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forestlingincorporated · 4 years

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I wanna talk about Janet Drake

I’m not against exaggeratedly evil versions of Tim’s parents, tbh. It’s fanfiction, if we can depict an Exaggeratedly Good version of Bruce (which we can, and I do, and I love) then we can depict the Drakes as Exaggeratedly Bad. As someone who personally identifies with Tim, and his brand of complicated parental abuse in particular, I find it cathartic to uncomplicate that abuse and rescue him from the Obviously Evil Bad People.

That said, since much of comics lore is passed down word of mouth, the oral tradition surrounding Tim has developed this idea of Janet as The Worse Parent between her and Jack that was never really present in the comics. We see much LESS of Janet, and we have 20 years worth of comics depicting Jack as a neglectful hotheaded idiot who ultimate does love his son. More importantly, Jack isn’t very much LIKE Tim, so there is a habit to attribute Tim’s traits to his mother... and, as someone who really really identifies with Tim, Tim has... some negative traits. Tim can be a bitch sometimes. He’s fiercely intelligent and sweet and kind, with a strong sense of justice, but he can be cold and judgmental and unthinking - he fights those traits, but he does have them.

And it is perfectly fine to depict Janet that way. I’ve enjoyed depictions of Cold Calculating Janet Drake, but it’s not the ONLY option, and I want to challenge fans to consider different avenues. Tim could pick up these traits from anywhere: a nanny, Mrs. Mc Ilvaine (”Mrs. Mac”), a teacher, tv, Sherlock Holmes novels, Bruce Wayne himself. Tim is capable of not being like EITHER parent.

So, what do we KNOW about Janet? (I’ll also touch on Jack, but only in scenes he appears with Janet.)

When Janet was first introduced she was depicted as a gentle but “modern” woman. This was written in 1989, told by a 13 year old Tim, so this theoretically was meant to take place in 1979. I’m not here to give a lecture on the history of sex discrimination in the united states, but much of the legislation protecting women in the workforce or surrounding women’s bodily autonomy would have been very very new in this initial depiction.

Here, Janet is shown to be encouraging, emotional, maternal, and projects her own feelings onto Tim. Jack is shown to be slightly sexist, possibly discouraging, but not overbearing. And the artist is shown not to know how to draw children.

To insert some speculation, I think it’s important to note all the Drakes witnessed a terrible murder/accident that day. I point this out, because this is the last time Jack and Janet are depicted this way. It’s possible they changed as a result of this event specifically.

However, this is also a story being told by Tim. It’s also possible these events aren’t really “real” at all, and Tim is misremembering what his parents were like as a three-year-old, possibly projecting a more palatable version of his parents into the narrative. This is entirely up to personal interpretation.

In fact, the Drakes are shown in Legend of the Dark Knight attending Haly’s Circus, and the artist knows what a toddler looks like and they’re depicted as already having a slightly strained relationship. Jack is clearly on the defensive, and Janet seems to be passive-aggressive, though she could just be attempting to explain the situation to her toddler honestly. The intended tone isn’t especially clear.

I do want to point out, in this depiction, Tim isn’t being carried like he was in the previous one. He’s walking ahead of his parents, which isn’t a terrible horrible crime, but could be dangerous in a crowded place like the circus. Might be a subtle hint to his parents overall neglect.

Back to A Lonely Place of Dying, in Tim’s memories of the night he discovered Robin and Dick Grayson were the same person at nine-years-old, his parents are home, and watching TV together while Tim played... trucks, idk, in the living room with them. (This is semi-interesting, because you could say “oh, Tim liked vehicle toys as a kid” or you could extrapolate that this is another subtle indication of Jack’s sexism, providing Tim with appropriately “boy toys.” Either interpretation is valid. If Tim was assigned female at birth, would they have been given “girl toys,” or allowed to play with whatever they wanted?)

This is, to my knowledge, the only panel of the Drakes when Tim is between ages 3 and 13. They’re all together, which might indicate that the Drakes were home more often when Tim was 9, only later going on business trips when Tim was “old enough” but...

This is Tim’s boarding school when he’s 13. While most boarding schools in the US are for grades 9-12, Tim is clearly not a freshman at age 13; look how much younger the other kids in this panel are. In the US, the youngest you can attend most boarding schools is 7.

That means Tim could have begun going to boarding school anytime between 7 and 13. He most likely spent all of middle school in boarding school, at least. There are an almost infinite number of possible ways the Drakes handled having a business that required lots of international travel, an archeology hobby, AND a very young child. Janet staying home until Tim was 7, 11, 13, is equally possible as the Drakes having a nanny until 7, 11, 13. Tim just doesn’t talk about that period of his life very much.

(”What about Mrs. Mac?” - it is unclear when Mrs. Mac begins working for the Drakes. We only see her when Jack comes out of his coma. She could either be a long standing staff member, or a recent hire.)

Note: I’ve seen it said that it’s canon that “According to Tim, when his parents were home, they made a point to try and include him in their activities, bringing him along to events that were normally adults only.” I have never seen this panel, or I don’t remember it, so I cannot confirm, but I also cannot debunk this because... comics.

By the time Tim is 13, Jack and Janet are away on business trips a lot, with limited communication, and no firm return date. If I’m feeling generous, I’d say it was harder to communicate internationally in 1990 than it is today. If I’m not feeling generous, I’d say the Drakes are extremely wealthy, and international communication was easier than ever before in the 80s and 90s. They’re not even going home to see Tim in a week or two, they’re going home and calling Tim at boarding school in a week or two.

Even Bruce thinks its weird, though he doesn’t say so to Tim’s face. It’s written almost as if Tim’s parents’ neglect was meant to be a plot point that just got forgotten about.

Tim’s parents are fighting at this point (their poor assistant), but Janet still goes with Jack on these business trips. And she’s clearly involved in the business, somehow, but the comics never SAY what Janet’s JOB is. We’re told Jack is the exec, but Janet is ONLY ever referred to as Jack’s wife, though they’re later described as the “heads” of the company, plural.

Just to be clear, this is Jack’s business. There’s a perception that Jack is a bad business man because he and Janet fight over company decisions, and Jack looses the business after Janet dies, but Jack looses the company YEARS after Janet dies, and maintains it for about a year after No Man’s Land at that. We’re not told how Jack looses the business, but he’s got to be doing something right. Janet isn’t necessarily the “real brains” of Drake Industries.

And I’m not... gonna... touch the... exploitation and racism because... I’m not qualified to do that. But, here’s the panel. The Drakes sure seem exploitative and racist in their business decisions. Someone else can... analyze that with more nuance.

Regardless how how long they’ve been fighting, when their lives are in danger, the Drakes fall back into a loving husband and wife. Their marriage may be falling apart, but they do care about each other.

I want to show these panels because it shows that Tim and Jack do have things in common. They’re both level headed in a crisis and can be somewhat cold in their practicality. Janet meanwhile and silent. Jack is later willing rant and rave at their captors, but Janet remains silent.

That is, until they’re alone, and she finally lets herself fall apart.

God, Jack can be obnoxious. Janet just looks miserable and resigned. I actually think Tim takes after his parents in this respect in equal measure. Tim can have a temper, but he can also be fairly melancholy and defeatist.

Jack keeps reminding Janet to be strong and in control, which could be period typical sexism? But Jack seems so practiced and ready with the words of encouragement, and with Tim’s history with depression, I wonder if Janet has an inclination towards it as well.

As the end approaches, when Jack brings up Tim, Janet seems to have a lot of regret. She talks about “wasting” the good things, and I don’t think it’s too big of a stretch to assume she’s talking about time spent with her only child.

From this point on, Janet is at times spoken of, but not seen. Like here, when Jack says Janet wouldn’t approve of him and Tim being so “far apart.” He says this after he tells him he takes back his threat to send him back to boarding school, which might imply Janet was against the idea of boarding school? Though she obviously lost that argument when she was alive.

Jack will of course renege on this later, but that’s Jack Drake for you.

Or here in Tim’s illness induced dream, where he gets everything he wants. Though, since this is a fantasy of Tim’s, where his father and girlfriend are both more accepting and understanding than they are in real life, I would take this depiction of Janet with a grain of salt.

After loosing Drake Industries, Jack thinks about Janet (though, they call her Catherine/Cathy for some fucking reason) during his depressive episode. And... uh...

Hallucinates a Valkyrie???? Is this symbolic of suicidal thoughts, or is she... real? Or is he seriously hallucinating?

Anyway, we’re not here to discuss Jack’s mental state, the fact that he forgot Tim’s birthday, or that concerning “I was going to knock some sense into you but you’re still bigger than me” statement from Tim, we’re here to talk about Janet. And even though this entire arc is about Jack mourning his first wife, they don’t SAY anything about Janet herself at all. I mean, they don’t even get her name right, so I guess what was I expecting.

Then there’s Origins and Omens, which also doesn’t say anything about Janet, except that Tim’s memory of her is faulty - Janet was poisoned, her assistant Jeremy’s throat was slit on television, but Tim seems to have conflated the death he did see with the death he didn’t.

The only piece of canon to suggest that Janet might be cold, is Tim compares her to Thalia. And even then, he’s really just saying Janet was protective of him. It’s kind of a scary look to make at your kid, but Bruce does the same thing, so.

I do want to say... it’s not 100% clear if Tim is even talking about Janet. He could be talking about Dana. Dana was observably protective of Tim, though I don’t think he’s ever called her mom. He PROBABLY means Janet.

And finally we have Tim visiting his mother’s grave (in a duel Christian/Jewish cemetery, make of that what you will), where Tim says she was “a little religious.”

And that’s it! That is all we know about Janet Drake in New Earth. Hardly the Mom From Hell, but she isn’t perfect. I’d be interested in seeing some alternate depictions of her within the fandom.

I’m still gonna eat up Terrible Parents From Hell like a starving puppy dog, though. Just some food for creative thought.

#Tim Drake #janet drake #jack drake #robin #Red Robin #character analysis

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hawkinsindiana · 4 years

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this changes things

ALMOST PARADISE: PART THREE - CHAPTER FOUR OF ELEVEN (!!)

pairing: steve harrington x henderson!reader

word count: 2.3k

a/n: we’re back to eleven chapters baby!!!! this one ended up being longer than i thought. i know i usually post on friday nights, but i couldn’t help but give you all a lil valentine’s day treat. pls enjoy!!!!

masterlist

Steve’s nervous.

It’s down to the wire; there's only a few short weeks left of his final high school semester. Four out of five college applications have been rejected. Each one received has fed the anxiety more and more.

Every day that passes without a lick of news from the remaining university has him reconsidering everything. His education. His career. His future.

The only thing Steve knows about his future is that he wants you in it, in whichever form that might be. You’re the constant. Without you, he’s afraid he’d eventually go back to being that person he was before. You make him want to be better. Trying to be worthy of you gives Steve purpose.

He imagined that getting a college education would help keep him on that path. It seems farther away with each rejection letter he receives.

Steve hasn’t told you that he hasn’t gotten into any so far. He’s afraid of disappointing you, especially after everything you’ve done for him.

The spring of ‘85 has been particularly unforgiving. It’s been storming all week - the air still hangs with that familiar smell of rain soaked concrete. You read that the Hawkins Post reported a record amount of rainfall; the local stream overflowed and flooded a few basements.

The mail is still damp when Steve retrieves it after practice. It sticks to his fingers as he shuffles through each envelope, drying his sneakers on the welcome mat.

And then his eyes linger on one addressed to him; Steve nearly drops his backpack when he sees who sent it.

Haphazardly, he tosses the rest of the mail onto the kitchen counter as he contemplates whether to even open the damn thing. Steve’s pretty sure he knows the answer. Is it an answer he wants?

Whatever the words inside this parcel read, it changes Steve’s life forever. His future is planned from the moment he breaks the seal - there would be no going back. Either he stays here in Hawkins, trapped by an education he neglected for far too long, or he gets to take a step to distance himself from this shitty town and prove his worth.

Steve isn’t a fan of the former option.

He wishes you were here to read it for him. He’d rather you tell him the news; hearing it come from your lips would make it easier.

By the time Steve decides to open it, a few minutes have passed. Why does this feel like the scariest thing he’s ever done?

Due to the water, some of the ink bled through the paper; pieces of the letter are illegible. But at the top, a familiar phrase answers his question: Unfortunately, we regret to inform you-

Steve curses, angrily throwing the envelope and its contents into the trash. He refuses to read anymore.

He has no one to blame but himself. Maybe that’s why he’s so angry. There were multiple opportunities for him to change course and put effort into his schoolwork. By the time he finally tried, it was too late.

Thunder booms in the distance once Steve parks his car beside your mother’s. He doesn’t remember deciding to come here; the only thing he can recall is grabbing the keys, without a destination in mind. His heart brought him to your warmth.

As Steve gets out of the car, he wonders if this was maybe a bad idea. It isn’t very often that he feels afraid to face you - he’s scared of your reaction, and the outcome that could follow.

He knew that he could love you, that he could fall just as hard as you did for him. But admitting it to himself, and then you - he doesn’t know if he has the strength to do it again. That phrase has left a sour taste in his mouth, one that Steve hopes he can wash away. Because you deserve to hear it too.

Maybe he’s closer to saying it than he thought, perhaps that’s why he’s so scared to tell you. Maybe-

“What the hell are you doin’ here?” Dustin’s voice startles Steve, who turns to see the boy walking his bike up the driveway. Steve fumbles his response, head spinning with thoughts about you, “I don’t, uh-”

Dustin interrupts him, not noticing the nerves Steve displays, “Hey, you should come in! It’s mac ‘n cheese night.”

Steve hangs his head in defeat, knowing that he’s going to follow your brother inside. He can’t say no to this kid.

Dustin hangs up his raincoat once the pair of them enter the house; the bell on Tews’ collar jingles as they run to greet the boys. The kitten weaves between Steve’s legs before he kneels down to give them a few pets.

“That you, Dusty?” Your mother calls from within; clattering silverware echoes from the kitchen. Steve chuckles at the nickname. Dustin punches him in the bicep.

He kicks off his shoes as he replies, “Hey Mom! Get out another bowl - look who I found loitering around.”

Steve scoffs, shoving Dustin as they walk forward through the threshold into the living room. Your mom moves to welcome them; her warm smile widens when she sees Steve by her son’s side, “Well look who it is! Steve, sweetheart, how are you?”

He’s baffled by her every time he shares a meal with your family. Her kind soul is infectious, and drastically different from the parents he was raised by. Steve tries not to think about the fact her beloved pet is secretly buried out back - he’s reminded of it whenever he sees her.

“I’m good, Mrs. Henderson. How are you?” Steve answers, returning her grin. She envelops him in a quick hug, “How many times am I going to have to tell you? Just call me Claudia, hon.”

Steve laughs along with her as he follows her to the kitchen, “I think you’ll need to remind me one more time.”

And then his eyes meet yours from across the room. They smile nearly as much as your lips at the sight of him; your heart flutters at this unexpected surprise.

When you catch onto the sadness in his expression, the corners of your mouth drop. It’s obvious to you that something’s wrong. Steve doesn’t usually stop by without an invitation; something must’ve happened.

Throughout dinner, you take mental notes on his deflated behavior. It’s subtle enough to fool your family, but you know him better. With each minute that passes, the more anxious you become to hear the cause. So when he volunteers to help you with the dishes, as he always does, you know it’s only a matter of time.

“How was practice?” You ask before drying off a cup. Steve takes it from your hand as he replies, “Uh, it was good. Although it’s annoying that we’re still practicing even though the season’s over.”

You hum in agreement as he places the glass on the shelf. Steve glances back at you briefly, “What about you? What’d you get up to?”

A beat passes - you’re looking for the words to describe your afternoon. Maybe not the words, but the courage. It’s only when he turns around, brow creased, do you answer him.

“I studied at Nancy’s,” You say. Steve’s eyes widen in surprise, “Oh yeah? How’d that go?”

You nod your head, focusing your gaze onto the floor, “It was nice, actually. It wasn’t as awkward as I thought it would be.”

“Now when you say studying…” He trails off for a moment as he thinks, “You two didn’t… exchange notes about me or anything, did you?”

Steve’s growing smirk makes you laugh; you hit him playfully with the towel, “No! And I haven’t told her, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

A part of him can’t help but be relieved. There’s no limit to what you two could chat about.

“We just ended up talking about college most of the time,” You add, “She wanted to know some tips since she’ll be applying soon.”

Steve grabs a plate to dry; in order to try and quell his anxiety, he has to do something productive. But your mind recognizes it as a distraction - you’re no stranger to coping mechanisms.

“Have you figured out where you’re gonna go yet?” He questions, praying your answer isn’t far; lightning flashes outside the kitchen window, followed closely by the low rumble of thunder.

You sigh as you lean back against the counter, “I’m not sure. Nancy was helping me talk through my options earlier, but it’s such a big decision to make. I wanna make sure it’s the right fit.”

Steve nods slightly, forehead creasing as he wipes his hands on the towel. And by the way he clenches his jaw at your reply, you know that this is the source of contention.

You nudge his leg with your foot, “What about you? Get any responses back?”

The breath hitches in Steve’s throat; there’s no way this conversation doesn’t end with his reveal. The longer it takes for him to speak, the more concerned you grow.

“I, uh-“ A sigh passes his lips as he grips the counter, keeping his focus away from you. He doesn’t want to witness your reaction.

“I didn’t get in,” Steve mutters. He exhales, shaking his head in disbelief; until now, it almost didn’t seem real. It took admitting it to you for his brain to accept it.

You shift on your feet, unsure of what to say. Over the past few weeks, you and Steve had been discussing how your relationship would persist once you both had made your college commitments. This wasn’t an outcome either of you prepared for.

“Holy shit, Steve. I’m sorry…” You whisper. Steve pushes his face into his hands; his voice is muffled from behind his palms, “Yeah, yeah… holy shit.”

You don’t hesitate any more to comfort him. Steve straightens as you place your hands on his arms; he melts into your touch, unable to prevent you from turning his body to face yours.

“Hey, it’ll be fine,” You reassure him, “College isn’t the only option, you know. There are other things you could do.”

The expression on Steve’s face breaks your heart. You’d do anything to wipe it away and brighten his mood. But Steve just sighs again, appreciating your efforts to help him, but nothing seems to be working.

“How’d your parents react?” You ask. The only thing keeping Steve grounded to this moment is the firm grip you have on his shoulders; he thinks he’d float away without it.

He scoffs a bit; the sound breaks the deafening silence that formed as he thought of a response. His eyes are still focused downwards as he finally answers you, “They don’t know yet. I just got the last letter today. I couldn’t think of going anywhere else.”

When your fingers brush against his cheek, Steve instinctively moves his hands to rest on your waist, “I’m sorry, I just-”

Steve finally lifts his head. Your eyes are wide, pupils filled to the brim with nothing but your fondness for him. All of a sudden, he’s confused why he was so scared to tell you. He realizes that he never should’ve doubted you.

“I was scared this would change things. Or that you’d be disappointed in me or some shit.”

Your brow furrows as you laugh softly - baffled by his words, “What could ever make you think that I’d be disappointed in you?”

A flash of previous memories answers your own question. You decide not to pull on that thread anymore.

“This changes things,” You mutter. Your eyeline drops as you pause, choosing your words carefully before continuing, “But it doesn’t change how I feel about you.”

Finally, Steve feels a bit of relief. The sincerity in your voice calms the fear, and a deep exhale allows him to let it go. Your compassion and understanding permits him to begin thinking clearly again. He knew there was a reason he came here.

You’re right though. This does change how you both navigate the future. But with you here to support him, Steve figures he’ll be just fine.

“I mean…” The corner of your mouth curls up at the thought that pops into your head, “The only way my opinion of you changes is if you killed my brother or something like that.”

Steve chuckles slightly, “But Mike’s still fair game?”

“Oh yeah, go ahead,” You quip, “He’s had it comin’ for a while.”

Even though your voices are hushed, the joke still makes you crack a pair of brilliant smiles; it almost makes Steve forget about his future for a moment. Standing here in your arms, Steve can’t help but realize how safe he feels.

And then you sigh, reaching up to brush back a lock of his brunette hair - the sensation of your touch fills Steve with something new, something different. A direct contrast to the violent storm brewing outside, this is soft, warm, and golden. Like daylight.

Your eyes meet again. Honestly, he’s not sure he ever wants to look at anything else.

Your hand lands on his chest, “This doesn’t make me love you any less.”

Steve throws caution to the wind - he kisses you. And already, you can tell that this is one you’ll remember. His lips are soft against yours, but without sacrificing an ounce of passion. You almost forget that someone could walk in and expose your relationship; when Steve finally pulls away, it doesn’t matter anyways.

As if you weren’t left breathless enough from his kiss, the words he mutters afterwards could’ve done it themselves.

With one of his trademark smirks plastered across his face, Steve moves to hold your head between his palms, “Fuck, I love you.”

You kiss him again so quickly that you both didn’t have enough time to wipe the twinkling grins from your lips. Your noses are squished against each other, but neither of you cares enough. Your shared love dulls the pain.

Steve smiles into the kiss even further. This is what it’s supposed to feel like.

— taglist: @djjarin / @hannarudick / @crazycookiecrumbles / @hellisateenageheather / @alewifex / @l0ve-0f-my-life / @naomiiiiiiiiiii04 / @daddystevee / @thecaptainsgingersnap / @let-the-imaginationflow / @asianravenpuff / @im-a-stranger-thing / @mikariell95 / @pilunb / @harringtherin / @royalestrellas / @ultrunning / @buggs177 / @poutfull / @yoheyyosup / @duchessdaisybat / @janieavalos / @sassisaluxury / @beththebubbly / @i-bitch-you-bitch / @captainstilinskis / @juliebean247 / @im-nada / @whatabeautifulsurrender / @rexorangecouny / @pass-me-jeez-it / @ahoy-scoops-troop / @halefirewarrior / @jointhehunt67 / @peanutem / @ketchuplukehemmo / @m-a-r-i-n-t-p / @fangirl485 / @emmegirl827 / @lookalivesunshine-x / @elite4cekalyma / @marjoherbo / @just-my-fandom / @idumpyourgrass / @alafolieee / @mochminnie / @phantomalchemist / @dustyblueboo / @alonewolfsblog / @ggclarissa / @hufflepuffing-all-day-long / @bippityboppitybabe / @readinthegarden12 / @bakugouishusbando / @stxtch72 / @random-girl-army / @wisdaemon / @thatawkwardlittlefangirl

if you want be added to the taglist, just lemme know!

#steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x henderson!reader #steve harrington fic #steve harrington imagine #st fic #st imagine #steve harrington x you #my writing #almost paradise

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fangirlwriting-stories · 3 years

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A Kind Of Understanding

Summary: Remus' decision to babysit a kid for a couple nights to earn some extra cash ends up getting him in over his head when the kid tells him something the parents didn't mention.

In all fairness, Roman had told him he was probably getting in over his head. Remus was the idiot who didn’t believe him.

He just needed money. If he was actually going to be able to afford all the spray paints he wanted for his new art project by the roller rink, he was going to need a lot more money than he had. Curse him and his ambitious ideas.

Remus considered himself lucky when he quickly found a family willing to pay 60 bucks a night to watch their eight year old kid. Roman took one look at the offer and said he was definitely going to be dealing with a brat.

“Why else would they pay so much?” he asked, giving the flyer a suspicious look.

“So? I need, like, two hundred bucks to get the kind and amount of spray paint I need. I’d only have to watch the bratty kid for four nights and I’d be good. I can set her up in front of a movie she really likes, make her some mac and cheese for dinner, and it’ll be all good.”

“I think you’re underestimating kids, Re. You have met Patton and Logan, right?”

Patton and Logan were Virgil’s little brothers, and Remus honestly wasn’t sure why he was bringing them up, because they were both absolute sweethearts. Sure, Logan could sometimes get a chip on his shoulder about being too old for a babysitter, and Patton could be a bit of a crybaby sometimes, but otherwise Remus never minded when Virgil brought his friends along for a hangout. Especially when Patton teased Roman about liking Virgil, and Remus got to watch him go bright red with embarrassment.

Well okay, granted, Logan had been much more insufferable when he was Patton’s age. But Patton was still a sweetheart.

“I’m telling you, I’ve got this,” he said, waving Roman’s concerns off. “It’s just one little girl, anyway. How hard could it be?”

This was the attitude Remus took with him when going to the Ekans house the following night. The parents sent him the address, and the mom was waiting outside.

“Hi, Mrs. Ekans,” Remus said, putting on his ‘I am talking to an adult that I respect’ voice. “I’m Remus.”

“Yes, hello dear,” she said. “I was so happy to get your call. It can be rather hard to find a babysitter to deal with Janice, what with how she can get with all her silly fantasies.”

Remus tipped his head in confusion. “Silly fantasies?”

“Oh, I’m sure she’ll tell you all about it. You don’t need to indulge her, dear, we’ve told her many times that no one who watches her will be doing so. But anyway, here’s ten dollars for a tip, we ordered a pizza, the delivery man should be here any minute, so you won’t have to worry about dinner.”

“Thanks,” Remus said, taking the money and putting it in his pocket to grab when the delivery person showed up.

The door opened behind the two of them and a man came out, adjusting a tie. Behind him, a girl in a sparkly pink dress stood in the doorway, who could only be Janice.

“Oh, good,” the man said when he noticed Remus. “Janice, your babysitter’s here, be good for him, okay?” He turned to Remus. “Bedtime is at 8, pizza’s on the way, otherwise you should be good to go.”

“Thanks,” Remus said again, heading past him and into the house. They both waved at Janice as they left, who notably did not wave back.

As soon as the car drove off, Remus shut the door and turned to face Janice. “Well, sweetheart—” he started.

“First of all,” Janice snapped, sounding so furious that it took Remus aback. He had barely even said anything yet. “I have rules.”

Remus raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t that kind of my job?”

“No!” Janice screamed, stamping her foot. “You are here for me, that means I’m the boss! First of all, don’t ever call me sweetheart. And I am going into my room to change into my real clothes, and you aren’t going to stop me!”

Remus’ brow furrowed. “What’s wrong with the clothes you have on now?” he asked.

“Dresses are for girls,” Janice snapped, voice filled with way more vitriol than Remus expected. “I’m a boy. And you are not going to take away the only chance I get to wear my real clothes!” And, like that decided that, he turned and stormed away towards the back of the house and where his room no doubt was.

Remus looked after the kid, blinking for a second as he tried to process everything that had just happened. So that’s what Mrs. Ekans meant by silly fantasies.

Well, fuck, he was way out of his depth with shit like this.

The kid came out of the hallway a couple minutes later wearing a t-shirt and shorts. And while the t-shirt was still bright pink, he at least looked a little more comfortable than he had in a dress.

“Okay, J— kid,” Remus said. “So let me see if I’ve got this right. You say you’re a boy?”

“Yes,” the kid snapped. “And you don’t get to say otherwise, you got it?”

“Hey, understood,” Remus said, holding his hands up. “Can I just ask a question?”

The kid narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms. “What?”

“Do you want me to still use the name your parents gave me, or do you want me to call you something else?”

The kid seemed to grow even more suspicious at that question. “Mom didn’t tell you not to indulge my silly fantasies?”

“Doesn’t seem to me like there’s anything silly about it,” Remus said with a shrug. “I was just wondering if you had a different name picked out.”

The kid’s eyes widened slightly, though not enough to stop looking suspicious. “You can do that?”

“Of course you can,” Remus said, taking a couple steps forward and kneeling down in front of the kid. “I have a friend named Virgil who changed his name. He used to be called Jacob, but he hated that name. He thought it was boring.”

“He was right,” the kid said instantly. Remus laughed.

The kid seemed to think for a minute. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “I didn’t know you could do that.”

“Do you want me to use the name your parents gave me, then?”

“No,” the kid snapped instantly, looking angry again.

“Okay. Got it. For now, I’ll just call you kid. How’s that?”

The kid seemed to consider that for a minute, then nodded. “Okay.”

Remus smiled. “Okay. So your parents said that a pizza delivery person should be here soon. Do you want to watch a movie while we eat?”

“No,” the kid snapped. “Movies are stupid.”

Remus blinked. “Okay. What do you want to do while we eat?”

“I want to sit in silence and do nothing!” the kid snapped.

Remus blinked again. “Uh, I’m not so sure that would be very fun.”

“You’re not fun anyway!” the kid screamed.

Remus was honestly a little offended. How dare this child say he wasn’t fun? He could be super fun! Before he could reply to correct this wildly false statement, the doorbell rang.

Remus stood up and headed over to the door, and opened it to see, as expected, the pizza delivery person.

“Thanks,” Remus said, taking the pizza and pulling out the ten dollar bill Mrs. Ekans had left him. He handed it to the delivery person, who thanked him and headed back towards the car parked out front. Remus shut the door and carried the pizza over to the table, and the kid came over after him and grabbed one of the plates that had been left out on the counter.

“Give me two pieces,” he said, holding the plate out to Remus.

“Let’s start with one,” Remus said, taking the plate.

“No!” the kid snapped. “I want two!”

“Kid, I’m gonna start you with one,” Remus said, taking a piece of pizza and putting it on the plate.

“No!” the kid snapped again. “I want two pieces! I’m hungry, are you trying to tell me I shouldn’t eat until I’m full? That can have harmful consequences!”

Remus took a deep breath. “I am going to start you with one. If you want another piece after you finish that one, I will happily give you one.”

“I want two right now!” the kid screamed, stamping his foot.

Remus squeezed his eyes shut. “Nope,” he said, handing the kid the plate.

The kid narrowed his eyes, and Remus had a second to wonder if eight year olds still threw temper tantrums, when instead the kid shot Remus a glare that could kill and stomped into the other room and sat down on the couch.

Remus took a piece of pizza and put it on the plate. This was about as bad as it was going to get, right?

…

“Kid, you need to go to bed,” Remus said, leaning against the door frame, looking at the kid who was sitting resolutely and reading through a book.

“Why should I? Bedtime is a social construct.”

“Oh my god,” Remus groaned, looking up at the ceiling. This had been a recurring theme for most of the night. The kid’s father was apparently a philosophy nerd, and the kid listened in on a lot of his conversations about the subject with his wife, and had turned that into a belief that all of society was a construct and he could do whatever he wanted. He was brilliant for an eight year old. And it was as annoying as all fuck.

“Look,” Remus said. “If you go to bed now, next time I come, I’ll bring you a surprise.”

“What kind of surprise?” the kid asked, narrowing his eyes. “How could any surprise you give me be worth it?”

“Well, if you don’t go to bed now, you’ll never know,” Remus pointed out.

The kid seemed to know exactly what Remus was doing with that, but he also finally put the book aside and laid his head down on his pillow. Remus flicked off the lights and shut the door, and finally let out a breath.

He made his way back out to the living room, put the remaining pizza in the fridge, and then collapsed on the couch.

“Children are exhausting,” he said to no one.

By the time the kid’s parents got back Remus was ready to go home and sleep for a week and a half. But that was a feeling that faded as soon as Mr. Ekans walked through the door and opened his mouth.

“How was she?” he asked, putting the car keys on a hook by the wall. “She didn’t give you too much trouble, did she?”

Remus had to fight to keep from grinding his teeth. “Fine,” he said, keeping his voice as pleasant as he could. “The flyer said I should come back Saturday next, right?”

“Yes,” Mrs. Ekans said, pulling out her wallet and thumbing out the sixty dollars in cash. She handed it over, and Remus took it. “I’m glad things went well. Janice has been known to drive away a few sitters in the past.”

I can’t imagine why.

Remus got out of the house as quickly as he could. He had some thinking to do, and he wasn’t going to do it in front of a couple of transphobic pieces of shit.

…

By the time Saturday arrived Remus had a battle plan. Roman had been amused when Remus had described the first night as “frustrating,” but had been surprised when Remus had been determined to go back. Remus left out most of the details that weren’t his to share, though he imagined Roman must have figured something was up when he spent most of the week researching boy names and hairstyles.

When he got to the Ekans house next time, the kid looked surprised to see him, and Remus couldn’t say he blamed him. He tried to smile and nod whenever possible, as hopefully it would get the kid’s parents out the door faster. The second they left Remus took off the backpack he’d brought and moved over to sit on the couch. “Hey, kid, c’mere.”

“No. Why?”

“I’ve got something for ya. I promised you a surprise if you went to bed, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, but I turned the lamp on again as soon as you left the room.”

Remus sighed. “Of course you did. Come here anyway.”

The kid looked curious, and given that it was one of the few times he hadn’t been glaring at him, Remus would take it as a good sign.

“So I did some research these past couple days,” Remus said, starting with the notebook. “And I found some names you might like.”

“Wait, what?” the kid sat on the couch and took the notebook from him. “What do you mean you looked at names for me?”

“Well, you said you didn’t know what you wanted your name to be. I don’t really want to call you ‘kid’ forever. If you don’t like any of these we can keep looking, though.”

The kid turned and stared at him. “But I was mean to you.”

“You’re the kid I’m babysitting,” Remus said, smirking at him. “I think I can take it. Besides, what does that have to do with your name?”

“Why are you being nice to me if I was mean to you?”

“Being nice and basic human decency are two different things. You can be the snottiest kid in the world, that doesn’t mean I’m going to start treating you like a girl.”

The kid’s eyes widened. “Really?”

“Really. You say you’re a boy, I believe you, and I’ll treat you as such, okay?”

To Remus’ surprise, the kid’s eyes welled up with tears.

“Oh shit, don’t cry. Hang on—”

The kid threw himself at Remus’ and buried his head in his side. Remus awkwardly patted him on the back and waited until the kid stopped crying, after which he pulled back and wiped at his eyes, still sniffling. “Mommy always says I shouldn’t make people indulge me,” he whispered.

“I’m not indulging anything,” Remus said. “This is what you said you want, and it should be respected. If you change your mind later, that’s fine too. But even if you do, I’m not going to treat you in any way that makes you miserable in the meantime.”

The kid sniffed again and wiped at his eyes. He looked like he didn’t know what to say, which was fair.

After a moment, he picked up the notebook and started looking at the names, sometimes pointing at one he didn’t know and asking Remus to read it. He stopped at one on page three.

“You just wrote Janice,” he said. “I thought you said I didn’t have to use that name.”

“J-a-n-u-s is a masculine spelling,” Remus said. “I just figured if you liked the way your name sounded but didn’t like that it was associated with being a girl, that was an option.”

The kid looked at it for a while longer. “You could use this one around my parents,” he said.

“Technically, yes,” Remus said.

The kid turned and looked at him. “Where does Janus come from?”

“It’s the name of a Roman god,” Remus said. “He’s the god of doors, gates, and beginnings. He has two faces.”

The kid started to grin. “I could be named after a god?”

“If that’s what you want.”

He started nodding. “I like that. I like that a lot. And it could be like lying to my parents. They’re forcing me to lie to everyone else, but this way I get to lie to them.”

Remus started to smile too. “Yeah? You think that’s the one?”

“Definitely. And besides, if I don’t like later it I can change it again, right?”

“Of course you can.”

Janus beamed at him. “Yeah. That’s the one.”

“Awesome,” Remus said, leaning over and ruffling his hair. “Now, onto the second manner of business.”

“There’s more?”

“Yep.” Remus reached into his bag and pulled out a hairbrush and ponytail holders. “So I’m not going to cut your hair without your parent’s permission or I’d get fired. But I have a couple ways I can deal with your hair as it is right now if you want to.”

Janus nodded quickly, and turned around so Remus could get to his hair more easily, “So we could put it up in a bun so it’s out of your face, or I could move the curls further behind your head so it looks more like a style than just you having longer curly hair.”

“What would a style look like?” Janus asked.

“Alright, give me a sec,” Remus said. He grabbed the bobby pins he’d borrowed from his mother and used them to tuck Janus’ curls further behind his head. He turned Janus around after a moment and brushed some of the curls across his forehead so they looked more like bangs.

“Alright,” he said, sitting back. “Here, check that out.” He pulled out the mirror he brought with him, and handed it to Janus.

His eyes widened as he looked in it. “Woah. You did this with my hair?”

“Mm-hmm,” Remus said. “You like it?”

Janus grinned at him again and nodded. Then his gaze turned curious. “Why are you doing all this?”

“I already told you—”

“No, I mean… Mommy says boys and girls can’t change who they are. She says I’m a girl no matter what I do.”

“Bah,” Remus said, waving the concept away. “Gender is a social construct.”

Janus snorted.

“You laugh, but it’s true. Have you ever heard the term ‘transgender’ before?”

Janus shook his head.

“It’s a term people can use to describe themselves when their gender doesn’t match the one they were born as. Plenty of people describe themselves that way. I’m friends with a couple on the internet.”

Janus looked fascinated, and almost painfully hopeful. “Not just me?”

“Definitely not just you.”

Janus sat back, seeming to take a minute to process that. “Can you show me?” he asked, looking back up at Remus.

And so they spent most of the day on Remus’ phone looking at transgender people and stories and definitions. Remus made sure to steer clear of any discourse or transphobia. Janus had enough to deal with already without having to learn about that on a broad scale yet.

By the time Janus’ parents texted Remus saying they were on their way back, they’d been there for hours.

“Okay,” Remus said, setting the phone aside. “I should probably take your hair down now.”

Janus sighed, even though he seemed to have expected that. “Okay,” he mumbled.

“We can put it back up next time I come, okay?” Remus said.

Janus nodded. “Yeah, we fucking better.”

Remus coughed in surprise. “Wha— where did you learn that word?”

Janus grinned at him. “You’ll never fucking know.”

Remus laughed despite himself. Okay, so maybe this kid wasn’t so terrible.

…

Things went smoother for the last two times Remus had signed up to babysit him. Janus had so obviously needed some kind of positive role model, because the second Remus reassured him that he believed him and would treat him as a boy, Janus got loads easier to handle. At the end of the third time Remus babysat for him, Janus looking at him very seriously and told him that he was clearly one of those rare smart adults.

“Well, technically I’m a teenager,” Remus admitted.

Janus nodded. “Oh. That explains it.”

Remus blinked at him. Well, this kid was definitely going to turn into even more of a nightmare as he got older.

Roman seemed more than a little surprised that Remus hit it off with the kid so well, and when Remus eventually mentioned it to Virgil, he got the same result. But Remus would just shrug and say something generic along the lines of “We just clicked, I guess.”

He found himself actually looking forward to the last time he was supposed to babysit, which unfortunately came with a realization that this would be the last time he babysat for Janus. The time passed much too quickly, and Remus, at the end of the night, was not looking forward to leaving.

So for once, an interaction from Janus’ parents brought a positive consequence.

“You just make Janice so happy,” Mrs. Ekans said. “And that’s not really something that happens with her very often.”

I can’t imagine why.

“I know this wasn’t supposed to be a long term thing, but if you would be willing to become her regular babysitter, we’ll pay you eighty a night instead of sixty.”

Well, Remus probably would have agreed even without the pay raise, especially after he noticed Janus watching hopefully from the hallway, but the extra twenty a night didn’t hurt either. In the end, after what was basically the opposite of a long and hard decision, Remus agreed, and was now going to spend his Saturdays (and many week nights) watching a kid that he was quickly growing to care for.

Janus plopped himself down on the couch next to Remus a second after he showed up next time, with his lip wobbling and sniffling in a way that immediately made Remus nervous.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” he asked.

“Do you only like me because my parents pay you?” Janus asked.

“What? Of course not, I love hanging out with you,” Remus said, relieved he was actually telling the truth.

Janus brightened immediately. “Cool! So if we’re actually friends does that mean you can take me out for ice cream?”

Remus blinked at him for a couple seconds, trying to figure out how in the hell he just got played by an eight year old. Regardless, they ended up at an ice cream parlor that day.

There came times Virgil had to watch his little brothers too, and Virgil must have told them about Janus, because one day Virgil texted him asking if they could maybe set up a playdate with the little girl he babysat. Remus winced, but said he’d bring it up next time he was there.

“Their names are Patton and Logan,” he said to Janus, who was looking up at him over the the drawing he was making. He’d become insistent on drawing better than Remus ever since he’d shown him one of his pieces. “They’re Virgil’s little brothers. They want to meet you.”

Janus bit his lip. “Do I have to pretend to be a girl around them?”

“Kid, that is entirely up to you,” Remus said. “I haven’t told them yet because you haven’t given me permission. I can tell you they won’t mind, if you’re worried about that.”

Janus gave that a moment of thought. “Okay. You can tell them I’m a boy. If you’re really sure they won’t mind.”

“I’m sure.”

Janus nodded. “Okay. Can they not come here though?”

“I don’t think we picked a place to go yet. But we could go to a park, or possibly Virgil's house. We’d have to run it by everyone’s parents.”

“Ugh. Well that’s not gonna work out then,” Janus said, turning back to his drawing. “My parents never want me to do anything that makes me happy.”

Remus felt his heart crack at that. He didn’t know how to explain to the kid the difference between his parents being transphobic and his parents never wanting him to be happy. He supposed the end result was the same either way. But Remus couldn’t imagine them having an issue with Janus meeting some other kids. He was apparently pretty lonely.

“Give it a chance,” he said eventually. “They could surprise you.”

Janus gave him a look of such doubt that Remus considered, not for the first time, murdering Janus’ parents and hiding their transphobic asses out in the shed.

Luckily, Remus was at least right in Janus’ parents wanting him to meet new kids. And he was of course also right about none of his friends having a problem with Janus being trans, although they seemed sad for the kid when they learned what his parents were like. Good. Remus would have lost respect for them if they didn’t.

They ended up meeting over at Virgil’s house, which was good, because Remus had a sneaking suspicion Janus’ parents would not have approved of Patton, and his love for all things pink and/or sparkly. They walked through the front door and saw Virgil and Roman sitting on the couch chatting as Logan was doing a puzzle nearby. Patton was sitting next to him, coloring in a coloring book and wearing a bright pink sparkly dress similar to the one Remus had met Janus in. Janus’ eyes got really big when he saw Patton, and he hid behind Remus’ leg.

“I thought you said Patton was a boy,” he whispered.

“He is,” Remus replied. “Patton likes wearing pink sparkly dresses, but that doesn’t make him any less of a boy.”

Virgil glanced up and waved. “Hey, Remus. Guys, Remus and Janus are here.”

Patton and Logan both glanced up, and then Patton hopped up and ran across the room. “Hi!” he said, sticking out his hand. “I’m Patton! Virgil says you’re eight just like me!”

Janus slowly stepped out from behind Remus’ leg and shook Patton’s hand. “Hi,” he said. “I’m Janus. J-a-n-u-s. It’s the boy spelling. Because I’m a boy.”

Patton grinned at him. “Yeah, Remus told us! I think that’s really cool! Do you want to come color with me?”

It was clear Janus didn’t know quite what to do with that, but he nodded anyway, and Patton took his hand and dragged him over to where he’d been coloring. Remus noted Logan saying hi as he did so, and including a note about how he was ten and too old for a babysitter. Remus walked over to sit on the couch next to Virgil and Roman.

“That went about like I’d expected,” he said, nodding at Patton.

Virgil snorted. “Yeah, pretty much,” he agreed, leaning back and ending up partly against Roman. Remus would have to tease him about how bright red his face got later.

Overall, the afternoon was a success. Janus and Patton got along very well, and they made a deal that next time, Janus would bring a sparkly dress and trade it for some of Patton’s more boyish clothes. Janus talked the whole drive home about how much he liked Patton.

“Even though he could be a little less bouncy,” Janus said. “He’s kind of a lot.”

“I get that,” Remus said. “Patton is a really excitable kid. He’ll mellow out the longer you know him.”

Janus nodded. “Good,” he said, and Remus laughed.

Just like Remus had expected, Janus’ parents were glad to see him happy from hanging out with other kids. Which unfortunately also meant they likely had no idea what had actually been happening at the playdate. It was definitely worth it, though. Janus gave Remus a hug, a beaming smile, and said he would see him on Saturday, before running off to his room still smiling.

Remus texted Virgil that they would have to do so again sometime soon.

…

Remus arrived on time Saturday, but Mr. and Mrs. Ekans were already rushing out the door, barely having time to hand Remus money for dinner, and saying something about getting something to cheer Janus up before they ran out their car and drove off.

Remus blinked as he watched them drive off, before processing the fact that they’d said something about cheering Janus up. He headed inside, looking around and hoping to find him.

“Janus?” he called, but no one responded. He started looking around the living room and found no one, there wasn’t anyone in the kitchen, not even the cabinets, and Remus checked in all their usual hide and seek places, but didn’t find anything.

“Janus?” he called, sticking his head into his room. There still wasn’t anyone obviously in there, but just as Remus was about to leave he heard sniffing that sounded like it was coming from under the bed.

He shut the door quietly behind him and pulled up the blankets, and there was Janus, curled into a ball.

“Kiddo?” he asked quietly.

“Adults are stupid,” Janus said. “They don’t understand anything.”

“As a seventeen year old I wholeheartedly agree,” Remus said, trying to get a chuckle or a smile, but not succeeding. “Are we talking about something specific?”

“They just don’t understand,” Janus said, tucking his head into his knees. “No matter how many times I explain it to them they don’t get it. I don’t want to be a girl, Remus. I mean, am I just explaining it wrong? If I explain it enough times they have to understand, right?” He sniffed. “I just have to explain it a few more times, right?”

“Oh, kiddo,” Remus murmured, reaching a hand under the bed. Janus grabbed it and let Remus help him out before burying his head in his chest.

“I thought they were supposed to love me,” Janus whispered. “Isn’t that what parents are supposed to do?”

“They do love you,” Remus tried to reassure, because he’d seen some proof of that. He’d seen the way they smiled when they saw Janus happy. They’d thanked him so many times, saying they were unsure of how he did it.

“No. They love J-a-n-i-c-e. They love the little girl they think they have. But that’s not who I am.” Janus looked up at him, tears pouring down his face. “Remus, why do they hate who I am?”

Remus didn’t have any good reply to that. He just gently pulled Janus back to his chest and rubbed his back. He wasn’t surprised when that just made Janus cry harder, but he didn’t know what else to do.

Janus pulled back and looked up at him after a second. “Remus?”

“Yeah?”

“Would you still like me if I was a girl?”

Remus had no idea what that question entailed. He nodded.

“And you like me even though I’m not?”

“Of course I do.”

“What if—” Janus sniffed. “What if I end up liking boys too or something? That would be even harder to explain.”

“I like boys,” Remus said instantly.

Janus sniffed again. “You do?”

Remus nodded. “Kid, you know what my mom said when I asked her about this stuff?”

“What?”

“She said love should never be conditional.”

“What does conditional mean?”

“It means, Janus,” Remus said, shifting so Janus could sit more comfortably on his lap. “That you could be trans, cis, gay, straight, a weird half snake man who wears a really stupid hat—”

Janus finally laughed a little at that.

“And if you ask me that question, the answer will always be ‘I love you,’ over and over.”

Janus blinked a couple times. “You mean you like me?”

“Nope. I mean I love you, kid. No matter what.”

Janus’ eyes got big, and tears welled up in them again. “Over and over?”

“Over and over,” Remus agreed.

Janus sniffed again, and leaned his head into Remus’ chest again. Remus wrapped his arms around him. “I am so sorry your parents can’t see what an amazing kid you are just as you are,” he murmured.

“Yeah,” Janus said. “They just don’t understand. They’re stupid adults. Adults don’t understand anything.”

Remus held Janus tighter. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Adults don’t understand anything.”

…

Over the next couple months, Janus and Patton ended up trading half their wardrobe. Janus often had a monster truck or dinosaur shirt on within ten minutes of Remus coming over, though he would admit to Remus that those weren’t really his favorite. He said he liked the one with the cartoon snake on it. Remus spent the day going over shirts with more realistic snakes on them that Janus liked. In the end they purchased a couple that Remus said he would keep at his house for days that Janus came over there.

They also spent quite a few days at the park with Patton and Logan, sometimes with Virgil, sometimes with Virgil’s mom or dad. They felt bad about Janus’ situation too, and Remus could tell they wished they could be doing more. But Janus wasn’t being abused or neglected, and transphobic parents weren’t a legal reason that someone could be removed from a home. Remus was really doing about all he could for him. At least it seemed to be making Janus happier than he was. Sometimes, Janus told Remus everything he would do once he was too old for his parents to stop him. Fifteen, he said. When he was fifteen he would get a haircut. And Remus would come, right?

Remus would consider for a moment that he’d probably be in college at that point, but he couldn’t imagine leaving this kid to deal with his parents alone, no matter how old they both got, so the conversation always ended with Remus promising that he’d be there when Janus got his first real haircut at fifteen.

There were, of course, things to teach Janus about how to rebel against all of society, though the kid already had an excellent head start with all the philosophy he knew. Remus took him spray painting one time, and Janus sprayed all of curse words he knew on the wall. Remus couldn’t be prouder. They’d shoplifted together a couple times too. Remus made sure Janus understood that you couldn’t shoplift from a small business that would actually get hurt by it. Only big chains like Walmart. And no stealing in a way that would hurt the employees. Janus seemed to accept all of this easily. “It’s about eating the rich,” he said, nodding firmly. “Not hurting people who are already struggling.”

“You’ve got it,” Remus said with a proud smile.

But one of his favorite parts of being with Janus, after he spent one time at the park with Roman and Virgil, was how easily the kid picked up on how in love the two were.

“We have to do something about it,” Janus insisted. “They’re wasting time! They don’t have mean parents to worry about, why are they wasting time being scared?”

“I ask them that question all the damn time,” Remus said with a smirk.

“Okay,” Janus said, biting his lip as he started thinking. “We’re gonna come up with a plan.”

“Oh, are we? What are we doing?”

“I don’t know yet. Come help me.”

They spent the rest of that afternoon coming up with their plan, and planned to enact it that Saturday. They ended up at the ice cream parlor along with Patton and Logan, who were also in on the plan. Janus was there with Roman and Remus, and Patton and Logan were there with Virgil. The two in question were not aware that the other group was there. So, after a couple minutes, Janus loudly remarked to Roman that Patton was there, and could they go say hi.

“You know,” Janus said before Roman could reply. “I’m going to marry Patton one day.”

Roman smiled, his heart no doubt melting in the same way that Remus’ had when Janus had first told him this. “Are you?” Roman asked, taking a bite of his ice cream.

Janus nodded. “And he can wear a wedding dress, because he likes wearing dresses, and I can wear the tuxedo because I don’t like dresses, and you and Virgil can be the best men because it would be cool to have another married couple as the best men.”

Roman started coughing, and Remus patted him casually on the back as he struggled to stop turning bright red. “What— Virgil and I aren’t married!” Roman exclaimed.

Janus gasped. “What? Why not? When are you going to propose?”

“I— Janus, we’re not dating,” Roman said, turning more into a tomato by the second.

“What?” Janus said, sounding for all the life of him like he was heartbroken. “You have to ask him out then!”

“Janus—”

“Roman, it could mess up Patton and I’s whole wedding! You’re gonna mess up our wedding?” His lip wobbled in a way Remus could tell was fake three months ago, but Roman was clearly not there yet.

“I— look, kiddo, I do like Virgil, but—”

“Then go on! Time’s ticking, you have to get married before Patton and I do!” Janus called, jumping up and pulling Roman up out of his chair. “Go on, go on, go on!”

Roman was left with not much of a choice at that point, and he headed over towards the booth across the parlor, where an equally red-faced Virgil had appeared to have been having a similar conversation. Remus and Janus both followed him over. There was no way they were missing this.

Virgil stood up quickly when Roman got there, and they both started stammering something that was barely coherent, but in the end, Roman managed to get out something about dinner on Friday, and Virgil managed to nod.

All of the kids, and Remus cause what the hell, started to cheer.

“Look at that, we finally got your heads out of your asses!” Remus called, slapping Roman on the back, who smacked him on the arm right back.

“You all planned this, didn’t you?” Virgil asked, looking too embarrassed to be angry, though Remus had no doubt that would come later.

“Maybe,” Remus said, sliding into the booth after Janus, who was now sitting next to Patton.

“We correctly deduced you would never do anything yourselves,” Logan said with a smile from Patton's other side.

“Janus and I are still getting married one day though,” Patton said, completely seriously.

“Yes,” Janus said, nodding along. “And you two will be our best men.”

“Okay, slow down,” Roman said. “That’s taking things a little fast.”

“I think they figured they’d make up for all the time you two wasted,” Remus said with a grin.

“I’m going to kill you later,” Roman said.

“No, please, think of my children,” Remus said.

“What children?”

“Me!” Janus exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air. Remus laughed and pulled him to his side, giving him a noogie.

As the conversation started to head back into a normal direction, Janus nudged Remus in the side. Remus glanced over.

“Sorry I made the children joke,” Janus said quietly.

“Oh, don’t be sorry. It’s true is what it is,” Remus said, ruffling his hair again. “I have adopted you. You can never get rid of me.”

Janus started smiling. “Promise?”

“Promise,” Remus said. “You know why?”

“‘Cause you love me over and over?”

“Because I love you over and over,” Remus said, giving Janus a quick side hug. “You nailed it, my little man.”

“Little man,” Janus said quietly, though he was still smiling really big, and Remus smiled back. “Little man. Yeah.”

#sanders sides #remus sanders #janus sanders #trans janus #transphobia #misgendering #tw misgendering #deadnaming #tw deadnaming #babysitting

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regrettablewritings · 4 years

Text

Preference: Surviving the Holidays

Characters: Dewey Finn, Peter B. Parker, Tadashi Hamada, Bruce Wayne

Dewey Finn: Thanksgiving

Dewey’s relationship with Thanksgiving was wack, for lack of a better word. Really that could be said for his relationship with most holidays, but what made Thanksgiving stand out ever so slightly was just how obsessively tied to gatherings with loved ones it was when compared to other holidays: You could party for Christmas; you could party for New Years; you couldn’t really party for Thanksgiving. And given that most of his time growing up was just himself and his ma . . .Yeah, the guy wasn’t too crazy about what he considered to be a sham of a holiday. (Plus, he didn’t vibe with the parade.)

And none of that lessened as he got older, with his relationship with his mother becoming more and more strained. After a while, the most he really got from the holiday was tagging along accompanying Ned to his own family’s place. But once Patty came along, that window of opportunity closed.

But that didn’t mean he didn’t long for it. Quite the contrary, it had become sour grapes for Dewey: He could gripe and sneer about Thanksgiving being a “boring-ass” wannabe day all he wanted to; the truth simply was that deep down, he knew he wouldn’t really mind the idea of being in the presence of somebody who loved and appreciated him enough to share a meal with him. Or to be thankful that he was in their lives and wanted him to know it.

That, and he missed the option of not having to stay cooped up in the apartment he mooched off in, eating Kraft Mac straight out the pot while imagining others elsewhere eating homemade baked macaroni as a side to a much more delicious and filling meal.

You personally didn’t feel especially impassioned by the day one way or another to be frank. At least, not usually. You weren’t sure what had gotten into you -- maybe it was because the two of you had just moved in together and wanted to make a statement, or maybe the spirit of the season had finally possessed the both of you, or maybe it was because the delirium of moving in two weeks before a holiday had finally taken its hold (moving is statistically one of the most stressful events in a person’s life, after all) -- but there was a newfound determination in trying to “get this right.”

Of course, there’s nothing and no one who says that a house only becomes a home once it has been christened by a successful feast. But there was a sense of maturity that did come with the idea of holding down even a dinner for two that wasn’t picked up from the deli down the street, or delivered by some knock-kneed cyclist. And it was a maturity the both of you were far too eager to acquire.

Never mind the fact that most of your kitchenware was still lost amongst the boxes (what few of them you could fit in the glorified Fruit-By-the-Foot box you called an apartment). Or that you guys were on a budget. Or that the dinner table was an old plastic collapsible one reminiscent of the tables put up at parties held in gymnasiums. You two were adults, goddammit, and you were going to pull this off at least once! Just once, and things would go back to normal.

. . .

Like most things that tended to involve the great Dewey Finn, you had no idea how this happened.

There was no turkey, no green beans or corn on the cob or even mashed potatoes or a pumpkin pie. Instead, what cluttered the table was a plate of Bagel Bites, tater tots, a plastic case of Lofthouse cookies, and, of course, some Kraft Mac. Neither one of you said anything. At least, not out loud. But the sheepish expressions you gave one another said everything.

Time had gotten away from you both. As did proper ingredients to prepare the more traditional meals associated with the day. You supposed that, in a panicked haze, the both of you wound up grabbing and putting together whatever you could to salvage your pride efforts but you began to suspect that that might not’ve been enough.

“. . . At least we beat Snoopy’s meal,” Dewey tried. A beat passed. Then a snort.

“S-shut up!” you cried. How dare he criticize an animated beagle’s meal of popcorn and toast? Though you had to admit, he had a point: You’d take pizza-decorated bagelettes over popcorn any day -- including Thanksgiving Day, apparently.

In the end, it wasn’t the most . . . traditional situation. And it certainly wasn’t enough to change Dewey’s mind about the day. But you both had to agree: It was a feast that certainly christened your new home together as your own. And for that, you were quite thankful.

Peter B. Parker: Hanukkah

While it wasn’t the most important holiday on the Jewish calendar, Hanukkah still held a heavy level of importance in Peter’s heart. Growing up, it had served as a foundation for so many things in his life: In certain traditions, stability was established; in the togetherness it garnered, there was love; and in the activities partaken, there were memories. Memories of helping Aunt May in the kitchen and of Uncle Ben determining him to be old enough to recite the proper prayers. Of lighting the menorah and setting the room aglow with the history of a miracle . . .

It was therefore a huge regret of Peter’s when he had foregone observing both the winter holiday, as well as many others in his culture during the more recent years when his life began to slip and slide out of control. So when he reemerged from Miles’ dimension, ready and willing to take a chance on life again, it was only natural that Peter was also ready and willing to bring back more positive habits and influences – celebrating Hanukkah included.

And with you, now present in his life and curious and eager as ever, he couldn’t help but feel all the more encouraged to share it. And maybe perhaps show off. Just a little.

For example, once you removed the whole Spider-Man situation, Peter was a pretty simple guy. Especially when it came to foods: Far be it from Peter B. Parker to turn down a burger with some fries or some pizza or street food. So that’s what made it stick out all the more when, after the first night he announced his decision to attempt making challah. Followed by some latkes. Maybe a babka as well. And some sufganiyot. Never mind that he had never actually made some of these without the more experienced Aunt May taking up most of the task. But he was determined and literally and metaphorically hungry for success, and who were you to question his ambitions?

. . . Apparently somewhat saner and more aware than he was. The babka and latkes were simple enough, thankfully. But the sufganiyot? Peter couldn’t fry like that; not with the best materials money could by, when said money was provided on the budget of two people trying to make it in one of the pricier boroughs of New York. And the less said about the challah process, probably the better. . . . Though you still had plenty to say.

“You’re a spider, Peter – why is your weaving coming out so weird?” you questioned, eyeballing the tangled mess of dough. Peter huffed, trying to keep his glower on his failed efforts, rather than redirecting it at you.

“It’s not my fault the guy moves too fast,” he said, referring to the tutorial you had both played on loop. He muttered something along the lines of “for beginners, my ass.” At this rate, the real holiday miracle would be if you not only braided the challah correctly, but also if you didn’t burn down the raggedy apartment. You wanted to say that there would be no shame in calling it and just going to one of the nearby Jewish bakeries for a loaf, but your partner seemed invigorated by spite-induced determination to see this task through.

Never mind that the strands of dough flopped against one another in spite of his best efforts. At this point, it resembled less of a perfect princess braid and more like a flattened Tangela. It was pitiful, really, but you had to admit: The pout his failed efforts had earned him was cute. You didn’t want to think lightly of what he was deeming a situation, but it was quite nice seeing him like this at all. When you had first met he was quite nearly the opposite, all grumpy and aloof and wanting nothing to do with you.

Who would’ve guessed that in due time, he’d become the very man who stood before you, eager to interact with you and bond with you, sharing moments like these . . . Moments which you wish he would just go ahead and enjoy along with you.

“Hey, Peter?”

“Ye -- ” A small blast of flour collided with his crooked nose, stopping the man short. “HEY!” He cracked one eye open just enough to glare at your grinning face.

“Don’t be such a Grinch, Peeby -- ”

“Wrong holiday,” your boyfriend snarked as he wiped his face.

“Hush. Anyway, we still got a few more nights to figure this out,” you reminded. You placed a quick peck on his powdery cheek for good measure. His shoulders slumped with a sigh. As much as he didn’t want to say it, he knew you had a point. Maybe he had gotten a bit too (literally) wrapped up in getting all this right. Though he did feel his spirits lift somewhat as you placed your hand over his with assurance.

Somewhat. All that was missing was --

Pff!

“UGH! PETER!” Your hands flew to your face in an effort to wipe away the fistful of flour that now caked it. All the while, the offender himself laughed. He was probably going to have to appease you with some chocolate gelt “for damages” but as far as he was concerned, it was worth it. After all, what better way to share these important moments than with his favorite person?

Tadashi Hamada: Christmas

A local little cafe in the heart of San Fransokyo was simultaneously the best place to be for the holiday season, and the worst. The great things about it were the cute store-bought and homemade decorations that decked the cozy halls of the establishment; the seasonal baked goods and sandwich specials that made the Lucky Cat smell like cinnamon or roasted turkey; the cozy feeling that welcomed you like a hug whenever you walked in.

Alternatively, there was the whole to-do with picky or rude customers coming in from out of town; the saturation of Christmas music screeching through the speakers; and way-too-hype women taking up tables for hours at a time after spending the day shopping (and clogging the already small aisles with the bags from said shopping).

But all in all, Tadashi made it all better.

Having grown up in the Lucky Cat, he’d long since learned how to cancel out the grinchiness the holiday season brought out, and was more than happy to help you do the same using his own methods. If you focused on the little things, he figured, you could attach sweeter memories and associations to them. Especially if you veered a little off the usual path.

Sure, there was joining him in the kitchen to prepare and bake cranberry-speckled pastries and frost cookies to resemble familiar holiday characters and items. But there was also stringing popcorn garlands together (“Tadashi, you’re the youngest 70-something year-old I have ever met.” “Hush, you; I’m doing you a favor by laying my Christmas cheer all over you.” “Phrasing, ‘Dashi, geez!”). But at the end of the day, there was one thing in particular that your boyfriend did to sweeten the deal. The one thing only someone like Tadashi could do: Snowball fight a la manipulation of barometric pressure.

Following the incident with the snow machine two years ago, Tadashi had to make a promise to Aunt Cass to only use it outside. Away from the house. That suited Tadashi just fine. After all: What better way to pelt your loved one in the face using snow warfare than to do so in a wide-open space like the park? And while those fortunate (and unfortunate) enough to have come upon the unusual winter wonderland he had created, the facts still stood: This was about you and him. You vs him, diving behind mounds of snow, screeching with both joy and discomfort whenever the snow made an impact against bare skin, eyes tearing up from the cold . . .

You could’ve done this for hours, especially since you were pretty positive Tadashi was letting you win. If only he hadn’t called for an armistice.

“ ‘Armistice’? For what? You scared I’ll beat your butt again?” you taunted through chattering teeth.

“No, you ding-dong,” Tadashi shook his head. “Look at you: You’re clearly at your limit with the cold.”

“Nuh-uh!” As if to betray you, your body gave a sudden jolt; a release of shivers like a spring being let loose after coiling. As if unimpressed, the young man reached for your gloved hands and gave one a gentle squeeze.

“Does that hurt?” he questioned.

You winced. “N-no . . .”

You heard him click his tongue. “Ah. Enforced armistice.”

“No fair!” you whined.

“If you sign the treaty, I will include hot cocoa when we get back.”

. . . Well, he could make a mean hot chocolate. Not too sweet, not too bitter, it was perfectly creamy with only the slightest hint of cinnamon for kicks. It was the perfect thing to relax you, causing you to come undone as it’s warmth spread about you inside while the warmth of the kotatsu took care of you on the outside.

“Comfy?” your boyfriend asked. You purred, foregoing a more proper answer just to take another sip of the glorious hot drink. Your enthusiasm earned you a chuckle from him as he inched closer to you. Just enough to hold your hand in his. “For body heat purposes” he might’ve insisted, had you asked. Not that you minded it: It was just what the evening needed to feel complete. Not the goofy, awful ugly sweater he wore that made Rudolph’s nose blink when you pressed a certain spot; not the gentle crooning of Christmas classics sounding from the miniature stereo Tadashi had set up; not even stockings carefully lined along the makeshift mantle, or the presents glimmering beneath the lights of the twinkling tree.

Just the warm feeling of togetherness. That this beautiful man you get to call yours is so willing to share how he celebrates with you. And that you, it turn, get to celebrate with him.

“Hey, you made her cocoa?!” Hiro’s complaining ripped through the air.

And his small but nevertheless vibrant family, of course.

Bruce Wayne: New Years Eve

Let’s face it: New Years Eve sucks. All everyone wants to do is throw a party (even when they actually don’t really want to), the parties are either obnoxiously loud or awkwardly quiet (there is no in-between), there’s never any food because all people wanna do (or have been convinced to do) is drink, and the alcohol is usually crap by the time you get there because everyone already knew to tackle the good booze as soon as they arrived.

Suffice to say, you had some gripes when it came to New Years Eve. And in spite of the luxurious images that tended to come to mind, parties thrown by the wealthy weren’t any different from the average one thrown by the common man. Really, the only difference was that the alcohol was of higher quality and the gatherings were usually held at some large hall like a hotel ballroom or even at a prestigious gallery.

But even if you’d known that beforehand, you still would’ve accompanied Bruce to one such party. Bruce wasn’t fond of them himself, but he needed to at least make an appearance to save face with all the moochers and bigwigs from neighboring industries and enterprises. You were honestly just there for support, though it was just as agonizing for you as it was for him.

Well, at least you didn’t have to actually talk extensively with anyone, you mused. You’d been nursing your drink for the last half hour or so, trying to walk that thin line between going about undisturbed while also not coming across as frigid or wallflowery. Not too far off, you could see Bruce smiling at another partygoer: A buxom ginger, surely an important figure in her own right, but clearly seeing no harm in grinning coquettishly at the affluent Prince of Gotham. You felt no trace of jealousy within you, however. You knew Bruce’s real smile, and the one he was currently providing her wasn’t it in the slightest.

No, the real one was the one he flashed you when he glanced over at you to make sure that you were doing fine off and alone. A sweet, glorious smile that reached his eyes. Though, there were also traces of exhaustion. And you suspected that the smile you returned held just as much because soon after that, you watched him excuse himself from whatever conversation he’d been trying to carry before making his way over to you.

“How’re you holding up?” he inspected.

You shrugged and sighed, “It is what it is. I’m making peace with the fact that the last thing I would’ve eaten this year would’ve been an assortment of cocktail wienies, what I think might’ve been pate, and ginger ale.” You’d meant for it to come across as more humorous, but the dry tone you had delivered your words in ruined the effect.

Bruce winced and offered yet another smile: A wobbly, more sheepish one.

“You ready to go home?”

God, yes.

“No, no,” you replied. “Really, it’s fine. Besides, it’s almost midnight anyway -- it probably wouldn’t look good if Bruce Wayne ditched a party his glorious hosts have so graciously invited him to.”

You watched as your significant other raised his brow. “Honey, I’m Bruce Wayne: I’m known for ditching parties.”

“Oh,” you said simply. Fair point. To your minor relief and slight embarrassment, he huskily chuckled.

“C’mon,” he sighed, placing his hand on your lower back as guidance. “My ass is sore from all the butt-kissing. Let’s go home where it’s warm. And quiet.”

“And we can actually eat!” you chirped, a little too excitedly. Once again, your embarrassment was met with approval.

The outside was both quieter and just as noisy as the inside of the celebration. Quieter because of the muting effect the fallen snow had, but also more lively because of the surrounding restaurants and streets and bars filled with people cheering and blowing party horns and singing in slurred joy. You liked it better than the party, if you had to be honest. But maybe perhaps because as you wandered the snow-caked streets to reach where Bruce had parked the car, you felt his gloved hand wrap around your own.

Of course, it was probably just to keep your hand warm -- maybe even just to make sure you kept pace with him, or that if you wouldn’t fall if you hit a small patch of black ice. But in a little corner of your mind, you couldn’t help but romanticize it: It was like he was accompanying you into the new year in a way. Just you and him. No loud parties, no pressures, no being anywhere or with anyone you didn’t want to be.

“Thanks, by the way.” Bruce broke the silence in a puff of cold air. “I know these really aren’t your thing -- I mean, personally, they aren’t mine, either, but you really didn’t have to come if you didn’t want to. But I appreciate that you . . . that you did.”

Your cheeks burned, though not from the whipping cold of the late December air.

“Of course I did . . .” you reasoned. “I know it sounds goofy but . . . we’re in this together, y’know?” You gave his hand a small squeeze. He squeezed yours right back, but with a bit more power. The warmth of it traveled up into your chest and cheeks. You licked your chapping lips.

“Besides,” you continued, “if I had just stayed home, I would’ve been bored. And probably would’ve given my New Year’s Kiss to Alfred.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Oh, who knows? New year, new me, right?”

You couldn’t have imagined what Bruce would’ve responded with next if it weren’t for the sudden distraction: The air, disorderly and sloppy mere seconds before, had all at once seemed to become uniform with the sounds of chanting. A count down.

You’d lived through so many New Years before, you weren’t quite sure what made this one different. There was no reason for you to pause as you did, your heart suddenly thundering in your chest at the realization of what was to come. It was just another year, right? A new year with new promises, new disappointments, new surprises both good and bad, new --

“ -- two! One! HAPPY NEW YEAR!!”

You had barely had a moment to register the words before you became distracted with registering something entirely different: A pair of warm lips pressed against your own, the feeling of large arms wrapped about your waist to pull you in close.

As he parted from you, Bruce flashed you one of his real smiles once more. One that denoted the mischief only you were truly privy to.

“Beat him to it,” he teased.

And for as shocked as you were over the exchange of the midnight kiss, you couldn’t help but blink . . . and find yourself in a giggling fit. That was why this year felt different: You had never had a boyfriend on New Years before. Scratch that: You had never had Bruce for New Years. And that made a world of difference. You didn’t want to make any assumptions but . . . it was a pretty great way to start a new year, if you did say so yourself.

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ftstorm · 4 years

Text

My take on 5x10

Welp, that was a big one!

You know, before going into this episode I reminded myself this was the first episode of a new era, the first episode completely made by the new team.

So with that in mind my expectations were "Okay, let's see what they've got."

And oh boy did they surprise me.

DISCLAIMER: this text post is long af, not kidding.

1. THE INTRO SCENE.

You guys have no idea how glad I am that we got Mac doing a usual MacGyvering in his house. It's been ages since they implemented this format of showing his dynamics outside Phoenix and around his house.

I wasn't worried about the proposal thing at all. Guys, you have to accept that MacRiley was always going to happen after that 4x04 episode.

There was also the fact that this was the intro scene (usually the most important plot issues happen in the outro scene), Bozer's weird reaction and the melancholic audio cue.

If that proposal was happening, they would've made it more uplifting.

(I gotta say that watching Monica Marcer and the official MacGyver account making damage control in Twitter 3mins into the episode was a funny experience)

So my initial questions about Mac wanting to propose were: "what are his motivations?" and "how is this not going to work out by the end of the episode?"

The second question we got the answer later on. The first question remains unanswered. If we take on Mac's words, he says:

Mac: Unexpected, I know, I know. But that's why I like about it. You know ever since I lost my dad and Jack I've been thinking about the bigger picture. A commitment to make things work it's exactly what Desi and I need. A grand romantic gesture. *cue melancholic music*

Here we're presented with a bunch of things worth analysing, in my opinion.

He's trying to see the "bigger picture" which, for me, it means he's trying to tackle down different issues from his life with one specific, efficient action [the proposal]. Those issues being:

> his current romantic relationship: make is aware they have an inconsistent relationship > his performance at work: he needs balance between his personal affairs and his work, which is based on saving the world in a daily basis and for that he needs to be focused. > dealing with his past losses: to my understanding, saying "ever isn I lost my dad and Jac I've been thinking about the bigger picture" means that he doesn't want hopelessness to take over him, he wants to keep on moving and being proactive about his life.

So... you have to understand that in some sort of way, this proposal thing is a signal that Mac is healing. In some sort of way, if you were in Mac's shoes you would see that it was a positive thing for him. A step forward.

The thing is, we [the audience] have an extended understanding of the situation and we know that an engagement would be an incredibly rushed decision.

As well as it is that Mac's trying to move forward, he obviously hasn't been able to pinpoint the true issue behind his relationship with Desi. He isn't wrong about them lacking in the commitment department, but forcing the relationship to scalate isn't the right move. He should be asking himself: "Why are we avoiding commitment?"

And that's when he'd find out that they have very deep and important trust and communication issues.

~~~~

2. Moving on. MURDOC.

Russ: I can process it more efficiently by having it all spread out ahead me, you know. I reckon see the bigger picture at once.

This is when I realized that the episode was centered on this whole "bigger picture" idea. Russ struggles to see the full picture until the very end and Mac finds out that he hasn't been seeing the full picture of his life at all by the end of the episode.

Fast forward, the team's in Mexico, Riley knows about the ring already and she has already had the talk with Bozer in which she refers to her feelings for Mac in a past tense.

Then Murdoc appears.

And as if the episode wasn't already a rollercoaster after Mac's reveal, now Murdoc shows up to put everything upside down.

First I gotta say, man Dastmalchian is SUCH A GOOD MURDOC. Excellent actor. The way he delivers his lines, his facial expressions, all of it make an original and very entertaining Murdoc.

He always gives me such a Andrew Scott's Moriarty vibes and I love it.

Secondly, his dynamic with Andrews: *cheff kiss*

I loved how Andrews was so over Murdoc's theatrics, to the point his facial expression screamed "Why did I even reclute this guy" LOL.

Back to the story.

This is something I was hoping it wouldn't happen but at the same time I don't see another way it could've happened which is the explanation behind Murdoc's escape and how Phoenix didn't know about it.

Because what they told us is that the FBI didn't let them in on Murdoc's escape, right? Does that imply that the FBI has a corrupt agent in charge? Does it imply that the order of not letting Phoenix in came from above? Maybe someone with higher clearence than Matty? A politician? Governement conspiracy?

It smells like plot hole, tbh. I feel like the Murdoc's escape is a classic "it is what it is". We'll see if they come back to this in later episodes.

~~~~

3. BIG SECRET REVEAL 1.

By now we're at the point of the rollercoaster where you're going up and up and up. Your tension building more and more as you're getting close to the drop.

Bozer and Riley's audio was the drop.

You know, during this scene I jumped from my seat, closed my eyes, cringed, squealed, my heart accelarated, forgot how to breathe...

As a person who is a little bit bipolar when it comes to romance (I can be very shy about it or very outspoken about it) that scene made me SO UNCOMFORTABLE.

Imagine having your feelings exposed not only to the person you have feelings for but also his girlfriend who happens to be your friend, your boss and the criminal that's threatening to kill hundreds of people.

I was like: "Not like this!!"

And Mac's reaction didn't help because of the lack of it. I don't know what I expected but his slightly monotone reaction broke my heart.

Thankfully, I've recovered since then and I don't mind that it happened that way.

Still, imagine how suffocating it must've been for Riley. That idea was what made me so uncomfortable and I think that's what they were going for. They wanted to make it as straightforward and awkward as possible.

But it doesn't end there. It's followed by Mac revealing the ring to Desi (and Riley). Mac's in "fuck it" mood and Desi kinda panics.

Little side note here, using GUM and a DIAMOND to break a bullet proof glass... BIG YES. That's an intrinsic MacGyverism.

~~~~

4. BIG SECRET REVEAL 2.

Then we get a breather from this drama by introducing another drama, Leanna's death.

Bozer's reaction to the news was heartbreaking for my already heartbroken heart.

I have my suspicions as to why they decided to kill her... The other episode completely made by the new team was the Quarantine one (5x06). During that episode Mac and Bozer bond over Bozer's pain. After learning about Bozer's mom, Mac chooses to share a piece of his own pain with him.

So, hear me out, I think they writers are planning to help Mac process his own grief THROUGH Bozer's grief. Keep in mind that we still have a Bozer centered episode coming up.

This is just a theory. I may be wrong, but I think it may be right too.

Back to the episode.

Once again we see a three dimensional Russ. He does something accordingly to his own judgement thinking it's the right decision [hiding Leanna's death], he realizes he screwed up, he gives Bozer a very heartfelt apology about it.

Henry's acting talent shone with this narrative. Actually, most of the actors had the chance to shine THANKS to the NARRATIVE. Murdoc, Andrews, Desi, Mac, Russ and Bozer... they all had their highlight moments (I'll talk about Riley later).

Parenthesis here... THE NARRATIVE HAS RETURNED THEIR SOULS TO OUR DEAR CHARACTERS!

WOW, they aren't brooding, angry, sad or whiny ALL THE EFFIN TIME. ABOUT TIME!

~~~~

5. LAST ACT.

For the third or fouth time in this episode my heart broke again when Mac was friendly towards Riley, after she explained herself. It really felt like he was friendzoning her.

But here's something to point out. Riley visibly relaxed when he reacted that way. What does that tell us?

> She had been so tense up until that point. Imo, she's on the defensive now. You can even see it in her wardrobe, make up and hairstyle choices. They're very contrasting to Riley's most vulnerable moments in this show (like when Audrey broke up with her).

Riley has had a year to sort out her feelings. We see in this episode that she spoke about them in a past tense. Whether she achieved it or not is unknown. We just know that she has at least tried to move on.

> She was mostly afraid of ruining her close relationship with Mac (who's her only family, along with Bozer) and her friendship (?) with Desi. We've seen it over and over again: Riley DID NOT WANT to get in the middle of them.

Keep that in mind as we go in the last scene.

It took me a while to figure out a possible thread of thought inside Mac's mind. Why did he look at the ring and decided to go to Riley's house? It really didn't make sense to me.

One moment he was thinking about his proposal and somehow that lead to him having the necessity to know if Riley still had feelings for him? Why??

My theory is that he went to her apartment for permission.

His question was a way of asking Riley for permission to propose to Desi. It was a way of reassuring himself that proposing was still the right decision.

In a way, he could also be fishing for an excuse to not do it [the proposal].

Because now he has doubts. He's confused, unsure.

Mac asks:

Mac: Hiding your emotions and letting it pass. Did it go away?

What could her answer have been? Here I wanna go back again to Riley being emotionally defensive, added her strong desire of not wanting to be in the middle of Mac and Desi's relationship.

I think she would've said "Yes, it worked."

Because it also lines up with my idea that the love triangle has changed from "Riley's a better match for Mac" to "Mac needs to win Riley's heart".

Riley's done her job. She worked out her feelings. Now it's time for Mac to sort out his humongously messed up internal self and reignite her spark. That's what I think.

Also, if anyone has any idea on how the song that played in that scene relates with the moment please share it with me because I don't really understand the song choice lol.

~~~~

6. ADDITIONAL COMMENTS

Desi. I'm not sure what's going on in her mind. She seemed stressed out by the ring, very serious about Riley, lenient with Mac... I'm really not sure.

My guess would be that she doesn't want that type of commitment but she wants to be with Mac yet she can't ignore Riley so does that mean she has to end it with Mac? That's the thought process she may have had? Idk...

I'm glad they let her be mature about it, with no overreactions, no whining, no blaming, nothing of that style that we're used to see in her.

I'm also glad about that moment when she defeats Murdoc and Andrews. THAT'S HOW YOU WRITE A TOUGH DESI. It was filmed with such a gracefulness and elegance. I liked it.

From a MacDesi point of view, she's probably being open minded and giving him space and waiting for him to come back to her... but somehow I got the vibe that she's actually... running away?

Lastly but no less important.

THE HISPANIC REPRESANTION OMG. RUSS SPEAKING SPANISH AND THAT CUMBIA MUSIC FILLED MY HEART WITH SO MUCH PRIDE!!! :')

#MacGyver #review #long post #finally finished it #macgyver meta #my meta

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depizan · 4 years

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I was thinking about the post I reblogged about the loss of the Alliance in SWTOR, and some of my other disappointments with how faction is handled in the game, and how faction based MMOs in general tend to get stuck in this kind of "eternal conflict" mode. (Not that factionless MMOs don't get stuck in their own kind of weird "eternal conflict" mode, too. Look at Guild Wars 2 and the growing list of things that have tried to destroy Tyria.)

But there are stories that lend themselves to a faction model, and SWTOR does have - or does begin with - one of those. It's just that with no prospect of whatever conflict divides the factions ever being resolved, you have a weird permanent stalemate situation, kind of. The Sith Empire will never win, because that would make Republic players unhappy. The Galactic Republic will never win, because that would make Empire players unhappy. No actual solution to the conflict can ever be found because then it would be game over. (Also, no real faction shifting because how would you code that?)

Except... maybe none of that is true. There are games that have faction shifting of a kind coded in. Think of all the minor factions in World of Warcraft, some opposed to one another, some just independent. Sure, those faction shifts are mostly achieved with some kind of grind, but it does prove that mutable factions are codeable.

This might even solve the problem of the Smuggler and the Bounty Hunter being tied to specific factions when that leads to some very odd story stuff, particularly outside of each class story. It suggests a way to handle factional grouping and third faction classes without making those factions "better" because all flashpoints are available to them.

Here is Mac's theoretical redesign of SWTOR with a different handling of factions and playing into the story focus that is the game's best quality.

Republic and Empire each get three classes, Smuggler and Bounty Hunter are Underworld (a third, neutral to the others faction). Since the galaxy is supposed to be under a peace treaty - the Treaty of Coruscant - you design the game with flexible faction tagging and lean in hard to the Cold War set up.

You have degrees of faction, just like those minor factions in WoW. I'm going to borrow the middle part of WoW's faction set up for this. Theirs runs Hated - Hostile - Unfriendly - Neutral - Friendly - Honored - Revered - Exalted. We just need the middle chunk, from Hostile to Friendly. Hostile is typical enemy mob: bar is red, it will attack you on sight. Unfriendly is an orange bar, but will not fight you unless you attack. Neutral is a yellow bar, again, will not fight you unless you attack. Friendly is typical allied mob: bar is green, etc.

Imperial players can go to Coruscant, and Republic players to Dromund Kaas, but everything is Unfriendly to them, they can't buy anything (except maybe at the spaceport?), and there are no quests available to them. Underworld players start out one tick up at Neutral and have a few merchants and quests available. Ones that it makes sense would be available to random people. (This is to balance out Underworld space starting at Neutral to Pubs and Imps.) And, obviously, Pub space starts out Friendly to Pubs and Imps space Friendly to Imps. (Though I would be slightly tempted to have Korriban be neutral to the Agent class because, as a non-Force-Sensitive you don't really belong there.)

(As you can see, we're basically using a game mechanic to underline the state of galaxy. We can also set things so that people can't go fuck things up for their fellow players by coding it so that if you just go attack people on the opposite faction capitol, you get blipped to hostile and squashed like a bug.)

Now, we write the game like there is actually a Cold War happening. This means missions for Imps and Pubs that send people into "enemy" space (not, to start with the capital or Force User planets, though) where they have to accomplish their missions without attracting the attention of the other faction. We can take advantage of instancing to allow for diplomatic incidents, like thinking "well, they can't report I'm here if they're dead," without triggering the anti-trolling splat mobs. This is also where we introduce some side quests that give people the opportunity to work on becoming to Neutral with the opposite faction.

Smugglers and Bounty Hunters are off doing Underworld stuff, with some options to take quests that benefit the Republic or the Empire. (Giving them the chance to work on becoming Friendly with one or both factions.)

All class stories get written so that there are several potential outcomes. We're going to use the Agent story as a model here, and basically set it up so that everyone has a story line that ends with them still loyal to the faction they began with, now Underworld/Unallied, or loyal to the opposite faction. This gets paired with the ability for characters to keep doing things to make the other faction like them better and you're setting up defections or the decision to go neutral with mechanics and story.

You use the Cold War setting to ramp up general tension. Have more missions like that one on Republic Hoth where you can work with some Imperials. Or the times where a Sith Warrior can use Republic soldiers to their advantage. So the whole base game has this good overlay of people wanting peace and people wanting to go back to war (on all sides!). This lets you really flesh out the factions, and the good and bad people in them. Have a more positive sort of Gray Morality going on.

As far as Flashpoints go, you re-write The Black Talon/Esseles for proper Cold War subtlety. I think we want to use the intro flashpoints to give people a better idea of the kind of proxy conflict stuff, where you might be fighting what appear to be a third party (like pirates), but you get info (of the non provable kind) that they're working for the Empire/Republic. And maybe come up with some kind of mechanic where party members can get special communications based on faction. Like, the main (everybody) cut scenes for the Esseles talk about it being pirates that are attacking them, but the Jedi/Trooper characters get a quick comm call that the pirates are probably working for the Empire and after a particular person.

For all the shared flashpoints, you tweak them so they are truly shared. One queue for everyone, we still need to work out exactly how we're getting the different factions their special flavor bits, but there's more of that here. And maybe a kind of saboteur mechanic for things like what to do with the missiles on Cademimu, so that they can still be launched at a fleet for a DS option, but it's not in-character obvious that someone did it.

We can still have some Empire and Republic specific flashpoints, which we might allow Underworld characters who are Friendly with the right faction to do. (Or maybe not if we're keeping the ones we have. They've got a bit of a secret mission vibe. Maybe we add a fun treasure hunt flashpoint for the Underworld folks.)

The end of the base game becomes the Cold War going hot because of Revan (and let's say it's not the Republic at large backing him, but a smaller group within the Republic that's okay with his plan). Now we get proper fall out from someone wanting to commit mass murder, we get a good climax, and we can shift from writing eight class stories to three-ish main stories with class and faction related flavor bits. You'd have those fighting for the Republic (ex-Empire characters could get good flavor bits about fighting their old allies and some suspicion from their new ones - a suspicion ex-Underworld characters would also get), for the Empire (again, joined members get some good flavor bits), or who are with the Underworld now.

First expansion is the war, maybe with some of what we used to have in Chapter Three going on. I'm also kind of tempted to weave in some actual foreshadowing for Zakuul here. I'm not keen on Space Voldemort or the time skip, but other parts of those expansions seem worth trying to save. But maybe we have the player characters working with Lana and Theron like in the Revan expansion, but it's about hints that there's something bad coming instead.

Next expansion, Zakuul attacks, things go super to shit, Lana, Theron, some people from Zakuul and the player character(s) form the Alliance. Oooh, wait, lets go ahead and keep the Vitiate/Valkorian thing, and have killing the Emperor be the end of the first expansion (because he wants to eat the galaxy - he's gone mad, but the Empire as a whole won't acknowlege it and are following him off a cliff, the Republic isn't seeing him and the Empire as separate, even evil characters live in the galaxy, etc). Now, Zakuul invades because when you kill Vitiate, Valkorian keels over. Whoops.

(Zakuul is the backup plan. If he can't destroy the galaxy as Vitiate, here comes the uber-Empire! You just managed to off him, but the uber-Empire gets fired at the known galaxy anyway.)

Now we have one story going, with different flavors depending on the characters relation to the three old factions. Kind of like we do in the existing game. And we avoid bumping the player character up to a ridiculous level of authority by making them part of the leadership of the Alliance instead of the leader. Keep them more in line with the base game power level.

Not quite sure where we go from here, but basically you have this kind of flowing faction thing going through the game that meshes well with the story.

I don't know. Mostly I wanted to work out how you could do something more interesting with faction.

#Mac vs SWTOR #Mac rewrites the game #long post #very long post #god if they'd done it like this I might even like the expansions

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nahimjustfeelingit-writes · 5 years

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Imagine:

Erik has a new girl who has a baby prior to dating him and they become one big happy family. The baby daddy is jealous and he tries to one up on Erik but they end up being cool with eachother afterwards.

Warnings: Mentions of SMUT, Fluff.

Erik is currently staring at a picture of little Sasha. She was only one month on the photo. Now, Sasha is turning one.

When he first met Y/N and Sasha, they were in a Caribbean supermarket. Erik always shopped there. He decided to go and grab what he needed before heading home to his new apartment. If you ever wanted to shop for Afro-Caribbean ingredients, the best place to go to was a Caribbean supermarket. He wanted to cook up some beef patties, oxtail, rice and peas, and some fried cabbage. Already picking up the spices he needed, Erik wasn’t paying much attention when his cart bumped into Y/N’s. The loud clanking sound woke Sasha up. She cried a little bit but it didn’t last very long.

“Shit, my bad. My eyes were on the shelves looking for curry powder. Ah, I woke up this pretty little mama right here.”

“It’s alright, you don’t have to apologize. It happens to the best of us.”

The corners of Erik’s mouth turned up into a smile and his eyes widened slightly at the sight of her. Pushing a yellow cart with a light grey strapless sundress on that hugged her ample curves was one of the most beautiful women Erik has ever seen. Her skin was a beautiful mocha with tan lines. Short blue-black curly fro and nutmeg eyes with a bright white smile. She looked like she lived on an island and not California. That’s where the pretty new born baby got her looks from for sure.

“Here’s your curry powder.”

Erik blinked out of his trance, staring down at the beautiful woman’s hand holding up a bag of curry powder. Erik grabs it, his full lips still holding a dimpled smile.

“Thank you, ma.”

“No problem,” She looks down at her daughter in the cart, smoothing her black hair, “Well, let us get out of your way, I’m sure you have shit to do.”

“No rush, just got off of work,” Erik held out his hand, “My name is Erik.”

“Y/N,” she grabs it gently, shaking Erik’s hand slowly.

“And what’s her name?”

“Sasha.”

“She’s very beautiful like her mama.”

“Thank you,” Y/N blushes.

Erik licks his lips, “This is probably the only time I’ll ever see you...so I was wondering if I could have your number? I mean,” Erik looks Y/N up and down, “You are so damn beautiful. Make a nigga hold up traffic doing a U-Turn if I see you walking down the street.”

Y/N nibbles on the corner of her pouty bottom lip, “Just like that, huh, Erik?”

“It’s now or never honestly.”

Y/N cocked her head to the side, “You didn’t even ask me if I was single. I do have a new born baby. I could have a boyfriend, be engaged, already married-“

“My fault,” Erik chuckles, “It’s just in my nature to go after what I want.”

“I can see that,” Y/N shakes her head with a big smile.

“Aight, so, are you taken?”

“No. Not anymore.” Y/N sighs, “Long story.”

“I’m sorry to hear that gorgeous.”

“I’m okay. My Sasha is okay. That’s all that matters.”

“Well, she looks like she’s in good hands, no doubt.”

“Yes,” Y/N’s eyes sparked and her lashes fluttered, “Do you still want my number, Erik?”

“Hell yeah,” Erik pulls out his phone from his suit jacket. Y/N grabs her phone from the cart, handing it over to Erik. They both exchanged numbers before swapping back. They didn’t really know what else to say, Y/N looking at Erik bashfully and Erik is honestly enamored by how beautiful and chocolate Y/N is.

“Promise we will talk?” Erik says while walking back to his cart.

“I promise, Erik.” Y/N giggles, turning to her cart, giving Erik a view of her tantalizing voluptuous hips.

“Yeah, I’ll hold you to that, ma. Bye bye Sasha.”

Sasha just looked at him with her black eyes

Y/N and Erik talked that night, Y/N agreeing to go on a date with him but she definitely wasn’t ready for anything intimate. Erik respected that, he started falling deeper and deeper for Y/N and they didn’t start having sex until after a month of getting to know eachother. Ever since then, they were inseparable and Erik took care of Sasha like she was his child. They would spend the night the first 11 months into dating but by month 12, just weeks before Sasha’s birthday, Erik asked Y/N if she wanted to move in with him. Y/N instantly agreed without hesitation.

—————————

Sasha’s Birthday

“Rayvon is getting on my last nerves!”

Erik looks up from the photo of Sasha on her birthday cake at Y/N entering the kitchen in their apartment with a scowl and her lips pouting. She went back to stirring the potato salad, Erik’s eyes unable to ignore her ass jiggling in her yellow sundress.

“What happened with that nigga now?”

“He keeps asking me why I moved in with you. It’s none of his goddamn business!” Y/N kisses her teeth, “I am so sick of him questioning my decisions when he couldn’t even figure out if he wanted Sasha in his life. While he was out there screwing around I was dealing with my pregnancy alone.”

“Want me to talk to him?” Erik walks over to Y/N in the kitchen, his hand rubbing her back, “Cuz you know I will.”

“No, baby,” Y/N looks up at Erik with her doe eyes, “It’s not something I want you to get involved in unless it’s absolutely necessary. Ray is just jealous.”

“His loss. The nigga should have been on his shit but then again, I wouldn’t have you.”

“You won me,” Y/N turns, wrapping her arms around Erik’s neck, “I’m yours now. This may sound fucked up but...I was thinking the other day that I wish I would have ran into you in that market 9 months earlier. Then, you would have impregnated me and not Rayvon.”

“Aye,” Erik kisses Y/N’s forehead, “Sasha is a part of Rayvon. As much as I would have loved to meet you, Sasha wouldn’t be so fucking amazing if it wasn’t for him too-“

“You’re right. I don’t want you to think I’m saying that I don’t want Sasha-“

“Stop,” Erik rubs Y/N’s arms, “I know what you meant. You’re a great mother, baby, just... relax, okay?”

“Ugh,” Y/N smiles, “I’m so glad you’re here. Ray will be here and if you weren’t with me I wouldn’t survive-“

“You’re a strong woman, don’t let that nigga make you think otherwise,” Erik grabs her chin, “Look at me. Never let that nigga make you feel weak. Ever.”

“Okay,” Y/N stands on her tiptoes to kiss Erik.

“Good girl,” Erik gave Y/N another kiss, sucking on her bottom lip.

“Mmm, baybeee,” Y/N whimpers, “make me feel good before the party starts?”

“Damn,” Erik felt himself growing stiff, Y/N felt it too. Her hand came down the length of Erik’s body before resting gently over his crotch. She drags her nails up his length, her tongue poking out to sweep across her upper lip.

“Mm, Daddy. He’s so big-“

“Chill, ma, you can’t be doing that. You want yo’ mama to see how big of a freak her daughter is?”

“I just want it so bad,” Y/N kisses Erik’s neck causing him to groan, “So bad, Daddy-“

“I don’t want a quickie with you, I want it all, ma. Let’s wait until after the party. Isn’t Sasha going with Ray so he can take her to his parents?”

“Yeah,” Y/N had a sad expression, “I’ll wait the four hours I guess.”

“Trust me, it’s worth the wait, baby girl. I plan on wearing your ass out. Fix that pretty face, ain’t no pouting around here.”

“Okay, Daddy.”

“That’s right,” Erik takes both of his hands to reach around Y/N squeezing her generous buns and then making them bounce in his hands.

———————

Everyone showed up to Sasha’s first birthday, even some of Erik’s friends came out to support. The party was themed Disney Princess with Tiana from Princess and The Frog. Erik even got a dress made to match Princess Tiana’s for Sasha. She also had a little gold crown to match the gold anklet Erik gifted her for her birthday.

Are you Sasha’s Daddy?

You look like you could be Sasha’s Daddy.

I like you better than that dumb ass Rayvon.

The questions and comments circulated around multiple times. Erik did feel a little uncomfortable answering that with Ray there. Speaking of Ray, he was giving Erik a cold look the entire time. Whenever Erik gave Sasha or Y/N a kiss, held Sasha, accepted Y/N sitting on his lap, or gave Sasha a gift, Rayvon would scowl or clench his jaw like he was itching to say some foul shit. Y/N definitely did have a type. Rayvon looked about Erik’s height and weight except he was dark skin with a kinky fro. Rayvon is a kick boxer. He looked like he wanted to kick Erik out of one of his luxury apartment windows so he could watch him fall twelve stories.

After gift opening time with Sasha, Rayvon, and Y/N, Y/N allowed Sasha to walk around so she could get used to moving on her feet. Sasha is so fast and every time someone tried to pick her up she would twist and turn her body. As soon as Y/N felt Sasha pulling on the bottom of her yellow dress, smacking her little lips, Y/N knew that her daughter wanted some food.

Y/N sat bouncing Sasha on her lap while feeding her some Mac and cheese. Erik took a seat next to Y/N on one side while Rayvon approached to take the empty seat on the other side. Y/N rolls her eyes, glancing over at Erik before going back to feeding Sasha.

“Can I feed her?” Rayvon spoke with a deep voice.

“Yeah, she’s your baby,” Y/N passes Sasha over to Rayvon.

“Oh? No arguing with me? Shit, I’m shocked.”

Rayvon pinches Sasha’s cheek, grabbing some Mac and cheese with his fingers to feed her.

“Since I’m here, you gon’ introduce yourself, homie?”

“Erik,” Erik looked over at Rayvon with humor, “Nice to meet you, bruh.”

“Hmm,” Rayvon reaches out his hand across Y/N, “Nice to meet you.”

“Cool,” Erik shook his hand but he held just as tight as Rayvon. Erik gave Rayvon a sly smirk before pulling his hand away.

“Since you around my daughter so much, what do you have to offer? I need to know especially since Y/N is living here now-“

“Chill out Rayvon, shit,” Y/N was ready to cuss Rayvon out but Erik’s hand on her shoulder calmed her down.

“It’s all good, baby, he’s just asking questions,” Erik looked up at Rayvon with unwavering eyes, “I’m not tryna take your place but I care about her and Y/N so I WILL be around. I love them both, and that’s real. I’m finna treat Sasha and Y/N with nothing but respect and mad love just like I’ve been doing for the past year.”

Rayvon sat quiet but he kept his eyes on Erik. He honestly couldn’t think of anything to counter what Erik just said. For some reason, Rayvon could see that Erik was telling the truth. The jealous part of him wanted to hate Erik’s existence but he has been nothing but amazing towards Sasha.

“And I understand the energy, bruh, I get it,” Erik shrugs, “I don’t have a problem with you but I will back this woman up right here. She means a lot to me.”

Rayvon glances at Y/N, “Yeah, she has that effect on people.”

“For sure,” Erik wraps an arm around Y/N’s waist, “She don’t play though,” Erik chuckles.

“You got yourself a hard woman. Ain’t that right, Y/N?”

“Shut up, Ray,” Y/N rolls her eyes.

“Where are you from, Erik?” Rayvon tried to make small talk.

“Oakland, you?”

“Same.”

“Shit, we might know the same people.”

Rayvon, shrugs, “We might, what area?”

“East Oakland, you?”

“Bro...same. What high school?”

Y/N looked from Rayvon to Erik with a perplexed expression.

“Castlemont High School for my junior and senior. I was at Oakland High at first but I got put out. What year did you graduate?”

“06’. I went to Oakland High school. I don’t remember you though.”

“Probably because I stayed in the office and getting suspended,” Erik laughs, “Juvie too.”

“I’m sure we know the same people. Same niggas still out there on the corners.”

“Shit, who you telling. I had to let some of my homies go. I ain’t tryna get dragged down in that mess.”

“Best move, honestly.” Rayvon agreed.

Y/N couldn’t believe what she was witnessing. Rayvon was actually being nice to Erik after all the shit he talked about how he was going to beat his ass when he saw him. Now, he was having conversations about their childhood, laughing and getting along. They were so invested in talking that Y/N went unnoticed.

“I’m gonna take Sasha to see if she needs to be changed,” Y/N stands, reaching out for Sasha.

“Go to mommy, little mama,” Rayvon gives Sasha a kiss on her neck causing her to giggle before handing her over to Y/N, “she’s looking more and more like you every damn day, girl. Look like you created her on your own.”

“That means she’s gonna grow up to be pretty like her mama,” Y/N grabs Sasha’s hand to kiss, “ain’t that right cutie pie!”

Rayvon sat back in his chair admiring Y/N. Erik caught him staring at her frame while chewing on his bottom lip with a crease in the middle of his brows.

“We will be back, behave Ray,” Y/N gives him a stern look.

“I’ll keep Erik company, seems like we’re vibing.”

“Okay,” Y/N walked up to Erik, giving him a kiss on his cheek. Before she could even step away from him, Erik reached out to slap her ass. Y/N looked back at him while shaking her head before placing Sasha on her hip, walking away.

“Still looks soft,” Rayvon said without a care for Erik being there.

“It is,” Erik side eyed Rayvon, “Still jealous?”

A muscle in Rayvon’s jaw twitched before he gave a half smile, “I can be a man and admit that I’m a little envious. You enjoying what I had...that would make any man feel some type of way.”

“If you don’t mind me asking-“

“Why did I fuck it up?” Rayvon finished Erik’s question, “Because I couldn’t handle the fact that she was pregnant. I wasn’t ready to take care of a baby. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I was going to take care of Sasha regardless, I knew I had a big responsibility I just...it was unexpected. I never imagined being a father. I never imagined falling for Y/N at all, period. She just has this energy man, Hmm, I mean, you know that energy. I kept telling myself not to fall for her but, damn, she really sunk her nails deep, you feel me?”

“Oh, I feel you. I’ve been there. I’ve never had a baby but I’ve been in that situation. I didn’t want that type of commitment either. Now, I love that shit. When I saw Sasha and Y/N for the first time, I couldn’t leave without at least getting her number. She had me and I barely even knew her.”

“Where did y’all meet again?”

“Erik smiles, “Caribbean supermarket. Bumped carts.”

“Get the fuck out of here,” Rayvon laughs, “I met her walking past her on Telegraph Ave. I couldn’t keep walking without getting her number. All she had to say was hi and my ass was sprung.”

“All she had to do was look at me and I was hooked,” Erik lifted an eyebrow before turning to Rayvon, “I heard you’re a kick boxer?”

“I am. Been doing it for five years now. I love it. I want to teach Sasha some day.”

“She already kick and punch like a beast so I can only imagine how she will be when she gets older.”

Rayvon leans forward, resting his elbows on his thighs, “What do you do?”

“I work for the Outreach center here in Oakland.”

“Serious! Could you help out my brother? He’s been trying to get a job there for at least two years now. They still have him on like some sort of waitlist.”

Erik ponders for a second before answering, “What’s his name?”

“Davon. Ex Military, Masters in Computer Science, wants to help design technology to help struggling communities. He also interned for Stark.”

“He sounds perfect. I’m like, in charge of all of that. Well, I’m in charge of a lot but I oversee the technology aspect of things more. I’ll give you my business card and you can have Davon call me Monday morning at 8:00 AM. No later.”

“Chill, you’ll really do that for him? Damn, you’re really a stand up guy, Erik. And here I was tryna hate you for taking Y/N away from me. I ain’t got no reason to hate you man,” Rayvon held out his hand for Erik to shake out of respect.

