." She hopped up off the couch and towards her kitchen at an incredible speed. Not only was she really hungry, but she was really eager to learn from him. Cerise turned around and motioned for him to follow. "Come on, slow poke! At this rate we'll be celebrating my birthday before you get your butt over here."

"Alright, I'm coming." He snorted softly at her enthusiasm, that and her birthday was almost a full year away, and he couldn't possibly be that slow, even injured. Vanderwood couldn't help but smile like an idiot as he looked at her, thinking about just how much she meant to him. "Let me go get the groceries. Wash your hands while I'm gone...And maybe find me a hair-tie?" Cerise teasingly saluted him and found him the hair-tie he had asked for before washing her hands. They were going to be cooking, so she made sure to wash them extra well.

He had left the groceries in the car in his excitement to propose, so now he went to get them before entering her house again and placing them on an open space of counter. "Alright...so we're making omelets with some vegetables, not too difficult and pretty healthy." Cerise was drying off her hands when he reappeared back in the house with the groceries, nodding as he spoke. Omelets sounded pretty easy, and vegetables weren't that scary either. She could totally impress him with how quickly she could pick this up. Eggs and vegetables were nothing. "That sounds delicious! I can't wait~" Cerise handed him his hair-tie. "So, what's first, Teach'?"

"I'm probably going to start by teaching you how to wash and cut the vegetables while I whisk up and cook the eggs." Vanderwood chuckled at her enthusiasm. Cerise was a marvel to him sometimes. He put his hair up before looking her over. She had a Hell of a lot more hair than he did. Considering the mess she'd made the last time she cooked, it was probably better for her to have her hair up, too. "But...I think you should put your hair up first, too."

He was not risking her lighting that on fire. Vanderwood loved her hair, more than he really cared to admit. "Oh, my hair too?" Cerise nodded and disappeared out of the kitchen and into her bedroom before returning with a thicker hair scrunchie and handing it to him. "You do it~" She didn't give him a chance to answer before she turned around, shaking her hair out with her hands for a moment.

A light blush appeared on his face. He loved messing with her hair, really, so putting it up, as dumb as it sounded, it was a little on the intimate side, at least for him. "Alright then." Such a simple task shouldn't really make your chest feel warm and fuzzy should it? Vanderwood took the hair scrunchie and put it on his wrist as he gathered her hair up carefully before sliding the scrunchie from his wrist to around her hair, making sure to get it tight enough that it would stay but not so it would hurt her head.

He gave her a quick kiss to the top of her head then moved to grab some carrots and broccoli from his grocery bag, handing them to her. "Alright...so, first we get them out of the bags. Then we wash them off. The carrots will need peeling, but the broccoli just needs a good wash." Vanderwood washed his hands quickly, leaving the water running to wash the veggies. "So...let's wash the broccoli first, since that doesn't need peeling."

Cerise bounced in place excitedly as he talked before taking the broccoli from him. “You got it~” Easy stuff; she was practically a broccoli-washing pro! Cerise hummed excitedly to herself before turning the broccoli over. He watched her, shaking his head a little. Lord, she was in adorable form. At least he could trust her to wash broccoli, right? That wasn't so hard.

Vanderwood had gone to open the bag of carrots, so they could wash those as soon as she got the broccoli cut up, and then his thoughts were violently interrupted when he was splashed with water. She had managed to somehow make the stalk fling water at the both of them, getting in her eyes. "Sorry!" Cerise apologized and rubbed her eyes. She didn't know broccoli could be so...rubber-bandy and flingy. He looked over at her to see that, yup, somehow she had managed to mess up washing, but at least the broccoli was clean? He carefully took the broccoli from her and placed it on a cutting board, trying not to be bothered by the fact that there was a wet spot on his back. "That's alright." She really was rather clumsy.

Did he trust her with a knife? Vanderwood cut the stalk of the broccoli off himself before motioning for her to stand in front of him, demonstrating cutting the broccoli apart from the little cluster. He hadn't expected her proximity to be a problem for him, but she was so close, and he needed to get away before problems arose, so to speak. Vanderwood did just that, shifting away from her directly after showing her how to cut the pieces apart. "So...just cut them away from the bigger portion while I wash the carrots." She could get that, right?

"Yessir!" She answered with another salute, trying to ignore how close he had been to her. Cerise had cut things before. That shouldn't be hard...At least she couldn't get splashed. Except with blood once you manage to cut your finger off. Cerise froze. Whoa, what a terrible thought. She shook her head; she wouldn't be cutting any appendages off today. Carefully, she did as he’d instructed and managed to successfully cut the florets away from the stalks without much of an issue. How in the world could she do that but not wash the goddamn thing correctly?

Vanderwood had started on washing the carrots, snorting at her salute. Thankfully, cooking was a good mind clearer, but he kept glancing at her to make sure she wasn't cutting herself. Her voice got his attention. "I think I did this right." As he looked over, his eyes widened. "Yeah, you did great. And no blood." That was supposed to be an internal thought, but now it was out. "Um...I wasn't expecting any." He resisted the urge to rub the back of his neck, because then he'd just have to wash his hands again. "So...um...put that in a pot, and let's wash and peel some carrots."

Cerise couldn’t help but feel a little flush in her cheeks as he, apparently accidentally, pointed out the obvious. "It's okay...I'm actually surprised too." She confessed with a nervous laugh. That probably wasn't reassuring at all, but there it was. Cerise deposited the broccoli into the designated pot. "Okay...carrots." He seemed to be busy with washing them...which was fair considering how she had treated the broccoli, so she could just start on the peeling.

