#rody's the kind of person to not tell you he's upset about something but then get mad when you don't ask him what's wrong

[numberoneredriotfan]

Rody and Deku talking on the phone every other night after world heroes mission, Rody venting about different problems at his new job and then getting low-key upset when Deku tries to give him logical solutions to these problems.

Like- "nooo, I don't want a solution, I just want to complain!!"

[kyberled]

☀ ♦ ♥ ☢ ✖

the salty af munday meme

☀ What’s your rp pet peeve? –> Ship forcing. This is literally the best way to get me to unfollow or even block another mun. I’ll explain what ship-forcing is below, but yeah, that’s one of them.

♦ What was a mildly annoying thing that has happened to you rp wise? –> See above. It happened once on my Warren blog, and once very recently on here. Now, a bit of a definition, here - I don’t see ship-forcing as asking me if I want to ship, or saying your muse has a crush on Braig - heck, that can be flattering (though I prefer if we know each other, first - it can get a bit uncomfy for me, kind of like virtual catcalling, I guess, when complete strangers tell me how attractive they think Braig is). I don’t see it as someone’s muse having feelings for Braig, one-sided or otherwise. All of these things are A-Okay, and can be quite fun, too! What I do see ship forcing is when someone asks if they can ship with Braig, and instantly, as soon as I say ‘we can give it a try’, deciding that our muses are suddenly soulmates, even if they’ve hardly said four sentences to each other, before. I see it as asking to ship, then immediately dropping the thread where they were actually in the process of meeting each other to have them now in the middle of a date, which, given the context of where, when, and how said date was taking place would likely have gotten them both killed. I see it as pestering Braig to do something ‘romantic’, having both Braig and I say no, he doesn’t want to, and the other person keeps pushing, regardless, or getting upset when Braig decides to respond with something not romantic and replying to that with some rude, snarky comment. ‘Uh, I think [muse] wanted Braig to do [X], actually’ - Yes, that has happened, before. I’ve been vagueblogged about, spammed on and off anon, been told I’ve made peoples’ depression/anxiety worse, had on-blog events ruined and muses killed and simply been harassed at all hours of the day because of ship-forcing and my trying to deal with it gently and politely, instead of just flat-out saying ‘no’ or ‘I’m not comfortable with this’. So, if it ever seems like I’m coming down too hard on someone in regards to shipping, I swear I don’t mean to come off as abrasive or rude - I just learned the hard way that you’ve gotta be blunt about your comfort zones or else things go south faster than a flock of geese on an adrenaline high. Basically, to sum this novel up: As long as you respect my boundaries, we’re good; if I haven’t told you you’re skeeving me out, we’re good. If I have told you you are, and you keep doing whatever it was, we’re not so good. 

☢ What fads/trends are you so over? –> I don’t really keep up with trends enough to know lmao. I mean I guess I’ve seen a few, but they don’t really bother me. You do you, and all… Though, I guess I never entirely understood the whole ‘personified objects’ thing? I mean, you do you, and all, but it just never  made sense to me.

✖ How has Tumblr RP changed since you started? –> It hasn’t, not really. I think the only real changes have been purely aesthetic, like small text,  contained themes, etc. I really don’t care what other people do, as long as they’re happy and not hurting anyone.

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

[Under a cut for length]

Okay, so, I told two of my rp horror stories over on Xig, so I’ll tell my third one here. Since I gave the other two pseudonyms, we’ll call this one ‘Cheeper’. Cheeper was someone I had met when a mutual friend we’ll call Battery allegedly recommended my blog to them. Now, Battery was someone I had approximately zero problems with. Really friendly, sweet guy, talented writer, great sense of humour, one of my favourite people to write with. So, I figured, if Cheeper was a friend of Battery’s, they must be cool, too, right? … Wrong. So, things start out okay-ish, as they always do, but things get downhill pretty fast. Starts off with small things, like ignoring asks or dropping literally all of our threads without letting me know. And I understand wanting to drop threads or not being able to get to everything in your ask box, but when that happens consistently, it gets a little disheartening.

The next little thing was when they started making AUs of my muse, and expecting me to write them. Lemme say here that I am totally fine with people suggesting AUs for my muses. That’s where this blog came from, Rodi suggesting a Star Wars AU where another one of my muses was Obi’s padawan, so, again, I’m fine with AU prompts. What I’m not fine with is when someone writing a really detailed version of my muse without consulting me at all, and then expecting me to write that AU they made with no warning and no problems. Cheeper comes into my IMs listing this novel-length AU detailing not only how their muse changed, but how mine did, as well. Basically, the entire idea was that their muse, who in canon was a big tank-type character who had been straight-up abusive to multiple characters, and turned them into a small, fluffy little mage who was actually a good guy and hadn’t done any bad things, and was being forced to do the bad guys’ dirty work, whereas my muse… Was suddenly the abusive one. For absolutely no reason. In a way that not only completely contradicted all of my personal headcanons - all of which were posted and easily viewable on my blog - but also went against all of what canon had showed us about my muse, and quite frankly made me really uncomfortable. I mean, you’ve seen some of the stuff I’ve written, you know I’m down to write some pretty messed up stuff, but to straight up turn my muse into a child abuser, WITHOUT CONSULTING ME AT ALL, just so your muse can be the good guy? That doesn’t fly so well. On top of that, writing such a detailed version of my muse and expecting me to play it for you? Why not write it yourself? I mean like I said, I am thrilled with AU suggestions, but, hell, keep it to a sentence or two, tops. Let me experiment and develop my muse to fit the AU myself, thanks. … And, while these things were pretty irritating, especially when a few of them happened over and over again, it got worse.

