#since we’re speaking on being mexican today

[butchsaint]

in a perfect world alicent hightower would be half mexican on her mother’s side. i don’t think mexico exists in game of thrones, but in my heart i know she’s mexican.

[writeforfandoms]

Waking Lions 2

Find the series masterlist

Remember last chapter I warned you reader is bisexual? Yeah. Also due to her work, reader has multiple nicknames, and we see another nickname in this chapter.

This chapter may feel a little slower but we’re building up to good stuff, I promise! 

Once again, speaking in italics is speaking in another language. 

Warnings: Swearing, mentioned sexual activity, mentioned events from CoD:MW, spy shit. 

Word count: 1.8k

After your business in Turkey was concluded, you hopped on a series of planes to Mexico to go visit another old friend. This one very rarely gave you any kind of intel, but she was fun. So it was worth the trip.

Besides, you were craving good Mexican food. 

She even sent a few of her men to pick you up. One took your bags, another held the door open for you into the SUV. 

The royal treatment.

The drive was long and quiet. You weren’t overly interested in talking to the underlings, and she had likely warned them to silence anyway. That was one of the reasons you so enjoyed her company. She was smart. 

The car stopped, and you waited while one of the men hopped out and got your door for you. “This way,” he murmured in English. Your lips twitched but you followed him sedately. 

This time, she’d brought you to a very nice home. Not modest. Three stories, with a good-sized car garage. 

This one was new, and idly you wondered when she’d acquired this. 

“It took you long enough,” she called in Spanish, walking down the stairs as you entered the house. 

“You didn’t invite me for too long,” you shot back, smiling. As always, she was a vision, even dressed simply in a dark top and pants. “Valeria.”

“Marigold.” Valeria stepped down onto the entryway floor, walking up to you. “You changed your hair.”

You smiled. “Every so often,” you agreed. “Can’t let people get too used to one style.”

She chuckled, lifting one hand to trace one finger over the apple of your cheek. “When are you going to come work for me, hm? We both know I can make it worth your while.” 

“Not today, Valeria.” This was an old game between the two of you, as old as her rise to power. You may have helped her along some. For the right price. Information helped win wars, after all. 

She caught your chin between her thumb and forefinger, holding you steady, searching your gaze. Then she nodded once. “Come. Lunch is ready for us.” 

You followed her, unashamedly looking around. “This is a nice place,” you hummed. 

“I’m glad you like it, since you’ll be staying here.” She looked over her shoulder at you, amused. “For however long you want.”

“You are a temptress.” 

She led you to a table outside, already set for the two of you. This part was easy - you both enjoyed eating and flirting, with nothing of real consequence being said. She always tried to pry just a little more out of you, and you always diverted and redirected. This had been the game for as long as you’d known her. 

“I do have work for you, if you’re interested.” Her gaze was heavy-lidded, sweeping over you slowly, warm and familiar.

“Mm?” You leaned back in your chair, folding your hands loosely over your tummy. 

“I need to know what the Americans are up to.” 

You scoffed a derisive laugh. “The Americans don’t know what the Americans are up to,” you grumbled, waving one hand. “I’ll need something more specific to get you any good intel.” 

She leaned forward, hands on the table, chin tipped to hold your gaze. “I need to know how distracted they are.” 

You mulled that request over slowly, carefully. You knew her business. She’d known you long enough to give you free reign. Much like Laswell, Valeria knew you gave her solid intel. “Is there a specific department?” you asked cautiously. “Or a specific distraction?” 

“I don’t want them to have so much time they begin sniffing around my operations.” 

And that, well, that made sense. Didn’t necessarily make things easy, but it made sense. “I’ll need a few days.” 

“Standard rules?”

“Of course.” 

Valeria smiled. “Well then. Since you’ll be here for a few days…” She stood and took your hand, tugging gently until you stood as well. “I should show you to your room.” Her voice dipped, low and sultry. 

“You should,” you agreed, lips curving in an inviting smile. 

Valeria tugged your hand, leading you away from the table. 

This was one reason why you kept coming back. She just knew how to treat you right. 

The fact that she could deliver mind-numbing orgasms was a definite plus, too. 

Later, after Valeria left to do some business, you set up your computer. You’d promised to get her some information, after all, and that didn’t just drop into your lap.

Not without some prompting, anyway. 

Sources appropriately prompted, you turned instead to the news. It was always good to keep up to date on what was happening - kept you from accidentally wandering into too much trouble. It also gave you time to decide where you wanted to go next, after you got Valeria her information. 

The whole world was open to you, after all. 

Your research paused for dinner, and then you went right back to it. It had been a while since you’d been to Greenland, and you wouldn’t mind a quieter couple weeks. Then again, Africa had many choices and potential for quiet as well… Decisions, decisions. 

You blinked at your phone when it started ringing. Not that many people had your number. 

“Yes?” 

“Ace.” Laswell sounded stressed. Oh this could not be good. “I need a favor.”

“I don’t do favors,” was your immediate response. Because you didn’t. Mostly. 

But Laswell pulled out the big guns. She pulled out your birth name, the one you’d left behind years ago, the one she’d scrubbed from every system. 

You went rigid, swallowing hard. “Katie Kate.” 

“I need a favor,” she repeated, softer, gentler. 

You closed your eyes. Fuck. Fuck! “What do you need?”

“I need you to find someone for me. Cartel.”

“You know I don’t do names.”

“I don’t need a name, I need a location.” She paused and then pulled out her final trump card. “He’s working with Gray.” 

You stopped. For a few moments, the world faded to nothing but a pair of gray eyes. Then you swallowed hard. “Should have led with that,” you muttered, hunching your shoulders. “Who am I finding?” 

“Carlos Torres.”

“Fine. Am I calling you back with this?”

“No. I’ll have someone meet you.”

“No, not here. I’m not planning to be anywhere helpful to you for at least a week.” 

Laswell sighed, short and sharp. “Fine. I’ll provide you with a number for a burner phone, but you won’t get me, so behave yourself.”

“One of these days, you’re going to rack up debt, and I’m going to call it in.” 

“Not today.” Laswell hung up. 

You let your phone drop to the bed, heart pounding. Twisting, you looked out the window, suddenly feeling exposed and uncertain. Valeria ran a tight ship. She wouldn’t allow unauthorized people here. Not here. It was just your paranoia, you just needed to work it out of your system. 

A nice hot shower made you feel more settled in your skin. And screaming into your pillows helped. 

Some.

By morning, you were back under control, skipping down the steps to join Valeria for breakfast. You had no idea when she’d gotten back, but she was as immaculately put together as ever, and even greeted you with a kiss to the cheek. 

“Sleep well?” Her gaze lingered on your face. 

“Oh yes, the bed is quite comfortable.” You smiled, helping yourself to food at her wave. “You really are trying to tempt me into a singular living.” Your grin showed teeth, but it was all in good fun. 

“You already know that.” Her smile was a dangerous, glittering thing, a velvet-wrapped dagger. “How long will you be staying?” She switched to Spanish, pouring a drink for you. 

You shrugged. “Likely a few more days, at least until I hear back,” you answered in kind. 

She nodded once, looking thoughtful. “Do you need to be by your computer all day?”

You blinked, surprised. “No, I’m not expecting anything urgent today. Why?”

“I want to take you riding, see more of the area.”

You waggled your eyebrows playfully. “Riding, huh?” You switched back to English to load more suggestiveness into your tone.

She swatted your arm, light, playful. A teasing reprimand, but still a reprimand. “Well, if you’d prefer to be a brat about it…”

You held your hands up. “I apologize, you know I like to tease. I would love to go with you.” 

Her smile had the distinct flavor of a woman who was used to getting her way, and was not surprised when she got it yet again. “After breakfast, then.”  

Valeria kept you out all day, showing you around. Showing you off, subtly but definitively. Though she rarely introduced you, no fewer than a dozen of her men saw you with her. 

You were a little irked by her gall. A little turned on, too, if you were honest with yourself. 

But you still had mixed feelings when you saw that your people had gotten back to you with the information on the Americans. Laswell’s information hadn’t come through yet - if you didn’t hear back in the morning, you’d have to start leaning on people. 

Valeria thanked you for the information with a wire transfer and another orgasm. She also somehow got you to promise to stick around for another two days. 

You still weren’t sure how she’d gotten you to agree to that. 

It took another day before you got a location on Carlos Torres. You waited until Valeria was out of the house again attending to business before you called the number Laswell had sent you. 

“You have the information?” 

You smiled slowly. “Well, hello again, Captain,” you purred. “What a pleasant surprise!”

He sighed, short and sharp, on the other end. “Do you have the information or not?” 

“I do.” You pouted, just a little. “You sure know how to ruin a girl’s fun, