#my logic with gender is that It's none of my business what anyone else does with it so why should they care about what I do with mine

[anglerflsh]

your post about being non binary is literally so real i remember agonizing about my gender and being like "awe i wish i could use they/them pronouns that would be really cool and awesome and id love that a lot. too bad i cant!!!!" yes. yes you can.

as far as your own personal identity goes you can do whatever you want forever I think

[dangermousie]

I really loved the first six episodes of AJTL. It feels adult in a way too few cdramas do nowadays. The protagonists are (sometimes sociopathic, weird) adults and the narrative is adult and the humor and darkness are both adult. Now, I don't mean this is some sort of meditation on the human condition like Royal Nirvana or NiF or Three Kingdoms, but the situations and characters are of a nature you wouldn't usually see in youth-oriented stuff nowadays - whether it's the fact that our FL just wants to ML for stud so she can have a baby with good genetics and no family ties or the fact that literally every politician in this is a complete scumbag.

I actually love that our FL isn't just the most terrifying mofo in the narrative full of killers but that she is a bona fide borderline sociopath who has no understanding of boundaries or proper behavior or consent or even any sort of flirtation let alone a deeper feeling. She's been a killer since childhood; what normal does she have? The fact that she's managed to have any sort of emotions left is a miracle.

So her deciding she needs a child because her benefactor told her she should as a dying wish and picking a sperm donor in our ML because he's suitable, all with about as much understanding of relationships as an alien - she doesn't want ML because she fancies him, she doesn't want a child to love. It's basically a weird duty thing. It all makes sense.

It's a wonderful gender reversal, with FL the goal-oriented, robotic psycho and ML going "but wait a minute, feelings, also no way, no how." His realization as to how crazy she is, is something else.

Look how she explains it, as if it's the most logical business transaction - your genetic material is great, you are not married so nobody will be hurt, if you die on this mission you will have someone to carry on your lineage, you are scheming so if a kid takes after you and is scheming, it's good. None of it will seduce a man in the least, let alone anything further. But I think in a way it's a weird mark of respect where she's not trying to lie but put all her cards on the table. But also - it shows how far from normal she is that she doesn't even realize how insane it sounds to anyone. He may be a spy but his life has been pretty different than hers; he's got friends and he had family - he is a fairly functional dude. She doesn't have any relationship, and the closest she had was weird stubs...

Like - she is acting like an alien...

Yeah, I don't think psychotic rose through the ranks assassins are big on consent.

She's bona fide nuts and I love that for once we have an unhinged FL. But one of the things I love so is that you slowly see her melt a little around the edges, if barely, because he keeps treating her as a proper lady however murdery and crazy she gets - she was an assassin and then she was a spy-whore, she's basically never been treated as a proper person instead of a tool, except possibly by the dowager and that was a long time ago. No wonder she gets drawn in - like she did by his decency in that rooftop speech scene. It's such a great reversal!

Like she genuinely doesn't get why he doesn't jump at the offer.

I really do love the ML who'd be the unhinged one in any other drama but here he's the sane one. And also his angry decency is mmmm.

I don't usually have fantasy casts for characters; there are very few exceptions - CFY and LYX for the mains of 2ha, Chen Kun for the ML of Dreamer in the Spring Boudoir, SZE for Prisoner of Beauty (alas), but LYN is on that short list - he's 100% my fan cast for Yuwu's Mo Xi and stuff like this gives me mad MX vibes:

I mean...

Anyway, this drama is awesome!

PS also the way secrets don't get dragged out. ML knows her true identity and we are long moving on to other stuff, hooray!

[skyartworkzzz]

Not-so-friendly Reminder/Advice (Frans related)

This aint directed to anyone specifically, but it does serve as a warning to yall who dont like Frans and still have the nerve to leave hurtful/passive aggressive comments. Not only on my art but anyone else's who likes this ship.

So lemme get this straight; you have 2 options here: you can either mute the hashtag OR unfollow/block me. I couldnt care less for whatever choice u pick, but don't you fucking dare to throw free hate at someone whos just trynna have fun with their own interpretations and headcanons.

Not only are u acting childish by throwing a tantrum cuz someone is doing smtng u dont like, but ure also hurting said artist's imagination and freedom inside a fandom they love. The same way you wouldnt like to hear someone shit talking about u, we dont like to hear u shit talking about us.

Idk about other shippers, but personally, I see Frisk as my own OC and somewhat of a self insert. Ever since I met Undertale I always saw them as a "white canvas" for us to fill in with our own ideas, which is smtng the game itself encourages u to do by giving the ability to choose their personality and gender. Whether theyre a child or not, that is also up to the artist and its none of ur business to decide this for them. In no moment we denied that the CANON Frisk is a child, but trying to "reassure it" towards artists who also see them as their own OC is not only ridiculous but disrespectful.

And this doesnt only go to Frisk, but also any other characters in the game. How do yall think the many Sans-OCs u know were made after all? How do ya think the many popular AUs that exist nowadays came to life? Because artists gave way to their own ideas into a piece of media they love. If we were to follow this logic of "bUT ThAts nOT WhAtS CAnoN in tHE GamE!!!!11124@#$%" then we would probably have to kiss goodbye to EVERY existent AU and OCs made for this fandom.

NOW, if u do see artists who draw Frisk as a CHILD and still ship them with Sans or any other canonically adult characters, thats also not ur problem to solve. Im not saying its smtng acceptable or right, but its still not ur opinion that will change what this person does. Besides, Im pretty sure whoever this artist is already has their own problems to deal with (mentally wise). So thats when u have 2 options again: mute or block; and please do keep in mind: this specific Frans artist does not represent EVERY OTHER Frans artists.

So yeah, I think thats all I wanted to say. TL;DR I will not stop drawing Frans art just cuz YOU dont like it. Deal with it or gtfo instead of throwing free hate over smtng u clearly dont care to know

As for my other followers who have been enjoying what I do, Frans art or not, tysm for sticking with me so far. I rlly appreciate yalls support and love 💜

[yukipri]

Marco’s Bauble Part 4 - a One Piece Mermaid AU Text Story

Next part of Marco’s Bauble! Was posted in advance on Patreon ^ ^

In which the Whitebeards gossip

Contains mention of Marco x Luffy.

Continues off of, and should be read after:

👒🐟Marco’s Bauble Part 1

👒🐟Marco’s Bauble Part 2

👒🐟Marco’s Bauble Part 3

~~

Namur values his crew's privacy. And given that he doubts he was even supposed to see Marco's secret, he absolutely can't disclose it to anyone.

Which is why he's snuck into Izo's room at ass o'clock in the morning, when everyone but the morning shift is asleep, but Izo's awake because he takes a few hours doing his hair and makeup.

"This had better be good, I don't usually enjoy an audience before I'm presentable," Izo says.

Namur doesn't really get what's unpresentable about Izo now. Sure he looks different, with his ridiculously long hair still loose and spilling to his waist, pulled back from his face with a seemingly simple band that Namur saw Izo drop a small fortune for. Izo's plucking up various bottles of liquid lined up on his vanity, methodically shaking a few measured drops into his palm before patting them into his face. Namur doesn't see any difference before and after the drops are applied.

"It's...it's not my secret to tell, but no one else seems to know, and I need to talk to someone, it's too big for just me," Namur says, reluctantly. "But you can't tell anyone, Izo, I mean it."

Izo just hums in response, and Namur sweats. He seems to be doing a lot of that these days. Maybe he needs to take a few days to just swim, being above sea level for too long can be stressful for fishmen.

Because this is already seeming like an increasingly bad idea. Izo isn't known for being particularly good at keeping secrets; if anything, he's a known gossip. That being said, he's also one of the best listeners aboard the Moby (it's how he gets his info), and more importantly, is the third best person to go to for good, thoughtful advice.

The best person to go to for advice is, of course, Pops, but Namur wilts at the mere thought because it really, really isn't his place to talk to Pops about this without Marco's consent. And unfortunately, the close second for Best Person to Go to For Advice is none other than Marco himself, everyone's Big Brother and caring Mother Hen Supreme.

And, well. It's not like Namur can go to Marco to talk about Marco.

"Well, I'm waiting," Izo says, and apparently he'd gone through his entire lineup of six little bottles of mysterious liquids, and is now blotting some paste onto his skin with a weird brush-like contraption. Namur squints, but can barely see any difference between the areas with the paste and without.

"Please don't tell anyone, unless they already know," Namur stresses again, praying.

"Yes, yes." Izo continues blotting.

"Marco proposed to someone."

Izo continues blotting.

Namur sweats.

Izo's hand gradually slows, and Namur realizes he's finished covering his entire face. Namur sees zero difference.

"Just so we're clear," Izo says, as he finally turns to face Namur. "When you say 'Marco,' we're talking about the fire chicken one, and when you say 'propose,' we're talking about the marriage, weddings, and babies type?"

"Babies?!"

No, no, that actually hadn't crossed Namur's mind, but it's there now, and he knows logically that devil fruits don't work like that, but his mind is suddenly filled with the image of an entire school? flock? of tiny colorful winged merbabies, and he's oh, oh NO they're so cu--

"Namur! Focus, please!"

Namur blinks. He doesn't know when it happened, but one of Izo's eyebrows is more defined than the other now.

"Yeah, that Marco," he confirms. "And I, I don't know about...the last thing, but yeah, if successful, usually the kind that results in marriage type."

Izo's oddly calm, and is facing his mirror again. He frowns momentarily, but then smooths his expression and begins applying his other eyebrow. Namur realizes that Izo's able to keep his face so smooth because he wants to draw on his face evenly, and that's actually quite impressive. Though, he has no idea why Izo needs more eyebrows, when he already has perfectly normal ones growing on his face.

"Who's the boy who stole the stupid pineapple's heart, it must be someone we know," Izo says, voice light.

Namur wasn't exactly planning on disclosing this much, he'd just wanted someone else to help him think of how best to support their brother's potentially upcoming union, but Izo's definitely not taking no for an answer, and that's a fight he knows he can't win.

"It's Ace's little brother, the one Thatch went to go fetch," he says reluctantly. "And even though she's his 'little brother,' she's apparently a girl, and a mermaid."

There's a clatter, and Izo curses. Namur tries to peer at Izo's face in the mirror, and notices a weird black blob by his eye that Izo's now trying to delicately smudge off. It wouldn't have been there in the first place if Izo hadn't been trying to poke himself in the eye with the weird brush thing. Namur really doesn't get this makeup business.

"You're telling me," Izo growls, and Namur flinches at the irritation, though he gets the feeling it's directed mostly at the eye blob. "That Marco's straight? I could have sworn he was gay!"

Namur blinks at Izo.

Izo blinks at Namur through the mirror. The eye blob makes his face look slightly crooked.

"Oh, right," Izo mutters, picking up his brush with face distorting ink again. "I thought Marco only liked guys like that, so it surprised me that he likes a girl. Maybe he's bi. Don't worry about it, it's a dumb human thing."

"Oh," Namur says, and yeah, he's heard vaguely about humans being weirdly obsessed with only liking a specific gender or two. It's a very foreign concept that Namur doesn't really get because it doesn't exist on Fishman Island, and romance stuff rarely comes up on the Moby, shockingly enough, or at least in front of Namur. But he's glad Izo doesn't seem too upset, because that would upset Namur. Namur's never met Ace's little brother, but he imagines she'd look so very charming next to Marco, given how in love Marco looked when he was sending off his proposal. He wants to root for them.

"Although, hm, does Ace know? I doubt he'd be very happy about Marco sweeping his dearest little brother off her feet, er, fins," Izo says, seemingly more relaxed now that his face distorting paint is cooperating. His face is now even, although his eyes actually do look different now, more like the Izo Namur usually sees. It's fascinating.

"I don't know," Namur confesses, and he's suddenly feeling very glum at the thought of their little fire cracker baby brother not being happy. Even though Ace didn't formally join, he's still their littlest brother, and Namur's very fond of him, and has honestly lost track of the number of times he's dived into the sea to fetch the reckless kid. He was honestly devastated when Ace said he was leaving. It's alright now, now that Namur knows it was just to bring home Marco's future bride, but he hopes Ace will be supportive too.

"And how did you know he was proposing?"

At this point, what does it matter what else Namur shares? "Well..."

By the time Namur's done answering all of Izo's questions on Fishman Island courtship and Marco's respectful application of it, Izo's done with his face.

"Well, that was certainly a fascinating talk," Izo says with lips the color of a raw fish's innards. "Now I'll have to kick you out before I do my hair. At least I finished my face."

Namur knows he's been excused. "Thank you for your time. Also, it looks very nice, your face," he says politely as he gets up. It seems awkward not to comment on it, after having watched Izo work so hard on it for the past half hour. "Although it looked nice before too. I like the eye paint."

Izo pauses contemplatively, then nods. "That's an acceptable compliment. Thank you. Now, shoo."

~~

"So, who's the wedding for?"

Izo jolts as Haruta settles his tray on the other side of the table.

"What wedding?"

"Don't play dumb. You're planning a wedding. I noticed some of our books were moved in the library, and you were the only one who was in there before me. You were looking up Grand Line marriage traditions, and going through shitty wedding magazines that no one's touched in a decade," Haruta rattles off as he stirs his soup, and Izo inwardly curses.

He thought he'd placed them all back where he'd found them, but alas, apparently nothing gets by Haruta's observation skills, and his talent for butting into business that has nothing to do with him.

"And given the selections, I'd say it's not for you." Haruta continues, as though he knows Izo's tastes by heart and sadly, he probably does, and not just Izo's but the whole crew's. "So someone's getting married, or they're thinking about it, and you're planning. I want to know who."

"You're a nosey little shit," Izo says, because he knows there's really no point in denying it to Haruta without tangible evidence, which he lacks. He's also too tired to deal with this shit, because he did his hair in a hurry in order to make it to the library before everyone woke up, which means it's slightly less perfect than usual. And being anything less than perfect is a truly exhausting business.

"Mm-hmm," Haruta says, and momentarily seems distracted by his plate. There's a tiny, almost imperceptible frown on his lips, and Izo only recognizes it because he'd had the same thought.

The food's by no means bad, and they have many fine cooks on the Moby. It's just, it's a little different, without Thatch's personal touch. Izo hates that their brother's temporary absence is so tangible. Damn him for going on his little vacation.

They continue their meal in silence, and Izo hopes that Haruta's forgotten, his mind having moved on to terrorizing other innocent brothers. Izo thinks he might be able to get away, when Haruta gets up right alongside Izo to return his tray.

"So who is it?" he repeats, as though they hadn't just sat in thirty minutes of silence, and Izo wants to tear out Haruta's hair in frustration, because Izo would never tear out his own hair for any reason.

"It's none of your business, don't you have work to do?"

"My work is knowing stuff. Tell me."

"This isn't something you need to know. That's what I'm telling you."

"Nice try. Lemme guess. Is it Marco?"

Haruta laughs at his own joke, and promptly walks into Izo's back. Izo tries to get over his momentary freeze, but the damage is done.

"Holy shit, it's MARCO?!"

"What happened to Marco?" Vista has the absolute worst timing in entering the cafeteria, because he's standing directly in front of them. He already has his sword sheaths removed from his belt, no doubt so he can polish them in a corner after he's done eating, as is his usual ritual.

Haruta's eyes are blown wide, and Izo wants to stop him but no one can out-talk Haruta when he wants to talk, so it's like watching a cannonball hurtling towards an inevitable collision.

"Marco's getting married."

Vista never drops his swords.

Vista's swords clatter to the ground.

And now everyone inside the cafeteria, and those in the line forming outside behind Vista, all stop to stare.

~~

~~

Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed!

And as always, comments/reblogs/tags always immensely appreciated!!! People sharing their thoughts with me motivates me to write so much more, and update more frequently, so thank you so much for everyone who’s so kindly done so in the past!! ;A;

(The next part’s already up on Patreon if anyone wants to read in advance <3)

❀ ❀ Send YukiPri an Ask! ❀ ❀

Read the next part: Marco’s Bauble, Part 5

~This ask has been added to the Mermaid AU Text Headcanons Compilation post~

[tansypoisoning]

(Un)Conditional - Part 2

I Came Out to Have a Good Time and I’m Honestly Feeling So Attacked Right Now

You didn’t remember how or why you found yourself in Ransom’s bed in the first place, but now, poor, pregnant and desperate, you had your reasons for putting up with him, and they weren’t noble. His reasons for staying with you weren’t noble either.

Hey, long time no see... This took me longer than it should because I wasn’t sure about the dialogue. Still not sure about it. Some of you might have missed the polls I posted so you could help me decide the future of this series, so here they go: Whether or not I should redeem Ransom and What gender the baby (or babies, damn) should be. Democracy is important :)

Anyway: Reader meets the Thrombeys...

Story warnings:  Smut, abusive relationships, mentions of past sexual assault, talk of abortion, daddy kink, drinking, mention of drug use (Will add more as the story goes on)

Chapter 1 - Truce

Chapter 3 

Fandoms: Knives Out

Ships: Ransom Drysdale x Reader

Word Count: 6k

Chapter warnings: The reader and Ransom joke about incest and Ransom jokes about selling the baby to pay his grandfather back for all the money he lend him; people drink wine; there’s mention of drugs and people doing them; The Thrombeys are being particularly shitty.

You were off to the clinic to get an urine exam the next day. Ransom had encouraged you to get a more reliable test to make sure you were pregnant, but he wouldn’t accompany you. He was busy, he said, but he didn’t say with what. Probably begging his granddaddy for more money or chasing after another pair of legs.

The clinic would call you in a couple of days to let you know the results. The wait was killing you. The longer you waited, the harder it would be for you to get an abortion. At some point the pill would stop being an option, and you would have to go under the… knife? Scalpel? Coat hanger? Whatever the procedure entailed, it was bound to be more stressful than just taking some meds.

What was most concerning, though, was the possibility of you becoming attached to the fetus. Your misgivings originated from a fear that you might be doing something you shouldn’t, but you had no particular regard for the thing growing inside you. You might as well be carrying a rock – it certainly tired you like one. Some day that could change, though, and the moment it did you knew it would be game over.

The first thing you did when you got home was take off your coat, kick off your shoes and fall face-first on the couch. That was also the only thing you did. According to the sources you checked, fatigue was an early pregnancy symptom, but you weren’t sure it was meant to be this bad. Good thing you weren’t behind on your freelance work; you didn’t think you could handle doing anything that evening. You were hungry, but didn’t have the energy to even go to the kitchen. Your cellphone started ringing at some point, but you had dropped your bag by the entrance. Maybe something else happened too; you didn’t know, you fell asleep soon after.

You were roused from your nap by a cacophony of car honks right outside your window.

You jumped from the couch and stumbled to see what the commotion was about. You expected to find a car crash in front of your building, but all that was there was a familiar vehicle.

You stepped into your slippers and left your apartment. Ransom was still abusing the horn of his BMW when you came out onto the lawn.