A lot of the time, when I’m having OOC conversations to get to know another mun before we start writing together, I look for a sort of ‘spark’ or ‘click’ - something that shows this person and I are gonna get along. For a lot of people, including my favourite partners, this click is basically immediate - just this instant ‘wow, we’re gonna be good friends, this is great!’, and, for others, it takes a bit longer, and that’s totally okay! Some people take a while to open up, or maybe it wasn’t a good day for one of us, I totally get it, happens to me, too. How quickly the click happens has absolutely NO BEARING ON MY OPINION OF A PERSON WHATSOEVER. There have been I think only three or four times I haven’t clicked with someone - twice on Warren, once on Xig, and once here. If I message you first, send asks, tag you in things, like your posts, etc, we’ve clicked, don’t worry. Anyway, Cheeper was one of these rare occurrences where there was not only no click, there was the opposite of a click. At first I thought it was just ‘cause our first convo was a bit awkward - from what I remember, it was basically just ‘hi, My name is [Cheeper], I’m [Battery]’s friend and he recommended your blog so I thought I’d give you a follow’, you know, typical ‘hi, nice to meet you’ type thing, I didn’t think much of it. Unfortunately, that was the only pleasant conversation we had.

You see, Cheeper had the habit of starting conversations with some variation of ‘how are you?’. Doesn’t sound too bad, right? Well, in typical Canadian fashion, I always did my best to follow social protocol and be polite, and say ‘I’m good/fine/great, thanks, how are you?’, and, much like Han Solo, I learned that there are some situations you shouldn’t ask that question. Every time, without fail, Cheeper would say some variation of ‘bad’ or ‘horrible’, and proceed to dump literally all their life’s problems on me, and I mean all of them. I’m perfectly fine with letting my friends vent/rant to me as much as they need, and offering advice is a pass-time of mine. But, I had only known this person for- Less than a week, when this started (I hardly even knew their NAME I had to look it up on their blog), and they kept going on and on about some really personal shit, like hours of how they hated their job and school was stressful, and their family was aphobic and never used the right pronouns, literally everything about their personal life, no matter how private it was, just- Constant negativity, all the time. It was literally all they spoke about, ever. I don’t know anything else about them, just that their life was terrible and they decided to use me as some sort of verbal stress ball. Even if I tried to divert the conversation to a different topic, or just ignore them entirely, I’d still get floods of negativity and complaints. And what makes it even better? They had a frickin therapist! This person, who had a professional, trained therapist, would spend hours unloading all of their mental/emotional burdens on me, an untrained stranger who had only said ‘hi’ to them once. And, after they had dumped all their baggage on me, they’d say, ‘oh, gotta go, it’s time to go to my therapist’. And, honestly? That was the only time I felt safe to post on my blog. Yes, you read that right - it was the only time I felt safe to post on my own blog. I honestly could not make a post on my blog without Cheeper spamming my IMs with boatloads of stress-inducing negativity. And, call me selfish, call me insensitive, call me whatever you want, but, fuck, I had my own problems! I was in university, trying to get law school level grades, while working a part time job to try and help my family out when we were struggling financially, doing what I could to make sure there was enough food in the fridge for my younger brothers, trying to help my grandma take care of my grandpa, trying to keep up with my martial arts - which I have to do in order to keep my job - and trying to write multiple essays for both my younger brother and myself, as we were prepping for our black sash tests, but he was also trying to get into film school, so I’d volunteered to write the sash essays for him, and, let me tell you, I did not need to play counsellor to someone I didn’t even know on top of that. And, like I said, this happened constantly, and I’d get a new flood of messages every time I so much as hinted at being online.

And believe it or not, it got worse, Sakrine.

I remember there was one conversation we had (’conversation’ being used loosely, of course) towards the end of our interactions where Cheeper was complaining at me, as per usual, and mentioned how all of their friends were blocking them without saying why. Funnily enough, I was planning on blocking them soon, myself (probably should have done it a long time ago). But, lo and behold, right after saying how they were always getting blocked, Cheeper goes and says ‘but you’d never block me, so at least I have you. You’re my best friend, Jay’. And I’m sitting here really uncomfortable because, uh, no, we’re not best friends, and I have no idea what gave them that idea, since I never told them anything of the sort, and in fact barely spoke to to them at all, both because I didn’t much care for their company, and because I could hardly get a word in edgewise - and, even if I could, how does one respond to a total stranger badgering you for advice on how to deal with their family not handling their being out well? I’m not out to my family, and I don’t think I ever will be, so, again, how can I give that sort of advice to someone I don’t know?

About the time this was happening was when I met and was chatting with Rodi, who’s actually one of my best friends and the light of my life. Like I mentioned above, it was at her suggestion that I decided to make this li’l OC mess that we know and love here. He was originally gonna be a verse on my other blog, until I realised that I’d have tags for a Jedi verse, a padawan verse, a Sith verse, etc., and that was too many for one AU, so I made a sideblog. Then, after only a day of having that, and a bit of encouragement from both Rodi and Milla (my main Talon), I made this stand-alone blog for my son, and I was having a great time.

Cheeper, however, was not, and made sure I knew it.

Now, my muse for that blog had been steadily dying, mostly because of this, but also for a few other, more minor reasons, and I felt way more comfortable here, was having more fun, and generally just enjoying myself way more on this blog than the other, so, naturally, this is where I spent most of my time. Within a day or two of my neglecting Xig, Cheeper pops into the IMs to complain about me, to me. Yes, I am dead serious, this is an actual thing that happened. They start badgering me to go back to my other blog, and, I dunno if this has ever happened to you, but, it’s really disheartening. I explained to Cheeper that I felt more comfortable on this blog (though I didn’t tell them why I felt that way on Xig; Perhaps I should’ve), that I had more drafts and asks on this blog, and that I had more muse for this character at the moment, so I’d be spending my time over here, at least for a little bit. Their oh-so-eloquent response was, and this is a verbatim quote, ‘boo, you suck.’ And I had absolutely no idea how to respond to that, so I didn’t. I just sat there, staring, feeling an interesting concoction of shocked, annoyed, and offended. About a minute later, they added a ‘lol, just kidding’, and proceeded to… Continue… To complain about me, as well as about their life and still expected me to give them advice and solutions I didn’t have. I’ve never had someone act more entitled to my time and energy as this person did. 