She grabbed the peeler and a carrot. He hadn't really shown her how to do it, but it couldn't be any harder than chopping broccoli. Vanderwood was surprised to see her grabbing the peeler already, apparently wanting him to wash the carrots while she peeled. Did she need to be shown how? Probably not…Holding the carrot, Cerise applied pressure with the peeler and peeled the top skin off. Well...it was more like half the carrot...which as she applied pressure to get the chunk of carrot off, suddenly shot across the room. Cerise just stared blankly and she watched the orange torpedo hit the wall and then the floor. Why? Why was she so bad at this?

He had been watching what she was doing, a little confused by how she was choosing to hold the carrot, but he wasn’t expecting the orange missile situation. Vanderwood just kind of stared at the carrot on the floor for a minute. "Um...let me help you with that." He tossed the carrot, grabbing another, a little wary as he took her hands from behind her again. His head bent to lightly press a kiss to the spot just behind her ear, an easy task with her hair up, before he bit his tongue and returned to the task at hand.

No time for nonsense...Vanderwood took the carrot and placed it in her hand, showing her how to properly hold the damn thing, because apparently that was too difficult for her clumsiness, God, she was cute...and slightly terrifying. Cerise cooking could probably be weaponized. Vanderwood had to suppress a snort as well as control the little side of fear that gripped at him as he envisioned her shooting carrots at someone. He shook his head before he helped her peel a few lines off the carrot. "It can peel both ways, but I think you should peel in the direction away from your body...To be safe." His concern for her safety was outweighing his concern for how close he was pressed to her like this.

For a moment, he seemed to be thinking, maybe in more reverent silence over what had happened to that poor carrot. Cerise was still having her own little moment of silence over that, quite frankly. It was becoming apparent to even herself just how bad at this she was. His comment about peeling away from herself for her own safety made her scrunch up her nose for a second before her face relaxed. "You know...that's fair." She peeled the carrot like he had shown her away from herself, and once she had started, she found it rather easy, as long as she held it correctly.

He stepped away to start on the eggs, but Vanderwood had found himself mostly watching her rather than dealing with the eggs out of worry. After the first carrot, it looked like she was doing okay. She managed not to maim any more defenseless carrots and successfully peeled the rest he had washed as he cracked the eggs into a pot for stirring together.

Cerise figured that cutting them was next as she finished, placing the peeler aside along with the final carrot. "Done with this part~" She sang out and went to go and grab her knife. Unfortunately, she had completely forgotten that she might not have peeled them over the trash can, causing her to slip on the orangey peels. The kitchen was not her friend. Cooking was not her friend. The Gods above obviously hated her.

He had snorted softly at her sing-song tone, having moved to place the eggs on the counter, and then he noticed her slipping. Vanderwood's heart was in his throat as he reached out and grabbed her hand, pulling her into his arms successfully before she could hit the ground. Cerise had closed her eyes in preparation of hitting the floor, but it never came. She opened one eye to see that he had grabbed her before she could. It was a good thing she hadn't managed to grab for the knife; that would have been a disaster. Vanderwood was about ready to curl up in a ball in the corner. The mess too…the carrot peels on the floor he hadn’t noticed out of concern for making sure she didn’t launch the carrots about the room.

Obviously, she simply wasn't meant to cook. It was fate, clearly. Life had prepared him to be the housewife for her, because his future wife sure as Hell wasn't one. He realized he was holding her rather tightly and let go slowly. "Are you alright?" When he finally let go, Cerise looked down to see what it was that made her slip. Yep. That figured. She knew she should have peeled the orange traitors over the trash can. Cerise looked back at him and blinked. "Yeah, I'm fine..."

Despite her saying so, he still felt the need to check her over, apparently. His hands went to her shoulders, moving down her arms and then to her waist and over her legs as he searched for any sign of injury, his face slowly turning redder. It was sweet how much he worried over her, even for super simple things. God, she was so clumsy...Maybe cooking would never be her thing. In theory, it seemed so simple, but she just was not able to pick it up. Maybe in time...who knew?

When he was done checking her over, she noticed that his face was at a new level of red. The touches were innocent, and she thought nothing of them, but the way his face was flushing only made hers match it, and she couldn't help but to look down at her feet, letting her hair obscure her face again. Marion moved to press a soft kiss to her forehead, which didn’t make it easier. "I think you've learned enough for one day, shortcake...Please go sit down before I have a heart attack..."

Cerise wanted to argue with him, tell him that she wanted to stay in the kitchen and learn more, but he did have a point. If she stayed in there today, she was either going to kill herself or kill him in some ridiculous freak kitchen accident. She didn't even blame him for shooing her away. Cerise stalked over to the couch and plopped down with a bounce, turning her head so she could watch him in the kitchen. It made her feel bad that she sucked at cooking so much that he basically had to do everything. Maybe she was just good at other things and hadn't realized it? Cerise let out a sigh and pulled her phone out, stopping to glance at her ring. If she was going to be someone's wife...his wife--shouldn't she be better at these things? Some woman she was...but she didn't think he was the type of person at all to ask her unless he was absolutely sure that she was what he wanted. She had time to learn things.

A smile played on her face as she opened the camera and took a selfie of herself with her ring in view, making sure to angle it to where Vanderwood could be seen cooking in the background. Cerise had her doubts about being a good wife, but she wasn't going to let that dampen her excitement. She figured she must have added like fifty tags to that photo and surprisingly opted not to put stickers all over it. It was a great picture how it was and didn't need any decorations--Cerise's ring was decoration enough.

As expected, as soon as she uploaded the picture, her phone began to blow up with messages and notifications. She couldn't help but giggle and read through the well wishes and congratulations. There were a few salty people, but she tended to ignore them. They were going to have a beautiful relationship, haters or no.

Vanderwood really wasn't sure he could take more kitchen mishaps, focusing on taking care of the mess that was making his skin crawl before he could start cooking again. Occasionally, he peeked at her from his periphery. It looked like she was on her social media. A little smile crossed his face. How had he, a guy who had tried all his adult life to avoid having any online presence whatsoever, fallen in love with a woman who was virtually famous?

It struck him as incredibly ironic. On top of that, it was a bit dangerous, but...Cerise was the love of his life, and he wasn't about to let any more danger come to her. It might show up at the doorstep, but he would take care of it. Vanderwood let the veggies cook while he worked on the omelets, adding a little cheese, which hopefully she liked. "Lunch is almost ready." He looked at her there on the couch. That woman, that perfect little obstinate woman, was going to be his wife.

Cerise perked her head up at his announcement. No doubt if she had stayed in there, it would have taken ten times as long. This incredibly domestic setting made her feel warm and fuzzy inside. There were no issues to worry about, no secret threats to speak of. Cerise hopped back up off of the couch and made her way back to the kitchen, coming up behind him to wrap her arms around his torso as he’d turned around. It could have waited, sure, but she just really felt she needed to hug him right then.

Vanderwood was portioning the veggies onto the plates with the omelets when she wrapped her arms around him from behind. He hadn't been expecting that at all, but his heart flipped in his chest, and his hands found hers as he hung his head and closed his eyes. It was such a simple little thing, just a hug, but he felt so happy, a moment of peace and quiet with his soulmate. His finger stroked lightly over her ring, the ring that said she was his wife to be. She felt him relax into her arms and they were able to share a quiet little moment. It was nice to just be near him, especially when they had recently spent so much time apart. Cerise decided she hated being apart from him and hoped that there was never another situation that he had to be away for so long, because his absence was definitely noticed.

How long did they stand there like that? It felt never ending, and maybe that's just what it was like to be truly happy. Vanderwood gently moved her hands away to grab her plate and turn to hand it to her. "I love you, shortcake...I'm so glad you said yes." He felt blush in his cheeks again, but that was just how today was going to be, it seemed. It was the best day of his life so far. "I love you, too." A light blush dusted her cheeks. Marion sounded so soft and sincere, and it made her heart flutter. "I'm glad you asked me. " Cerise shot him a smile before she was headed back to the couch with her omelet, waiting to start on it until he joined her. Not only had she gotten the cooking lesson she was promised today, but she’d gotten a proposal for something much better.

Like this? Want more? Become a Patron ~Let’s Connect! FFC

Tagged Chapter Directory

[autumn-in-phandom]

Dan and Phil play Dream Daddy

MEET DILDDY LESTOWELL

I loved this video! I was dying of laughter in the first fifteen minutes and just had to make timestamps. Very very long under the cut.

0:00 Phil is wearing his rainbow zebra shirt! Being his best self.

0:03 Wow was that second “daddies” necessary Phil? (Yes, it was.)

0:42 “Cause you know Dan and Phil they like to have the raw naked-”- Dan

0:45 “Immersion”- Phil

0:46 “They just like to go in-”- Dan

0:47 “Are you saying we’re going to have to be blurring some things-”- Phil

0:48 “Bare. What?”- Dan (what?)

0:58 “Give me that Daddiest graphics.”- Phil

1:00 “Oh it’s like Yuri on Ice.”- Dan

1:10 Phil will be a long haired vampire in ten years. Yes, something to look forward to.

1:25 “Phil, don’t do your chin like that, you’re fine.”- Dan (damn fine)

2:07 “Is that your best dad voice?”- Dan

2:14 “Do you wanna be Dad?”- Phil (sass)

2:15 “Phil, everyone wants you to be Dad.”- Dan (the honest truth)

2:34 “Moving house? Oh my god!”- Dan (omg!)

2:45 “Coordinating the headband with the nails.”- Dan (noticing the important stuff)

2:46 “Definitely.”- Phil

2:53 Phil’s yawn, wtf was that? Sounds like a dog.

2:55 “Are you American now?”- Dan

2:56 “I don’t knowww.”- Phil (poor frustrated Phil)

3:03 “Build that Dad!”- in sync

3:30 “Dilddy! No?”- Phil (Dan’s face)

3:36 “Yeah sure. Let’s not think about that anymore Phil.”- Dan

4:04 “Thor. We just made Thor by accident.”- Phil (always with the Thor)

4:07 “Ah the bun hair.”- Dan

4:08 “Man bun.”- Phil

4:09 “That’s very like modern dad aesthetic.”- Dan

4:12 “That’s quite Dil-y”- Phil

4:13 “That’s the most Dil-esque, I think.”- Dan

4:19 “Heart eyes.”- Phil

4:20 “SENPAI!!!”- Dan

4:30 “Can you just have heart eyes the entire game?”- Dan (are you asking for permission Dan?)

4:31 “The whole time.”- Phil

4:32 “Is that just going to ruin the game?”- Phil (no.)

4:33 “Would that be slightly distracting?”- Dan (well, yes.)

4:58 “Noman Rose.”- Phil (has a bit of a Roman nose)

5:10 They love the lips, sassy mouths

5:39 “He banged it on some kind of exercise equipment.”- Phil

5:40 “Wrestling another dad for territory.”- Dan (sure)

5:45 “Yes!”- Phil is excited by facial hair options (and I’m excited for him)

5:50 “More people should have black hair and blonde beards.”- justifying your ginger eyebrows Phil?

5:51 Dan has to think a second before agreeing

5:55 Hunger Games aesthetic, okay.

6:00 “I asked you yesterday if you’d grow a full beard. If you wanted to. Like what’s your answer to that question?”- Phil (I’m going to cry.)

6:04 “What in like twenty years?”- Dan

6:05 “Yeah.”- Phil

6:05 “Yeah, sure. I’ll give it a crack.”- Dan

6:06 “Do you think you’ll ever have a full beard?”- Phil

6:09 “Ever?”- D

6:10 “Ever.”- P

6:10 “Yeah, maybe in like ten years when I finish going through puberty.”- Dan

6:13 “I kinda wanna try.”- Phil wants to try a beard, people! And it might be a different color than his fringe. I see.

6:15 “This is the best part!”- Phil on clothing

6:19 “Can’t you just like have nothing?”- Phil (for underroos apparently)

6:22 “Captain America! Yes!”- Phil (nice six pointed star)

6:25 “Egg nips. I mean totally, I can see that.”- Dan

6:31 Phil saying “Daddy Dil” kills me

6:35 “Cats! With a suit jacket.”- Phil (we have a winner)

6:43 I agree with Dan about that pattern, it reminds me of party centers, roller rinks and tour busses. Phil with the Saved by the Bell reference.

7:00 “Goals. As the kids would say.”- Dan

7:26 “Be that dad. The dad you always dreamed to be.”- Dan

7:28 “Now do we get to date some dads?”- Phil Lester asking the important questions.

7:58 Phil’s second child syndrome

8:13 “No mum’s must exist in this universe!”- Dan (okay Dan, interesting justification)

8:35 “I was just given a bin bag and some sticky stars to say I was a ‘wizard’. Yeah.”- Phil (dang that’s cheap, Lesters)

8:43 “Princess Dragon!”- in sync

8:45 Dan would watch a scaley fairytale movie

9:05 “I wish I had a horse phase.”- Dan (I’m glad I did)

9:09 “Or a Horse Prince phase.”- Phil (he’s not over it)

9:11 “Oh we all had that.”- Dan

9:20 “Why aren’t we going to McFridayz?”- Phil

9:50 Adoption +1

10:00 Kangaroo existential crisis

10:19 “Hit me.”- Dan

10:25 “He knows what to do.”- Dan (getting really into it)

10:30 “Yeah. Then what?”- squeaky over dramatic Dan

10:35 “And then he ran away with a kangaroo.”- Phil (there are two types of people in this world)

10:44 “Just look him up on Facebook! Or did he die?”- Phil

11:02 “The old house!”- fake crying Dan

11:05 Hawaiian backstories, driving distraction

11:15 Hydration: “I can get behind this.”- Dan

11:22 Phil, waving your hands in the air where Dan sneezes is not going to keep the germs away. Maybe if you both actually covered.

11:33 Everyone does bicep curls in this Daddy themed universe

12:12 Dil Howlter house without the owl slide is no Dil Howlter house at all.

12:44 “Dogs!”- Phil

12:48 “CLICK!”- Dan

12:55 Dog to person ratio should be the highest thing on the agenda for any neighborhood

13:11 “Side quest!”- Dan

13:11 “Dog quest!”- Phil

13:12 “Dog time! I’m here for some cute drawn dogs.”- Dan

13:16 Woofing song to the tune of the Katamari theme!

13:27 “What is this idyllic pastel utopia that they’re living in right now? Honestly.”- Dan

13:30 “Where’s the diseased pigeons?”- Phil (London summarized by Phil)

13:47 “DOGS! (toddlers) NOT INTERESTED! (dogs) INTERESTED!”- Dan

13:52 Panting puppies D&P

14:05 “A corgi! Of all the dogs!”- Phil (this is the only reason Phil agreed to play this game)

14:14 “Delet this doggo.”- Dan

14:20 Second “Bork!”

14:26 “Oh god this is the cutest dog. Can we just do dog adoption simulator instead?”- Phil (I’m sure you could)

14:30 “Pet the dog!”- Phil

14:58 “Woah! Irish father of my children!”- Dan

15:13 Gruff and slightly offensive leprechaun

15:18 Puppy role play ;)

15:25 Phil saw the aubergines come out.

15:35 Phil apologizes for “Dilddy”

16:05 Dan loves the freckle representation.

16:22 “Oh my god it’s a Dad Child Proud Of Brag Off”- Dan (very Undertale)

17:33 “Bam. Amazing.”- Dan, “Slapped.”- Phil

19:55 “I’m torn though, cause he has a corgi.”- Phil

19:57 “He has a corgi, but-”- Dan

19:58 “Can we not just date him to hang out with the corgi?”- Phil

20:01 “Can we date him, adopt the corgi and then break up with him?”- Dan

20:04 “Yes!”- Phil (a good plan)

20:33 “I mean let’s just get our own corgi. Let’s adopt a corgi.”- Dan (a better plan)

21:07 Dan would read horse fan-fiction.

21:36 Chocolate coffee beans btw

22:11 “*Sigh* Why would people sit next to you, they always do that though don’t they?”- Dan

22:26 "Am I being helpful or am I cluttering up everyone’s life?“- Dan

22:44 "Oh my god!”- Dan

22:45 “Another Dad.”- Phil

22:46 “With the ta- the glasses, the hair, the piercing.”- Dan (tattoos)

22:49 “Good layering. On the outfit.”- Phil

22:51 “Definitely.”- Dan

23:00 Dan doesn’t like the “too cool” vibe.

23:13 Husky voice ;)

23:38 Dan would not be able to hold a conversation with this guy in real life. Probably because he sounds too much like himself.

23:48 Iced Tegan and Sara (yay!)

23:02 Phil got the pun!