“What are you doing?” You cried out, jogging to his car.

He put his head out through the window. “You don’t pick up your phone anymore?” He complained.

“I was sleeping.” The reason why you didn’t answer didn’t matter. This was a distraction. “Why are you here?”

“I came to pick you up, what else?” He seemed to notice you confusion and explained himself “I’m going to introduce you to my family. They’re having a dinner party tonight at my grandfather’s house. If I show up there with a kid before they even know the mother, my mother’s gonna kill me.”

That gave you pause. Introduce you to his family? That had never been in the cards before. Ransom had always been against anything that could hint to intimacy that went beyond sex, because intimacy entailed responsibility, and he was allergic to that. Your relationship was more of an arrangement, one in which he was the one with the most to gain.

Perhaps this would be your chance to really get something for yourself, something other than the occasional orgasm. Although Ransom’s charms and your proclivities were the biggest reason behind the start of your odd relationship, you’d be lying if you said his grandfather’s accomplishments didn’t affect your interest in him. Having been an avid reader of Harlan’s books back in high school (when you still had time and motivation to read) and now working as an assistant editor in the mystery fiction imprint of a large publishing company, you had hoped that maybe being involved with Ransom would give you the chance to meet him.

Even when it became clear Ransom didn’t like you like that, you still stuck around. He was inflexible when it came to your relationship’s dynamics, but you still had a sliver of hope that one day you’d get to meet his family. In the end you were right, and all you had to do to get your wish was let your idol’s grandson raw you after a couple of beers.

“I’m not even sure if I’m pregnant yet.”

“After five tests? Come on.”

“Well, I don’t know if I’m gonna keep it.”

“If you don’t, you don’t. Just let me introduce you before you decide. It’ll be awkward otherwise.”

You couldn’t argue with his logic. Ransom’s family wasn’t likely to think well of you if he introduced you as “the chick I knocked up by accident”. Your family wouldn’t be happy about it either, and yet you had to find a way to convince him to meet them at some point. You knew they weren’t going to like him, but it was better than trying to pretend it was a case of Immaculate Conception. They wouldn't fall for it anyway.

“Go get ready so we can go.” He said.

You nodded and ran back inside. He looked like he was in a rush, so all you felt comfortable doing was retouching your make up and putting on a different pair of pants. When you came back down, Ransom was pouting at his wheel.

“About time,” he said “I thought you weren’t coming.”

“I took like five minutes.”

“Eight.” He tapped the watch in his wrist.

You decided humoring him wasn’t worth it, so you got into the passenger seat without a word. Ransom took off, his tires squealing as he did a u-turn on your sidewalk. He always drove like a madman, most of all when he was in a hurry.

“How long ‘til we get there?” You asked.

“I can make it in half an hour.”

“I mean safely.”

“In that case, thirty minutes.”

Shame on you, forgetting Ransom was convinced he was immortal.

“Is there anything I have to know about your family before I get there?” You asked, trying to take your mind off the traffic lights flashing by at an alarming speed.

“I could never do them justice,” he snickered.

“At least give me something to work with.”

“You are going to have talk to my parents at least,” he mused “Just nod and agree with whatever my father says. You gotta be smarter with my mother, but avoid challenging her. Joni and Meg are annoying, Walt’s creepy, and there’s no point in talking to Donna and Jacob; they’re gonna hate you no matter what.”

“And Harlan?”

The question put a grimace on his face.

“Be honest. He’s gonna like you.” There was a minute pause before he added “We just celebrated his eighty-fifth birthday, so if you can bring up how good he looks for his age without being obnoxious, he’s gonna love it.”

“Eighty-five? When was that?” You liked Harlan’s work, but you didn’t like it enough to bother learning his birth year. You expected him to be younger, what with all the books he was still pumping out on a yearly basis.

“Last week.”

“Your family is big on get-togethers, then?”

He grimaced. “Unfortunately.”

“Familiarity breeds contempt,” you offered. You weren’t sure you’d get along with your parents as well as you did if they didn’t live in another state.

“Sucking does too.”

“But I thought you liked people who suck?”

That was a twelve year old boy joke, but it got you a chuckle.

“Already know what I’ll be trying today: Hey, Joni, blow me.”

“That’s your aunt right?” You asked and received a nod in response “I can’t wait to see you asking her for a blow job.” You didn’t really think he would go that far, so you weren’t worried you were goading him on. If he did it anyway, it would be because he decided the amusement he would get from pissing his aunt off would be worth whatever she could do to get back at him.

“Fuck, I’d accept one from my grandfather at this point.” You two had had sex just yesterday, but that was fine, you supposed.

“I think I’m going to regret this, but since we’re already in too deep and none of us knows when to stop, where are your parents in the Joni-Harlan blowjob scale?” This question might’ve offended anyone else, but Ransom was made of sterner, more horrible stuff.

He replied without missing a beat. “Oh, my dad wins easy. I don’t fancy getting bit.”

The throwaway line about his mother killing him if he just announced your pregnancy out of the blue came to mind. You wondered if she was as terrible as he made her out to be. You wondered if any of his relatives were as horrible as he made teem out to be.

“Hard to think you’d be scared of anyone in your family with all the money they lend you and you never pay back.”

He snorted. “I’m not scared of any of them. Wouldn’t be going if I were. I already owe Harlan more ‘one-pounds of flesh’ than I weigh.”

“Good thing he doesn’t charge interest.”

“Who says he doesn’t?” His eyes flicked to you for a moment, comically wide “What do you think I want the baby for?”

“You- you want the baby?” You knew he meant to jest about selling your child, and perhaps the bit about wanting it was said in the spirit of the joke, but you couldn’t help but hope it was a Freudian slip. Why did you hope that?

His Adam’s Apple bobbed as he considered your question for a few seconds. “I said I would help you with it.”

“No, you said that at first, but now you said you want it. I didn’t even ask for help, I just thought I should tell you. Why did you offer to help in the first place?”

He shrugged. Something about the gesture felt off, less cocksure than his usual self. “Because it felt right.”

“But do you want to do it? Do you even know what raising a child means?”

“Do you?”

No, you didn’t. You might have even less knowledge of the subject than Ransom, weird as that seemed. You hadn’t said you wanted to have the baby, though. You weren’t sure what you wanted.

“Do you want me to drop you off at a clinic? Because we can end this now.” Something about the way he’d said it made it seem as if he was talking about more than just the pregnancy.

“That’s not what I meant.” You whispered.

Edifices were replaced by trees as Ransom drove on. It was easy to focus on the changing view, now that he wasn’t talking to you anymore. You had broken one of his unspoken rules: never get emotional around him. You knew he wasn’t in it for something as trivial as feelings, but now with the pregnancy thing you thought… Well, you weren’t sure what you thought.

The rest of the trip went by in silence, seeming to take forever in spite of the scenery flying by. By the time you arrived at your destination you were disheartened – lucky you that the house Ransom parked in front of was the stuff murder mystery fiction dreams were made of.

Harlan’s mansion had been plucked from one of his books, it had to have been. With its red bricks and the Gothic Revival style, it looked like it’d been taken straight out of “Around the Corner and Down the Lane”. It was a magnificent, giant, mysterious house you could easily imagine multiple murders happening inside.

It was the most beautiful thing you’d ever seen.

Ransom left the car, slamming the door shut on his way out. You had to hurry after him to get to the porch as he was knocking on the door.

You didn’t have to wait long to hear sounds coming from the other side. There were footsteps against a wooden floor and the shuffling of keys, and then time seemed to slow down. When you woke up that morning, you’d never have thought you would end up meeting Ransom’s family by the end of the day. Were they anything like him? What would they think of you? And what would they think about the thing? You weren’t going to talk about it today, but still…

The door opened, revealing a slim woman with an old fashioned bob-cut. She looked confused when she saw Ransom, and even more when she spotted you. She opened her mouth, but didn’t get the chance to say anything.

“Hey, Frannie,” Ransom greeted. If you didn’t know him better, you’d assume he was being friendly. “Take this for me, would you?”

He removed his coat with the speed you’d come to expect from him when it came to taking off his clothes and shoved the mass of fabric into her arms. He walked inside, brushing past her, ignoring the outraged look on her face. You followed after, and her expression was no kinder towards you. It wasn’t the first time someone got mad at you for something Ransom did, but what were you to do? It wasn’t as if you could control him.

As Ransom walked through an arch on the left and the woman scurried through a door to the right, you stood on the spot right in front of the entrance. The gargoyles sculpted in the wood of the stair railing paralyzed you, the lights from the ornate chandelier blinded you, and the memories of books read long ago, hiding under the blankets with a flashlight when you were supposed to be sleeping came rushing back to you. This was much more than you had been expecting.

The inside of the house was dark and sinister like the outside, but there was a sense of warmth you hadn’t anticipated. The soft lights, the lavish rugs, and the numerous trinkets scattered about gave it a lived in feeling. The decoration somehow split the difference between “home” and “haunted house” right down the middle.

Why was it that Ransom didn’t like visiting his grandfather again?

“What are you standing around for?”

Speak of the devil…

Your forced your feet to move and followed him deeper into the house. Something inside you screamed at you to just ditch Ransom and this stupid dinner party to explore by yourself, because you got the feeling he would end up dragging you to a place that looked much more boring. You needn’t have worried – the living room was adorned in much the same way as the hall, cluttered and discordant and fascinating. Every piece of decor seemed to selected based on its own merits rather than any common theme or style, but it somehow all worked together.

You had started making your way to a windowsill, from where a model of a carousel with fish instead of horses called to you, when a voice stopped you in your tracks – a voice you had never heard before.

“Who’s that?”

You whirled around to see a man standing just a few feet away from Ransom. The age was about right, and with the two standing so close together, it was hard to deny the similarities between them.

“That’s my date,” Ransom said with a shrug.

“Date? You brought a date?”

“Nice, Richard. We don’t want to make her feel too welcome.”

At that, the older man looked back at you with a grin that would be charming if not for the utter shock reflected in his eyes.

“Hey, there,” he greeted, extending a hand “Richard Drysdale, father of this,” he glanced behind himself to look at Ransom, who was busy messing with a figurine in the mantelpiece “rascal.”

You offered your hand to him (his handshake was strong, professional) and introduced yourself.

“I gotta say, this is really something else,” Richard said “Ransom hasn’t brought any girls home since high school.”

“I bring girls home all the time, I just don’t live with you anymore.”

The meaning of his words didn’t go unnoticed. You already knew he fucked other women on the side – or rather, there was no “side”; you guys weren’t a thing, and it wasn’t as if you only put out for him – but Richard understood him as well.

“Is that the kind of thing you say in front of your date? I thought we taught you better than this.”

“No, Richard. We really didn’t.”

You looked to the source of the voice, and spotted the woman who had to be Ransom’s other progenitor.

“Linda,” she extended her hand to you, but not a smile. Her handshake was even stronger than her husband’s.

Richard joined his son by the fireplace to fiddle with a pewter box, looking downright chastised. Ransom, for his part, seemed to be fighting the urge to laugh.

He had said his family was a mess, and that he found it all terribly fun. Up until now, you weren’t really sure you believed him.

“Whatever this” Linda pointed from her son to you, then back to him again “is about, I hope it ends soon, for your sake.” The last bit, she’d said while looking at you, then she left through a different archway than she’d entered from.

It seemed Ransom had inherited the charm from his father, but the ability to put the fear of God in those who crossed him came from his mother.

“Who else is here?” Ransom asked once Linda was out of earshot.

“Mostly everyone is in the library,” Richard replied, pinching the bridge of his nose, all the former friendliness leaving him like a deflating balloon “your grandfather locked himself in his office with the nurse, and who knows where they put Wanetta. Meg’s not coming.”

“What excuse did Joni come up with?”

“Schoolwork. Essays, whatever. I mean, it’s a Friday, it could wait.”

“She’s going to spend at least half of the evening doing drugs with a friend, easy.”

“Dope.”

Ransom snorted “Like she’s shooting up.”

Richard fixed his son with a disbelieving look. “No. Dope is weed. Dope was weed just yesterday.”

“It used to be.” Upon seeing the defeated expression on his father’s face, Ransom shrugged “World’s passing you by, man.”

That didn’t help. Richard looked back to the pewter box, turning it on his fingers like he was trying to find the best angle to see his reflection. Ransom stared at him for a second longer, then stepped away from the fireplace and exited through the same way his mother had.

He didn’t call you, so you assumed you weren’t needed at the moment, but then, what were you going to do with yourself – watch a man have an existential crisis?

You didn’t have to wait long to find out. You had been standing there, watching Richard sigh to himself for maybe a minute when three other people entered the room. The first was the woman who had opened the door for you; the second, a younger woman, with something almost doe-like about her, and the third…

Well, Harlan Thrombey didn’t need introductions – at least, not to you.

He was the first to speak, looking at the woman Ransom had called Frannie. “Seems like you aren’t going mad, Fran. Unless we all are, which is possible. Can you see her too?” And at that he turned to the other woman, who smiled at him. It was hard to tell whether her smile was fond or embarrassed.

Then, his eyes landed on you.

“Since you’re just standing around with this idiot,” He said. Richard gave a tight smile and tapped his fingers against the mantelpiece “I’m going to guess idiot number two left you to fend for yourself?”

This wasn’t the kind of welcome you’d expect when meeting your not-boyfriend’s family, but Ransom was eccentric, so maybe his relatives were as well. Maybe it was a rich people thing.

“I’m used to it, when it comes to Ransom” you offered.

Harlan grinned at you, but then again, he had been smiling since he entered the room. There was something very Ransom-like about both expressions.

He ambled to you, extending a hand which you rushed to grasp. His smile grew, but maybe that wasn’t good.

“I’m Harlan, the proprietor of this” he gestured to the room with both hands “little menagerie of horrors. And these,” he turned to the women “are Fran, my housekeeper, the only one who can keep this mess in order,” the woman who’d opened the door smiled and raised her hand in greeting, but she still seemed suspicious of you “and Marta, my caretaker. Heaven sent, I would already be dead if not for her.”

Marta had smiled at you as she was introduced, but frowned at the last comment.

“Don’t say that,” she admonished “you’re strong like a horse, you’re going to live for a million years, I’m sure.”

Harlan whimpered theatrically and extended a hand as if trying to grasp at something.

“Marta, is that you? It’s so dark, I can’t see. Oh, is that a light at the end of the tunnel?”

“Really? You’re impossible.” Marta huffed, and Harlan laughed.

They seemed close. Close enough that they’d forgotten all about you in their banter.

Once he was done with his joke Harlan turned back to you.

“I promise you I don’t get any more charming, but you get used to it with time.”

Time. Did he think you’d get to be around long enough to get used to anything there?

“Let’s... get this party started,” he said with a wink “I don’t ask you your name because I’m dying to see how my grandson will introduce you, and I don’t want to get attached.”

That answered that question.

You followed the party of three into another living room(parlor?), then another(fainting room? How many rooms for sitting could one person need?), then finally to what you presumed was the library (that could easily double as a living room), given the floor to ceiling bookcases in every wall that wasn’t occupied by a window. The room was large, large than any room in a house needed or had a right to be, and there were so many books on so many shelves there was no way Harlan would’ve been able to read them all, even accounting for his age.

Despite the exorbitance, the place was cozy and interesting, not at all a monochromatic art installation behemoth the likes of the Kardashian-West mansion (Which you didn’t care about in the slightest… one of your coworkers had shown you the pictures, it was all), the sort of thing you expected from people with too much money and no sense of comfort. The library was furbished with plush seats, nooks where one could hide in to read in peace, even a mezzanine, and– was that a sculpture inspired by “A Thousand Knives”?! Excessive, very excessive, and somehow also really cool. You were sure you could spend hours perusing books and examining baubles, but there were other people already in the room, and you had been raised too well to just ignore them when it was obvious you had already seen them.

Linda leaned against an open window, balancing an unlit cigarette between two fingers, and looking out, as if debating whether or not to have a smoke and whether or not doing so inside. There were a man and a woman on a pair of matching high-backed chairs, looking nervous and annoyed respectively as another woman talked at them, and a teenager speaking to Ransom in between typing things on his phone. He was the first to notice you’d entered the room and he directed a brief glare to you before his eyes landed on Marta.

“Well, no need to stand up or anything,” Harlan spoke from behind you, waving his hand as he passed.

“Dad, plea-” the sitting man began, but he stopped once he saw you. After a moment of confused staring by both parties, he looked back to Harlan “Is that-”

“Don’t know; she came with your nephew.”

All eyes were now on Ransom. He was enjoying the attention, if the stupid smug grin on his face was any indication.

“I brought a date. I figured I had to be the first to do it, since Meg thinks all sex is rape and Jacob’s an incel,” that earned him an elbow in the gut, which he barely reacted to.

“A date? Boohoo,” Harlan spoke, and you almost winced “I expected something more exciting from you.”

“Would you rather she was a notorious diamond thief and I brought her here to steal every red penny you own, old man?”

“That would be more on brand.”

“That’s it,” Marta said, placing her hands on his shoulders and directing him to an armchair in front of the knife sculpture “I’m putting you to bed earlier, abuelo.”

“Not without me throwing a tantrum, you’re not.”

Ransom’s uncle looked back and forth from his father, then to you, then to his nephew, before settling on you and standing up. He picked up a cane that was resting beside the armchair and wobbled toward you, smiling.

“Hello. I’m Walt, it’s a pleasure to meet you…”

You gave him your name, exchanged proper greetings, shook hands; his fingers were trembling slightly, but the length of the hand shake was very appropriate.

“I hope you like it here so far. Any friend of Ransom’s is welcome here.”

“You say that because you never met any of my friends.”

“You know what Ransom,” Walt turned gave him a sarcastic smile “I’m surprised you have any friends at all. You sure you not paying her to be here?”

You didn’t know exactly what it was that Walt had said, but something had set Ransom off.

“Why, you want a round with her? Don’t think you could afford it right now, pal.”

Walt’s lips were still pulled up into a smile, but his pupils were darting from side to side like he was searching for escape routes. That was fair, so were you.

“Don’t speak to my husband that way,” the woman who hadn’t said a single word to or even acknowledged your presence so far, gripped the seat’s armrest as she seethed at Ransom “it’s not his fault that-”

At that she fell silent and turned to Harlan, who was looking at everything with mild interest.

“Actually, you don’t have a job either, do you Donna?” Ransom continued. You knew that look; he was getting steam and you didn’t want to know what would come next.

“I think we’re all just a little stressed with everything that’s been going on,” the woman who had been silent so far – Ransom’s other aunt, you presumed, the one he wanted to suck his dick – mercifully cut in before he could get anything else out “I think we need to roll things back, maybe start over? I can go back to the car and get my crystals so we can do a-”

As if on cue, Fran entered again, a tray with a wine bottle and glasses in hand. She left everything on a coffee table, then walked by Marta, whispering something that convinced the younger woman to move to a more secluded corner of the room with her.

Donna perked up when the drink touched the table, and, smiling the well practiced smile of a hostess who did her duty with no joy, she started pouring drinks and handing them around. When one of the glasses was placed in your hands, you weren’t sure what to do. You rolled the stem in your fingers, pondering as the other adults drank and Jacob sulked.

“So,” Joni began, giving you an easy grin “you and Ransom have known each other for…”

As she trailed off, Linda chuckled, but she wasn’t looking at you.

“Eight months, give or take.” You answered.

The answer seemed to surprise her “Eight months? And how long have you been dating?”

“Oh, I’m not...” you turned to Ransom for help, but he was looking at his nails as if they were the most fascinating thing in the World or as if he really didn’t want to take part in this conversation “I’m not sure. We haven’t exactly made things official.”

It looked like she was fighting to keep her smile in place “And you met-”

“What do you do?” Linda interrupted, still looking out the window “Do you actually have a job or are you just expecting to scam someone here?”

You turned to Ransom; he had placed a hand over his heart and was looking at his mother as if he found her comment deeply offensive.

You hadn’t thought about what you would say if Ransom’s family decided to grill you, deciding it would be best not to overthink things as he’d suggested. A question about your job was expected – it was just harder to process it when it had been asked in such a manner.

“No, I- I’m an assistant editor at Little, Brown and Company.”

There was a splashing sound, and you looked just in time to see Walt trying to rub off a stain from his sweater with one hand, while holding his wine glass with trembling fingers. When he noticed you looking at him, he offered a stiff smile.

That was the wrong answer, it seemed. It was the truth, of course, but the reactions around you were discouraging. Linda huffed, Harlan chuckled, Joni nodded mechanically, Donna seethed as she wiped at her husband’s clothes with a napkin, Walt trembled, Jacob’s scowl deepened, the sound coming from Fran and Marta’s corner of the room ceased, and Ransom’s grin was the widest you had ever seen on his face.

“Really?” Linda asked, now focused on her son “Where do you find those people?”

He laughed. “What? I’m very charming.”

“I need to use the restroom,” you squawked. You didn’t really need the restroom, just any place other than there.

“I’ll show you where it is,” Marta said, as quickly as you had. Her eyes told you everything: she was also dying to get out.

You handed your drink over to Ransom and followed Marta out of the room, the two of you almost running down the hallway.

She led you to a lavatory, where you turned on the faucets to cover the sound of you whimpering and heaving inside. After splashing your face with some water, you exited the room to find her still waiting for you outside. She offered an apologetic smile.

“So…” you started, not sure of how to best broach the subject. Good thing she already knew what you wanted to get at.

“They aren’t always like this,” she said “they’re all good people, but things have been a little… you know how it can be with family, right?”

You nodded. “Yeah, it’s just a little… seems kind of a bad time for me to be showing up.”

“No, I think it helps. They are better behaved when there’s company.”

But that’s true of everyone.

“Ransom didn’t tell you about…? Anything?” She asked.

“No. He said it’d be fine.”

Marta’s expression was of doubt, but she didn’t say anything to discredit him.

“Are you okay to go back?”

“Yeah, I’ll be okay.”

She nodded and stared leading you back to the room.

“They’re good people, but can be a little much sometimes. You get used to it with time.”

“You- I’m sorry if I’m overstepping, but you don’t look that used to them yourself.”

She shrugged “I guess I just… haven’t been around long enough.”

The scene you returned to was different from the one you had run from. Linda had abandoned the window and reclined on one of the armchairs. Richard had made his appearance, leaning against a bookcase behind Linda; He kept a respectful (perhaps even safe) distance between the two. Walt, Jacob and Donna were squeezed in on a single couch, looking like they’d just been plucked from a stuffy family portrait. Joni lounged on a window seat, leaning her chin on one hand and swirling her wine with the other. Fran was nowhere to be found. Harlan, sat atop the chair in front of the halo of knives, looking every bit the magnanimous patriarch. Ransom had taken his place on an armchair, just beside another empty one. On his other side was a small table with two empty wineglasses. His legs were crossed and he had a wide, satisfied smile that you knew well – so you knew it couldn’t mean anything good.

You sat beside him and angled your body in a way you felt would rend a pretty picture, because that seemed to be the game they were playing, while Marta made her way to a corner and stood there, doing the most not to draw attention to herself. Smart.

“So,” Harlan began as you settled into your spot “I think you were telling us about your career?”

“Yes, but there really isn’t much else to say.” Unless they wanted to be bored, that is. You had more tales of spotting typos than of interesting literary works.

“You said you worked at Little, Brown and Co?” He asked and you nodded “How long have you been there?”

“Two years. It’s about all the experience I have working in the field, other than internships in college.”

“Ah, College.” He grinned, but didn’t explain what he found so amusing “What did you major in?”

“English literature, with a minor in communications.”

“Good, good. Topical. You two bonded over books, then?”

You turned to Ransom, who was looking at you with a lazy smile. You had never told him about your job, let alone what you had studied in college.

“Yep,” he said. You two talked about books sometimes, but you didn’t think those conversations had helped with any bonding.

“You know, I think it’s so good to see Ransom has found a positive influence,” Joni said. The affectation in her voice and mannerisms was suddenly much more noticeable, and it felt like an omen.

You turned to Ransom. His lips were pressed together into a thin line and his chest was swelling like he was gathering oxygen for a screaming match or something worse. The longer you spent around these people, the more you were convinced he wasn’t the only one who liked to needle others.

“Honestly, I-” the words tumbled out of your mouth and you could only hope they were the right ones “I’m not sure if he’s influenceable.”

Ransom was still scowling and for a moment you were afraid you had only made things worse, but then his mouth opened and he let out the air in his lungs with a low chuckle. Much better than being in the middle of another argument.

Fran walked back into the room before anyone else could start a scene and announced that dinner was ready. Apparently Harlan hadn’t been exaggerating when he said she was the only one who kept his house in order – all around you tense shoulders relaxed and frowning brows smoothed with the promise of a meal. You must’ve looked happy as well, given you hadn’t eaten a thing since lunch and your stomach was starting to hurt. There was also (and you wished the thought hadn’t run through your mind, but it did) the chance that Ransom and his family would be much less likely to speak if their mouths were stuffed with meatloaf.

You wished you didn’t have those sort of intrusive thoughts about people you had just met, but they weren’t making it easy for you. Marta had alluded to a “family situation” that had left them on edge, but you had never seen people react this badly to strangers. This was the stuff or nightmares, or at least of “Florida Man” news reports. They were supposedly worse when there wasn’t company? How much worse could they get?

Ransom had told you not to worry about dining with his family. Maybe he was so used to them he didn’t think the way they acted was all that strange; maybe he knew his family would behave the way they had but he decided not to warn you for purposes of fuckery; it didn’t matter all that much. The worst thing was knowing that they sucked as hard as he liked to say they did. If you chose to go on with your pregnancy, this is what you would be bringing your child into.

[def-initely-soul]

Some Jin and some soft comedy -if you want!- and with lots of your magnificent fantasy. Please stay hydrated. Prompt: “What’s that? “You don’t want to know. Don’t look.”

ASDFGHJKGFDS aren’t you sweet <3 

with pleasure ;)

pairing: seokjin from BTS x reader (f.)

prompts: “What’s that?” “You don’t want to know. Don’t look.”

genre: humour; angst; supernatural; PG-13

warnings: mature language; mention of minor character death

words: 4.4 (shit why does this keep happening with Seokjin?)

You almost knock the empty cup sitting on your wooden desk with your boots when the phone rings.

It takes you a second to swallow down the rest of your happy faces biscuit before you stretch out your hand to grab at the telephone, too lazy to get up and pick it up properly.

“Yellow?” you answer nonchalantly, without a doubt Yoongi being on the other line to tell you about some other prank he pulled on the neighbour across the hall. You’re pretty sure he’s in love with him really but the fucker would never admit that to you.

Demons’ reputation and such stand in the way.

A sigh comes from the other side, one you’re pretty sure doesn’t belong to your demonic friend.

“Hi,” says a voice, too polite and clipped to be considered Yoongi’s and your eyebrows scrunch in confusion.“Is this-” the man says and then he stops.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this...” he whispers incredulously to himself and you have half a mind to be somewhat offended before he continues.

“Is this the Jaeger Agence? Paranormal Investigation and Extermination Services?”

This time you don’t knock over only the empty cup. Your boots drag some empty papers on their wake, your chair screeches with the added weight and a pen almost rolls off your desk before you stop it with one hand. Holy fuck, someone is actually calling for the first time in months!

Someone other than a certain demon boy ranting about a human across the hall.

“Yes, that’s right, that’s us!” you say entirely too enthusiastic for the first client in what seems like ages. You’ve longed for such excitement for far too long, you haven’t been in any missions and the most exhilaration you’ve gotten these days was when you found out your favourite deli delivered across town.

You sit up straight in your seat, clearing your throat. “And how can I be of assistance?” you say in the most professional voice you can manage. Gotta impress the first client in months!

Although the man’s tired sigh doesn’t seem too impressed. “There’s a problem. In my house,” he responds curtly and you hum in acknowledgement, waiting for him to elaborate. But as the man fails to do so, you realize that maybe he’s not such a firm believer of your services and might need a slight push forward.

“And what seems to be said problem?” you ask calmly, trying to keep a positive outlook.

The man takes a breath. “My plumbing system doesn’t work.”

Oh. Okay. This is a prank.

It’s your turn to take a breath. “Okay, I know this might seem funny to you but I run a serious business here, Sir! People might be in dire need of assistance and your phonecall might be taking away their chance for help! So goodnight and don’t call again-” you grit through your teeth before moving to put down the receiver.

“No, wait!” is the man’s immediate reaction and against your logic you don’t hang up, waiting for what he has to say. After all, you started this business to help people.

“I’m sorry if I sounded... patronizing before,” the man continues, voice suddenly too tired and worn out and you almost feel sorry for him. “But the truth is... I never really believed in any of this stuff so now it’s incredibly difficult to come to terms with this whole situation. My plumbing really doesn’t work, I’ve tried everything and that doesn’t work either, so I’m really desperate for any help you can give me, be it in the supernatural field or not,” he concludes with a heavy sigh, riddled with exhaustion and you bite the inside of your cheek.

Damn you and your psychopathic need to help others.

You take a deep breath. “Alright. I’ll help you.”

.

.

After forty minutes you find yourself parking your Jeep Wrangler at the address Kim Seokjin, the man on the phone, gave you.

It took a while to pack all the necessary equipment for what seems to be Mr Kim’s problem. From what he said to you, there’s some weird purple goo dripping down his faucets instead of water. He used any drain cleaners he could find in his house the day after he noticed the leakage and when those didn’t work, he went around town, trying everything he hadn’t used before. But it seemed the drain cleaners only made the goo more prominent, more indestructible instead of toning it down.

What made matters worse is that he kept finding traces of the goo all around his house. On his bathroom, on the living room, on the kitchen cabinets (with pieces of food gone as well), even on his bed on time while he was asleep. It scared him since he never went near that stuff without some gloves and without cleaning himself with bottled water after. So that meant someone else was in his house.

Hence his call to you.

You knock the door twice and you take a step back, waiting for the man to answer the door.

You take in the house. It’s a two-story house, one of those old ones that are scarce around the city, painted dark brown with white windows and a wooden porch. Surrounded by new, tall buildings as if the owner was too stubborn to move and give his property away for someone to buy it and make it into an apartment building.

You think you would’ve liked the owner.

The door opens after a few seconds and the man behind the door, assuming it’s Kim Seokjin, almost blinds you.

That’s how beautiful he is.

He has black hair, falling on top of his almond eyes that seem to spark under the street lights. He’s tall, with broad shoulders to accentuate his figure and he’s dressed in black jeans and a white loose shirt that really help bring out his eyes.

After what feels like an eternity in front of the sun, you blink your eyes back to reality to introduce yourself to who seems to be an angel on earth.

Although something stops you when you see the way he’s looking at you. Eyes narrowed in, gaze suspicious, sceptical as he stares you up and down.

The doubtful looking angel opens his mouth.” You’re...” he says, confirming his voice is that of the man on the phone but he seems to not know how to continue.

Your eyes zero on him as well, as you cross your arms over your dungarees. “What? A woman? That's right buddy, us exterminators come in that gender as well. Possibly even all the genders! -well, if anyone else is actually crazy enough like me to become one-,” you say with a level gaze, before adding that last tidbit towards yourself.

“Let’s face it no one’s crazy enough as you,” comes from your right and you see your friendly neighbour demon, Yoongi leaning on the wall with a lazy smirk over his lips. You narrow your eyes at him, knowing he’s disguising himself so only you can see him. You don’t respond to him, choosing to at least not look totally crazy in front of your new client, even though you just yelled at him.

The man in front of you simply stares at you with an open mouth at your answer, obviously not having a single clue of Yoongi standing a few feet away from him. He quickly shakes his head though to get out of his momentary daze before his eyes zero in on you again.

“I was just gonna say that you’re...”, he stops. His eyes once again rake up your form and you resist the urge to shuffle awkwardly in front of him. Yoongi drowns a chuckle.

When his eyes reach your face again, he completes his sentence. “Short.”

You gasp instinctively, your eyes widening at the insult, while Yoongi is now openly having a laughing fit. You’ll deal with him later but Kim Seokjin? The audacity of this man! Did God give rudeness permissions to anyone with a face close to perfection?

You point at him accusatory. “Well, you’re just freakishly tall so there’s....!” you say trying to come up with a comeback but when you come up with none you’re forced to meet his raised eyebrow with a simple “... that...”

He still looks at you unimpressed and this time there’s a small smirk playing at the edge of his lips. To other people, it would be unnoticeable but you’ve dealt with too many arrogant assholes to know superiority when you see it.

You take a breath to calm your ravaging temper, before Yoongi chimes in.

“Listen, not to anger you or anything but I’m pretty sure he thinks you’re crazy so why not go for the whole package?”

You ponder the thought for a second and truth is your chaotic mindset wants to mess with the beautiful but mean person in front of you.

You turn to Yoongi that’s behind you, Kim Seokjin looking at you suspiciously once more, when you say “Hold me back.”

Yoongi and Seokjin talk at the same time, the demon saying “Oh, I love that joke,” and the man saying “Excuse me?”

You repeat the words once more while looking at Yoongi and taking a semi-step forward as if you’re about to attack Seokjin. The tall man looks at you cautiously, alert in his wide eyes as he takes a step back.

When Yoongi doesn’t hold you back, you turn pleadingly at him. “Will you please hold me back?”

Yoongi looks confused. “Bitch, I’m not really here, how am I supposed to do that?”

You groan before you shoo him away. “Fine, leave you good for nothing ghost!”

Yoongi smiles as he begins evaporating. “Ah, yeah, that’ll scare him,” he jokes before vanishing into thin air.

After that little show, you turn towards the man on the other side of that door who looks at you as if you’ve gone mad. You smile, changing your angry demeanour to a more nonchalant one as you rest your hand on your hip.

“Did that manage to scare ya? I tend to do that to people...” you say in your most suave, proud voice as you flick your hair behind your shoulders.

Seokjin stares for a moment too long before shaking his head and the unimpressed stare is back. “Actually you just freaked me out,” he says earnestly. But nonetheless, he steps aside, making room for you to enter.

You stare at the motion with one raised eyebrow. Is he really giving you the clear? You’d thought your previous demonstration would’ve scared him enough to not want you inside his house, but he doesn’t seem to mind. Maybe he just took it as it is, a joke.

Or maybe he’s just really desperate.

Even so, you enter the premises, feeling the air shift as if the atmosphere inside the house is overstuffed with something.

You stop once you realize this. Magic. It’s all over the air, you can feel it, sucking in the breath of your lungs as if it needs it to survive. That’s what magic does when it’s left uncontrolled for too long. Sucking the air out of everything, making people go mad.

There’s definitely something wrong with the house.

You turn to Seokjin before your eyes fleet around the house. “Can you point me to where the closest leakage is?” you ask, chaotic demeanour put aside in favour of focusing on your actual job for once.

The handsome man quickly nods his head as he motions for you to follow him. “There’s one in the kitchen, although it wasn’t the first one I noticed...” he says as you walk through his living room and into the kitchen. Indeed as you step inside you see the faucet is dripping with purple goo, slowly dying the sink as traces of it spread to the floor, the cabinets and on a path out of the kitchen.

You take a step forward when you remember you’re still in your boots. You look at your feet and then back at the man. “Should I take my shoes off?”

Seokjin blinks at you, unsure for a moment before he waves you off dismissively. “Nah, I’ll have to clean up the rest of the mess anyway...” he responds with an easy smile that has you staring for a moment too long.

Then his eyes fall on a greenish mark your shoe has left behind and his nose scrunches in disgust. “What’s that?”

Your eyes follow his stare only to look at your shoes. You pick your leg up to stare at the sole only to find you squashed what seemed to be excrements and you make a disgusted sound before wiping your shoe with a spare paper towel.

“You don’t want to know. Don’t look,” you say before you throw it into a specially designed trashbag you carry with you on missions. This one is empty.

You shake your head back into focus as you turn on the sink. You examine the goo with your eyes for a moment before you realize your hair is still loose and you grab them up in a ponytail. Then you take out some gloves from your trunk, wearing them and taking another step closer.

You can feel Seokjin looking at you curiously but you pay him no mind even if his stare has goosebumps running down your arms.

You gather the goo in your fingertips, it’s colour a fluorescent purple and as you make a connecting string between your fingers, you find it’s stretchy, like strings of cheese on a pizza.

“Well?” Seokjin finally asks impatient, as you take off your gloves and lean in closer to take a whiff.

Hmm. Smells like saltwater.

You rise up again. “Where did you notice it for the first time?” you ask, disposing of the gloves into the trashbag.

“On the bathroom upstairs...” he responds as his eyes follow your movements. You reach inside your trunk for what seems like a mini aquarium and a water bottle of what seems like regular water. 

You grab one in each arm before you turn your eyes to Seokjin. “Can I?” you say pointing upstairs. Seokjin only nods, once again leading you through the house.

Turns out he’s got an actually really big house, even if it doesn’t seem so from outside.

“Your house is really cool...” you observe out loud, as you pass by the living room again, filled with books on every wall and a very cosy looking blanket throw on top of the couch. The fireplace is still warm, a tiny bit of fire resting inside as you pass by, making you wonder how it’d feel to rest in front of it after a long day.

Seokjin turns to look at you somehow surprised. “I... thanks. It’s my grandma’s actually. Bought it herself with her very first money working at a clothing factory. She once said this house was her first real achievement,” the man reminisces with a soft smile and you find yourself smiling as well.

“Then how come she left you here alone?” you ask curiously as you go up the stairs but when Seokjin’s face darkens you realized you’ve made a mistake.