Now, I know what you’re probably thinking - ‘they were probably just some kid, Jay, young people can be like that at times, you’re taking it too hard’, and, hey, I thought so, too. I was nineteen years old when this was happening; Cheeper was around 24 or 25. Yup, this person was about five or six years older than me, and a grown-ass adult the entire time. And like I said, they were constantly acting entitled to everything I did, like I owed them something. There was another time where I’d actually gotten a bit of muse for my other blog back, so I went on, answered a bunch of asks, slammed out some drafts, sent some memes, answered some IMs… It was a really productive evening for me. Once I was finished, I came back here and got a bit more done. Next morning rolls around, and Cheeper messages me with ‘I miss you, dude. You’re never on Xig, any more.’ I tell them that, actually I’d been on last night, for a few hours, at least. Their response? ‘Well, I wasn’t on.’, after which they kept complaining about how much they missed my muse and my writing. I get this was probably supposed to be flattering, but it really wasn’t? Especially considering that, while they were going on and on about how much they missed me and wanted to write with me, they were completely ignoring the THREE STARTERS I had written for them in the weeks leading up to this point. Hadn’t even given them a like, which I like to do to let someone know that, even if I’m slow as all Hell - which I tend to be - I have seen it, and it’s in my drafts. So, I mentioned this to Cheeper, said ‘you know, I have a couple starters for you on the other blog, why don’t you check those out?’ ‘Oh, I didn’t see them, I’ll give them a look.’ And then, blissfully, they stopped messaging. Little while later, a few days, I got another message from them (keep in mind I never contacted them or interacted with them first, since, rude as it may sound, I was kind of hoping they’d get the message), and once again they were whining about how I was never on Xig again, so I went to check the starters again, and… Still no notes. So I ask them about the starters, and they say ‘I couldn’t find them’. You know how I looked them up? [my blog’s url]/tagged/[cheeper’s url], and, bam. There they were. I told Cheeper this and even sent them the link to their tag. They said okay, that they’d check it out later, and started complaining about their life again. I was serious when I said this was the only thing they talked about, outside of basically harassing me to write with them. Few days later, they get on my case AGAIN for not being on Xig/not rping with them. I check the THREE FUCKING STARTERS again,  STILL NO NOTES. I ask, and ‘oh I just don’t have muse for them right now lol’. And I’m left sitting here like, okay, do you really want to write with me, or are you just mad I’m not dedicating all of my attention to you and your godawful AU muses? I mean, I have NOTHING against AU muses - that’s where this kiddo came from, after all - but AUS WHERE THEY PUSHED MY CHARACTER TO BE A FUCKING CHILD ABUSER WERE APPARENTLY ALL THEY HAD MUSE FOR. And my character was a moral fuckhead I admit but he WASN’T OVERTLY ABUSIVE THAT WAS ONE OF THE REASONS I WAS COOL PLAYING HIM AS THE ANTAGONIST HE WAS AND JUST. And as well, when I have no muse, it’s apparently a major fuckin’ disaster and they complain to the ends of the earth about it and go on and on about how I should still be writing that character and how much they miss me, but when THEY have no muse I have to accommodate it and make allowances and write with them anyway???? Like???

So anyway yeah they proceeded to ignore those starters for months, and every time I posted a new starter call,they’d like that, I’d post a starter, they’d completely ignore it, then come crying and complaining to me, berating me and all but sobbing about how much they missed me.

BUT IT GETS WORSE STILL, SAKRINE.

After a while, Cheeper starts asking me about Star Wars. And I’m torn between ‘fuck no, this is my new safe place, and I’m TRYING TO BE SAFE FROM YOU’ and ‘well maybe if they get into this series they’ll stop getting upset with me for not writing on a blog I have no muse for and am not comfortable on’. So they ask me what they need to watch to understand Star Wars. I tell them to watch the movies, since those are the unchanging canon, no matter what Disney did to the Legends material. Apparently they don’t even have the attention span for their favourite show, so they can’t watch the movies. They complain to me about that for a while, because apparently I care. I did not. I tell them that everything Star Wars - or at least, in the era I write in - revolves around those movies. I tell them they can just watch the PT (and explain what the different trilogies are) and that will get them caught up with where I write. Nope, can’t do that. So I tell them there are book versions of the movies they can read, instead, and there are also comics and stuff they can look into if that would be better.

Nope, don’t have the attention span for books.

Complain about that to me for a while, then ask what they absolutely HAVE to watch to understand. 

I tell them about the Clone Wars show, give them a link to the relevant KissCartoon page. They ask how long the show is - I tell them the number of seasons (mention that 6 is unfinished), and the average length of an episode.

Nope, don’t have the attention span for that, either.

They reiterate that they hardly have the attention span for their favourite show, and once again complain to me before asking me what the /HAVE TO WATCH/ to understand.

I tell them that they’re free to try interacting with my muse on their KH blogs, since I’m open to crossovers and still, for some ungodly reason, trying to be civil.

They keep asking about star wars.

I mention the video games.

Don’t have the attention span for video games.

So this person, who apparently can’t watch movies or TV shows, or read books or comics, or play video games, is asking me what source material they need to know to roleplay a Star Wars verse. 

I, as a last-ditch and mostly sarcastic effort, give them a link to Wookieepedia. I’m a terrible person, I know.

…

They don’t have the patience to look through the wiki pages.

I’m all but smashing my face against the keyboard now, while this person is COMPLAINING TO ME ABOUT HOW LONG STAR WARS IS. 