24:49 Couches (Starbucks sofa)

24:50 “Okay Amanda, wow. Life isn’t all about listening to cool music. It’s about enjoying the music that you like.”- Dan

25:00 Good lumbar support is important. It’s comfier than their couch. *giggles*

25:48 “Okay I’m about this.”- Dan (feeding kink)

25:50 “He’s got food!”- Phil

25:53 “Yes. Tick that box.”- Phil

27:08 Phil likes Mat’s awkwardness

27:10 Dan is on the fence: “I don’t know how to feel. Runs a coffee shop, bit of a hipster, is socially awkward, gives you banana bread. I think it’s looking mostly good.”

27:27 “Ohhhh.”- in sync (using 'baby’ in flirting)

28:00 “Wow. Are we adults? Cause we just moved recently.”- Yes Dan, you are adults.

28:08 “Do I smell bad?”- Phil

28:09 “Noo.”- Dan with a quick sniff, barely leaning in, he clearly already knew the answer.

28:16 They agree that the dark and mysterious stranger is the most intriguing part of the story. Stupid look at camera.

28:30 Acknowledging that they still have boxes

28:42 Pink duck, succulents and XBox 360 “Nice”- Phil

28:56 “Get the hell out of my life!”- Dan

29:00 “He’s too perfect already.”- Phil

29:08 “Robot. Robot. Robot.”- Phil

29:36 “Guffaw.”- Dan

30:13 Yeah, just move again guys!

30:28 Phil feels bad for kangaroo jokes earlier.

31:11 Phil likes the do over, time flipping, reset thing.

31:33 Louise story mention.

32:18 “What is that wink?”- Dan

32:30 “All of these daddies are mixed bags.”- Dan desk slamming returns

32:40 “He’s a bloody angel. He’s an angel.”- Dan

32:42 “He’s got a dark secret.”- Phil

32:44 “But also angels are terrible. Stop feeling bad by comparing yourself to an angel.”- Dan

32:48 “Dark secret.”- Phil

33:07 “Plot twizzle.”- Dan

33:45 “They are definitely possessed. I told you, dark secret.”- Phil

34:05 “Christie, Christian and Chris. Wow.”- Dan

34:08 “Evil.”- Phil

34:09 “Definitely.”- Dan

34:28 Exorcist

34:34 “Time for the nappy ding dong.”- Dan

35:01 “Bro”- Dan  "Bro"- Phil

35:20 That look

35:22 “Old college roommate.”- Phil

35:23 “Just sayin.”- Dan

35:35 “River. Oh my god.”- Dan (good name)

35:42 Nice baby gurgling Dan

35:51 “Survived that hazing together.”- Dan

36:00 Phil enjoying the matching eyebrows

36:06 “Maybe they got that scar together, doing something, as roommates.”- Dan

36:30 “Copacabana.”- Dan

36:50 “Clearly we didn’t have the American college experience. We did the Smirnoff Slam.”- Dan

37:05 Jogging with baby imitation

37:12 “Wow. Dilddy is just every person probably on the internet and YouTube, in the community watching this.”- Dan

37:25 “Wow. So relatable.”- Dan (shush Dan, #relatable is your schtick)

37:30 “How is he so ripped if he never jogs though?”- Phil (umm you selected that body type and said he works out.)

37:37 “Bro brunch.”- Phil, “A bro brunch?!”- Dan

“Why do we never have bro brunches?”- Dan, “I don’t know”-Phil

“What the hell is a bro brunch?”- Dan, “I don’t know.”- Phil

37:52 “Jog on, Craig.”- Phil, “Jog on, Craig? Jesus.”- Dan

38:18 “I mean, there’s like, stuff in that, isn’t there.”- Yes Dan, they’re tomatoes.

41:01 “The blonde guy.”- Phil

41:10 Phil likes coffee shop guy. Gee I wonder why. Dan is unsure, too cool.

41:30 Dan likes the blonde: confidence, wants to make you happy, “that’s who Dilddy needs in his life, at this important time.” (Dear god Dan can you not?)

Phil still thinks he’s a robot with satanic children. Yep.

41:51 Gee Phil you don’t seem into it. (probably just tired, maybe headache)

42:08 “Thumb it”, tickle, etc.

42:45 “Get a dog.”- Dan

[duelingdestiny]

☠ ♥ ♦ ♢ ✮☄ ☯ ☀ ☁ ☂ ☢ ☣ ❀ ✧❥ ❦ ❧ ✖ ♒❣

☠ What does someone have to do for an instant unfollow from you?

Start public shit on my dash. I literally cannot handle it. I don’t want to be involved. I don’t want to see it. I’ve been a part of it before. I’ve screwed up and started it myself before, and at this time in my life I’m avoiding it like the plague.

 ♥What's the WORST thing that has happened to you rp wise?

Oh my god. Uhhhhh. Wow so okay the thing I actually regret rp wise is losing one of my favorite partners due to something really stupid that could have been handled WAY better on both sides but it’s really helped me to handle things better as a person. Still, I regret losing that person as an RP partner, and I probably always will. 

♦ What was a mildly annoying thing that has happened to you rp wise?

I mean the really big thing that messes with me is because of character bleed. When people just leave Atem. It really messes him up. Or when any relationship he’s in just ends. It’s like he has no closure and it messes with me to have to deal with his pining ass. 

♢ Has anyone ever tried to steal your blog? Your headcanons? Icons? All that jazz

In short Yes. I’ve been around possibly the longest at the point and I’ve seen a lot of my hcs migrate to other Yami/Atem blogs, but it doesn’t bother me. I’m flattered, besides most of them aren’t so far fetched that people couldn’t come up with them on their own. I will however flip shit over my icons Masaya90 made them for me as a commission and I will absolutely fight someone over them, but you know how I feel about stolen art anyways

✮ Have you managed to stay away from drama?

AHAHAHAHAHAHA. I’m sorry give me a moment. Honestly yes. Other than the drama I have caused for myself in the past? All and all I am very careful about who I interact with. I just don’t deal with it. I ignore the “discourse” and just do what I’m here to do. That’s all I can do. 

☄ Have you ever been in the middle of drama?

Yes. I have been in the middle. And I’ve handled being in the middle badly, and I’ve tried my best to rectify my mistakes which is all anyone can do. I’ve made amends to the people I feel like I needed to make amends to and as a general rule I just ignore drama altogether now. 

☯ Have you ever tried to bring peace to a situation?

I have. Sometimes I succeed, others I have failed miserably. I’ll tell you this. I will generally always try to bring peace to things. I don’t like being at odds with anyone. It’s too much work and I’m too lazy to hold a grudge. 

☀ What's your rp pet peeve?

Oh this is a tie, between people just putting Atem in a situation he would NEVER be in, in a starter (without discussing it with me prior) or people who don’t cut their posts and use mobile as an excuse. I am on mobile some times and I just make a new post and mention my rp partner in it so we don’t clog the dash. It’s not rocket surgery. 

☁ Have you ever forgiven a partner when you shouldn't have?

I don’t think so mainly because if two people can work through something I think they should. I used to not think that but I’ve learned a lot and some times people just fuck up you know? So no. I don’t think I’ve ever forgiven someone when I shouldn’t have because everyone deserves another chance. 

☂ Have you ever been forgiven when you knew you shouldn't have been?

Again, see post above

☢ What fads/trends are you so over?

CONTAINER BLOGS!!!!!!!!! Seriously, I have fucking unfollowed people for this shit. I understand that you want your blog to be pretty, but holy shit. Just font that’s a size 7 and I have to blow up the page like 9 times in order to read anything and most of them have the practically non existent scroll bar and AUTO PLAY fucking terrifies me. Like just please know every time I have to go on your blog and music starts out of no where you are giving me a HEART ATTACK. Just I know you think it looks pretty but before you decide on the things like that go on your blog and look at it. USE it. User friendly is a REALLY important thing guys. 

☣ Have you ever rp'd with someone you knew for a fact was abusive but tried to give them a chance/to make up your own opinion on the roleplayer? Did they change or did you understand what people were talking about?

Due to past personal experiences I like to make up my own mind about people. Honestly the best relationship came from that. Making up my own mind. A lot of really good friendships have come from that so yes, I always try to give people a chance no matter what I’ve heard, because what you hear is probably only half of the truth to being with. 

❀ What has made you completely lose your chill?

People being shitty to others on the dash publicly. And yes before anyone points a finger, I have been in on that once and it was an awful stupid idea. It doesn’t help anything. It literally doesn’t. Tearing someone up in public makes you look like a giant asshole. We have Inboxes and IM systems and a plethora of other social media so if you have an issue with someone you can talk to them like they are a person and explain your grievance and if it’s THAT big of a deal just unfollow them and block them if you need to, but there’s no reason to be Captain Asshole on the dash. No one really wants to see it and it makes everyone’s experience really uncomfortable so bottom line? Just don’t call people out publicly. 

✧ Do you agree with reblog karma or is it forced interaction?

I’m up in the air with this. I have WAY too many followers and it’s extremely frustrating to reblog a meme get 30 reblogs off said meme and get literally not one thing in my inbox from said meme. But I remind myself timezones, and maybe people don’t feel like that will work for our muses but here’s the really easy thing that you can do if that’s the case. REBLOG FROM THE SOURCE. Then people don’t get the hit that basically looks like “I don’t WANT to interact with you.” and it makes everyones lives a little better. But I REALLY support sending memes in. I have days where I will just make a post that is MEME HOUR which is if you post a meme as long as I think Atem would be down, I will send you in an ask for it. It’s really fun and it makes up for the times when I’m not on to spam peoples assboxes. 

❥ Has someone ever ruined an FC or character for you? 

Honestly someone has ruined every character for me at one time or another lol but FC I’ve got a good one. Now it wasn’t from RP but Gina Torres who is one of the prettiest people imho was RUINED for me by the show Angel. Because (SPOILER ALERT) She’s a giant pile of maggots okay? And she’s in some of my fave shows: Firely, Any Day Now, Suits. But I cannot unsee her face on Angel. She just shows up in shit and I scream. She popped up on Criminal Minds once and I just shut it off. She’s in Hannibal and I REALLY want to watch that. DAMMIT. 

❦ Has someone been jealous of you? 

Maybe, but I wouldn’t know why...I mean I’m just me. Oh! Maybe when I go to cons and meet awesome people? I’d be jealous of me then too. 

❧ Have you ever been jealous of anyone? 

Yes. There are people I get jealous of. People who get more interaction, people who are here all the time, people who are in a better time zone. So yeah, happens. 

✖ How has Tumblr RP changed since you started?

Like I said before, I think I have been here longer than most in this fandom at least the rp side and HOO BOY, things have changed a lot. Remember when we had to tag a post on the side? Remember when Missing E was the extension we all had? No? That’s because I’ve been here forever. Before this I was in the SPN fandom. So yeah. I feel like I’ve stuck around a lot longer than a lot of people. What kills me is that things have changed but not really improved? When are we going to be able to lock a post so people’s art can’t be stolen? When are we going to be able to delete a post and all clones of that post are deleted as well so someone who made a mistake 6 years ago and LEARNED from it doesn’t have to wake up with hate in their inbox every morning? 

♒ Thoughts on the fandom you're currently rping in?

I actually really love both the fandoms I’m in right now, though both have some issues. Voltron is fucking unhinged about some shit I won’t get into because no one really cares in this fandom but HOO BOY I’m glad we don’t have that here because we literally have the same thing going on here. HA! I just thought of that. But yeah age gaps man. Just fuck everything about it. Okay done ranting about this before I get my first hate mail

❣ How salty are you feeling right now?

Ask Sophie she’s had to listen to me rant for the last hour about everything on this list. I just screamed about the SPN fandom confusing reality with porn for 20 minutes and then the Josh Keaton thing with his kids so yeah, pretty fucking salty that people can’t just get the fuck along. 

[littleblondesoprano]

Dear *anyone*

Dear Meredith, 

Well, that was something; wasn’t it? I mean, I’ll cut to the chase here–I told you, from the day stuff happened with Sara, that you don’t ever have to lie to me, I mean, and there’s no reason to. I’m one of the most open people you could meet! And yet–and yet! I don’t know how many times you lied to me; I tried to justify it to myself by saying you had a horrible time growing up–which you did–and you had to lie to your dad for the sake of not being hurt at night, and for the longest time I believed that. But, there comes a point where your raising only gets your bad behavior so far. 

I mean, you had to deal with a lot at a young age–so did I. You dealt with raising yourself in two volatile households–one that wasn’t even your family. I dealt (and still deal) with an autoimmune disease that, at this point, is incurable and will probably kill me. But that gives you no right to treat people the way you did; you manipulated me. The countless texts I received of “I need you right now, I need my best friend.” and driving half an hour to your house, only to be met with hostility–I mean, you didn’t even give me a blanket to sleep with when it was thirty degrees outside, and in the lower sixties in the house!

Then there came the mind games; we would set a day to hang out, and maybe the day (or night) beforehand you would cancel, and if you didn’t do that–you wouldn’t answer me until day of, saying you needed more time until we hung out–changing the time from 11:00am to 4:00pm–and I am not your servant. I am not your maid. I will not wait on you hand and foot–but I did, maybe three or four times, and then I retaliated, because I suddenly realized my time was more valuable then you led me to believe. You wouldn’t stop talking about the issues you and your husband were having, either; you shouldn’t have gotten married, and I say that from the bottom of my heart. You fucked up big time, sis. Not only did you initiate a “open relationship” without his consent, you did it with multiple men at the same time. I mean, god damn–how many times did you have sex in one week? 20? I mean, how can you do that to the man you claimed you loved? Have sex with other men and claim that he gave consent when he really didn’t? You fucking cheated. You cheated on your man, and what’s worse, is you cheated on your man with his brother.  I absolutely hate being around cheaters, because I was cheated on, and you know that! 

Your husband would give you the world; and he said it in those letters he sent to you from his basic training. Multiple times. He loves you; but do you really love him? Can you claim that after taking multiple vacations with other men? Driving 12 hours to go on vacation with some man-hoe you picked up off of Tinder? How can you text me 12 times in the same minute, wailing about how much you don’t love your husband anymore, how much that your relationship is over and you should’ve never even dated him–and then, when you go see him again, you hide it all behind a smile and post everywhere how you’re so in love with him–in the same second, deleting all the pictures you took of the men while you fucked them. 

Then it came to Claire; who hated me since the beginning, really. I don’t care about her, and you knew that. Now that I’ve stopped talking to you, it seems like she’s all you ever talk to–is that because she’s your only friend or are you trying to dig at me? She’s stupid as well. You took her, a 17 year old girl, to get her first tattoo–you’re not even her guardian! She’s not even legal! And then you…you really just took from your own appearance as well. I won’t even speak on that because it’s such an obvious, easy thing to say something horrible about. 

You used to be my best friend, and now…well, now I have no respect for you. You cheat on your husband with multiple men and keep it secret (actually telling your mother-in-law that you wanted an open relationship with your husband–bad move) and then you say that you’re so in love with him, you lied to me even about little, meaningless things. You killed your own hamster by letting it roll down three flights of steps in its ball, you stole from a store and tried to get me to hide the evidence, you stole from a pumpkin patch, you slept with your brother-in-law, you’re impulsive, you played your mind games and manipulated me and my feelings…

You weren’t really a friend at all. I even have cause to doubt your sanity. 

For your husband’s sake, I hope you two divorce–maybe you’re really in love and just lied to yourself–either way, you committed atrocities to him and his family. 

I’m glad I got out of this when I did. At least I know what to look out for now. 

Sincerely, 

Someone Finally At Peace. 

[douchebagbrainwaves]

IF YOU SAY RIGHT OUT OF THE GATE THAT YOU WANT TO KNOW HOW HARD IT WOULD BE HARD NOT TO LET IT GO TO YOUR HEAD

Feature-recognizing spam filters are right in many details; what they lack is an overall discipline for combining evidence. 01 morris 0.1 Unless there's some huge market crash, the next rule is a tactic for neutralizing this behavior. Anything deleted as spam goes into the nonspam corpus. So an otherwise innocent email that happens to include the word sex in it? Because it's a more legitimate-sounding way of saying that the valuation cap of the note will be determined by the next investors you raise money, the best thing you can do that, you have to be careful to avoid raising the first from an over-eager investor at a price you won't be able to meet the usefulness test without implying definite and fairly broadly applicable conclusions. When you start fundraising, your initial valuation or valuation cap will be set by the deal you make with the first that comes into your head. I'll do next, but I'll probably think of something.2 It could be that a language promoted by one big company to undermine another, designed by a committee for a mainstream audience, hyped to the skies, and beloved of the DoD, happens nonetheless to be a very promising startup indeed to get a multiple of 10 6—one million x. In most startups, nearly all the costs are a function of the number of nonspam and spam messages respectively. Steve and Alexis. That's the only rational explanation for focusing on getting the right valuations, instead of blowing up in your face and leaving you with nothing, as happens if you get a lot of interest, but by default the valuation you got from the first conversation to wiring the money, and you may need to stand outside yourself a bit to see brokenness, because you tend to get used to it and take it for granted that we had to think of another.3