“She died. Two years ago. Left me the house with a warning she’d haunt me if I ever sold it,” he says with a chuckle, dark aura leaving him immediately at the fond memory and you press your lips together in a kind smile.

“Sounds like I would’ve liked your grandmother,” you joke, and he smiles as you shift your arms to carry up the aquarium and the bottle, which Seokjin notices.

“Here let me help you,” he urges and goes to carry the tiny aquarium in both hands as he moves forward toward what you assume is his bathroom.

“So what is this gonna do?” he says pointing to the aquarium with his chin as he kicks open the bathroom door.

You shake the water bottle at him. “This is saltwater. If I’m right, there’s a sea imp in your house, although it beats me how it got here. These things don’t tend to leave the sea for too long and the city is too far away from the sea for one of them to end up here organically. If it is an imp, I’ll fill up the aquarium with saltwater and remove the imp into it to safely transport it into the sea,” you explain once you step inside the bathroom and Seokjin turns to look at you with wide eyes. As if not expecting your answer.

“You’re not gonna kill it?” he says as if he doesn’t believe you and his wide eyes make him look like a curious child. You can only hide your smile.

Instead, you shrug as he puts the aquarium near the sink and you let the bottle next to it. “Would you kill a stray cat if it somehow ended up in your house even though it made a mess?”

He stares at you for a moment too long, surprised by your way of thinking  before he shakes his head with an incredulous smile. “No, I suppose not...” he says earnestly before moving to the corner of the room to let you do your job.

Turns out your right, there’s an excessive amount of leakage from the sink, the salty smell engulfing the room and you open up the cabinet below it to unscrew the pipes from the side that connects to the wall. When you hear movement inside the pipe you quickly close the open end with your gloved hand, to not let the imp escape and just as quickly unscrew the other side and cover it as well.

You’re at once on your feet, telling Seokjin to pour the saltwater in the aquarium and as he does so, you let the imp fall into the water with a soft plop.

You quickly close the lid as the little fiend seems to struggle for a moment before it realizes it’s covered with saltwater. It’s not the sea per se, but it manages to calm it down. Once it’s serene, the purple goo begins sinking back into the pipes, fading and eventually disappearing.

You smile once you see Seokjin’s shocked eyes as his stare travels between the calmly swimming imp and the clean faucet. He moves to the sink to open up the tap and there it is, clean water at last.

“Voila!” you exclaim with a satisfied lilt in your voice as Seokjin turns to stare at you again.

“You,” he replies shortly and for one second you think he’ll be mad at you. “You’re a genius!” he exclaims with an incredulous chuckle before his eyes travel to the imp in the aquarium. Now that’s it’s somewhere more familiar and calm, it looks cute. Though to be honest, to you all imps are cute.

“Why the tone of surprise...” you mumble to yourself, Seokjin not hearing you in favour of watching the little imp in awe.

“It looks kinda cute, doesn’t it?” he observes with a soft smile that makes the apples of his cheeks rise up. Your face heats up as you find yourself agreeing but not for the imp this time.

“Ah, haha, yeah, they all are,” you respond with an uneasy chuckle, before taking the now more heavy aquarium in your arms and begin walking down the stairs.

Once you reach the kitchen, you turn your face away from Seokjin, fearing he might see right through you. You rest the aquarium on top of the kitchen table as you begin hastily gathering your stuff back into your trunk.

Seokjin follows not too far behind, eyes still trained on the imp in behind the glass.

“Um, would it be crazy if I kept it?”

Your eyes widen as you turn to look at Seokjin that looks softly at the creature currently looking at him with curious eyes.

“You want to keep the imp?” you repeat as if you hadn’t heard right. 

Seokjin doesn’t look at you as he answers. “Yeah. I mean it would be like keeping a pet. He doesn’t seem to make a lot of mess and he only needs saltwater and food right? Plus he seems to really like me, not to brag or anything...” he replies, waving a hand in front of the tiny blue creature that follows the digit around playfully.

He is right. Imps don’t cause trouble and the only time where they’re dangerous is when they feel unsafe. This imp seemed to really not like the running water here, hence the uncontrollable amount of magic around the house. But now that the little guy is in salt water, the magic has already subsided tremendously. He still needs regular seawater to survive but you think you can manage that.

“Alright. I guess I can bring you a bottle of seawater, saltwater isn’t gonna last forever, but those things need extra special care. And you can’t find information like that at your local pet store,” you warn him but Seokjin turns to look at you with a smile.

“Well if you’re willing to teach me some things I’d appreciate the help,” his smile is so bright and sincere, it has you swallowing your next words. What were you going to say? What were you even thinking? No clue!

“So, you didn’t tell me when you first started seeing the goo?” you ask in an attempt to fill the suddenly awkward silence. Seokjin makes a sound of remembrance before he taps his chin.

“I think it was a day after a party I hosted. My friends had gathered here to celebrate one of us getting a promotion and the next day I found the faucets leaking with goo. At first, I thought those hooligans had done something to my sinks so I just tried to clean it,” he says, his voice turning soft once he says the word “hooligans”, revealing how much he actually cares for his friends. It’s cute.

“Only it didn’t work,” you observe with a smile and Seokjin smiles back at you with a nod.

But then your eyebrows scrunch in confusion. That’s weird. Imps hate big crowds. So how did a sea imp that hates big crowds and noise end up here?

When you move to pick up your trunk you find your answer. As you trudge through the living room, your eyes fall on a frame on top of the fireplace. There a large group of people, you assume to be Seokjin and his friends, sit across the camera with large smiles on their faces. And in the corner of the photograph rests one man you’ve seen before.

Though man isn’t quite right.

Demon is more like it.

Yoongi stares back at you from the picture with a cocky smile, as if mocking you even through the glossy film. Your mouth opens in astonishment as you stare at your friend that also seems to be Seokjin’s friend? Is this why he only appeared to you before?

This doesn’t make any sense.

Seokjin sees you staring at the picture and he moves in close to you. “Hey, you alright?”

You shake your head. Seokjin probably doesn’t know Yoongi is a demon, so I’d be best if he didn’t hear it from you. “Yeap, easy peasy, lemon squeezy!” you say overly-cheerful as you make up your mind to call Yoongi as soon as your back at your apartment-turned office.

Seokjin looks at you kinda weirded out but for the sake of all, he chooses not to comment. He simply nods.

You make a move to get a better hold of your trunk before you take a breath.

“Well, this has been nice! I should get going now...” you inform him and simultaneously reminding yourself you probably won’t see him again. Suddenly there’s an ache in your chest but you squash it down. You just met the guy, act normal for once in your life!

Seokjin’s eyes widen in sudden panic, for some reason not wanting you to leave just yet. “Wait!” he shouts unintentionally and you almost drop your trunk at the volume of his voice. You turn around slowly to see him staring at you with what seems like fear in his eyes and for some reason hope blooms in your chest.

“I-” he says, scrambling for an excuse to not let you go yet and his eyes widen when he finds it. “I didn’t pay you yet!” he announces cheerfully, running into the kitchen to retrieve his wallet.

The reason behind his outburst has your hope deflating, face falling as soon as he disappears and brightening again once he reenters the living room.

When he hands you the appropriate amount, there is really nothing else to keep you here. And yet after you thank him, none of you move to step away. You should go, you know that but for some reason, you can bear to leave him.

For some reason, Seokjin also dreads the moment you’ll depart.

“I, uhm...” he begins, losing his train of thought as his eyes bore into yours. What’s wrong with him? He’s seen a lot of pretty girls before, why is he suddenly acting like this?

None like you though, he thinks.

None like you.

So he asks for your personal number. In the pretence of needing to be in touch for the proper care of the sea imp in his kitchen.

.

.

From inside the kitchen, unbeknown to both of them a certain demon stares at the interaction, disguised away from both.

Yoongi put the imp in Seokjin’s bathroom. After a lot of time wondering how could he get the two of you close he finally found an excuse.

Before Yoongi was a demon, hundreds of lifetimes ago he was best friends with a peasant boy. A peasant boy named Seokjin. And for some cruel reason, Yoongi’s happiness meant Seokjin’s misery. And Yoongi knew that but he didn’t listen to fate.

He let Seokjin go through immeasurable pain just so he could survive. 

And now that Yoongi found both of you in this life, so close yet so unaware of one another, he knew he had a debt to pay. He knew he had to bring you close for all those years he caused you to spent apart.

The little sea imp stares at the empty space next to the cabinets.

[ladyirontiger]

LIT LEGACY RULES

LADYIRONTIGER (LIT) LEGACY

Here's my take on the old legacy challenge found here.

BASIC RULES:

Lifespan: normal

Money: cheats are allowed, I guess, but that does take some of the fun out of it. Generations can leave inheritances for the heirs not to exceed 10k.

Housing: sims can move from one generation to the next, but not during the generation. i.e. gen 1 must live in ONE place only; however, gen 2 can move out and then live in one place only.

Colors: are just listed to help me keep the generations straight during gameplay. You don’t have to use them.

Traits: Are just suggestions; however, the heir must inherit ONE trait from the previous generation.

SUCCESSION RULES:

Gender Law: MATRIARCHY - The Founder must be female. Only girls are eligible to be named heir unless there are no female children, at which point boys become eligible for that generation.

Bloodline Law: STRICT TRADITIONAL - To be eligible to be named heir, a child must be naturally born from their previous-generation parents and be able to trace an unbroken bloodline back to the founder. Adopted children may never be named heir.

Heir Law: LIVING WILL - The eligible child with the highest friendly relationship score with their previous-generation’s parent will be named heir. If there’s a tie, preference goes to THE FIRST BORN.

Species Law: TOLERANT - The species of the child has no impact on their eligibility for heir status

Gen 1: The Old Soul (yellow)

It’s almost as if you were born in the wrong era. You do everything the old-fashioned way, down to the way you “court” not date, and the way you dress. You’re naturally nurturing, and energetic. You’d do anything for your family. You’re the perfect matriarch, no matter what year it is.

Traits: dog lover, creative, active

Aspiration: Lord/Lady of the Knits

Career: Stay at Home Parent/Plopsy Seller

Rules:

Live anywhere except the city

Have a dog. Teach it 3 tricks. Become its companion

Have 2 children. Become good friends with both

Have one partner only. Do not have romance with anyone else.

Master Gourmet Cooking (reach level 10) and Pet Training skills (reach level 5)

Gen 2: The Homesteading YouTuber (purple)

Your parents provided everything you could ever want, and you’re so grateful. You’re going to pay it forward to make the world you live in a better place for yourself and your own children. You’re documenting your eco adventures for posterity and to increase the reach your message of sustainability.

Traits: active, maker, music lover

Aspiration: Eco Innovator

Career: Social Media Internet Personality

Rules:

Graduate from university. Do not live on campus

Have 2 children

Become a 5-star celebrity

Live in a tiny home, or in Evergreen Harbor, or both (a tiny home in Evergreen Harbor)

Master the violin and photography skill (reach level 10)

­Gen 3: The Moody Musician (blue)

Living in the shadow of a perfect parent, and constantly being hounded by paparazzi wasn’t easy growing up. It left you with a profound distrust of people. The one thing your parent did give you, which you’re grateful for, is a passion for music. You’re determined to make your own way in the world, away from the cameras, and share your passion with aspiring young minds. While you love teaching, and you’re unswervingly dedicated to your craft, you lack the flair for parenting that your mother and grandmother had. Though you try your best.

Traits: music lover, loner, hot headed

Aspiration: Musical Genius

Career: Education Professor

Rules:

Live in the city

Leave someone at the alter. Never marry.

Have only one child

Write a book

Master 2 instruments (reach level 10)

Gen 4: The Adventurer (green)

While your music-loving parent is in their own head, all you can dream of is getting out, being in nature, under the stars, and having a big, loving family. You want your children to feel connected to the outdoors the way you do, and the way your grandmother did.

Traits: hot headed, loves outdoors, outgoing

Aspiration: Outdoor Enthusiast

Career: Conservationist

Rules

Have three children

Mentor all children in fitness

Go camping as a family

Go to the beach as a family

Master the fitness and comedy skills (level 10)

Become good friends with grandchild heir

Gen 5: The Good Wife (red)

It’s hard for you to commit to relationships because you’re so focused on your career. Having a big family was nice and all, but having to share resources and fight for attention isn’t something you want to ever relive. You’re the star of your own show both in your romantic relationships and in the courtroom. That means there just isn’t room for your children to be more than props in your life. They’ll live.

Traits: outgoing, noncommittal, romantic

Aspiration: Serial Romantic

Career: Law Judge

Rules

Go to University. Do not live on campus.

Have at least 2 failed relationships before marrying

Have 2 children by 2 different partners. Be disliked by both children

Master the debate & charisma skills (level 10)

Gen 6: The Spy Mom (black)

With a mom seemingly married to justice, who had no time for you, it was easy to get away with sneaking around, and little swipes here and there. You honed your skills for manipulation and deception, and now you’re putting them to good use. You still want to have a family, but keeping your job a secret for their safety inevitably causes an irreparable rift between you and your children.

Traits: romantic, kleptomaniac, family oriented

Aspiration: Soulmate

Career: Secret Agent Diamond Agent

Rules

Become best friends with grandparent (heir from gen 5)

Marry a good sim, then divorce

Have at least 2 children, be disliked by one of them.Master logic skill (level 10)Mentor children in logic

Gen 7: The Bake Sale Mom (pink)

Finding out your mother is a secret agent is bound to make an impact, and on you it certainly has. All you want is a “normal” life, and a big, loving family. You love baking, and feeding your loved ones brings you great joy. You turn your passion into a business, and you get your family to be part of it all. Money might be tight at times, and things aren’t always easy, but you’re doing it together. That’s what matters.

Traits: family oriented, foodie, perfectionist

Aspiration: Big Happy Family

Career: Chef

Rules

Master the baking and parenting skills (level 10)

Have 5 children and be close friends with all of them

Own a retail store or restaurant

Have a weekly family dinner with all extended family still living

Gen 8: The Silicon Valley Mom (white/beige)

Gaming takes you to another world. Not that this one is bad or anything, but you enjoy being a hero, and the stories about your grandmother the spy fuel your desire for (safer) adventures. Unfortunately for your children, you have unrealistic expectations of them, and hold them to impossibly high standards.

Traits: perfectionist, geek, ambitious

Aspiration: Computer Whiz

Career: Tech Guru eSports Gamer

Rules:

Master programming and video gaming skill (reach level 10)

Have two children be geniuses, get honor roll, and max out 2 skills

Have a weekly bowling night with family

Gen 9: The Orange County Mom (peach/orange)

You’ve grown accustomed to a certain standard of living, and you’re much too smart and good looking to let it go to waste. You’re goal is to become fabulously wealthy by any means necessary. Being a bawse isn’t always easy, so you take every opportunity to relax with some yoga or a spa outing. As nice as it would be to have your children join the family business, it’s a dangerous game.

Traits: ambitious, materialistic, snob

Aspiration: Fabulously Wealthy

Career: Criminal Boss or NONE

Rules:

Have three “frenemies” of the same gender who are also snobs

Marry a sim for money not for love

Master the wellness and handiness skill (level 10)

Mentor a child in handiness.

Gen 10: The Flower Child (teal)

You can’t be tied down by the man, but you don’t want to turn to a life of crime like your mother. You’re level-headed, and you know what you want out of life: fun and freedom. Some might say your job is frivolous, but your family has a history of being at one with nature, and being popular. You want to marry for love like your great, great…grandmother. You just want to be…excellent.

Traits: snob, self-assured, cheerful

Aspiration: Party Animal

Career: Gardener

Rules:

Master flower arranging, singing, and mixology

Have one child of your own, and adopt one

Have a cat

Marry someone you adore

Write your memoir

Write your family’s history

[thewhumperinwhite]

Soulmate Drabble

Okay listen, my explanation for this is, because they meet younger in Soulmate AU, Sol hasn’t been on T as long, and also ow ow ow ow ow

TW for: gender dysphoria, bathroom language, menstruation and all that entails. Also brief reference to Kent’s suicide attempt.

Not tagging anybody directly in this because i have no idea if it is for anybody except Me Personally and it isn’t even really whump

----

Sol doesn’t even make a conscious decision not to say anything. It isn’t like it’s a secret. Yes, saying it out loud does objectively make it worse, makes him use words that shouldn’t be his anymore, goddamn it, but he isn’t really thinking about that, at least not consciously. He just scrubs out the toilet--not because he’s hiding the evidence, but because he cares about cleanliness, and also possibly because it’s been a little while since he’s had to share a bathroom with anyone--and makes a mental note to whine to his endocrinologist.

Later. When he isn’t feeling--the way he’s feeling now.

There’s a fog that takes over when this happens, that fills his brain up and hovers between him and anybody else, and it’s--it’s thicker and worse every time, because he always hated this but the feeling that it’s supposed to go away somehow makes it worse; he handled it fine before, really only worried about it when it meant he had to open packaging in public restrooms, but it’s worse now, is so much not a part of who he is now, which is to say that he emerges from the bathroom deep inside his own head and doesn’t notice Kent pause at the window where he’s fussing with his plants; part of him probably sees Kent stop and turn back to him with a look somewhere between confusion and concern, but he doesn’t have the brain space to make anything of it.

Even separate from whatever he feels about it emotionally, Sol’s periods have always hit him like a ton of bricks.

He could, if he wanted, flop dramatically over the arm of the couch and moan loudly and curse the heavens or whatever, but his experience has been that it doesn’t fucking help, so he sits down like a human being instead, and turns on the TV with full knowledge he is not going to watch whatever’s on.

“Hey,” Kent’s voice says softly from directly over Sol’s shoulder, and he jumps a little; he fully had not realized Kent was hovering behind the couch looking worried. “You okay?” 

He blinks at Kent. Kent is still holding the little ceramic watering can they bought him at Goodwill last week. It’s shaped like a little bird, and the details are painted in summer-sky blue, which is Kent’s color. The plants were Sol’s idea--he didn’t say to Kent, “hey, you better stay alive to take care of these plants,” but he thinks the implication was clear--and the little pitcher was Pax’s contribution, and Sol doesn’t think either of them expected Kent to love it so much, like no one had ever given him a gift before.

“Yeah,” Sol says, and he isn’t even lying on purpose; Kent is standing there with his bandaged wrists and Sol is immediately not thinking about his own bullshit anymore. “What’s up, baby, you need anything?”

Kent frowns at him, like he’s confused. “No,” he says slowly, like he’s waiting for Sol to say something. “You--are you sure you’re okay, Sol? I thought--I can--are you sick, or something?”

Sol stares at Kent blankly for a second, and then he is on his feet and staring at his Soulmate with absolute horror, because Kent can feel his pain.

Which he fucking knows, which shouldn’t be a fucking revelation, Kent must’ve always been sensitive but now that they’re together he’s a fucking feelings bloodhound, and there is--there is no logical reason why that should be sending violent spikes of panic through his already-roiling stomach now, when Sol already knew he could do that, and yet--and yet that’s exactly what’s happening; Sol is standing here staring at the mild concern on Kent’s face and feeling his pulse hammer in his ears and his breath speed up.

“None of your fucking business,” he practically snarls.

Kent blinks at him, and to his infinite credit, does not crumble like a puppy that’s been yelled at, which he would absolutely be within his rights to do, just looks at Sol like he’s got no idea what he’s talking about and says, “Huh?” 

Which is exactly what Sol needs, it turns out. Because now he remembers he’s not talking to kids at school, or even to some nebulous idea of a Soulmate he spent years worrying would call him a girl, he’s talking to Kent, who cried when Sol bought him a spider plant and is objectively more feminine than he is and also loves him.

Sol laughs once, feeling his shoulders loosen, and scrubs his hand over his face, a little embarrassed now. “Sorry, man,” he says ruefully. “I just, uh, you know.” He gestures vaguely at himself. “Cramps.”

Kent blinks at him, and then his eyes widen in sympathy, which makes Sol tense a little. “You--wait, really? It feels awful.” 

Sol laughs again, in spite of himself. That’s--okay, he can’t put his finger on why, but that’s the right response, that feels good. “Yeah,” he says. “Fucking murderous, right? Always have been.” He smiles at Kent, who looks faintly ill, even at the second-hand version of the pain. “I get, fucking--my legs get all funny, too. Like somebody scraped out my bone marrow with an ice cream scoop.”

“Ugh,” Kent moans, which was the intention. Sol grins at him and flops back on the couch, feeling--well, physically still awful, but a lot lighter, mentally. “Can I help? Do you need anything?” He comes around the front of the couch so Sol can see him shake his head and wrinkle his nose. “I can’t even feel it properly and I hate it.”

“Nope,” Sol says cheerfully. “Nothin’ to do now but wait it out, baby.”

Kent does flop dramatically over the arm of the couch, sliding in next to Sol. “That’s awful, man.”

Sol grins and wraps his arms around Kent’s shoulders so he can pull him properly into his lap. “Your sympathy changes nothing,” he lies easily. He can’t stop smiling, now. “You are useful only as a heating pad. C’mere.”

“You’re warmer than me,” Kent points out, while he obligingly arranges himself between Sol’s knees, with his chest against Sol’s stomach and his head a warm perfect weight over Sol’s heart.

Kent really isn’t a good heating pad--he runs cold from being so skinny, and he’s all elbows. But the pain feels thinner for being spread around, easier to see through. And Sol’s chest is more than warm enough for the two of them now, anyway.

----

Pax comes back a half-hour later with their arms full of groceries and finds both their soulmates half-asleep on the couch, in a tangle of arms and legs. Kent opens one eye to look at them without moving an inch.

“We’re having cramps,” he tells them.

“Ah,” Pax says solemnly. They disappear in the kitchen for almost a full thirty seconds before they come back with a heated rice pillow Sol knows he didn’t used to own. “Budge up,” they say.

Sol rolls his eyes and sits up just enough for Pax to slide in behind him and pass him the little warm pillow. Kent makes a happy noise when Sol tucks it between them, enjoying the warmth.

Sol leans back against Pax’s chest. Pax tucks their arm around him, and changes the TV neither Sol nor Kent has been watching to some wrestling match they’re somehow interested in.

Fair enough, Sol figures, sleepy and warm, inside and out.

[manggojooz]

Pick A Side (Part 5)

pairing: Taehyung x reader

word count: 2,300 approx

genre: university!au; angst; romance; slice of life stuff

warnings: none

previous part: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

taglist:  @destiel1597 @mila271 @hopetookmysoul@ximaginx @honeyursosweet

It was the first night of the freshman orientation camp. On your way back from brushing your teeth, you passed by the room where all the senior girls were gathered when you heard a symphony of loud shrieks.  

“I knew it! I knew you have set your eyes on Kim Taehyung!!”, one senior screams as another lets out a long squeal.  

“You pick the cutest freshman every year! Hyesoo sunbaenim~ do you think you can let the cute freshman go this year? Give us a chance woman~~”, the same girl whined.  

“What makes you think he’ll just accept Hyesoo? He looks like he would be picky-”, someone pointed out logically.  

“Ya, I’m Park Hyesoo, if I set my eyes on someone, I’m getting him, whether he likes it or not”, she said threateningly, “Hey Jinju, tomorrow is the treasure hunt right?”, she turns to ask another camp organiser who nods in response. “Perfect... none of you make any moves, you hear me?”  

“Ugh, Hyesoo, don’t forget what happened with the freshman you tried to get it with last year”, one of the other senior girls visibly rolled her eyes while grousing.  

“Why are you bringing that up again?”, Hyesoo sounded annoyed.

One of their friends must have wanted to break up the tension as she pounced between them, “Hyesoo probably stands the best chance anyway. Good thing I spotted another pretty cute guy in the other team...”

You now sat in your dorm room remembering the scene you witnessed, feeling utterly unsurprised that as senior who objectifies her juniors would have used her position to torment you like that. She probably heard the news about your break up with Taehyung and thought that putting you in the same group with him and Jihyun would entertain her malevolent wants.

To not let her feel overly-victorious, you had chosen to accept the arrangement, and your first group meeting was scheduled for tomorrow.

You tried to focus on the reading that you had to do for class, but the disgust your body generated from recalling the seniors’ conversation and the dread of having to meet the two people you wanted to avoid the most tomorrow constantly disrupted your focus. Just then, your phone lying at the corner of the table buzzes.  

“Y/N, do you have some time now? Can we talk? I'm downstairs.”

You look upwards to identify the sender. “Kim Taehyung”. You had only changed the contact name back to his real name after you witnessed him walk into class with Jihyun. Even changing it to “Taehyung” wouldn’t have sufficed then, that’s what his friends would call him, you were probably lesser than that.  

---

“Alright that’s all the instructions I have. Now please find someone, preferably of the opposite gender, to partner up with before we start the treasure hunt!”, a male senior yelled lazily towards a room full of freshmen. He had a slur to his words and introduced himself as Yoongi.  

“Since our group has an odd number of freshmen, one of you have to pair up with one of us. How about Taehyung, would you like to go with me?”, Hyesoo flashes her signature catty eye smile.  

She was incredibly direct in her approach. Taehyung felt incredibly uncomfortable. And everyone else remained incredibly silent.  

“Hyesoo-ah, let the freshmen pick first, why are you calling dibs on a junior?”, Yoongi refreshingly disses her as he saunters by. Yoongi was one year senior to Hyesoo. She couldn’t wear it on her sleeve but she was probably cursing him in her head.  

“What are you guys waiting for? I’m not asking you to get married, hurry choose a partner...”, Yoongi continues to rush everyone in an irritable but mildly comic tone, obviously not very fond of this job he was assigned to do.  

For Taehyung, the signpost seems to have already been planted. Nobody dared to approach him. He couldn’t blame anyone, Hyesoo was infamous amongst the freshmen before the orientation even began anyway.

But all of a sudden, a tiny voice came from behind him “Hey, you wanna do this together?” He turns to meet your uncertain eyes, your right hand nervously rubbing the knuckle of your left thumb.  

Were you not aware of the potential consequences? He was grateful. But no, he shouldn’t implicate you. But yes, he really wants to accept your offer.  

His silence made you doubt every jump of your muscles and even two seconds were too much to bear. “It’s ok if you don’t want to...”, you smiled awkwardly and started to turn around.  

Hyesoo was watching the two of you through the corner of her eyes. She seizes the moment and marches towards Taehyung. “Taehy-”, she starts.  

“Let’s do it together”, he grabs a hold of your arm in a flash.  

Now, Taehyung leaned against the railing of the stairs outside the entrance to your dorm, he places the red bean latte he had been holding on the ledge as he continues to reminisce the events.  

He had offered to buy you a drink that day. You ordered this red bean latte and he recalls how he joked that you seem to have the preferences of an old lady.  

“Are you not afraid of offending Hyesoo?”, he had asked as he handed you the red bean latte back then.  

“I heard some things and I just thought since our group had more girls anyway... you shouldn’t be the one pairing up with her...”, you explained but avoided the details of what you had overheard.  

“Thanks. I’ve heard a number of things too, and I really didn’t want it to be me this time...”, he sighed.

“Sometimes it’s not that great to be good-looking huh?”, you cheekily teased him, your eyebrows slightly bobbing.  

He suddenly leaned forward, “Does that mean you think I'm good-looking?”, he asked dorkily.  

Taehyung smiles at the memory. At that time, he thought it was just his gratitude to you for saving him multiple times from a randy senior. Come to think of it now, it probably started then. When you came to his side when nobody else would.  

His heart had started to lean on you.  

A click of the door lock startles him. You walked out through the translucent glass door, stopping halfway when you saw him waiting outside in the cold. He stood up straight from his slouching, dropping his folded arms to his side.  

Has he ever let you lean on him?  

---  

“I got this for you”, he clears his throat and holds out the warm drink. The night was freezing, and you were kind of grateful for the coziness the paper cup provided to your hands.  

“Were you busy doing something?”, he was looking straight at you while you avoided his eyes. It still hasn’t changed has it? The fact that you avoided him more.  

“A little”, you kept your voice as calm as possible and the contents of your reply as sparse as possible. “What did you want to say?”, you hoped this could be over before the latte became entirely cold, so you prompted him to just get to the point.  

“It’s late...”, he mumbles.

“It is”, you said over his words, remembering that you still had class next morning.  

“... to be doing this, but I’m sorry”, his gaze still resting on your dimly-lit face.

You look up sharply, finally meeting his puppy-like eyes. Maybe it was from the dry wind, but his eyes looked like they were strained a flush of red.  

“I’m sorry for not taking your side when you needed me to. I’m sorry for thinking you were being petty and not holding on to you. I’m sorry I accepted Jihyun even though I knew it will hurt you. I’m sorry for all of it. I genuinely thought I wasn’t hurting anyone if I stood in the middle.  

     I think now I know why they say “he who walks in the middle of the roads gets hit from both sides.” But only in this case I am the one hitting people on both sides. I was wrong and even if it’s late, I think I should apologise to you.”  

This is truly abrupt and out of the blue. You had wanted an apology like that since that night you broke up with him. But what made him realise all these suddenly?  

“It’s late.... I think I'm gonna go up now...”, you got up to head back, not sure how to respond to the unforeseen and intense apology, somewhat regretting coming down to meet him in the first place.  

“Can we... still be friends?”, he carefully whispered, his voice sounding like the raspy wind that blew throughout the cold winter nights. He wouldn’t even fathom standing another chance with you so all he could think of asking was this.

Did he just ask to be your friend? What does that mean?  

“I’ll think about it...”, you just wanted to leave, everything was too confusing for you to comprehend at this time, and in this bitter cold.  

You turned to escape back to the warmth of your room. He stared listlessly at your back-view drifting further. Maybe it was because his ears were freezing, but he could hear every footstep you took, each sound piercingly leaving a mark somewhere within.  

The feeling was inexplicable.  

But at least you said you would think about it, at least you haven’t made up your mind. The red bean latte sat on the wooden table, untouched. He used to believe that ex-lovers are lesser than strangers; so why does he feel like he would give up anything to even just remain at your side as a friend now?  

It was all inexplicable.  

---

The next day you were heading to the photography club room, thinking of borrowing a new lens from one of the seniors to experiment with. You turned the corner into the corridor that housed the photo wall, you recognise the side profile that came into view and curiously walked over to him.  

He stood facing the wall littered with photographs, his shirt tucked neatly into his pastel blue jeans as always, a piece of yellow paper pinched between his fingers. You peeked at it and there was a verse scribbled on it, similar to those which had been left on your photographs earlier.  

“You are the one who’s been leaving the post-its?”, your astonishment palpable. 

Facing you now, he smiles warmly and holds out the post-it in his hand, inviting you to take it.  

“Why are all of your poems so sad?”, you asked, taking the note into your own hands.  

“Why are all of your photos so sad?”, he turns the tables on you instead.  

You stuck the paper onto your photo, “I guess because I have no one by my side, and that would make anyone sad.”  

“I guess that’s why we get along... if you want to, I can be on your side from now on”, Haejoong answers.  

---

Taehyung watches Haejoong and you chatting and walking into the café together until both of you reached the table he sat at, his right thumb unconsciously squeezing the back of his left hand extra hard.  

“I heard about your break up. Is that why Jihyun’s not here today? Is she intending to change to another group?”, Haejoong enquired as he puts his stuff down on the seat opposite Taehyung, while you picked the seat diagonally across.

You were shocked to hear about the development but tried to pretend that you were not. There must be some connection between this and his sudden apology last night.  

“News indeed travels fast”, Taehyung was unimpressed.  

“News about you always travel fast, Kim Taehyung”, Haejoong’s tone was indecipherable. He didn’t seem to dislike Taehyung a lot but he didn’t seem to like him either. “Anyway, let's just go ahead with the discussion, whether she’s coming or not...”, Haejoong suggested.  

---

“Are you going back to the hostel?”;

“I’ll send you back-”

Taehyung and Haejoong blurted at the same time as the three of you exited the café. The two of them turning to stare at each other.  

It took no longer than a heartbeat before you edged yourself closer to Haejoong, “Didn’t you say you wanted to show me a camera which you wanted to recommend? Let's go do that first then head back.”  

“Sure, let’s do that”, his boyish smile comforting as usual, and he calmly tilts his head at Taehyung, “See you then.”

“See you”, you flashed a customary smile before turning away and walking up to Haejoong who was waiting for you to follow him.  

Taehyung couldn’t say a single word, as if he had lost his voice. If watching you walk away last night felt miserable, watching you walk away with Haejoong felt indescribably worse. He hears two sets of footsteps this time, in sync, fading away. His hands were clenched hard and shaking. It was freezing outside, but his insides felt colder.  

Some people constantly stand by you, but just because they were next to you when you needed them, it doesn’t always mean you were next to them when they needed you. He felt like such a cliché, for only when you left, did he feel the importance of your presence. But for you, perhaps, his absence meant that you were free to find someone better to fill that spot.  

He’s not begging to return to you; his heart never left. You are not a past love to him. So, he can never be your friend.

The sounds hounding him were different now that he figured out what went wrong. He, was what was wrong, and there was nothing he could say to salvage that.

It’s his fault.  

When he chose nothing, he actually made his choices. Even if he had not realised it then, they were still his choices, and therefore this pain, his consequences.

It was all his fault.  

---

Taehyung passes by the photo wall and turns to look at the picture bearing your name, staring at the note stuck to it:  

“The pain in my throat gets worse Try to cover it I don’t have a voice Today I hear that sound again”

It hurts. It all hurts.  

[lettersnorth]

Aislinn North

Name: Aislinn North

Race: Hyur

Gender: Female

Age: 32

Sexuality: Demisexual

Server: Balmung

Residence: She has a small apartment in Limsa Lominsa and is employed by a Free Company based out of Gridania.

Birthplace: Ala Mhigo

Religion: Adheres to the Eorzean religion of the Twelve.

Patron Deity: Nymeia, goddess of Fate. Her life, being as filled with chaos as it has, has taught her that the individual has very little control over what happens to them in life. All a person can do is control themselves and their reactions. “I’ve done all the preparation I can. Once the arrow leaves the bow, I have no control over whether it hits the target.“

Occupation: Takes on various odd jobs mostly related to engineering and aetherological research. Works for a mercenary company based in Gridania.

Alignment: Chaotic Good

Proficiencies: Sharpshooting, Aether manipulation through arcane maths, Engineering

Interests: Tinkering, Philosophy, Travel, Aetherlogical Studies

Relationships:

SPOUSE: None.

CHILDREN: None.

PARENTS: Deceased

SIBLINGS: None.

OTHER RELATIVES: None.

Likes: Learning new things, reading, travel, people watching, letting her mind wander, triple triad, fixing broken things.

Dislikes: Large crowds, bullies, pushy men, being touched, Ul'dah, wordplay

Fears:

Abandonment - For one reason or another Aislin has lost everyone important to her over the years; childhood friends, mentors, family. She doesn’t realize how much of an impact this has had on her over time, slowly chipping away at her willingness to open herself to new people. As a result, she tends to keep her distance, using her work as an excuse to maintain space.

The Dark - She had an unfortunate experience as a child at the hands of her bullies. To this day she can’t sleep without the glow of a lantern or candle nearby.

Black Magic - She once found herself on a mage’s bad side. The harrowing experience left her convinced there is some knowledge no one is meant to possess.

Being Dependent - Spending years as a refugee in Ul'dah, Aislinn and her father were constantly reminded of how much their survival depended on those with the coin and the power. Ever since then, Aislinn has worked hard to make sure she’s never at the whim or mercy of someone else ever again.

Personality: Generally even-keeled with a steady hand. Aislinn is easily overlooked, she’s never the loudest or the most flamboyant one in the room, but loyal and steadfast to those she’s close to. More often than not, she will put the needs of others above her own, even to her detriment. She gives off a quiet and calm energy but does light up when she gets a chance to nerd out about one of her interests. Some see her quiet disposition as aloof but Aislinn was raised not to use seven words when three will do. As a child she spoke so infrequently that some thought her mute. And while she is well past that, rhetoric is better left to someone more eloquent than she. She still trips over her words or speaks in broken sentences when she gets flustered. In combat she is often underestimated due to her diminutive stature. But what she lacks in brute strength she’s learned to make up for in speed, being quick and light on her feet has saved her many a time. She’s also a crack shot with a variety of ranged weapons. An avid student of philosophy, she prefers to retreat to quiet nature spaces for reading and reflection when she finds herself with free time. Analytical and logical, Aislinn relates best to a person when they are frank and forthright. Her weakness lies in her inability to discern subtlety and innuendo or to read between the lines.

Traits –––

* Bold your character’s answer.

Extroverted / In Between / Introverted

Disorganized / In Between / Organized

Close Minded / In Between / Open Minded

Calm / In Between / Anxious

Disagreeable / In Between / Agreeable

Cautious / In Between / Reckless

Patient / In Between /  Impatient

Outspoken / In Between / Reserved

Leader / In Between / Follower

Empathetic / In Between / Apathetic

Optimistic / In Between / Pessimistic

Traditional / In Between / Modern

Hard-working / In Between / Lazy

Cultured / In Between / Uncultured

Loyal / In Between / Disloyal

Faithful / In Between / Unfaithful

Love and Romance:

Turn-Ons: Strength, protectiveness, kindness, warmth, confidence, tenderness, a sense of safety

Turn-Offs: Loudness, Yelling, Mercurial personalities, pushiness, arrogance, cruelty, inexperience, alpha males, roughness

Relationship Tendencies:  Aislinn has built quite a shell around her due to the hardships and abuse she’s experienced in life. She doesn’t trust easy and has a tendency to withdraw. If she ever reaches out or touches someone of her own volition, it’s a pretty clear indicator that she cares deeply for that person. She’s absolutely monogamous and has no interest in playing games or competing with rivals, she will cut and run and she senses this is the case. After all she’s been through she has trouble believing anyone could see her in a romantic light and subtlety is lost on her so the other person would have to make their interest abundantly clear. Any romance with her would take time and care to build.

Physical Description: Aislinn is on the shorter side though she’s slender and fit from a life lived outdoors. Her most distinctive features are her red hair, which is usually pinned back just enough to keep it out of her eyes, and a scar across her face, just under her eyes. She carries herself with the quiet, earthy confidence of someone who is comfortable in her own skin and knows what it’s capable of. Her attire tends towards the simple and understated as if she’s trying not to attract attention. She eschews bright and garish colors in favor of subtle, muted tones. Instead of a distinct style, she will readily wear whatever is best suited for the city or destination in which she finds herself. She prefers to blend in whenever possible. Her expressions are subtle, a twitch of an eyebrow or slip of a smile is usually as animated as she gets. She’s soft-spoken, with a husky quality to her voice.

History:  A general background and more in depth stories can be found here

RP Hooks:

Tinkering - Have some piece of machinery on the fritz? A clockwork that’s gone haywire? Or maybe that gunblade of yours just isn’t shooting straight. Aislinn knows her way around a variety of magitek and only too happy to get her hands dirty repairing old pieces of machinery or devising new ones.

Ul'Dah’s Seedy Underbelly - Aislinn is no stranger to the street gangs of Ul'dah. She used to be a runner for a cartel during her time in the city. Though she’s left that life behind it’s possible she would be recognized by someone who traveled in the same circles.

Limsa Lominsa - Though the nature of her work has her frequently traveling, she currently calls Limsa Lominsa home. When she’s in town, she can usually be found in the Missing Member tavern, or lounging in the sun, her nose in a book.

Aetherlogical Research - Aislinn is always up for talking about the finer points of aetherlogical study and loves to collaborate on experiments or research.

OOC:

I’m 30+ and prefer to RP with fellow adults. Pretty chill and patient, I’ll roll with most things though I would like the people I play with to be emotionally mature. I don’t have time for toxic behavior, people who can’t keep IC and OOC separate, tantrums or guilt trips.

I’m in the EST time zone. My weekdays are pretty busy between a full-time job and a side job that takes up a significant amount of time. I’m usually around a couple of weeknights long enough to run some roulettes or do some light RP but lengthy RP scenes would probably need to happen on the weekends or in Discord.

I’m interested in plots and long story arcs, relationships that take time to build. I don’t really do tavern RP as my RP time is limited and I’d rather spend it building depth in story and character. Aislinn has a lot of walls and while the potential for romance is there, she’s not going to jump right in off the bat.

I’m absolutely up for plotting a variety of previously established relationships or how our characters might know each other.

I do love running all sorts of content and am happy to have people to run with. So if you’re looking for company for roulettes, maps, raids, etc. I’m there.

[fuckyeahcharmcaster]

Pot, Meet Kettle

So, was looking for more Charmcaster content and came upon these comments related to the reboot episode “What Rhymes With Omnitrix?”  And...wow. I won’t name names out of respect for privacy and will put this all under a cut so that only those interested can read it, but the hypocrisy here is just so mind-numbing that I needed to comment on it.

Kevin stans unwilling to admit to his faults, do not engage.

What she did to Kevin was not conning in any way, that was clearly and blatantly magical enslavement complete with chains, torture, and mindcontrol. You can’t just downplay that shit like this and expect me to go along with it, not when the sequel series already tended to pull that, especially with regards to Charmcaster doing that sorta shit. You do not get to blatantly show Kevin being forced to do things against his will, being tortured for fighting back, and then try to pass it off as him having been tricked into working with her. What the fuck is with this franchise with having Charm do horribly evil shit and then just waving it off?

Remind me: how much horribly evil shit did Kevin commit, even in the sequel series themselves where he was a good guy, that got downplayed, justified, waved off or swept under the rug? Murder, war profiteering, aiding other criminals when it suited his interests, letting his friends take the rap for his crimes, etc?  

Sequel series Charm was incredibly shitty, there’s no denying that, probably shittier than sequel series Kevin honestly given the sheer lack of consistency in her character and over-the-top extremes they had her go to. But guess what, that doesn’t make sequel series Kevin un-shitty. If you’re not holding the same standard to how they’re written, your argument loses credibility because it is intellectually dishonest.

More to the point, what about all of the crap that reboot Kevin has pulled? Does none of it bother you? Is him walking free sensible given the stuff he’s done? Ex: he enslaved Glitch, who is a sentient being, against his will twice. He wasn’t taken to task for it afterward, even though he felt no remorse and went on to do more evil deeds. Before getting controlled by Charm, he was about to beat Ben to death. And even before he got his Antitrix he was a vicious bully who traumatized Ben to the point of being scared of public bathrooms. So why is all of that excusable and you can “go along with it” when the show doesn’t dwell on any of it afterward, but you draw a line in the sand when Charm, a villain, does something bad to Kevin, another fucking villain? That’s like hating on Kevin for manipulating the Weatherheads or Steam Smythe and expecting the show to make a bigger deal out of that, or hating on Zombozo for screwing Vilgax over or hypnotizing Kevin and expecting the show to make a bigger deal out of that; it makes no logical sense. Villains are gonna villain, it’s what they do.

With Charmcaster, it was a case of Kevin trying to puff himself up and seem big and bad and Charm responding with ‘great, let me have your brain for my own’, followed by an episode of him fighting viciously against her control until she took 100% over. But he was ‘working with her’, the writers say. And given how much the sequel series were into brushing the awful shit she did under the rug, I really don’t have patience for it here.

Again, I ask if you’ve checked under Kevin’s rug from the sequel series lately. Lot of awful shit there. And if you had the patience for all of that, you can have the patience for this.

And as for what sparked this whole outburst, the ‘working with her’ thing was in reference to that in his puffing Kevin outright said that she ought to take control of him. She told him upfront that she wanted to control Ben against his will to have him attack Gwen, and told him to be on his way because he wasn’t Ben. Kevin could have gotten out unscathed. But, not thinking straight because of jealousy, he protested and said that she should want to control him because he’s more powerful. Charm’s response (basically “OK, if you insist!”) made him realize all too late what he had just said and what it actually meant would happen to him.

It’s not trying to excuse what Charm did as right or justifiable or undermine it in any way, it’s just acknowledging that Kevin also played a willful part in making it happen too due to his hate-boner for Ben, just as Charm did due to her hate-boner for Gwen.  He wasn’t just minding his own business until Charm up and took control of him for no reason: he was about to murder Ben and got accidentally pulled over to Charm who mistook him for Ben, she told him to leave when she realized her mistake, and then Kevin insisted that her plan to control Ben was dumb because Ben was weak; she should want him because he’s stronger. His claim of Charm “conning” him into getting controlled is him lying to himself about what happened, acting as though Charm deliberately manipulated his jealousy to make him say what he did, rather than admit that he had been a stupid, jealous kid who badly fucked up.

It’s not even that they don’t treat her as being in the wrong, it’s that they want her to both be redeemable and also to do things that may or may not be irredeemable. It’s a theme of every sequel series and now the reboot as well.

Except that Charmcaster hasn’t done anything remotely irredeemable in the reboot series. And if you think that she did, then you’re being intellectually dishonest because, again, Kevin has done literally the exact same things and usually for the exact same reasons. He’s not against controlling, enslaving, manipulating or relishing in inflicting pain on people either. He may not be a psychopath, but he still is written as lacking in basic empathy, just like Charm.

It was also absolutely a theme for him as well in the sequel series, probably even moreso since they did a whole fucking arc about it w/ Ultimate Kevin, where he did horrific things that were irredeemable and yet he’s still redeemed and those actions are swept under the rug with the whole “it wasn’t his fault, it was the energy he absorbed that made him do it!” excuse, which is the same kind of cop-out as the Alpha Rune was for sequel series Charmcaster. If you can buy wholesale into that excuse but can’t for the Alpha Rune, you are operating under a double standard. Either both are cases of awful character writing that exist purely for the writers to avoid having to write actual redemption arcs, or neither of them are. Pick one.

SO they have her do these things and then either sweep them under the rug, downplay the shit out of them, or tell us that we should feel sorry for her that she felt the need to do that.

....I...I really can’t right now.  I just can’t.

This literally describes Kevin too. Swap names and gender pronouns, and it’s the same.

And yet every time Kevin does something horrible, your reaction seems to be “oh, my son!”, sweeping it under the rug or downplaying it, and you feel sorry for him that he felt the need to do it; you still understand and sympathize with his troubled mental state regardless of what inexcusable acts of villainy it drives him to do. But when it’s Charmcaster? Fuck that bitch and cue violent fantasies of what Kevin should do to her for revenge just because he happened to be the victim of her actions (oh yeah, and about those: what the actual fuck!? Honestly, the hypocritical bitching about Charm being some kind of writers’ pet wouldn’t bug me half as much without this totally uncalled-for shit accompanying it.)

It sounds to me that this has nothing to do with morality: it has everything to do with a bias toward your fave and anger that he got hurt.  It sounds to me that Kevin can hurt Ben, Gwen, Grandpa Max, Glitch, or anyone else and you’re fine with it - heck, he can hurt Charm and you’re fine with it given the aforementioned fantasies. But when Kevin is hurt, the one who did it MUST be held accountable at every turn and suffer the painful consequences!

He’s your fave, I get it, but the emotions involved with that should not rule out objectivity. Nor should it fuel torture porn fantasies toward another character, especially a female child one who already has being physically abused by a boy as part of her goddamn backstory. (Humiliating slapstick like the show itself uses is fine though, she definitely deserves it.)

The way you are going about it, you come off as a pitiful MRA-type always bitching about how them damn women get away with everything and men get screwed as a result, even when it’s not at all reflective of reality. If you really think the writers of the Ben 10 franchise have historically held some kind of bias toward Charm and didn’t toward Kevin, then just look at Kevin’s screentime throughout the franchise compared to Charm and then come back at me with that shit (same goes for Gwen for that matter; stack her up against Ben and Kevin in terms of significant arcs, actions and development, and you’ll find she falls woefully short.)

And the thing is, for the reboot at least, she’s young enough I’m willing to give her some leeway, but the tempering damages that by making it feel like the writers don’t see what she does as an issue.

It’s not that the writers don’t see what she does as an issue. It’s that you see it as way too big of an issue while also not seeing the same thing happening with Kevin as an issue at all. It’s a double standard, pure and simple: Kevin is your fave and so he can get away with anything in your eyes and you don’t consider it to be troubling writing if he gets let off with a slap on the wrist for it. But you can’t do the same for Charm because she’s not your fave and - more importantly - Kevin is negatively impacted by what she does. If he wasn’t, then I’m pretty damn sure that no evil deed she commits would actually bother you at all. You want the show to fixate on how evil what she did was not because you hold some standard against magical mental enslavement in general, but because you’re angry that she did it to Kevin. This is all about you taking offense on behalf of your fave, not about the writers messing up in any way.

And before anyone gets on my case for bashing Kevin, I’m not! I love reboot Kevin! None of what I described above about him bothers me in any way because I can look at him objectively and enjoy him as the troubled but undeniably nasty little shit that he is, just as I do with reboot Charm. They’re both villains who do villainous things, and the show’s lax attitude toward it is due to its light-hearted tone and the fact that they’re both children (ditto for the likes of Billy Billions and Simon Sez). But more to the point, they’re supposed to be hypocrites in regards to each other, because what they hate about each other is actually the worst of themselves reflected right back at them. They are the same kind of person and they project like crazy, this is a certified fact per Word of God. Their FANS, however, shouldn’t be following their example because they ought to be smarter and more mature than that.

It goes all the way back to this post, and what I said there still applies: Why are male characters allowed to be bitter, angry, hateful, vengeful, insolent, insulting, anti-social, violent and manipulative without reproach while female characters always get demonized for it?  Why does such behavior in a male character get the “my precious son!” reaction, while the exact same behavior in a female character get the “that horrible bitch!” reaction? Why are bad things a female character does to a male character considered irredeemably awful, but what bad things that male character might do to her for revenge considered an appealing fantasy and totally justified? Why can a male character be allowed nuance despite their deplorable acts of villainy, and yet when it’s done with a female character it’s proof that “the writers don’t get that what she did was wrong because otherwise why try to make her appealing or sympathetic in any way?” Why this double standard?

I don’t know, but I do know that it’s wrong and I am not here for it.

Tl;dr: don’t hate on Charm for things your fave is equally guilty of or things that a witch-themed supervillain is gonna naturally do just because it’s your fave who gets hurt by it.

[thoughtsofhem-blog]

(This is for the people who love reading, who is philosophical, who is a deep thinker and people who loves me😊)

• I bet you, you are going to enjoy this article in a beautiful way.

• Definitely, you will get positive vision about something that is unknown.

• I knew there are plethoras of grammatical errors if you’re going to judge me on the basis of a perfect writer which I’m not😊.

• My purpose is always expressing my thoughts through the magical words and convey a right message to right audience.

• Keep patience and read it fully

My New Article on:

Spirituality Vs Religion:

I know its a sensitive topic to be discussed or write about, but being a writer too, I always have advantages for using ‘freedom of speech’ . Still, I personally don’t want to hurt anyones sentiments related to this topic but I still want to express my perspectives on this topic.

I born in a Hindu family, and now I am following spirituality, which is helping me to perceive something deep & raw information about the Holy Spirit or god or infinite energy who runs this entire universe. Therefore, I want to say that I born as a Hindu, Currently, I am not following any religion. Its like; Either, I don’t follow any particular religion or I follow all the religions equally. Following a religion or being religious is not a wrong thing but it has many consequences like religion can mislead people from true realisation about god, Religion create categorisation among humans and it spread hate more than love and tranquility. If I talk logical, religions created for believing in god with different concepts of different religious views, We all should beautifully respect & accept those differences instead of fighting who is the best among all of them. None of religion teach us to spread hate or create any negative chaos or superiority ! for example many people stupidly believe that they are following most superior & best religion else are fool whose following another religion. Without any true knowledge and any deep research about such existence people blindly follow all these false perceptions about god in the name of religion and spread hate.

Firstly, god never set any kind of rules & regulations to follow him, its all human made perspectives, myths & rules which they had added on such holy books and smartly, they created a kind of fear in others mind to strictly follow those concepts in the name of religion.

On this earth, many Holy Spirit born as a great spiritual leader to spread brotherhood, love, peace among humans and saving them from all the evil deeds, healing them with their pure energies and inspiring them to follow a right path. You must concentrate on my words, `I said, ‘spiritual leaders’ None of them are god but still part of god, a shred of his pure & infinite divine energy for example ShriRama,Krishna,Jesus,buddha,mahaveer,gurunanaka,Saibaba,J. Krishna murti, Swami Vivekananda,Osho,alike more great souls.

A human never can be a god, God is an infinite energy which is so divine and pure who hasn’t any shape,colour,size or gender. God is a light. This pure energy exist everywhere, ‘whereas we impure humans never can met him unless we get enlightened. Such holy spirits never wrote any books to fix any rules to achieve god. If you research you will find that they all had similar purpose to take birth through this human body and given similar messages to us. Even an average human can be like them by working on his/her own mind & soul for years by deep levels of meditations,yoga,self control,balancing three levels of minds(conscious, subconscious,unconscious)by knowing self existence & self-realisation.

It doesn’t matter what kind of person you have been yesterday, It was a past and its already gone, when you start to work on your own energies it will change your entire existence. Everything here is in a form of energy if you will deeply analysis it.I won’t go so deep because few people only get what I’m trying to say, other will take it for granted or misunderstood me because their thought process are so limited & they can’t accept beyond their limited thoughts. Truth is we’re not only a part of our physical body, we all are souls, which is existing as a form of energy and this human body is just a temporary outfit for us to do our Karma’s in this birth. This physical Body, this world is an illusion, there is an another world which known as a molecular world, that is our real world where all energies have to return from this illusionary world to molecular world. People get mad if I start to go deeply into this. I’m very grateful that I’m working on something exceptional which people realise in their last phase of life,sometimes not even in this birth, sometimes they realise truth after several births and then start to work on it. When we get true knowledge which is existing in ourselves, we just need to realise it but we spent our life on superficial things which never help us to grow spiritually and mentally.

Being religious has one beautiful benefit !that is, it helps you to concentrate on that divine energy by consciously imagining & focusing on that particular image through pray method. Pray is a technique which heal our soul and it helps our subconscious mind to work in favour of our great desires. If anyone think that by following some myths & rules blindly and worshiping god all the time you will get god or peace I mean 'Moksha’ It will never going to happen. Usually, You connect to god with your own good karma’s, we all can fool each other but not that great father, he sees everything, he hears everything, he knows everything, infront of him we all are nude, we human fake ourselves too much infront of another human to get any kind of validation, neither we are perfect nor another human.So there is no need of impressing another human, let people judge you, spread rumours about you, let them hate you, let them do whatever they want to but you do not contaminate your own soul with such negative energies, any bitter experiences or people.

If anyone has desire to discover how to find themselves, endless joy, peace then I can give few suggestions here which I had acquired through my inner strength and self-realisation. In my opinion, no one is bad, I really pray for such souls who is damaged, in pain, in jealous, in guilt, in hate, in anger , in regret or in any kind of negativities. If I talk personally about my experiences then I would like to say as a human I was never been perfect, not even now and not in the future. I never can be perfect because a human never can be perfect one but still I can minimise my negative sides by consciously working on it. I am very expressing individual and I love to do it for those who follows me as their inspiration or who seeks anything through me, who doesn’t like me they definitely can ignore anything related to me, there is no hard feelings for anyone. For example : as I said I was not perfect and not even in present & not in the future but I worked a lot on my soul which has changed my life. In the past, I also made wrong choices, worse experiences, judgments, being revengeful, went through traumas & depression, drastically manipulated byhaters,heartbreaks,beingbetrayed,humiliated,isolated, bullied by others for my outer appearance like my dusky complexion, body shape or my English ascent, specially when I was a teenager. If I talk about study, I always have been an average student sometimes below than average 😂, people who can relate this, I want to tell you for your own motivation that research, history and google 😂are the evidences of datas of most successful people in this world most of them are school drop outs, whether they’re an eminent scientist, a successful business icon, or a great player or a worlds top writer, brilliant actors, a great politicians. Intelligence is nothing related to profound in particular language, getting good ranks or scores,many certificates. Intelligence is beautiful weapon which we can transform in any field and getting enormously successful in that field. It doesn’t mean education is not important.

We often get bullied by our peer groups or by our relatives or teachers or sometimes from our own parents for not getting fit into their expectations. That is perfectly fine. I strongly say, never follow crowd, never copy anyone, your uniqueness make you exceptionally beautiful and it does separate you from the crowd to create your own history. But still people can’t be so insensitive, they never understand by cornering a growing adult how much it can affect them psychologically. Not everyone enough brave to mould their life in a positive manner after experiencing all these mental traumas. To be honest, I also got affected by all these things and became a frustrated, extremely aggressive and a bitter person with low confidence whereas I was completely turned into a negative person. I’m sharing all this because may be it will help someone like me to change their life by having a true example. I always been courageous and after experiencing hell I took a decision to live for myself, working on me, I never had a quitting attitude in my life. it was not about working on outer appearance only, Honestly, your outer appearance never matters, it only judged by sick people with narrow mindsets. Everyone is beautiful in their own way, because god never creates anything ugly, its we human who sets parameters for everything even about religions. You have to be your own hero in this journey, being honest to yourself help you to evolve spiritually. Accept the way you’re, you don’t need to change for another human, you only need to change for yourself. Appreciate who is better than you and motivate who is lesser than you. With this attitude and acceptance you never develop any kind of jealousy or an egotistical competition inside you.Never compare your self with another people or with their life, if you do you are insulting yourself. Whatever made you hurt or bitter in the past let it go, forgive yourself and forgive other people who were the reasons for your pain, you need to be healed and moved on in life, in this healing process you need to pray, you need to be positive, be with more good people who will help you to evolve. Embrace nature. Be grateful for all little things you have. Learn to appreciate good things. Replace all your negative thoughts by your positive one’s with the better intentions.Be your own motivation. Read good inspiring books 📚. Work on your hobbies. Meet new & positive people. Ignore & eliminate people from your life who is not good for your soul & mental health. Never indulge yourself with negative gossiping. Leave people behind, who is not good for your growth, people who take you for granted, avoid people who take your advantages. Stop having evil thoughts for others. If we focus on right and positive things in our life, our life miraculously get changes. And just ignore whole world if they giving you any kind of negativity or demotivation. I can give you a simple formula to never get affected by others judgement on you, that formula is 'whoever judging you is another imperfect & fool human like you’ and their opinion about you or your life never ever matters. Make your aura so strong that you will not get affected by any negative energies. So it need a lot of work, patience and compassion within yourself for yourself.Be kind to yourself in the processing of healing.

Now come to the point, here I would give one more suggestion in order to make it easier for people about spirituality. Although,Humans are extremely greedy that after deeply working on their mind & spirit, having powerful concepts about spirituality, meditation and god or any kind of deep intelligent knowledge, They use to play and fool other people through marketing it by taking advantages of people’s weaknesses instead of healing them. They knew that its all mind games and how to take benefits from people by giving them false beliefs for their insecurities. I must say, a genuine spiritual leader or guide never pretend themselves as a god and make it a business to earn money or boosting their ego by pretending themselves as a god, or enjoying adoring themselves by huge number of followers. for example I can see many advertisements even on social media’s like - contact for healing from the past experiences, for psychic remedies,how to get back your ex😂, how to make love failure work, how to improve infertility,how to keep in-laws in your favour, vashikaran,for getting succeed in career, your dream partner, marriage/love solutions, or any kind of solutions bla,bla,bla😂... never fallen into their trap for your solutions its all mind games they’re playing in the name of religion or spirituality or magic or whatever. There are two things with such marketing,either its fake or has a power acquired through negative energies like black magic or something like that and I aware you all ..you guys believe it or not but everything has its opponents. By jumping into such shortcuts it will make your life worse. We all have to face our own karma in this same life so let it be like that. Never play with nature and its pace. Thus, never go for them. Another thing is, I’m on my spiritual journey and I don’t follow any particular organisations or guru related to spirituality for example I grasp good or knowledgeable things from everyone but I don’t follow anyone blindly. Anything that is related to god, about spirituality never can be paid or for personal benefits. We humans are blessed with lots of talents for earning money to spent a better life, but for money we don’t need to be so greedy to harm another beings or chose a wrong path to earn it because such money never give you peace ✌🏽. When we are so talented, hardworking, educated and smart enough to achieve anything then why we tend to believe that its ok to do anything for money even if you know that is wrong. So never follow anything blindly, awake your own intelligence & conscious, use your brain and keep faith in yourself. To recapitulate it, I would say for getting god you really don’t need to be aggressively religious or walking into a tough spiritual path with all the sacrifices, its a choice not anything forcefully to follow or do with. Never indulge in anything that makes you feel uncomfortable. Being in your domestic lifestyle you can achieve it through your good karma’s,honesty, pure soul, empathy,compassion, justice for truth,good intentions. for example whatever you’re doing suppose you’re an employee just do your work honestly, you will get god. You’re a spouse or a parent just take care of your family with all the honesty, you will get god, whatever you do, do it with pure heart, loyalty and good intentions you will get god. By,Writer Hema .P

[elenajohansenreads]

Books I Read in 2019

#166 - Ice Massacre, by Tiana Warner

The Reading Frenzy’s Holly Jolly Readathon -- A book with a wintery word in the title

Rating: 1/5 stars

Another hugely hyped book that was a vast disappointment to me. The concept is cool, I'll give it that, or I wouldn't have picked it up in the first place. But the world-building is thin, the plot full of gaping holes, the characters mostly without personality, and the action is jaw-grindingly constant to the point where it leaves no room for character development or better world-building. And calling this a sapphic love story is just laughable. Literally the last thing in the book is the main character realizing she's in love with her childhood best friend who's also a girl who's also a mermaid--but they spend most of the books at odds with each other because of misunderstandings, because of the fact that they're both supposed to want to kill each other, and because they can't truly trust each other for most of the story. Eventually there's a small measure of devotion, but there's no romance to speak of. Everyone's too busy fighting, and I do mean everyone. But okay, if it's setup for the future installments, I could give that a pass. What I can't forgive is the insanely stupid logic of this thin, nonsensical world-building. First, the simple idea of the merpeople's "allure"--their hypnotizing magic--being effective against the opposite gender only is heteronormative in the extreme. My bisexual self is plenty attracted to women, so for most of the book I felt like it should work on me just fine. (And I can't even address the issues of trans or nonbinary characters, because there aren't any.) When it eventually became obvious that allure working on everyone would break the plot (the two friends can't fall in love with each other if magic is involved because then it's fake, also then the entire idea of sending girls out instead of boys to fight is a moot point and there's no story) I threw my hands up in the air and said to myself, "I'll accept it but I don't think it's good." Second, that leads to another problem; if the merpeople sent their women to fight because the human warriors had always been male before, when they discover the new ship of warriors are female, shouldn't they send their men instead? Oh, wait, they're all lampshaded to be fighting somewhere else entirely, in a different ocean. Except...are they all really gone? Because if they are, then who's making babies? We know there are babies because the crazy girl kills an infant. Which, by the way, is a war crime if you consider the mermaid "people," because clearly an infant is a noncombatant. So that's fun. (Also she ends up murdering a crewmate, but that's not tied to any of my complaints, actually, which almost surprises me. It was terrible but it actually sort of made sense at the time that it would happen the way it did.) But really, why keep sending the mermaids to kill the girls when mermen would have the advantage? Third, the structure of the Massacre itself. Would you have me believe that a group of twenty girls who have been training together for five years can't put aside petty high-school-style drama long enough to not get each other killed? Do you mean to tell me that the position of captain is assigned by their trainer, with a list of captains to follow in case of death or incapacitation, and it never once occurred to anyone organizing this thing that that's a recipe for constant mutiny? Do you seriously expect me to believe no adults went with them for supervision? That no adult women could have been trained alongside them to sail the ship, if not to actually fight? That no adult woman on the entire island was capable or available to be their captain and keep all those little shits in line? Weren't those people fishermen before the mermaids invaded, and that's why they're being starved out now? Sure, in modern military we train people about their age for combat, but we don't send them out on their own without superior officers, older and more experienced and hopefully with a little more wisdom! And if the problem is that they can't send the men who have survived their Massacres because now we send women because of the allure, then why were they ever sending men in the first place? Why did it take so long to decide to train girls instead? (The story's answer: unquestioned patriarchy. Girls aren't warriors. Because.) Fourth: no one has much of a personality, they're too busy getting killed. Of the twenty girls who set sail, I believe only seven or eight survive. They are mostly names on a page who die. Even some of the survivors, I couldn't tell you anything about, be it their physical appearance or their demeanor. They are mermaid fodder, some are there to be Captain Crazypants' cronies, they are faceless and interchangeable in death. Back to the "romance" for a second: I don't read Meela's constant distaste for her compatriots talking about boys or their boyfriends as her actually being in love with her female mermaid childhood best friend. That early, it doesn't even seem to allow for the possibility. It was far easier for me to read Meela as ace and/or aro--she seems completely uninterested in romance with the guy back home who's in love with her, and she says outright at one point that she can't imagine kissing him or having kids with him. Yes, it's all coded, but to me that's all code for aro-ace, possibly even to the point of sex-repulsed ace. The depth of her aceness would be open to interpretation, but nothing about her characterization for most of the book, such as it is, says to me, "no, she doesn't like Tanuu or boys in general but she's got confused feelings for girls she doesn't understand." She just doesn't seem to think romantic love or sex is important. So throwing it out there at the very end that she thinks she's in love with Lysi doesn't ring true to me at all, even though I could see it coming from the structure. Final problem: the plot takes a completely unexpected and illogical turn at the last second. The whole book has been about the Massacre, and then when it's almost over, our main character sacrifices herself (kind of) and gets captured by the mer-king (sort of) who agrees to let her and the few remaining crew go home so she can find a MacGuffin that's apparently a legend of their home island...that none of them have ever heard of. So if they don't know their own legends, how does the mer-king? There's no foreshadowing for this (or if there is it's so subtle as to be invisible), it makes no sense with the rest of the book, narratively speaking it's a deus ex machina to get them home when they're basically doomed otherwise. And obviously it's setting up the next book. But I don't care. I don't care because this one is so bad I don't want to read any more.

[capitalismforthewin]

Unpopular opinions

1. Reverse racism is just racism

2. Reparations are inane and won’t accomplish anything

3. There are only two genders

4. If your only response to a logical counter argument is to call someone a racist, bigot, homophobe, transphobic, etc even if none of what they have said supports this, you are ignorant and immature

5. Your race, gender, sexuality, political party, and religion do not make you inherently better than anyone else

6. Socialism won’t fix anything

7. America needs strong borders; cracking down on illegal immigration is not inherently racist

8. Government should not pay for someone’s abortions or birth control

9. I disagree with abortion from both a moral and religious stance but do not think that making it illegal would help anyone

10. Saying that someone cannot have an opinion on grounds of their race/gender is racist/sexist

11. Just because your ancestors were slaves does not mean you are entitled to compensation

12. Someone not wanting to date a trans person/not being attracted to trans people is not transphobic

13. Being LGBT+ is fine as long as you don’t go out of your to make it someone else’s business or push people around by claiming discrimination where there is none

14. Capitalism is not racist

15. America is not institutionally racist

16. Trump has done nothing that warrants impeachment

17. Trump is not racist

18. Cancel culture is ridiculous from both sides

Disclaimer: it is not my intent to offend anyone; I am simply stating my views. If you disagree with me I am open to civil discourse and discussion

[jakeremake]

The Motivations of Jacob Marley - House fanfic

"Scrooge and Marley." Wilson looks up to see just what, exactly, House is thinking.

"What about them?" They had just watched another insipid version of A Christmas Carol on the television, and the beer was running out. It was almost time for Wilson to leave. Or take up residence on the couch-whichever seemed like a better idea for all other passengers on the road at the time.

"They're totally gay for one another."

"Is it possible for you to get through one movie without coming up with ulterior motives for why a character does something?"

"Why else would Marley come back from the grave to tell Scrooge to fix himself? And why else would Scrooge listen?"

"Maybe because Marley feels guilty that his friend is heading towards the same path he did, and maybe because Scrooge actually wants to change."

"Too logical. This was a Victorian era story. Of course they were gay for one another." Wilson merely rolls his eyes. He's used to this. The constant comments that the big buxom blondes that are always the first to die go first because they want to sleep with the big bad serial killer. That the dramatic moment is really something else entirely. The way that every joke in a movie was spoiled. But he kind of enjoyed it.

The thought stays with him though, as he gathers up his coat, and decides that he's sober enough to drive back to the hotel. And the thought stays with House, too, as he hobbles to his bedroom, and pulls off his shirt, leaving him in only a pair of sweats, where he collapses into his bed. The thought stays with them through the morning.

It's something that rolls around in their mind. The motivations of Jacob Marley. And for both of them, they're trying to figure out which one is the Scrooge, and which one is the Marley. The answer seems obvious at first, that Wilson's always the one to help him, and he's the misanthropic bastard, but it's not that simple. House ponders if he was in the same spot as Marley, and if Wilson was throwing his life away, would he come back to save him?

And Wilson ponders what he would do. He tells himself that he couldn't be Scrooge, that he'd never allow himself to become that jaded, but forty years on the earth had taught him better. The world was not a good place. The world breaks everyone, and those that it cannot break it kills. What would happen to him if the one thing that had always served as his own moral high-water point was suddenly pulled away from him? He had always told himself that he'd never allow himself to become as jaded as House, but what would happen to him when House was gone?

It's a thought that's paused on for no more than a second, because he doesn't want to think about it. No, he goes on pretending that he was going to be the Marley, still maintaining his position as House's watchdog. And House tells himself that he'd be Scrooge, not because he wants to know what it's like without Wilson, but because he doesn't want to see his friend become Scrooge. But he flips when he realizes just what an awful afterlife Marley has. No, House would prefer to be Marley. Scrooge changes, Scrooge becomes a good man in the end. Marley never changes, Marley never gets better-and House refuses to let that happen to his friend.

The gay comment has completely gone unnoticed.

Scrooge and Marley go unnoticed too, for the rest of the week. Each of them have made up their minds on which roles they'd play. The green and red keeps growing around the hospital, and the light dusting of snow becomes deeper and thicker. All the roads leading in and out of the narrow streets of Princeton proper become that much more treacherous to drive down Wilson finds himself hating the commute from the suite hotel, even though if he really wanted to, he could walk it, it's less than three miles. Just hop across route 1, and walk up Princeton-Plainsboro road.

But it just seems closer to go the opposite direction, down Scudders Mill Road to House's apartment. He doesn't say this though. He wouldn't. He never wants to say it, because it makes him look needy. And wasn't he the one who sought out needy people so that he could be me the one to help them? He refused to impose on his friend. His early morning routine, he knew, wore on House, the way he'd hog the bathroom worse than his first wife, making sure that he was always immaculate when he went to work.

He'd never admit that he's lonely, without someone to talk to in the evenings. Sure, there's poker nights, movie nights, the occasional date with someone that he runs into over the course of a day. Some other woman to see if it makes him less lonely. But he knows that none of them will. He knows it, and yet he keeps trying futilely, searching vainly to find the next Mrs. Wilson and hopes that it will be the one that sticks.

And House won't admit that he needs a caretaker. Someone to look after him. For a moment, he wonders if maybe Wilson is more Cratchit than Scrooge, but scratches the idea out of his mind. And stops drawing the comparisons to Scrooge and himself. Just because he'd had his own Belle, someone that he had loved and pushed away because he let himself get in the way of a relationship didn't mean that he was Scrooge. How was he supposed to know if Marley hadn't had anybody in his life?

But the thoughts are buried until he gets a patient unceremoniously dumped on him-a kid from the cast of the local theater's yearly production of A Christmas Carol. He swore that every year someone would come in from the theater, and that the production was cursed, but he kept his thoughts to himself. After all, many of the same people that donated there donated to the Hospital as well. And he wasn't going to risk extra clinic hours for pissing off donors. Not unless they actually did something to him first.

He hasn't even remembered the comment about Scrooge and Marley until the patient had been there for three days. "Stop being such a Scrooge." She'd said, when he'd told off one of the nurses.

"Bah, humbug."

"Do you hate Christmas?" He doesn't answer, not for a while.

"No."

"You don't have anyone to share Christmas with." It's a simple statement-the truth.

"No." He couldn't believe he was talking to an eleven year old about his personal life, or lack thereof.

"Why not?"

"Because I'm such a Scrooge, as you decided to dub me." She giggles, but stops short when she realizes he's only half-joking.

"Even Scrooge had Marley to at least talk to on Christmas." The comment stirs up his thoughts again, but he tries to push them away. Yes, Scrooge had Marley to talk to on Christmas.

Although he didn't quite feel comfortable on Christmas, not anymore. It'd only been a few Christmas's prior that saw him nearly die, and plenty more that had been brutally lonely. Wilson had always been busy with one of the wives, always ceding to their celebrations over his own, trading in a menorah for a tree, not wanting to stir up any troubles. Good old Wilson, always letting himself be walked all over.

"Yeah, but Marley's the one to get him into the mess in the first place. Just think, what if they'd never been partners." The girl thought about that for a moment, toying with the idea.

"Then Scrooge would have been even more lost and alone."

"Do you think he'd still have Belle?" He couldn't believe he was talking literature with a child. A child who was playing (one of) the ghosts of Christmas past, and thus was intimately familiar with the storyline, but a child nonetheless.

"I don't think Belle was ever meant for him. She wasn't willing to look past the fact that he had other things in his life than her. He had a friend, he had work, and Belle just wanted him to herself. Selfishly."

"Isn't that what most girls want?" When the child pouted, he softened. Just slightly. He hated making sick kids feel bad, especially over things they couldn't control, like their gender, or their health issues. Bad haircuts and awful outfits though, and the inability to tell stuffed dogs from stuffed bears-that was fair game. "So why do you think Marley comes back on Christmas Eve to warn Scrooge?"

"To let him know he's not alone. To let him know that he loves him too much to let him be miserable, and that he deserves to be happy as a good man. That Scrooge is too good inside to let it be wasted. Because deep down, Marley's good too."

House smirks, and walks out of the room, looking for the head of Oncology. He could leave the team to figure out what was going on with the kid, they were smart people. They all had MD's, they were capable of keeping her alive. Right now he had a far more pressing need-to gloat. "So an eleven year old confirmed my suspicions."

"And what were those?"

"Scrooge and Marley were totally gay for one another."

"House, it's been a week and a half since you saw the movie. Besides, what does an eleven year old know about love?"

"Not just any eleven year old, this one's the Ghost of Christmas Past."

"And next thing you know, you're going to claim to see the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come, and your name written in a headstone with 'doom' next to it."

"No, really, she's playing the ghost of Christmas past in the local production of it."

"And she said that Scrooge and Marley are gay?"

"She said that they totally loved each other. Totally." He had the mock valley-girl accent going, and Wilson couldn't help but grin. "And just because I'm right, you're buying the beer tonight. I'll pick out something to watch."

With that, House walked out, leaving Wilson to wonder just why he always put up with the man. But at the same time, rethinking everything. It was totally possible for two men to platonically love each other, wasn't it? Then again, platonic love had been named after a man who most historians believed slept with Socrates. He knew he was willing to play Marley to House's Scrooge, but what did that make him?