I mean I get it’s a lot but I tried to break it down?? And last I checked I’m not George Lucas like I’m sorry but it’s not my fault, my problem, or in my power to change? And I tell them it’s 40 years worth of worldbuilding and try to help them break it down again and they just KEEP FUCKING COMPLAINING.

And after like. Two hours of me trying to reason with them and help them out they say ‘I’m not even interested in star Wars, I just want to write with you’. 

And now, maybe I’m reading into it too much. Maybe I listen to too many narrated Let’s Not Meet videos too late at night. But holy shit, I have never felt like I had a legitimate stalker until that moment. It was one of the most uncomfortable things that has ever happened to me. I had zero idea how to respond, and so again I don’t think I did. Or, if I did, it was to again try to explain to them that there was a lot of material, and they should [leavemethefuckalone] focus on things they were interested in, especially if they didn’t think they could handle just the show. So they complain to me about that for a bit, before moving on to other topics to whine about. Always comes back to how I’m not writing with them any more (meanwhile, the countless starters I’ve written them are still being ignored, as are any and all threads we had on the go at the time. Everything’s either been ignored, abandoned, or both, all without letting me know.).I honestly don’t remember how that conversation ended. Just thinking about it makes me blank out and get a sort of mild pins-and-needles feeling. I mean, I get it was probably supposed to be flattering, and if we had been friends it might have been, but coming from this person? Alarm bells were ringing like a retro emergency evac PSE. 

AND IT GETS WORSE STILL, BECAUSE FOR SOME REASON I STILL PUT UP WITH THIS PERSON. 

So, enter me, just going back to uni for the spring/early summer semester. Our stage sets itself in my campus’ bookstore, at about noon or one o’clock in the afternoon. The line from the bookstore stretches from the counter, at one end of the store, wraps around the perimeter of that very large, very spacious room that was at one point a lecture hall, goes through the hall to the next room which also used to be a massive classroom, wraps around that and goes out the back door. I had to get up for an 8:30 that was across the field that day. I had non-stop class until this point, I had had no breakfast (though I think I had a sip of orange juice to keep from conking out), I had been waiting in line for close to an hour, my arms were full of heavy textbooks I dreaded having to pay for, and I only had one hand free for typing, and there was a chance I’d be late to my next class if this line didn’t get moving. As you can imagine, I wasn’t much in the mood for talking (though I think I made the effort for Rodi and Maddie (my best friend from public school who I still talk to) since I enjoy talking to them and it made me feel a bit better). Anyway, I’m in line, tired, irate, and scrolling through tumblr, and Cheeper messages me with a ‘hey’. Oh fuck, I think, this isn’t good. I greet them anyway - just a ‘hi’. I’m only giving one word answers at this point, since I’m not in a chatty mood, and, as I mentioned, I’m typing with just my thumb and that fucking sucks and takes forever, and I’m also trying to keep my place in line. Cheeper starts asking me about school, and I’m very confused, because never once in the months I’d known them had they ever taken an interest in me or my life. ‘so you’re in university right’ they ask. I remember most of this conversation word for word, and you’ll see why. ‘yeah’, I reply. ‘What year?’ they ask; ‘Second \o/’ I say, adding an emoji b/c I love that one. ‘Cool, what’s your major?’ they ask, and I’m getting hopeful that maybe they’ve turned a new leaf and my patience with them has been rewarded. So I tell them ‘Classics \O/’ with a slightly more excited emoji, and they tell me that’s cool, mention their major is in foreign languages - I think Chinese? Maybe Spanish? This is the one message I can never remember in its entirety, because the next one almost knocked me over. I replied with ‘cool’, and a half second later, Cheeper asks, 

“Are you out to your family yet?”

This complete fucking stranger, this grown-ass adult I barely knew, straight up asked me if I was out to my family, yet. I have never been asked that question before or since. I am out only to people on tumblr, and a small group of my most trusted friends from high school. And this person had the fucking audacity to ask me right out if I was. 

I was shocked.

I will not lie to you, I almost dropped my phone. I think I stopped breathing for a second, and I nearly lost my place in line. I was torn between just being frozen and being fucking livid. After a moment when I didn’t respond, they added, ‘Can I ask that?’ And I swear those two messages are tattooed into my mind.

“Are you out to your family yet?”

Holy fuck.

So I manage to collect myself enough to type out ‘no, I’m not’. 

‘Damn,’ they say. ‘Because my mom keeps messing up my pronouns and I wanted to know if you have any advice.’ 

Because why the fuck else would they care about me, right?

And then they proceeded to complain about their life and their aphobic family to me AGAIN, for HOURS, but at that point I’d been ignoring their messages and was instead talking to Maddie for advice on how to handle the situation. I had no idea what to do. I was lost. Like. I wanted to block them so bad but they’d been subtly guilt-tripping me about it for so long (’you’d never block me, you’re my best friend’ was just the start of that, tbh) that I felt bad for it? And Maddie was just like ‘jay no that’s fucked up get rid of them’ and I did.

I have never once regretted it and holy fuck it feels amazing to get this shit off my chest.

And yeah, so.

That was one of my worst RP experiences.

Are you out to your family yet.

I’d sell them to Satan for half a stale corn chip I swear to Christ. 

[thisgingerneedsherjinglejuice]

Beca Mitchell hadn’t ever pictured kids as part of her life. She realizes that that’s probably not a shocking thing to hear, given one look at her.

Successful producer and artist who has a busy life in the music industry? A propensity to always don leather on her person in some form? Multiple tattoos and a blatantly displayed “fuck off” attitude? A habit of getting in trouble for lashing out at paparazzi? Check, check, check, and check.

Oh, and, you know - a wife.