Erik sizes Rayvon up, “You were tryna come up in here and one up on me?” Erik’s tone was rough and angry. Rayvon leans back, brows furrowed and hands up like he didn’t want any problems.

Erik’s face slowly morphed into that of humor. He snorts a laughter before clapping Rayvon on his back, “All jokes, homie, I don’t want no beef. We good.”

“Shit,” Rayvon let’s out a suppressed laugh before fixing his denim jacket, “I thought you were about to put hands on me.”

“Nah, that’s not in my character. Ain’t no reason for me to beat your ass-“

“Aight, nigga,” Rayvon chuckles.

Y/N walks back without Sasha in her arms, hands on both her hips as she stood before Rayvon and Erik.

“So, did you both exchange words while I was gone or was everything good?”

Erik and Rayvon exchanged looks, faux anger on their faces.

“Seriously? Damn, that didn’t last long. Listen, I can’t have-“

“CHILL,” Erik couldn’t control his laughter, “We’re good, just messing with you, baby.”

“Erik don’t do that!” She hits Erik’s broad shoulder, “I thought I was going to have to separate you two until the party is over, and Rayvon stop laughing! You’re the one that gave threats about wanting to strangle Erik with your bare hands!”

“No worries, girl, we talked, got to know eachother, and...I can honestly say that you chose right, probably better than me.”

Y/N didn’t know how to respond to that. She could see that Rayvon wished he would have done better but the maturity in his response is what won her over. Never in a million years did Y/N expect Rayvon to say those words about any man she decided to be with besides him.

“That really makes me happy, Ray, I just want all of us to get along for Sasha.”

“I agree,” Rayvon gave Y/N a charming smile before standing to give her a hug. Y/N accepted his hug but she made sure to look at Erik to see if he was okay with it. He didn’t seem bothered, he actually looked happy.

“Aight, where is my baby girl? The party is basically over I’m ready to take her home so she can chill with her cool Daddy.”

Y/N pointed to her mother and her aunts, “She’s over there eating ice cream. You’re gonna have a lot of diapers to change, Ray.”

“Eh, I’m prepared,” Rayvon turned to Erik bringing his fist towards him to bump, “Good talking to you man, see you again soon.”

“Same, bro. Let me get you a card for your brother.”

“Good looks.”

Erik stood up, heading towards his small office area to grab one of his business cards. When he returned, Sasha was already on her Daddy’s hip, her Minnie Mouse baby bag in Rayvon’s free hand.

“Erik, come say goodbye to Sasha,” Y/N waves him over. Erik came over, planting a kiss on Sasha’s cheek, “See you, cutie pie. It’s never a goodbye when it comes to you, ain’t that right?!”

Sasha giggles with her gums and drool.

“Have fun, birthday girl.” Erik turns to Rayvon, “Glad we talked, man, see you soon.”

“No problem, take care of her,” Rayvon was referring to Y/N.

“That’s a promise.”

Rayvon gave one final goodbye to the others who lingered around to help clean before strolling out of the apartment with Sasha.

“Look at you, being nice. I like it.”

Erik wraps an arm around Y/N’s soft waist, “Daddy can be nice too.”

“Will Daddy be nice to me later?” Y/N whispers, “Or will Daddy make me beg for it?”

“Depends on how good of a girl you are before the rest of your family leaves.”

“Then I should be on my best behavior then,” Y/N flashed Erik a sexy smile earning a hard slap to her ass.

“Not with an ass like that,” Erik bites his lower lip, “Gon’ girl before I bend you over.”

“Okay, Daddy,” Y/N made sure to walk away extra slow so Erik could watch her.

@tgigoldie @soufcakmistress @chefjessypooh @chaneajoyyy @pananegra @theblulife @becincere @blaqwidow91 @fish-outta-watah @eyeknowmywrites @crowngold @njadakillthiscookie @blktinkerbell @luvanxi @sheisexcellent1 @chocolatedippedinhoney @brandithecrystalgem @dababydababydababydababy @soulfulbeauty19 @btitannaaa @sunkissedebony97 @youngblackndgifted @harleycativy @rbhp @thee-germanpeach @thadelightfulone @palmstreesallday @skylahb @bakaris-shorty @nizzle-mo @truglori @queenflaws @ljstraightnochaser @theegoldenchild @scrumptiouslytenaciouscrusade @nickidub718 @vikkidc @thehomierobbstark @rent-emspoons @abluesforlyssa @abeautifulmindexposed @fd-writes @chasingsunlight @sickaddiktions @munteanhore @xo-goldengirl @tiava143 @33kiara @honeytoffee @asiasblackworld727 @momobaby227 @informalmelancholy @soulshinechronicles @hearteyes-for-killmonger @goddessofthundathighs @soulfxll @whazzzupmyhitta

#killmonger imagine #killmonger x reader #nahimjustfeelingit-writes #killmonger fanfiction #erik killmonger #black panther killmonger

545 notes · View notes

in-tua-deep · 4 years

Note

🔥 Responsible Luther

(Other responsible Luther au posts: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven)

After everything happens, after the Commission is destroyed and the apocalypse is permanently stopped, and they give their dad what for... they have to figure out how to live without the apocalypse hanging over their head.

And also, they figure out how to deal with the friends they made along the way.

Which means that Agnes comes over with a casserole and a smile and a dozen new pictures of birds, and Allison brings Claire and Patrick down since there’s now no chance of being caught in the kidnapping crossfire, and Luther thinks he’s going to need to invest in a bigger table heck

Which means that Claire is loudly making bird noises while pointing at the pictures Agnes brought over, while Agnes attempts to teach her the proper ones while Patrick balances little Claire on his lap with all the longsuffering patience of a father of a toddler.

Klaus is loudly debating the merits of Clue vs. Monopoly with Diego while Vanya shuffles a deck of cards absently because she already knows that they’re going to end up playing poker or something

Luther and Allison are in the kitchen attempting to cook. Allison’s food skills tend to be geared towards the food tastes of a toddler, so she’s got mac ‘n cheese and dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets down pat but other things uhhhhh not so much. Luther has gotten progressively better, but he’s no Jamie Oliver

Which leaves Hazel to sit awkwardly at the table across from an unimpressed Five.

“I’m not calling you Uncle Hazel.” Five says dismissively, “No matter what Klaus calls you.”

“That seems fair.” Hazel is awkward as he shuffles uncomfortably on the second-hand chair that Luther picked up after Diego threw Klaus and broke one of them after a particularly lively debate.

(Klaus seems to have decided that being adopted into the family is punishment enough for Hazel, for some reason. Then again, Five has seen the glint in Klaus’s eye when he gives Hazel a big hug. Klaus is less forgiving than people might think. He’s just very petty about it.)

“You tried to kidnap me.” Five crosses his arms, “Multiple times.”

Hazel clears his throat, “Uh. Yes. That is true. I... did that.”

Five tilts his head, calculatingly. “What do you think that’s worth?”

“W - Worth?” Hazel looks lost. It’s almost sweet, how he even now underestimates Five’s vicious streak. Even after seeing Five with explosives and covered in dust after crawling through the ceilings of the Commission like an unholy gremlin.

Five shrugs, “If you’re going to be... part of the family or whatever, and I am fully prepared to call Agnes my aunt because let’s be real, I witnessed her slap Dad and that makes her family for life. She seems to like you a lot.”

That makes Hazel smile.

“Ew.” Five can only offer in response to that, “But back to my point. Agnes rules, and I think she’s decided that Mom is her new best friend, Claire is her new grandchild, and that Klaus needs fattening up. Which I guess makes you family, too.”

Hazel just nods, a tad hesitantly.

“We’ve had enough of shit family.” Five says firmly, “So if you’re going to be part of it then you have to commit. You have to be here.”

“Okay.” Hazel says, “I can do that.” He isn’t actually sure he can, but he’s determined to try since he’s head over heels for Agnes and Agnes seems like she’s decided to take the Hargreeves under her wing.

“Right.” Five nods decisively. “I’m thinking Disney World.”

“Of course - wait.” Hazel pauses, clearly making a moment to process what just came out of Five’s mouth. “What?”

“You kidnapped me.” Five declares, loud enough that Hazel makes shushing noises, even though literally everyone in the house knows about his past. “And I get you helped everyone come get me of whatever, even though I totally had that handled, but you totally kidnapped me. And that’s definitely worth Disney World.”

“You. Want me to take you to Disney World.” Hazel sounds out slowly, as if tasting the words in his mouth before speaking them. As if that will make this conversation make some amount of sense.

“Me and Claire. And Klaus.” Five clarifies, tapping on the table. “Maybe the others, too.”

“Why.” Hazel asks, just completely flabbergasted.

Five shrugs. “Klaus wants to go, and I’ve never been. Klaus says that it’s an apology thing if a family member needs forgiving, they do some big nice gesture and then bygones are bygones.”

Hazel processes that. “I don’t think. I don’t think that’s exactly the uh, the healthiest perspective. On that.”

“So.” Five says pointedly.

“I can. Try?” Hazel offers helpfully, “I mean, I’d have to talk it over with uh, with Agnes.”

“Five Hargreeves.” A voice interrupts them, as Luther sweeps in, “Are you blackmailing Hazel?”

Five shrugs unapologetically, “More like blatantly guilting him.”

“That’s my boy!” Klaus hollers from the other room, and then yelps and if they concentrate everyone can hear Vanya scolding their brother. Something about ‘encouraging behavior’ and ‘their ridiculous family already has enough criminal tendencies’.

“In my defense,” Five points out, “He did kidnaps me. And Klaus. More than once.”

“In his defense, you kind of suck as a hostage.” Luther points accusingly at Five with a spatula, “You broke his arm in three places.”

“He was kidnapping me!” Five sputters.

“I did do that.” Hazel offers, looking very contrite. “I deserved that, really.”

“And he fed Mr. Pennycrumb half his vegetables last time he was here.” Five accuses, not appreciating Hazel’s assistance.

That makes Luther put his hands on his hips and stare at a red faced Hazel.

“It was green beans.” Hazel mutters, not quite willing to meet anyone’s eyes and so he addresses the table rather than anyone in the room.

“Is that why he smelled so bad?” Luther demands, looking between Hazel and Five absolutely aghast.

“Worth a trip to Disney World?” Five grins cheekily.

Luther just gives a long suffering sigh, “I’m going back to help Allison in the kitchen. This officially no longer involves me.”

Hazel gives Luther’s retreating back the most betrayed look for leaving him alone with Five, which is honestly fair.

“So.” Five turns his full attention on Hazel, tapping his fingers together and looking like a tiny supervillain. Considering that Five’s literal job used to be fighting villains as part of a child superhero teams, this was likely on purpose. “About that literal guilt trip.”

Hazel just buries his face into his palms and groans.

#responsible luther au #ask game #have some post-everything with weird uncle hazel #once you storm a horrible time travelling organization to rescue your teenage nemesis you end up being one of the family #well actually #you end up family when your gf beats up reginald's abusive ass #the hargreeves are all charmed and love her #agnes thinks claire is adorable #allison loves agnes and agnes thinks allison needs a womanly shoulder to cry on #patrick is okay with coming down for a week but Allison Holy Fuck Your Family Is Wild #but also he's married to allison so just just rolls with the punches #the big guy at the table kidnapped your brother-in-law multiple times and tried to cause the apocalypse?#until he fell in love with the bird watching donut lady who is also at the table for some reason?#i mean. all right.#klaus is a big child who wants to go to disney world and has convinced five that it is Absolutely Necessary #honestly the best way to get the family to do anything is to convince five it's a good idea #everyone is trying so hard to raid five and give him a real childhood #he has so much power #and at heart he's a manipulative little asshole #Anonymous

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annakie · 3 years

Text

A Lot of Words about a Thing

This is a “I’m writing this out so next time someone asks I can just point them to this (or copy/paste) instead of having to type it again” thing.

I’ve been doing Hello Fresh for the last two or three months and I thought I’d talk about the ups and downs of it and if I’m going to keep doing it. This is not an endorsement (which will be clear when you get to the overall middling scoring), but I will put a link at the bottom so we can both get a deal if you want to try it.

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

So anyway, I had been thinking about doing a meal kit for a long time but pulled the trigger on it back in... like Mid-January, I guess?

the tl;dr of it all is that I like it and I’ll probably keep doing it for awhile, but it’s not for everyone, and is expensive for what it is, especially if you already know how to cook.

Before I started, I made myself sit down and write out a quick list of what I wanted to get out of trying a meal kit experience, so I’ll rate how successful or not each one of those things is.

First of all, I want to also say, I can already cook. I’m a pretty good cook. I can follow a recipe and improvise successfully when necessary usually. One reason why a lot of people do a meal kit is because they need to learn how to cook and that definitely wasn’t me.

Also, they offer a variety of number and portions on meals to try. I get three meals a week, with two portions a meal, which means I cook Hello Fresh for dinner one night, and usually the next night have the leftovers. Friday night is usually “Yay You Made It To The Weekend, You Get To Order Takeout” night. You can order for several more meals a week, and for up to four portions in each meal, if you want.

So on to the reasons why I decided to try HF, with a grading of how I feel about each one after trying.

Reason One: Try Something New

I was super excited at the beginning of the pandemic now working from home full time, because this was a great chance to really start trying some new recipes. I had fallen into a pretty bad rut for awhile of some of the same frozen type meals or just making super easy things for dinner and sandwiches for lunch pre-pandemic. Even though my commute was stupid easy I often felt too wiped at the end of the day to make like, real meals. So when the pandemic hit and I was Home All The Time, for the first couple of months I was buying interesting ingredients (what I could get my hands on at the time) and really digging into making new and interesting things. Even baking my own bread and bought some new kitchen gadgets like a pressure cooker to expand my repertoire.

By like... the end of summer... well the good news was that I was still cooking and hadn’t fallen back to a packaged-food routine most of the time (though still some frozen pizzas or bags of pre-made Asian or Italian food you cook on the stovetop mostly for lunch) but also I had more or less found The Ten Things I Make (like Spaghetti, a great chicken and rice dish that is so good and makes about 6 meals worth of leftovers) and I was real tired of like, recipe hunting. The most work I was then doing was finding new pressure cooker recipes and tbh almost all of what I was making was Chicken In Some Kind of Sauce Over Rice. I was burned out.

So Hello Fresh... has been great for that. I have only made the same thing a couple of times and those were only because i loved them so much the first time I wanted that thing again. For the most part, I have tried just a ton of new things, including some ingredients I’ve never worked with before or really thought I wouldn’t like! And I did! I feel like I am often trying something I have never made before.

Reason 1.5: Variety

OK this is hand-in-hand with Something New but also slightly different.

Try Something New would be rated like a 4.5 out of 5 stars.... but some stars are taken away though, because a lot of their recipes are very similar. For a protein, there’s like, chicken breasts, hamburger meat, pork chops, chicken sausage and pork sausage. Occasionally steak. Basically every meal will start with one of those things.... oh and I guess there’s like some fish choices, but I hate fish. There’s also vegetarian options, which I have only occasionally gotten. So within the variety, there’s a lot of similarities.

Also there are a lot of same ingredients in their recipes. I have grated a lot of lemons and limes. I have chopped up a lot of carrots, green onions, and potatoes (so many potatoes.) I have consumed more sour cream than I ever have. I have started looking for ways to add even a little more variety to the things that are often-repeats that they give you.

But part of that is my fault -- I am mostly selecting items that I know I will like, or can modify to how I like. There are a lot of veggie and fish-based choices I could pick up most weeks which I avoid.

And almost everything I’ve ever made... I’d make again. I save all the recipe cards so that someday when I don’t wanna do HF anymore, I will have all them all handy to make later. The HF Subreddit also has a lot of resources like how to do their custom spice mixes, very handy. There’s been maybe 3 things I’ve made which I’d say were Just Okay, but nothing I’d say that was bad. And some of the ideas in this paragraph I talk about more, further down.

But also on the topic of “Variety” -- since every meal I make has two portions (occasionally I will stretch something to three) -- points are given back because I’m not “Making a huge pot of spaghetti that I eat for five meals in a row.” So that’s good, even if it means more cooking overall.

So honestly, on Something New overall, I’ll give this like a 3.5 out of 5 stars, correcting up to 4 stars on a curve, since I strike entire categories of their offerings based on my own tastes. They offer a pretty good variety of meals to select, and part of the problem here is my fault for hating All Seafood and not being thrilled with the vegetarian options (I also don’t feel like I’m getting my money’s worth without a protein) so there are a lot of meals re-using similar ingredients. It slides back down to a 3.5 though when you factor in Reasons 3 & 4 below.

Reason Two: Kill Analysis Paralysis

A thing I found increasingly happening by the end of last year was analysis paralysis. Especially as I started a new job where I’m much, much busier (but happier) in October. I would find myself staring at the fact that I’d have to make the decision on What To Make For Dinner and dreading it more and more. It wasn’t really the cooking I hated, but the deciding what to cook, which got me into the lack of variety rut. More often than I’d like to admit I’d just make a box of Kraft Mac & Cheese or like... just... toast... for dinner because the decision-making part of my brain was tired... or out of spoons as the kids say these days.

This is maybe my favorite part of Hello Fresh overall. Once every week or two I log onto HF, pick what I’m going to eat like... 5 or 6 weeks in the future, which I can do at a time when I have that decision-making energy, and forget about it. Every Monday a box shows up on my doorstep, I see what nice things I picked out for myself several weeks ago, and the most I have to decide is which order I will make those things in.

So when it’s a “Make Dinner” day, I don’t have that “shit, I have to make a decision” feeling. I already know because I pre-planned it back when I wasn’t at the end of a long workday. It’s one of those small, dumb things that really really helps me mentally in an almost inexplicable way. And I can feel better about myself because I didn’t eat something dumb for dinner. And I still allow myself to make easy things for lunch, like a small frozen pizza, a sandwich and some chips, or hey, Kraft Dinner. And sometimes I do make a big pot of Spaghetti or something that I love and will just have that for lunch every day for a week, and so I don’t have to feel like I’m always cooking.

And on Eat HF Leftovers For Dinner nights, that’s even better, because I have a tasty meal and it just had to get reheated in the microwave or stovetop. Some meals are easy to half-prepare ahead of time on day one, and just do the last steps on leftover night the next night to have fresher dinner easily.

Just 5 out of 5 stars here. This is my favorite part.

Reason Three: Eat More Vegetables.

Uh, yeah, I’m terrible about eating veggies on my own. The best I can do usually is buy a bag of mixed greens and try to have a side salad with dinner, or buy bags of frozen foods and hope they come with veggies I’d eat.

So the good thing here, is that when HF sends me vegetables to make, if it’s a veggie I like, I’ll probably make it.

The big problem, though, is that there’s no substitutions. And I’m still not gonna eat brussell sprouts or, broccoli, or mushrooms. I was a sport and tried making them (except the mushrooms) the first time I got recipes that used them as sides. And nope... still cant.

But hey, I have done a lot better at eating more fresh green beans, and onions, and carrots, and peppers. Though sometimes I just snack on the bell pepper instead of cooking it. Still, I call it a win.

I really, really wish I could trade out the side-dish vegetables I know I won’t eat for like, a small side salad, an apple, or hey, even just... carrots! But nope, no substitutions. =\ I’d score this way better if we could do so.

Still, I’m doing better here, and overall, more vegetables are being eaten. So, 3 out of 5 stars.

Reason Four: Waste Less Food

The amount of fruit and vegetables I’ve ordered and thrown away over the last year make me cringe. I would order things with every intention of eating them and then just... not. Oh yeah I need two lemons, an orange and two limes in case I make ____ recipe! I need a new bag of baby carrots to snack on and make a side dish and cut into a salad!

And then I maybe... maybe use half of that before it goes bad.

Probably less. Because of the Analysis Paralysis and not trying new things. You run into that problem where you don’t have the ingredients on hand to make a new thing so you can’t make a new thing... but then you buy them but forgot (crucial thing) so the thing still doesn’t get made. Or you just... don’t plan when you’re gonna make the thing and by the time I’d be like “Oh yeah I should make something with those vegetables” they’d have already turned.

SO... I felt shitty throwing away so much produce, and loaves of bread, and other perishable food that got maybe half-eaten. So much, for so long. Yeah, I know I could do better with my meal planning, but it’s been one of those things I always vow to do, and then did not do that thing.

Doing HF has really made me re-evaluate what I buy as groceries, and I have cut way down on ordering unnecessary produce and perishables like bread. Because I don’t really have to worry about dinner and am allowing myself to do easy lunches that don’t require real “cooking.” So, overall I am definitely buying and tossing less food.

Also just as another quick note -- what also tends to get tossed out of my HF boxes is a “spicy ingredient” But in some ways, this works in HF’s favor. I don’t really like spicy foods. A small amount of spice is OK but I’d rather just do without it in most things, sorry I’m that white girl. Most “Spicy” HF meals get spicy by a spice blend, a packet of sriracha / hot sauce, or a jalapeno which they want you to cut up and include. So whenever I see something that looks good but listed as “spicy”, I can check the ingredient list first and see what makes it spicy, If I think the thing still sounds good without the spicy part, I can order it. So yeah, I’ll toss spicy ingredients, but that is 100% my choice and it makes things better because it gives me more variety to order those meals and still make it to my own taste.

Oh, and occasionally, the produce is just bad when you get it or not long after. I haven’t had this problem often, mostly with ginger and garlic. I do evaluate which meal has the most perishables when I get my box on Mondays and make those first. Apparently you can call customer service if this happens for a small credit, but I just use pre-diced garlic or powdered ginger when this has happened to me.

So, this would be a 4.5 out of 5 except for... as discussed above... I end up tossing out HF vegetables on occasion I know I hate and won’t eat, and they won’t let me make substitutions.

But also... cooking for myself... when I make a big batch of something that lasts 4 - 6 portions... more often than I’d like to admit, the last portion or two would never get eaten. Sometimes I’d TELL myself I’d eat them in a week or so and freeze them only to throw it all away months later.

So let’s call this a 4 out of 5. Overall, significantly less food waste with HF.

Reason Five: Save Time

I thought that doing HF would mean less prep-work and less time in the kitchen, especially with their easy-to-follow recipes and pre-measured ingredients.

So in that way, yes, time is saved, and it so again takes that mental load off in a lot of ways of not having to make all those pesky decisions. The materials you’re working with and what you need to do are all Right There for you. It’s really, nice.

As a side note, like I said I’m a good cook, and I haven’t had any problems following along anything I’ve made, but there were a few things I think are more of a moderate skill level and could be a little challenging for newcomers. But then, I see people on the HF subreddit all the time saying they learned to cook with no skill and they find the recipes easy so... we’re good there.

However, Saving Time loses points for two big reasons:

First, I’m only making two portions of each meal. Which, ok... this is my decision. I could order four portions per meal. But then... hey that’s taking big points away on the “variety” front.

The Vegetable Chopping / prep work on a lot of the recipes often takes 10 - 20 minutes, depending on the number of fruits and veggies. So yay for meeting Goal #3 (more veggies) even if it is balanced out by Goal #5.

And unfortunately, most meals end up taking up more dishes than I’d like to clean up (usually at least a pan and baking sheet, sometimes also a pot. Plus knife, cutting board, tongs, stirring spoon, maybe a zester, etc.) So no time is saved on cleanup, either.

Mostly where time is saved is having to pick out recipes and making sure you have/buy all the ingredients. Not much is saved in the actual cooking.

I do, however, enjoy the time I spent cooking and the knowledge that I’m gonna make something good, so we’ll give it a bit back, there.

As a time saver, I’d give HF a 2.5 out of 5 stars.

Reason Six: Save Money

Y’all, Hello Fresh is expensive. Honestly the #1 reason I re-evaluate whether I want to keep going with it every few weeks is the cost. Even though I can afford it.

For basically six meals a week, I’m paying $63 for the food, plus $9 for the shipping.

Which means I’m paying $12 a meal. For food I make myself.

Not cheap. A luxury.

Where I don’t feel quite so bad about it is the fact that... for the most part, I am wasting a lot less food. Except, as mentioned, when I can’t swap out vegetables I hate for something I’d actually eat.

So that makes it irk me even more when I am throwing out vegetables I really hate, because they’re expensive vegetables.

Also that price tag is motivation to make and eat every meal.

Overall, my grocery bills have gone down... honestly pretty significantly. Because I’m not overbuying food! Now, they haven’t gone down enough to even out the cost for Hello Fresh... I’m still probably spending about 50% more overall for each dinner now than I was before.

This isn’t a cost savings. It’s an expense, but one I can afford. And part of writing out this post is to remind myself to decide when the experience is no longer worth the expense.

1 out of 5 stars.

Reason Seven: Eat Better

I would like to challenge myself to define “Better” because that’s all I wrote down when I made the list.

Healthier? Eeeehhhhhh.... maybe? But not much.

Hello Fresh does offer lighter choices, and sometimes I pick those because they look good and are filled with things I will eat!

But I’m just as likely to pick the most calor-ific things on the menu.

HF also adds a lot of Sour Cream to their recipes, and encourage you to salt and butter your food liberally. I try to cut down on some of this where I think it’s too much. But sometimes there’s not much to cut out and still have the meal you ordered.

But also I’m not eating any worse calorie-wise than I was before, probably. And overall I’m eating a lot more “real food” instead of “packaged food” and fast food than I was.... especially pre-pandemic. And again, I AM eating a lot more vegetables, so.... that’s... better?

If I define better as Tastier, yeah, I’m doing pretty good in that regard, haha.

So Better as in healthier: 2.5 of 5 stars.

Better as in tastier: 4 out of 5 stars.

Overall Scoring & Tips

Okay, overall that comes out to a 3.18 out of 5, which I’d round up to a 3.5... which is a pretty good score for how I feel about HF overall. My current plan is to keep doing it until I go back to working in the office again, and re-evaluate. For now, it works for me.

IF YOU WANT TO TRY IT, this is my referral link, you’ll get $70 off over a month’s worth of meals (so like, $20 or something off 3 boxes and $10 off the last one, something like that.

I also have four “Free box” codes to give out, PM me if you want one of those. I don’t think those are compatible with the $70 off link, but it might be a box of completely free food for you? I don’t know how it works, but this may be the better deal? PM me.

If you decide to go for it, here’s a few tips:

Every week or two, go in and choose your meals, don’t let HF choose for you unless you really don’t care.

Read the ingredient list and make sure there’s not too much stuff you don’t like coming in a meal.

The extras are pretty expensive and not really worth it.

Plan on each meal taking about 45 minutes to cook from start to finish including chopping vegetables. Another 10 - 20 with cleanup depending if you have to handwash dishes or not.

Look for ways to make the meal healthier, especially if it encourages you to add more butter and salt near the end. You probably do NOT need to do so.

Buy a decent pepper. I love McCormick’s Peppercorn Medley pepper grinder. Also sea salt grinder is my personal salt preference.

Add some of your own seasonings. I buy a jar of pre-diced garlic (yes yes I know the criticisms of the stuff but it’s easy) and throw in a half tablespoon or so of that into a lot of recipes. Also there are a lot of potatoes that they want you to just cook with olive oil, salt and pepper. Throw some garlic or onion salt on them, or some Lawry’s Seasoning Salt or steak salt of your choice for some variety.

Your basic 2 quart pot, 8 - 12″ frying pan and cookie sheet, plus a cutting board, decent veggie knife, and typical kitchen utensil set are all you need. However, a decent meat thermometer and a zester that collects the zest as you go are both highly recommended.

A sieve and very small rice cooker have also been a lifesaver for making good rice that doesn’t get overcooked.

#personal post tag thingy #hello fresh #food #meal kit #meal kits

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bestsongby · 4 years

Photo

New Thoughts on Old Classics:

Hotel California, by the Eagles. 1976

Is it Essential?

The Eagles (or, more specifically, Henley and Frey) were often viewed as cocaine-fueled El Lay misogynists. I think the cocaine-fueled and El Lay are indisputable, but is the misogynist tag a little unfair? Could be.

I’ve always been fascinated by Hotel California, the Eagles’ bazillion selling magnum opus, and how it plays with that perception in mind.

Hotel California is the Eagles stretching their powers as far as the rubber band will allow before it snaps or loses its shape forever, which probably explains why their only subsequent release as an active band was the lackluster The Long Run, a collection of half-assed disco shuffles and by-the-numbers rockers. (aside from barely an Eagle Timothy B. Schmidt’s heartfelt soft rock gem “I Can’t Tell You Why,” and barely upright Eagle Joe Walsh’s catchy as fuck guitar rocker “In the City.”)

For what it’s worth, the stretched rubber band theory is one I apply to most great rock acts who spend any time working under the Album as Art theory of record making. (acknowledging that there have been many, many Not Great bands operating under this theory) The Beatles wisely realized they’d reached that point with Abbey Road, and packed it in before the slope slipped. The Stones began that climb with Beggar’s Banquet, and went from strength to strength until they reached their apex by plunging back down through the depths with Exile on Main St. The Kinks bucked the trend to some degree by releasing one pretty brilliant and one almost pretty brilliant album after their ultimate statement of intent, The Village Green Preservation Society. The Who…well, the Who never really got there. They fooled the world into believing Tommy was their Everest flag-planting, but the truth is Quadrophenia was a better album. All of which obscures the fact that the Who’s greatest album is Meaty, Beaty, Big and Bouncy, a perfect collection of classic singles, few of which managed to tickle the U.S. charts.

And then there are the Loves (Forever Changes) and Zombies (Odessey & Oracle), who strayed outside their comfort zones long enough to produce single discs that stand up to the greatest of the Greatest, despite neither band ever really being truly among the Greatest. (and, yes, both bands were otherwise very, very good at times)

Whew. I digress.

Let’s start with this: Is Hotel California a great album?

I’d like to say it is, but it might not even be the Eagles’ best album. I think, assuming assessing a “best” of anything Eagles-related doesn’t make your stomach clench, an argument could be made for One of These Nights (the album that immediately preceded this one – which easily wins the battle of cover art, anyway). But Hotel California is the most Eagles of Eagles albums, and stands as the best summation of their moment in the sun. And, it marks that moment when tuneful music produced by strong personalities could dominate the American pop culture landscape like no other medium.

In hindsight, Hotel California, riding shotgun with Fleetwood Mac’s equally mammoth Rumours, stands as a signpost in a pivotal moment in pop culture’s de-evolution from artist-controlled playground to complete corporate takeover. The suits always knew there was money in the music, but, holy shit, this much money?

Hotel California is an arrogant, confident, pretentious, calculated work of fiction, and you can hum along to it. It’s dominated by Don Henley, but it’s the input of the other band members that prevents it from completely collapsing under its own weight.

So, in review, let’s start with the title track, which can almost definitely be tuned in somewhere on your terrestrial radio dial at this very moment.

“Hotel California” started as a killer guitar riff by lead guitarist Don Felder. (Fittingly, Felder, who primarily kept his head down and played the shit out of his guitar throughout the Eagles’ history, eventually became estranged from the band) Once Don Henley grafted his lyrics to the music, the song became the ultimate distillation of the Eagles’ Desert Cocaine Tableau. Most of the group’s biggest hits were pretty direct, lyrically. A woman either pissed them off, or a woman was invited to lay down in the desert with them. Or sometimes the women were left behind while the band wrote their own desperado inspired mythology. But the fragmented imagery in “Hotel California” could only really make sense if the listener has a straw permanently lodged up his nose. The Witchy Woman of the past becomes the hostess of a demonic hostel where pink champagne replaces wine and pretty boys dance endlessly in sweat drenched courtyards. It seems as if the Hotel California is a place to run to and to run from, and we’re pretty sure Henley is only lamenting the “mirrors on ceiling” because all of his coke is now going to wind up on the floor.

With all of that said, the interplay between the guitars is deathless, and even vague descriptions of driving through the desert at night are enough to conjure up personal imagery for anyone confused as to what “colitas” is (are?). (The fact that the Eagles played an acoustic version of this live is either proof that they’re assholes, or that, like Eric Clapton’s tedious acoustic return to “Layla,” they just don’t quite understand the reasons for their own success – Felder trumps Henley here, and that’s that)

With that out of the way, we catch our breath and listen to the gang take it down a notch (with the help of JD Souther – the Eagles were never lacking for talented SoCal co-conspirators, starting at the beginning with Jackson Browne) with “New Kid in Town,” which, damn it, is pretty unassailable, musically. It’s got hooks for days, lush production that never swamps the tune, and a sincere, understated vocal performance from Glenn Frey, backed by great group harmonies. What? The lyrics? Well, okay. The woman is doing him wrong (in the third person, for some reason – maybe it’s not manly to admit you’re the one being cuckolded?), and she’s not living up to her end of the bargain, and…

Okay, you get the point. It’s a Henley/Frey lyric.

“Life in the Fast Lane” (It’s interesting to note the band led the album off with Hotel California’s only three single releases – all smash hits, of course) kicks in next, and we’re reminded overtly of the cocaine. It’s a great radio rocker – guitar licks weaving in and out, featuring maybe the slickest production on the album, and Henley doesn’t spare the dude in the equation this time, letting us know that both parties are feeding each other’s sinful excesses (sex and drugs). It’s a tale as old as Los Angeles, and the spoken “are you with me so far” dropped in by Henley manages to insult the listener almost by accident. (yeah, we’re with you, Don! Sex and drugs go hand-in-hand with rock and roll, brother! Revelation!)

And then we roll into “Wasted Time.” In which Henley (boy, so far, this is really a Don disc more than a Glenn disc) strains to let the poor dumb broad who left him know that she’s done nothing but fuck up her love life by fucking the wrong dudes, and, most importantly, by leaving Henley. It’s definitely this type of sentiment that allows critics to glue the MYSOGYNY label on our heroes. It never occurs to Don that this girl might have made the right choice in leaving a dude who not only plods through an orchestrated piano ballad about the terrible decisions she’s made, but backs it up with an orchestral reprise to hammer the point home. (the reprise actually originally opened side two, just to make sure you couldn’t escape the sentiment by flipping over the album – the fucking Eagles led off side two of their biggest album with an orchestral reprise. Admire their balls)

The sequencing of Hotel California comes across as pretty messy in the era of the compact disc/digital album, with the “Wasted Time(s)” dropped right smack into the middle of things, and “Life in the Fast Lane” book-ending the song(s) with the next track up…

And it’s another Henley rocker (what demons was Frey battling in 1976 that allowed him to take such a backseat to his his white ‘fro-sporting partner?), “Victim of Love.” It’s a catchy rocker about…some poor dumb broad. I hate to harp on the cocaine, but how much of it was Stevie Nicks doing to think Henley was a fun dude to party with? Anyway, this one is another radio staple, despite never being released as a single. Truthfully, all the album really needed was “Life in the Fast Lane” to remind us the boys could rock a little. But here they slowed it down a notch in case you had trouble keeping up with them the first time.

And then, out of nowhere, we’re dropped into Joe Walsh’s melancholy reflection on life, “Pretty Maids All in a Row.” I can’t say exactly what the Eagles were thinking when they pulled Walsh into the band (”Hey – this dude makes us look sober!”), but I’d be hard-pressed to believe they anticipated his first recorded contribution would be such a beautiful, naked sentiment, punctuated not with his trademark guitar rips, but by piano and synthesizer. It’s a jarring shift in tone, helping the album achieve an eclectic vibe it was struggling to achieve with Henley dominating the proceedings, and all the more powerful for it.

Anyway, great track. And it’s followed by another great track.

Backing up “Pretty Maids” is, for my money, the best track on the album, and one of the most overlooked songs in the band’s catalog. No coincidence it’s a Randy Meisner song. “Try and Love Again” is a soaring, hopeful rocker, punctuated by Meisner’s upper register, and some truly uplifting guitar soloing. It’s a mystery why this track wasn’t released as a single, unless Henley and Frey were still annoyed that Meisner’s “Take It to the Limit” was the band’s first number one single. But it’s the one track from the album I find myself revisiting most often, without apology. It’s also worth noting that while Meisner’s lyric is treading on self-pity, he’s not blaming a chick for his problems.

At this point we’ve wound our way through a collection of hit singles, timeless riffs, and a couple of contributions from lesser used band members that stand up to the hits. It’s hard to say there’s a definite theme at play here, although California and Los Angeles are definite players on the scene. So it’s up to Henley, again, to hammer things home with the most pretentious track in the Eagles’ entire catalog.

“The Last Resort” answers the question, “What if Randy Newman didn’t have a sense of humor?” A confused history of California (and over seven minutes long, to punctuate its importance as a statement), complete with references to the “Red Man” and Malibu and all of those bright lights that sullied the landscape, presented by a group that pretty actively moved closer and closer to the neon the further their hitmaking prowess ascended. The song starts as a literal travelogue about a girl from Providence (”The one in Rhode Island”), and then slips into a reminder that California has really succeeded at excess, which is evidently a bad thing.

In the end, it’s all the preacher’s fault, anyway. One suspects that Henley (and Frey?) realized he wasn’t really headed toward any logical conclusions with this one, and the lesson we’re left with is that the missionaries traded the Red Man’s peace of mind and started us on the path toward…well…all of that cocaine and colitas, I guess. (it is a pretty tune, though)

And that’s it. Nine songs (split into ten tracks), three hit singles, and 38 million copies sold.

Is Hotel California essential? In terms of understanding the “evolution” of pop culture, it’s an essential landing point for those curious how Los Angeles went from acoustic canyon-dwelling hippie haven to the paranoid personal driveway for limos filled with coke-addled celebrities wearing sunglasses at midnight because the lights fuck with what’s left of their peripheral vision.

But in the battle of juggernaut Los Angeles pop albums, Rumours creams Hotel California because Fleetwood Mac can be heard shutting out the world and wrestling with their relationships while coincidentally at the peak of their songwriting and performing abilities, whereas the Eagles were trying to make statements without much to state. Rumours is essential. Hotel California sounds good when you’re not paying attention too closely.

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#Hotel California #Eagles #Don Henley #Glenn Frey #Joe Walsh #Randy Meisner #1976 #Rock Music #cocaine #Rumours

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stabletwooriginals · 4 years

Text

CHAPTER THREE: Guidance

LittlePip wakes up to a brand new day. Which she never experienced before and we get some fun observations from her about.

I knew this was coming but I’m so relieved LittlePip finds one of Rarities dresses in perfect condition inside a locked chest.

The comment, that the dress is the prettiest and most cheerful thing she has seen since leaving is striking to me. She has had one terrible string of bad luck so far, but there are amazing things still waiting to be found.

Which is undercut somewhat by her discovery of the dead cats hung over where she slept. Absolutely terrifying. That doesn’t seem just for shock value, as it preoccupies our (and LittlePips) mind as she accidentally activates a land mine. Oops.

Watcher making his first appearing here, giving LittlePip life saving advice.

Raiders attack again. And we get LittlePips naive interpretation of grenades through a childhood memory of someone bullying her. This explains to us why she focuses on throwing the granade back next… killing her first pony.

We don’t get a lot of rumination on that yet though, as we get a scene break and LittlePip has managed to sneak out of Ponyville. What are these segmenting parts called, actually? Is it “Dinkus”? That’s a fantastic name.

The retelling of escaping Ponyville sounds like a stealth sequence in any video game, which I find amusing.

After a brief first encounter with a Bloatsprite - the mutated version of the Parasprites from the show - we reunite with Watcher and LittlePip get’s to have her first friendly conversation so far. (You might wanna count Velvet at the very beginning, but that’s up to you.)

“A friend.” I raised an eyebrow. “Okay, a passing acquaintance. But one that doesn’t mean any harm.”

This back-paddling is interesting. Why isn’t the “Friend or Foe” distinction enough here? My interpretation is that FoE takes friendship quite seriously. Since it is adopting “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic”, in which friendship is the key to change the course of history, just the word “friend” has a lot of worth and meaning that can’t just be thrown around lightly. We don’t know it yet but the core mechanics of MLP, namely friendship and the Elements of Harmony, are still intact in this story.

Finding my apple, I levitated it up. “Thank you. And thank you for the warning about that… thing in the ground.” “Mine.” I blinked. “Y-you want my apple?”

I just want this on here.

We get some info on the Bloatsprite - mainly it’s name and that it is the result of something called Taint. Which, uh– and Watcher’s name. He is not a Spritebot himself, but located somewhere else and just hacks into them to interact with remote places of the world.

Finally he gives vital advice any newbie RPG player can use: Find better gear, learn about the world and make some friends! What? Yes, there it is again. Friendship.

For guidance LittlePip returns to Ponyville. Watcher told her a copy of the Wasteland Survival Guide should still be at the Ponyville Library. Twilight’s home! (Remember, we’re sticking strictly to the first season.)

I was convinced The Wasteland Survival Guide was a reference to an older piece of post-apocalyptic fiction, but nope, it seems to come from the famous quest line in Fallout 3. At least, that is what dominates the search results when I try to google it.

Quite some time is also spend on the horrific decoration, namely desecrated ponies. Mutilated and in pieces, stuck to the walls and hung from the ceiling. These displays of gore are reminiscent of how Super Mutants tend to gather in places with such bloody decorations in Fallout 3. That game reduced the Mutants personality from a faction, as they were in the previous titles, to little more than orcs. Which is a shame, as they mostly exist as canon fodder now. And help us get over killing them, it shows us with lootable sacks of gore that they deserve it.

The raiders here get painted in the same light and fulfill a similar role. As clear bad guys and somewhat as cannon fodder. Their psychology never gets explored much beyond “the Wasteland drove them mad”. They often even have ridiculous cutie marks, implying they have been born into being raiders and that being cruel is their special talent. Which, besides painting the saddest existence, is a shame, since they clearly form groups among themselves, can talk just fine and are/were, by all accounts, just ponies like anyone else. Except, they’re not. They have gone insane, mind you. They live in their own shit and sleep under fresh, dripping intestines. Because they’ve gone mad, you see!

My point with all that is, that the excessive gore in this scene takes away from my immersion, as it raises questions with no answers, and raiders holding slaves and killing ponies (without putting their corpses on display), again, would be fine enough to convince me of their evilness.

Watcher was playing LittlePip a little, as he knew it was also where a couple slaves are kept in cages. One of them is implied to have been sexually assaulted, which - while still despicable - at least makes more sense for raiders to do than the gore fest described earlier.

LittlePip glancing over the bottle caps the first freed slave offers her without a second thought is a fun touch.

Then a fight breaks loose!

I hadn’t just killed a pony–these raiders had given up any right to the title! These were not ponies, they were sick monsters that needed to be put down!

Which implies choice. Something I can’t imagine, choosing to be a raider like this, but fine. I’m sure plenty of FoE side stories go more into detail with raiders, FoE itself seems mostly comfortable portraying them as orcs most of the time. Until it doesn’t. But we will cross that bridge when we get there.

I didn’t realize until that moment, but I was mad! The pure evil of this place had shaken me to the core… and my core was furious!

Regardless of my feelings towards the raiders, Littlepip’s reaction to them has always been inspirational to me. I know, it leads to… problems later on. But joining in with unbridled rage of LittlePip is cathartic in ways I haven’t yet seen replicated somewhere else.

(what do you know, they do shoot with their tongues!)

Figuring out how horses shoot firearms is… it’s own entire discourse I am not very interested in. But it’s fun to see what ideas FoE brought to the table. And it’s even more fun to see high quality concept art of tongue-triggered pistols for the Fallout: Equestria fan game Ashes of Equestria.

The fight is fun, with brisk and clear descriptions and punctuation of humor (“Shouldn't you ponies be smarter than this? You live in a library!”).

LittlePip gets shot but finds the Fluttershy branded medical box. Love that decision. Also our introduction to healing potions – they work like Stimpaks from Fallout, but are actually more believable because magic actually exists!

I was even more pathetic with melee weapons than I was with guns.

Love that RPG progression being set up here.

It was a zombiepony!

Don’t be mean to ghoul Ditzy Doo. Don’t ever be mean to ghoul Ditzy Doo.

I can’t really place the note about why someone might need binoculars in a library. I assume it’s a MLP reference but I’m lost on that one.

After another short lived meeting with mines the fight is over and LittlePip decides to loot the bodies for armor. The bloody, tattered armor. To be fair, it is the best armor she has come across so far and we do stuff like this in RPGs all the time.

She finds bottle caps again and chooses to ignore them this time. Great tease. Love it.

She finds and identifies radigator meat. I’m not sure she should know their name at this point, but whatever. The narrative framing allows it.

Lastly, she confronts the sniper that has been on the balcony of the library the entire time. Here we get a better glimpse at AngeryPip, surprising herself with her audible confidence and malice. It feels like a different character, but since this is portrayed as a extreme situation this seems more adrenaline fueled to me, rather than pathological.

Leaving the library, LittlePip has a combat shotgun, an assault rifle, a revolver (which gets lost in the next scene), a knife and now a sniper rifle. Impressive for this early in the story.

An alert flashed on my PipBuck. Checking it, I discovered that it had labeled the gazebo in front of me: The Macintosh War Memorial.

First, harrowing. Love it. Secondly, I love the inclusion of the gazebo, which has to be the one we can see in the show. It’s cool to see how many elements of the show actually made it in here. Pretty unobtrusively too.

The Memorial specifically names Big Macintosh and his sacrifice. It’s obviously unclear how much of the story was prepared in advance, but the way the war started 200 years ago must have been among that. We get to learn later what Big Mac’s role in the war was.

And we end with LittlePip picking up “The Wasteland Survival Guide. By Ditzy Doo…”

Level Up! New Perk: Bookworm. Kinda nice how we went to the library this time, got a book out of it, the quote at the beginning was “Books! I’ve read several on the subject.”… So, this one feels more than earned.

#fallout equestria #reread #reading #fan fiction #kkat #ponyville

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