He sighed, and went to go check on his patients, before finding himself drawn to House's patient. It was very easy to make it seem as though he was just making sure that the team was doing all right, seeing as he had seen no hide nor hair of House since he'd come in gloating earlier.

"Who are you?" The voice is slightly quiet, and slightly scared, and Wilson fixes his soft eyes to her. This was his element, comforting people.

"I'm Doctor Wilson."

"Why are you here?" It's slightly interrogatory, and Wilson can see why House actually had a conversation with her.

"Just checking in on you."

"I have four other doctors."

"Well, now you have five."

"What's your specialty?" She asks, and he pauses, unsure if telling her will make her even more afraid.

"Cancer. But I'm not here for that-I'm just here as a favor to a friend."

"Doctor House. He said he doesn't trust his 'minions'. And I guess you're not a minion" She's smart, for a sixth grader.

"Doesn't stop him from treating me like one." He flips through the chart, idly noting what had already been tried, and what had already failed.

"Why?"

"Cause he's House, he treats everyone like his minion, even his boss. And his friends. And his minions."

"He's not really mean. He's like Scrooge. Or the Grinch. He's just misunderstood." Wilson can't help the chuckle.

"You don't know House very well." But he has to admit, the girl has a point. "He's the Grinch all right though, heart three sizes too small."

"He just needs a Marley to remind him that there's good in the world, that's all." He could swear that he saw a smirk that his friend would be envious of cross her face as he walked out. But he ignored it, he would not be manipulated by a child who hadn't even made it into high school yet.

Doctor house gets the page, and finds that one of the nurses had paged him. They merely pointed to his patient's room, and he rolled his eyes when he found her in the same state she was in the last time she had left her. "Who's Dr. Wilson?" She asks, innocent.

"Another doctor. Why, was he here?"

"He said he was checking in on your minions for you." He couldn't help the faint smile. So Wilson didn't trust the team yet either. Or he had been looking for dirt on House, but either of those scenarios were good. It meant that he'd be justified the next time he pranked Wilson, because it would be revenge for this.

"Minion is an awfully advanced word for an eleven year old."

"I read a lot. He called you the Grinch." House smirked. He was sure he could kidnap Wilson's dog-well, his ex-wife's dog, to play a decent Max, as he would never submit Steve to the humiliation of wearing reindeer horns.

"And why would he ever do that?"

"Because you're mean."

"And you're very observant. I think even Coma Guy has picked up on the fact that I'm mean, and he's in a coma."

"You are the Grinch. You just need a Cindy Lou to point out that you're just the way you are cause everyone expects you to be that way." The girl's arms cross on her chest, as though she's clearly saying that she's right, and that's the end of the discussion.

He simply checks her chart, notes that there's no change, and leaves. But not before calling out "So long as no one starts calling me Hermie the Elf."

"Merry Christmas Scrooge!" He didn't know how a girl in a hospital bed could possibly be so chipper, but so was the naivety of youth. He didn't realize he was mistaking the smirk for a smile. He didn't think it possible to be manipulated by someone who was not all that far removed from wearing diapers.

He was Marley. He was the Grinch. He was a man who was bound to look like he was permanently seasick, had a heart three sizes too small, and would wear chains forged out of vicodin bottles-after all, his vice was pills not money. His money simply sat in a bank account, occasionally withdrawn to buy something flashy and exotic, but more often than not, just sitting, ignored.

But he'd be damned if he ever let his best friend succumb to his same fate. He'd be damned if he'd let Wilson become anything like he was. And the realization of that thought scared him, and it scared him shitless. He didn't want to care about someone-caring was a weakness. It mean that someone could get close enough to hurt him. And then, he mused, that Wilson was already there. They'd been friends for what seemed like their whole lives-Even though it hadn't actually been that long. They hadn't met til Wilson was in med school. But that had still bee a very long time ago.

And even if it meant separating himself from Wilson's life, if things ever started to get that bad, he would. It'd hurt like hell, but he'd do it. It was then that he realized that he needed to sit down. He had just admitted that he cared enough about his friend to not only do something that was not in his own best interests, but Wilson's, but to do something that would cause him emotional discomfort-the one thing he tried to avoid most-for his friend. And he snorted to himself at the realization. Love was a silly emotion, it was purely a chemical response to promote reproduction.

It certainly wasn't love. He certainly wasn't gay for Wilson. And it certainly didn't make any sense. Which was why he cleared off the entire selection of holiday movies from Movie Gallery. It was a safe selection of movies, all things they could poke fun of over beers.

So it was only when they had made it through Miracle on 34th Street, It's A Wonderful Life (with House pointedly ignoring Wilson's sniffles), and put on something happy that House realized that he felt different. As though he was happier to be home, more content with himself. He put it down to the beer talking, and popped in something funny.

And they watched some cheesy romantic comedy, pointing out how extremely lucky one of the characters was to hop on a plane and come back with Carmen Electra simply because he had a silly British accent. And laughed over the body doubles, who were so incredibly shy about one another, despite spending entire days naked in front of each other. "You know, I think the pop star got off the worst, decides he's in love with his manager only when he's old and washed up."

"He definitely got the worst of that deal. Wound up with an old fat guy too."

"Does it really matter though? I suppose if they'd spent most of their lives being friends, they've long since learned to ignore looks."

"Did I just hear Dr. Wilson, serial cheater, admit that looks don't matter?"

"I'm just saying, if I were to realize that I was in love with someone I'd know for twenty-plus years, I'd have long since found other positive points than their looks." Wilson was suddenly very aware of how close they were on the couch, and was greatful for the moment that House got up, and changed films.

"So, what do you want to watch next?"

"Whatever you do."

"I've had enough of maudlin holiday films."

"So put on the TV, Scrooge." It's meant as a joke, but he sees something cross House's face that he can't figure out. The look remains after House sits down. "What is it?" He asks, curious to know what the quip could have done.

"It's nothing."

"I thought you took pride in being called the miser and hater of all things Christmas. Not giving little Oliver extra gruel and leaving poor Tiny Tim in the cold."

"The difference is, I would have cured Tiny Tim, and then left him in the cold. Tiny Tim just didn't have a good enough doctor, that's all."

"But that gets rid of half the fun of the movie!" House simply shrugged.

"Besides, I'm not Scrooge."

"Oh, really?" Wilson gets up, and comes back with two more bottles of Coors.

"Really."

"If you're not Scrooge, who are you then."

"I'm Marley. You're Scrooge."

"You're the mean one."

"Yeah, but you're the one that turns around at the end, who still has a good soul, and all that jazz. Starts giving to the poor, and being a fine upstanding citizen. I'm the one that's the horrible person and gets punished for it for all eternity."

"House-" There's a pause, and both of them recognize it. And both of them ignore it. "You're not horrible. And you're not going to be punished for all eternity."

"Why not."

"I-" The sentence gets choked off. He doesn't want to admit it. House's expression softens slightly.

"You what?" This has turned into a quest to find an answer. It's no longer about making fun of cheesy movies, it's about pushing things until they break just to get an answer.

"I talked to your patient, the other day."

"Really, how fascinating can an eleven year old be?"

"She-" Another pause, "She said you just needed a Marley, that you're not actually all that mean. You just need someone to straighten you out." He sees House smirk, and chuckle. He looks at his watch, it's getting late. "And I should get going."

He doesn't say that it's because he can feel the heat emanating off of House's body, and it's scaring him. He doesn't say that it's because he's never felt this before, and he hates unknown emotions. He doesn't say that he's afraid of what a haphazard comment made a week prior would have on his friendship, because he's not sure of what effect he wanted it to have on his friendship.

So he goes home, and ignores it until Christmas eve. Both of them ignore it. House had felt it, and reacted much the same way. So afraid of the emotion, that he simply blocks it out of his mind. But Christmas eve, he's lonely. And while House will never admit to being lonely, he is.

He's spending time with his patient-who is now well on the way to recovery, but she's better than no one. Her parents will be in to see her soon. They don't get off work until late. He just doesn't want to go home. His patient's parents show up though, and he has no choice to go home. So he sits on the couch, makes the perfunctory calls to his family, wishes them a merry Christmas, and sits on the couch with a glass of whiskey.

It's then that the door opens, and he looks up to see Wilson there. "What're you doing here?" And Wilson still can't shake a memory of Christmas past, where he walked through that same door to see a House at rock bottom, wondering what his life would be like now, and hating himself for wondering.

"I had a realization."

"About?"

"Christmas."

"My my, Jimmy the Jew, soon to be a convert?"

"I realized that it was a time to spend with the people you love."

"And?"

"I realized that as fate would have it, that I've managed to get through forty something years, three wives, and all that time, it was spent with an arrogant, misanthropic jerk. And I came to the realization that, as much as it grieves me to say it, that perhaps the person I love most is...you." The words are hard to say, even though he's copied them nearly wholesale from a movie they were watching.

"All the eggnog, it's gone to your head." But even the sarcasm isn't quite all there, because even House knows that maybe Wilson has a point.

"I could be with any woman I wanted right now, and yet, I'd rather spend Christmas here. Because, despite all of...everything, we've still made it through. Intact. And for the most part, having a very good life."

There's a long silence between them, Wilson waits with bated breath for the rejection that he thinks is imminent, and House ponders what it is that Wilson's said. He knew what the emotion he was feeling was, he knew it had a name, and he knew that he didn't like it. But at the same time, it was one that felt so very, very right. "Well, are you just going to stand there, or are you going to get me a beer?" And in that moment, both of them know that Christmas isn't going to be quite so lonely, and that they both have a little less reason to hate the world.

And they both realize that it doesn't matter which one is Scrooge and which one is Marley, or what Marley's motivations were, because they're both Scrooge and both Marley, and both of them are saving each other before it comes down to actually needing to.

[scaryscarecrows]

Little Town (It's a Nosy Village)

Note: they're both babies (well, y'know, KIND OF) so Kitty's a little more reckless and Jonathan's accent is still very much a thing.

Jonathan privately considers Arlen to be the birthplace of every ‘small southern town’ stereotype. They’re spread out, but everybody knows everybody’s business, you go to church or else, and outsiders are welcomed in with wide smiles and gossiped about with wide eyes.

Well. Mostly. To a point. They’ve got their black side, and it’s larger than one would suppose, given the size of the place. Lobotomies happen-the last one he’s aware of took place when he was twelve. Too much of an outsider? You’ll be run out. Nothing so blatant as burning crosses or anything, just…social ostracization is a funny thing.

Why in the world the Richardsons moved here, of all places, is a mystery. They’re not churchgoers (Granny was horrified that her nearest neighbors were heathens), they’re not here for the farming opportunities (such as they are)…why.

He asked, once, out of genuine curiosity. It’s hot, it’s sunny, it’s so…small-town…it has no attraction whatsoever. Apparently Mr. Richardson was writing a book set in the area and wanted the peace. Jonathan doubts that-he was a government worker, for crying out loud-but he let it go. Selfishly, he’s glad. Their presence has granted him with what he hesitantly has dubbed a friend.

Kitty Richardson is five foot nothing of big eyes and freckles and giggling that he doesn’t try to understand. She is also, he has decided, fueled by sugar and Short Person Rage. Seriously, it’s the easiest thing in the world to tick her off. All one has to do is use her as an armrest.

Not that he would do that sort of thing, of course.

He’s read a couple of books involving multi-gendered friendships, and apart from the ridiculousness of ‘everybody decides to date at the end’, they also make the error of ‘good girl, idiot boy’.

This is a complete lie, and if he ever writes a book like that, he’s pointing that out. Kitty is always the one getting them into things. ‘Haunted bridge? Come on, let’s sneak out.’ ‘The fuck did you say about my chest, football player twice my height?’

No one believes him, because she’s tiny and because she’s very, very good at looking innocent and what-do-you-mean-I-didn’t-break-his-nose. Maybe he’s biased, but he thinks she could get away with murder, if she tried hard enough.

“Jonathan?” He blinks and looks down. “You okay?”

FINE FINE EVERYTHING’S FINE NO REASON TO DO SOMETHING STUPID.

“Just tired. Rain kept me up.” She doesn’t look convinced and he’s quick to run damage control. “I don’t think it’s rained like that since y’all moved in.”

He inwardly curses at the slip, but she doesn’t seem to notice. Good.

“Oh, good, so it doesn’t always rain like that.”

“We do get tornadoes.”

“What?” That was a squeak, and that was hilarious. “Tell me you’re joking. Please tell me you’re trying to see how much I’ll believe you.”

“No, we really do get tornadoes sometimes. Nothing awful, but…”

She stares at him in horror.

“I’m going to die.”

He nudges that mental image aside and crams the last of his books into his backpack. There. All set for the weekend, with a bit of light reading to do besides. If he gets any time, and if Granny doesn’t rifle through his backpack again.

He really, really hopes he doesn’t have to spend another night out There.

“Yeah, they might have to get you out of a tree.”

“I hate heights!”

“I really doubt you’d be conscious for that bit.” Or alive and he’d like to change the subject now, thanks. “Come on, a tree blew down last night, we have to take the long way home.”

The ground is squishy under their shoes, even after a whole day of sunshine. He wasn’t so lucky as to have the chapel catch fire, but the Higginson’s barn did-they barely managed to save the horse. Jonathan’s glad, on the horse’s behalf-it’s not her fault the owners are idiots.

And burning to death sounds like a horrible way to go.

They have to pass by the property on this route, and he can see the truck’s gone-probably into town proper for nails or somethin’. It could have been worse, as far as he can tell-the roof’s had, but the walls are still standing.

Kitty draws a sucker from her backpack, unwraps it, and waves it in front of him.

“Lick?”

“No, thank you.”

“Scared of cooties*?”

“Cooties are for children.” He leans back, spine cracking. “So are those, for that matter.”

“Only if you go to church.” she says innocently, pursing her lips around one side of it. It takes him a minute to realize what she’s implying and that mental image is going to be a bitch to get rid of. Thanks a lot.

“Kitty-!”

She cackles and promptly chokes. Serves her right.

The horse trots up to the fence. She looks none the worse for wear and she doesn’t shy back when he puts his hand out.

“Are you allowed to do that?”

“Probably not.” he says absently, letting her blow on his palm before leaning over to pat her neck. “Hey there, big girl, you have a rough night?”

She snorts and shifts obligingly so she’s parallel to the fence. Kitty takes a step back.

“Does she bite?”

“Not if you’re careful. Want to pet her?”

She eyes the horse, clearly a little nervous, and finally nods before rewrapping her sucker and sticking it in her back pocket.

“If she bites me, I’m blaming you.”

He grins-this old nag hardly snaps at flies, in all reality-and motions her over. The horse turns her head, mildly interested in the new small creature in the road.

“Put your hand up like this, nice and flat…easy there, big girl, we’re not gonna hurt you…”

The horse bends her head down and nudges Kitty’s palm. Kitty giggles, more of a surprised sound than anything.

“That tickles!”

“Uh-huh.”

“She’s, uh…really big.”

“You’re very small.” he points out. She shoots him a dirty look. “I’m just saying.”

The mare finally draws her head back and bends down, cropping the grass at the base of the fence. Kitty pops her sucker back in her mouth and looks at her.

“Does she have a name?”

“No idea.” He shifts his backpack to his other shoulder and leans over to pat her neck again. “Good girl.” There’s the sound of the Higginson’s truck-a rattling thing that’s held together through duct tape and prayer-and he steps back. “We should go. They’re…they don’t like me too much.”

“Does anyone?”

“No.”

She loops her arm through his and he wonders why.

“That’s not true.”

“Mm.” No, seriously, why are they now connected. “If you say so.”

“My mum likes you. She says you’re a good influence.” That’s a first, and he’ll be smug about it once he solves the riddle of Why Is She Touching Him. “And I like you, even if you are a goddamn telephone pole.”

Well, that’s nice-wait what he’s very confused.

Also, she’s still touching him and yes it’s nice but there’s no logical reason for it. Books did not prepare him for this. Help.

“Wait. How does she like me? I haven’t met her yet.”

“I’ve told her things.”

Oh god. Like what? What sort of things do normal people tell their guardians about their friends?

He’s doomed.

* * *

He’s not doomed, as it turns out. Mrs. Richardson is a plump woman, a little taller than Kitty (not hard), who practically wrestles him to the dining room table and informs him that he will eat something of his own violation or she will bring out the feeding tube.

“Mu-um-”

“You didn’t tell me this!”

“I did, stop scaring him!”

This has never happened to him before. It’s confusing and he’s starting to wonder if he hit his head or something.

“Oh, Kitty, don’t be dramatic. What do you want to drink, sweetie?”

“Uh, just water, I think-”

“You’re sure? It’s no trouble-”

No. He needs control over this situation.

“No, water’d be fine. Please.” She eyes him as though he might sprout an extra head, but brings him a glass of ice water all the same. “Th-thank you, Ma’am.”

“Don’t you Ma’am me. Mary is fine.”

That goes against everything he knows and it’s just not going to work out. Sorry, Ma’am.

“Mu-um…”

“All right, all right. Behave.”

And with that, she leaves the room and he’s left to wonder what just happened. He thinks he might have just been Mothered, and he’s not sure how to feel about it.

“Mum’s…used to getting her own way.”

Well. He can see where she gets it, then.

He nods, a little overwhelmed, and takes a sip of his water. It’s…nice…in here. Warm. Things aren’t falling apart and his usual where’s Granny and how mad do her footsteps sound senses are quiet.

“Are you eating anything?”

“Motherrrr!”

“I don’t hear chewing!”

Kitty buries her face in her hands and groans, “My god, she’s embarrassing.”

Lest she really have a feeding tube tucked away somewhere, he takes a cookie from the plate. It looks okay. It’s still a little warm between his fingers, even.

Kitty hooks an ankle around a free chair and drags it over to use as a footrest.

“I’m pretty sure she doesn’t have a feeding tube.”

“Pretty sure?” The cookie’s not bad, and he’s relieved to find that it is indeed chocolate chip rather than deceitful bastard, raisin. “That’s…alarming.”

“She was a nurse. We may or may not have some things she borrowed from the hospital upstairs. In case of emergencies.”

“Feeding tube?”

“I’ve never seen one.”

Better be safe than sorry. He reaches for another cookie.

“I expect those cookies gone!” comes a shout from the other room. “Is that clear?”

“Watch your crap telly and stop trying to force-feed him from the living room!”

“Don’t make me come in there!”

That’s it. He knows what’s happened. Either he’s dead, or he’s dying and this is some strange dream.

“We’re eating, Mrs. Richardson.” There. Maybe that’ll placate her.

“Mary!”

Kitty plunks her head onto the table and reaches blindly for the plate.

“Kill me now.”

 *Kitty would more likely use the term dreaded lurgi, but we’ll say she picked up the ‘cooties’ term recently (because the comedic flow would be jarred otherwise, so sue me).