But, truth be told, Beca wasn’t really completely opposed to the idea. Beyond her plans to make a career out of music, Beca’s idea of the future had always been incredibly vague – probably marry some cute guy, maybe not, and live in a house in the LA hills with room for a home recording studio. Beca didn’t actively dislike children, but she was absolutely unwilling to ever be pregnant or carry a child – the very idea horrified her - and so kids hadn’t ever been part of the nebulous idea of her American Dream.

But the day Beca agreed to hitch her cart to Chloe Beale for good, Beca knew that everything she had tenuously drawn out for her future was out the window. There was no way in hell that bubbly, happy, “squeals and coos over random babies in public” Chloe Beale was going to be satisfied with a house full of music and recording equipment instead of irritatingly noisy light-up toys and scattered legos.

So Beca redrew her plans. As long she wasn’t going to have to do any of the hard work of growing a human being and dealing with her body essentially being under the control of an invader for the better part of a year, kids were fine. Sign her up!

Of course, Chloe did. Literally. She waited until they’d had two years to settle into their new life in LA before signing them up for some ridiculous workshop for LGBT couples and their “family building options”. Beca hated every moment, making no attempt to hide her scowl or how she tuned out the lecturer, and daydreaming about how she’d rather be spending the gorgeous summer day at the beach. At the end of the 4-hour prison sentence, Beca turned to Chloe in the car and stated that (obviously, Beca thought, but tactfully left that part out) they would find a sperm donor and Chloe would carry the baby and that would be that.

Chloe simply nodded.

What it came down to was that Beca didn’t mind kids, but she wasn’t super invested in the idea… and she kind of wanted to strangle Chloe when it took her six extra weeks of indecisiveness to choose between donor #21NHS and #TRC12. Because, “21NHS had a grandfather with heart problems, but TRC12 only has his BA in anthropology compared to his Ph.D. in biochemistry!” Beca patiently discussed the same points over and over so not to upset Chloe with a “lack of interest” in the overly clinical part of the process, but the twelfth time reminding Chloe that the donor’s financial status, educational level, and even his height wasn’t directly heritable was starting to feel a lot more like torture than starting a family.

Chloe’s goal was to select a donor that resembled Beca as much as possible, and despite Beca pointing out the flaws in that logic (such as the fact that any man who met the minimum 5’9” height requirement to donate meant that they’d have little in common with her tiny 5’2” form), Chloe was excellent at maintaining her selective hearing and attention.

When Chloe finally made up her mind about which donor to choose, Beca rejoiced – until Chloe immediately started dithering about the decision again. Beca, thinking fast, managed to distract Chloe before they hit the critical point.

“Chlo, isn’t it sort of bizarre that we could pass by our future kid’s father in the street and never know? I’m kind of weirded out about that.”

“Beca, ten million people live in LA. That’s statistically unlikely. And… I don’t know, Becs, being half of the genetic makeup of our kid doesn’t mean he’s the father, you know? Being a dad isn’t just about genetics -“

“Yeah, and my dad is case in point on that one. I know what you’re saying; I’m not, like, feeling insecure about being displaced by some mystery dude or blah blah blah, it’s just… weird. That someone can be part of something so momentous and not have a clue, you know? …And now I want to know what the actual statistics are. I’m texting Jessica.”

“Beca Mitchell, do not tell her why you’re asking!”

The next day, Beca stumbled out of their bedroom after a nap to find Chloe sitting at the kitchen table. Spread in front of her was enough paperwork to have used at least one full tree, separated into several individual mounds. Chloe looked up and smiled at Beca, who made quite a sight with one side of her hair – the side she normally sleeps on - smooshed up and tangled around one of her ear piercings, the other side still in the neat waves she’d styled to go to the studio earlier that morning.

She held out her arms and Beca let out a yawn as she sunk into Chloe’s lap, slumping into her chest for warmth as she shivered slightly in the cooler air of the open room. Chloe folded her arms around Beca’s slight form and pressed a kiss against her hairline, and Beca hummed in contentment as Chloe’s warmth seeped into her.

“What’s all this?” Beca gestured at the papers, her voice still hoarse from sleep.

“Well, this is the paperwork to deal with our insurance for the fertility coverage stuff – pretty much done, we just have to fill a few more things in – and the booklet of in-network doctors we have to choose from. So I looked them all up and pulled up information about their practices, success rates, pricing if I could find it, all that good stuff.” Chloe explained. Pointing at each stack as she listed it off, Chloe gestured to the rest of the piles. “So we have to choose between Dr. Jabara, Dr. March, Dr. Rodi, Dr. Beavers, Dr. Marrs, and-“

“Wait!” Beca interrupted her recitation. “You’re telling me we can choose a doctor named Doctor Beavers?!” Chloe just nodded in response, a smile playing at her lips as Beca laughed uproariously. “Yeah. Okay. Decision made.” Beca said once she gained control of herself, resolutely scooping up the appropriate mound and making a show of knocking the stack against the table until it was perfectly aligned. “There’s no way in hell that we’re not going to have someone named Dr. Beavers help make our kid.”

Chloe acquiesced with the choice– partially because she was well-familiar at this point with Beca’s whims and stubbornness, but also partially (largely, if she was being perfectly honest) because she also found “Dr. Beavers” hilarious.

Beca was happy to let her juvenile reputation take the fall for that one, though.

The IUI process was…. much stranger than Beca had been anticipating. Somehow, she’d never put much thought into exactly how that whole “insemination” thing actually happened. (Perhaps on purpose?) The tanks of frozen sperm that they’d ordered were one of the strangest things Beca had ever tried to wrap her head around. And the sight of a balding middle-aged man between her wife’s legs spread in the detested stirrups, shooting some stranger’s spunk all up in there was extremely awkward to be privy to. And for all her amusement about their reproductive endocrinologist being named Dr. Beavers, of all things, Beca soon realized that she was far too awkward to actually use his name at all when he was about to be in her wife’s vagina. Chloe had a difficult time restraining her laughter every time Beca, tongue-tied, tripped over her words trying to talk in circles to avoid the necessity of directing the doctor by name. (And Beca suspected she made a point of using his name more than necessary to see how many times she could get Beca to blush, but she couldn’t prove it unless Chloe chose to confess, which she hadn’t - yet.)

And when the first month wasn’t successful, Beca still wasn’t any more prepared for her discomfort with the whole situation on the repeat attempts as summer slipped into fall.

A few days after Thanksgiving, Beca was hard at work in her office deeply zoned in to the track she was fiddling with, when a message alert popped up on her computer – the only person who was set to bypass the “do not disturb” filter was Chloe – and pulled her out of her total immersion. Chloe’s message contained nothing but a picture, and not one of the selfies Chloe was prone to sending her throughout the week. It was a conglomeration of numbers and big words and Beca, still coming out of her daze, blinked blearily at it as she tried to decipher what she was seeing.

Chloe-hcg.gif

It took her a full twenty seconds to realize what she was looking at, and once the realization hit her, the shock kept her frozen for thirty more.

Then she moved. She tapped on Chloe’s name as she swiped the phone up to her ear, then shook anxiously in her chair and chewed on her finger as she waited for Chloe to answer. It only took two rings before Chloe picked up, obviously having been waiting just as anxiously for Beca to call. She didn’t even squeeze out a hello before her flabbergasted laughter sounded in Beca’s ear.

“Chlo. I need… Tell me what I’m looking at here. I need you to tell me.” Beca pleaded.

Chloe let out one more breathless laugh before she could form words. “Dr. Beavers –“

“Chloe!” Beca growled out ominously, and Chloe had to let out a giggle at her own inability to miss taking an opportunity to rile Beca up before she could continue.

“That’s the result from my blood test. My hCG level is 69 which Dr. Beavers said is ‘a positive result’, Becs.”

“Positive? Positive for… So… that means…” Beca whispered in shock.

“I’m pregnant, Becs.” Beca swore she could feel Chloe’s indubitable grin through the phone. “He said that my beta level is perfectly average, smack dab in the middle of the range. We’ll have to test it again a couple of times in the next few days so we can make sure it’s rising appropriately, but he said based on this first reading he thinks it’s viable and that having twins or something is unlikely.”

“Oh my god, Chlo!” Beca breathed out, still stunned and struggling to keep up with Chloe’s words. “That’s – I – So… We’re having a baby? Oh my god, we’re having a baby!” Beca couldn’t even begin to contain her elation over the news.

“We’re having a baby, Becs.” Chloe sniffled in confirmation.

Hearing Chloe lapse into tears broke the little restraint Beca had left, and the water she had been blinking back spilled over. She searched her desk frantically for a tissue, giving up when she couldn’t find any and letting out an embarrassed sniffle instead.

“Becs, are you crying?” Chloe asked incredulously.

“No!” Beca denied, and then sniffled again. Chloe let out a watery laugh, shaking her head even though she knew Beca couldn’t see her.

“Okay, Becs.” Chloe teased. “You can cry about having a kid, that’s not going to wreck your ‘badass rep’. No one’s going to judge you for that.”

Beca let out a watery laugh of her own, slipping easily into the familiar dynamic.

“Whatever, Chloe. You can’t prove anything. Maintenance of my reputation is very important.” Beca paused for a few seconds, thinking, then continued a little more soberly. “I’m coming home, Chlo.”

“What? Right now? Becs, it’s only 3:30. Aren’t you supposed to be there for another… what, three hours today?”

“Chlo, I can do whatever the hell I want. I’ll work from home later if it makes you feel better, but I’m coming home.”

Chloe capitulated right away, already on her way home herself. Beca scooped up her stuff and waved at Gia as she scampered out the front door of the studio, shouting that she’d explain later but she was headed home for the day and not even waiting for a response before letting the door slam shut behind her.

Beca managed not to leave work particularly early the two times in the following week when Chloe reported to her the follow-up results – numbers rising perfectly, according to Dr. Beavers. But even the new band she’d been working with for all of three weeks noted her obvious distraction. She had to work at not being too obvious as she played it off; she and Chloe had decided not to share the news with anyone until the safety of the second trimester. And as the media had started showing more interest in Beca as Grammy season approached, she was particularly worried about the news being leaked to the tabloids. That meant – Beca sighed to herself as she calculated – another two months of explaining away her weird behavior at work.

Beca was in for a rough couple of months; but then, Chloe wasn’t much better. She almost slipped up at least twice a week, and the only reason her fumbling cover ups were taken at face value was how accustomed everyone was to Chloe being, well, Chloe.

Chloe’s first ultrasound ended up being scheduled right on the day Chloe hit six weeks, and both women took the entire day off to devote to the appointment and each other. Beca insisted there was no way in hell she was going to miss it. The clinical, research-oriented part of the whole process they’d started during the summer was – well, book learning had never been Beca’s favorite thing, to put it lightly. But now that the baby – their baby - was an actual living thing, Beca was all in. They were able to hear the heartbeat for the first time, and Beca was even able to look past the awkwardness of the ultrasound wand having to be inserted for a transvaginal ultrasound – Beca had thought the time of “watching old dudes stick things in my wife’s vagina” had passed, but apparently she was wrong – to get emotional about the momentous occasion. This time it was Beca’s tears that set off Chloe’s.

If Chloe caught Beca crying over the print-out of the ultrasound several times later that week, or caught a glance of Beca’s email account filling up with “Your baby week-by-week” emails from multiple different sites – well, it’s likely she just smiled and didn’t mention it.

When Chloe reached eight weeks without incident they decided it wasn’t really failure if they shared their news with a few select people. They wanted to deliver the news as “face to face” as they could, what with being across the country from everyone else now, so they Skyped with Chloe’s parents and then each of her brothers in turn. When they Skyped with Aubrey next, Beca summed up the first experience with the Beales with an eyeroll and an explanation of “there were too many tears.” (Chloe couldn’t resist pointing out that some of which were hers; Beca ignored this and moved the conversation on with her chin held high.)

When they told the rest of the Bellas the following week – Chloe needed the extra time to figure out how to work a Google hangout so they could video chat with the whole group at the same time – the reactions were pretty much as expected. Amy immediately started listing off weird pieces of advice that were “Australian tradition” (Beca very much doubted that feeding the baby nothing but kangaroo milk for the first two years was a common Australian custom, for instance). Stacie made a couple of vagina jokes and then immediately started checking with her industry contacts about which doctors to refer them to. Emily, Jessica, and Ashley all cried, and Lily asked about the dimensions for the future nursery and how sturdy their current weapons cabinet was.

So, it went well.

Everything was going well, actually. And it kind of freaked Beca out. Chloe was nearing the end of the first trimester and all of the email subscriptions and websites and okay, yes, even a few books, were full of reassurance that “morning sickness will start waning soon.”

But Chloe hadn’t had… any, really. Occasional nausea, but nothing particularly disruptive, and she’d only puked twice the entire pregnancy – one of which she still insisted was due to bad food. Her boobs were a little sore, and maybe marginally bigger, but they couldn’t really tell and she was still fitting into her usual bras so it didn’t really matter. She was a tiny bit more tired than usual – but only capitulated to that by heading to bed about a half-hour earlier than she used to. There was none of the “bone-deep weariness” that other women of the same gestation were complaining about, and Chloe hadn’t taken up the napping habit that Beca had halfway expected.

So, Beca did what she did best and worried. She worried that Chloe not feeling sick meant that something was wrong, and then she felt awful for basically wanting her wife to feel terrible and vomit all the time and not have enough energy to get out of bed. When she started worrying that her worrying was going to make her a bad mom, Chloe stopped her in her tracks by grabbing her and forcing her to eat a few marshmallows before making out with her for awhile, so at least the last worry got put to bed for awhile due to distraction.

And Beca found it really helped when the worries literally got “put to bed” when Chloe attempted to sidetrack her.

They saw Dr. Beavers for the final time when Chloe was 9.5 weeks along. He did one last ultrasound (everything looked perfect, he repeatedly assured Beca) and Beca was the only one who cried while hearing the heartbeat again, something the doctor looked a tiny bit disconcerted about, before cheerfully discharging them from the practice to start seeing a regular OB/GYN.

After they spent a week looking through their options and speaking to a few different practices on the phone, Chloe turned to Beca with an anxious look on her face one night over dinner.

“Becs, don't freak out. I don’t want you to freak out when you hear what I’m about to say, okay?”

Beca stared at her unmoving and eyes wide for a moment before responding. “Erm, Chlo, when you start off with that, it just makes me want to freak out before I even hear it.” She took a deep breath and held it for a second before blowing it noisily out. “No, okay, I lied actually. I don’t want to freak out. Now I already am freaking out so I need you to spit the rest out, like, now, okay? Are you okay? Is something wrong? Oh my god, is the baby okay? Is something wrong with the baby? Do we need to go to the hospital? What do you need me to do?” Beca spat the questions at her wife in rapid-fire, getting more and more worked up as she spiraled down into the grip of the worst-case scenarios she harbored in her mind.

Chloe gaped at how quickly the situation had deteriorated before jumping out of her chair and crossing around the table to where Beca was seated. She gripped her firmly and turned her so that Beca was looking straight at her, and then Chloe cut off the frantic queries that Beca was still regurgitating.

“Becs! BECA! No! Everything is fine, I’m fine, the baby is fine. God, I’m so sorry. Take a breath, please.” Chloe pulled her into a tight hug and Beca shuddered a ragged breath into her shoulder.

“Fuck.” She breathed weakly on her next exhale, trying to match her uneven breaths to Chloe’s more steady rhythm. “Don’t ever do that to me again, Chloe.” She said as she lifted her head off Chloe’s collarbone a couple of minutes later to look her in the eye.

Chloe looked more contrite than Beca had ever seen her, clearly cut up about the panic she had unintentionally sent her wife into. “I’m so sorry, babe. I was just trying to prepare you for an idea that I’m not sure you’ll like. I was not trying to freak you out like that, I swear.”

“I know, I know.” Beca soothed her now-distraught wife. “It’s not even your fault, really. I’ve just been… kind of on edge about something going wrong. It only took a tiny nudge to send me over that edge since I’ve been dangling myself off of it for weeks.”

Chloe snorted. “Yeah, hon. You haven’t been doing a good job hiding your anxiety at all, just for the record. Who would have suspected that out of the two of us, you were going to turn out to be the helicopter parent?”

Beca shot Chloe a mock glare at the teasing, then her expression morphed into something almost – entreating? “Yeah, I just, uh… “ Beca swallowed twice before she was able to bring herself to continue. “I’ve just been… it’s like, I still can’t believe I’m married to you, Chlo. I’ve spent every single day of the last nine years in total disbelief that I get to have you because I have never been the person that lucky things happen to. And you are the luckiest thing that has ever happened to me. And then here we are in LA and I got my fucking dream job by some random happenstance… and now we’re having a baby. Chloe Beale and I are having a baby which just… My life is so good right now, Chloe. Our life is so good it’s fucking amazing and I can’t even really wrap my head around it, so I’ve been sitting here for the last 2 months waiting for the other shoe to drop because it has to drop at some point, right? I’m not a lucky person, things can’t just stay this good. And I want to be prepared, I don’t want to be taken off guard when the shoe finally drops. I won’t be able to take that, not again, Chlo.” Both women were openly weeping by the end of her outburst, and Chloe could feel her heart breaking for her wife as Beca’s last sentence sunk in.

Of course, this was about her parents. The parents that maintained a cordial but distant contact with their only daughter because of the life choices they disagreed with. The parents that had passed down a lifetime of anxiety and mistrust to their daughter through their own poorly handled relationship troubles. Beca had spent quite a bit of time in therapy dealing with the legacy of her broken childhood and troubled adolescence, and 99% of the time it was possible to forget how far Beca had come and how much she had grown in the last decade.

But this was the 1% of the time, when Beca’s past clung tightly enough that she was afraid to trust her happiness for fear of lurking instability.

Chloe briefly felt a swell of pure, hot rage at Beca’s parents, immediately tamping it down before Beca noticed and assumed it was directed at her. She tugged a stiff and still silently crying Beca out of her chair, sitting down in her place before pulling Beca back down into her lap and cradling her into her body. Beca fought it briefly, rigid in Chloe’s embrace, before giving in and curling into Chloe with a strangled sob.

“Beca, Beca, Beca.” Chloe murmured as she brushed Beca’s hair back with her fingers soothingly. “Honey. I don’t… I can tell you that nothing is wrong right now. Actually, everything is perfect, because you are the best thing that’s ever happened to me and I thank the stars every day for you. Literally, you know? Every morning when I wake up with you sleeping next to me, your hair in my mouth at all, I spend a minute smiling at the sun and thanking whoever or whatever might be listening that this gets to be my life. That you get to be my life. And now I get to wake up in the morning and be thankful that I get to have you and this baby in my life from now on, and I literally cried with happiness yesterday, Becs. Which was why your hair was a little damp when you woke up.” Chloe laughed through her tears. “And I can’t promise that nothing will be wrong in the future, I’m not clairvoyant…. But I can promise you that if that shoe of yours ever does drop, I’m going to be right here next to you helping you catch it. You’re not the only one that has to hold it up any more.”

Beca’s emotions were still running high – higher than any other time Chloe had been witness to, with two exceptions – and she could only bring herself to nod several times against Chloe’s body while the sobs continued to rip out of her unbidden. Chloe sat and waited patiently, sporadically rocking in a calming motion and hugging Beca tightly to her the whole time, even as her legs went numb. All she could do was offer comfort while Beca struggled to rein in her tumultuous emotions, her heart hurting for Beca’s internal struggle. Eventually, Beca cried herself out and fell into an exhausted sleep in Chloe’s arms. Chloe carried her to bed, smiling sadly to herself as she did so, at the scene that had become so familiar over the years – although not usually tinged with so much sadness.

Chloe returned to the kitchen to choke down a few bites of the cold and long-forgotten dinner – she wasn’t hungry after all of that, but she felt obligated to eat at least a little bit due to that whole “growing a human being” thing. She tucked the rest of the leftovers away into the fridge before heading back to their bedroom. She changed into her pajamas and brushed her teeth quietly, peeking in on Beca twice while she did so, although Beca didn’t stir even a bit. It was barely eight, but Chloe was just as exhausted from the emotional evening and she gratefully crawled into bed; but before she could cuddle into her tear-stained wife, she had one last thing to do. She grabbed her phone off her nightstand and shot an email off to Beca’s therapist back in Georgia, inquiring about the possibility of setting up a Skype session in the next week. The check-in would do Beca good, Chloe knew, as much as it upset her to admit that she wasn’t able to be everything Beca needed sometimes, that she wasn’t able to just fix it.

But Beca didn’t need rescuing, she just needed an objective party to remind her of her own strength.

That taken care of, Chloe nestled happily into Beca’s side, the tinier figure automatically shifting to wrap herself around Chloe. As Beca’s hair landed in her mouth, Chloe couldn’t help but laugh even as she sputtered.

Yeah, this was right where she wanted to be, Chloe thought, as she drifted off.

Chloe woke, as always, before Beca the next morning and started cooking up Beca’s favorite Nutella French toast. She deserved something special after the previous night, after all. She was almost done when Beca walked out of the bedroom, still yawning and eyes tiny from sleep. She stole up behind Chloe and wrapped her arms around her midsection and planting her chin on Chloe’s shoulder – as best she could, anyway. She made a show of a dramatic sniff and hummed happily when she realized what Chloe was making.

“Good morning. Nutella french toast? Fuck, this is the best day ever.” Beca said, as she moved to plate a couple of pieces already cooling on the stack, sighing in pleasure as she stuck her nose in the small pile to take another big whiff. “Thank you.” Beca pressed a kiss to Chloe’s temple. She wrinkled her nose a bit when Chloe just hummed contentedly in response. Beca gently angled Chloe’s head towards her with her free hand, meeting her eyes intently. “Thank you, Chlo.”

Chloe nodded and simply gave Beca a quick kiss, clearly aware of how little she liked making a big deal of emotional matters.

Halfway through breakfast, Beca awkwardly cleared her throat before broaching the topic weighing on her mind. “So, uh… what were you even going to say last night?”

Chloe’s mouth dropped into an “O” shape – it had completely slipped her mind, to be honest. Now it was her turn to swallow nervously before answering.

“Oh. Uh. Right. Well, after looking into all those OBs this week… I just don’t get a great vibe off of any of them? I mean, at least one of them was clearly homophobic. They all seem to be paternalistic older guys and… I really can’t imagine that feeling patronized the whole time is going to be conducive to easily pushing a human being out of my vagina, you know?.”

Beca grimaced at the mental image Chloe was evoking, but nodded for her to continue.

“Right. Well. Along with the OB recommendations she sent us, Stacie included a couple of… other recommendations.” Frankly, the tone Chloe was using and the way she stressed the last two was about to send Beca’s eyebrows up into her hairline.

“Okay… so, what ‘other recommendations’ did she send? The baby can’t be delivered by, like, a sexologist or whatever.” Chloe snorted at Beca’s theory.

“No, not a sexologist, Bec. But she did include information for a couple of local midwives.”