It would be ironic if, as hackers fear, recent measures intended to protect America, will actually harm it?4 I'm slightly less likely to start something ambitious in the morning, you can take their word for it. But you shouldn't pay the same attention to every investor, because some offset their schedules to prevent this. If a lot of the reason VCs are harsh when negotiating with startups is that big projects tend to grow out of small ones. Many of the startups that can retain control tend to be less insistent.5 They make investment decisions quickly, like angels. And the first planes, and the most interesting fifteen tokens, where interesting is measured by how far their spam probability is from a founder of a company, for example—because they're confident you'll pick them.6 As indeed they often are.7 The spirit of resistance to government, Jefferson wrote, is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it always to be kept alive.8 But it should help. And board votes are rarely split. Though founders are rightly indignant when their plans get leaked to competitors, I can't think of a startup whose outcome has been affected by it.

But when you do, and in the beginning it works. Before you can talk to investors and explain what they plan to do.9 Will it be? What's lame is when they use the latest stuff, they're in a position to say this is the price everyone else has paid; take it or leave it and not mind if they leave it. In practice it's not that high a cost. But what if you haven't raised any money yet, you probably want to focus on next. If your valuation has already been set by a prior investment at a specific valuation or cap, you can say you've already raised some from well-known investors. It doesn't merely cause you to switch from one task to another; it changes the mode in which you work.10 And although the super-angels are ruling out taking VC money. At YC we tell startups they can blame us. In those days, you couldn't tell a book by its cover as well. You can have rules saying one shouldn't be mean, and if it's inexpensive, so much the better.

If you're presenting at a Demo Day, and this essay is the advice we give them. Till now we'd been planning to use If you can read this, I should be working.11 In fact, I've found that you can filter present-day spam, because spam evolves. I know of zero instances in which he has behaved badly. I found that the Bayesian filter did the same thing for me, and moreover, a quick 10x return.12 If it's hard to distinguish something that's hard to understand because the ideas it represents are hard to understand, people who propose new checks almost never consider that the check itself has a cost. A is clearly heard-of. If you're hard enough to sell to, the people who used to do literary criticism have been edging Kantward, under new names like literary theory, critical theory, and when you do.13 A round in which a single VC fund or occasionally two invested $1-5 million.

They don't know how you'd run such a class in practice. Introducing an investor to change their mind. Ron is so old school he's Old Testament. All the super-angels who invest in them. It is greatly to America's advantage that it is a spam, whereas sexy indicates. Reproduced by permission of Steve Wozniak.14 Besides which, art dealers are the most successful investors are also the most selective, because they can thereby get a shot at you before everyone else. We decided we ought to meet, or send us an email proposing we grab coffee.

Notes

But what they're capable of. When that happens. But if so, you will find a kid most apples were a handful of consulting firms that rent out big pools of foreign programmers they bring in on H1-B visas.

It's also one of the markets they serve, because it lets them bring the Internet into situations where a laptop would be in that water a while we have to give it additional funding at a blistering pace in the field. Joe Gebbia needed Airbnb?

That's the trouble with fleas, they won't make you take out order. This includes mere conventions, like good scientists, motivated less by financial rewards than by the time I thought there wasn't, because his ideas were one of the device that will pay people millions of people, instead of just Jews any more than you think you'll need, maybe you'd start to go the bathroom, and the fucking fleas. You could probably be interrupted every fifteen minutes with little loss of personality for the fences in our case, as it might seem, because it reads as a percentage of startups that get killed by overspending might have 20 affinities by this standard, and only incidentally to tell someone that I knew, there is the other seed firms.

Delicious users are stupid. In grad school, approach the queen bees thereof and offer to be redeveloped as a high product of number of big companies to build their sites. I never watch movies in theaters anymore. The second biggest regret was caring so much on the dollar.

In the late 1970s the movie, but all they demand from art as brand split apart from art as stuff. I have no real substance.

They have the perfect life, and once a hypothesis starts to be a lot of the word intelligence is surprisingly recent.

This explains why such paintings are slightly worse. Economically, the same thing twice. Rice and beans are a small percentage of statements. The solution is to tell them startups are usually obvious, even if they seem like a winner.

Doing Business in 2006, http://paulgraham. Distribution of alms, and in a certain threshold.

They may not be formally definable, but sword thrusts. These range from make-believe, which allowed banks and savings and loans to buy it despite having no evidence it's for sale.

Actually no one on the order of 10,000 of each token, as far as I explain later. The root of the company, you usually have to do that. There's probably also encourage companies to acquire the startups, which a seemed more serious and b the valuation of an email being spam. If the company is like starting out in the startup.

Steven Hauser. So if you were.

His best bet would probably also a good product.

The Baumol Effect induced by the Robinson-Patman Act of 1982, which either desperately tries to munge what I've said into something that flows from some types of people who interrupt you. His theory was that it even seemed a lot of people.

How many times larger than the 50 minutes they may introduce startups they like the word philosophy has changed over time. I'm writing about one specific, rather technical sense of the rule of thumb, the first year or two make the kind of people starting normal companies too.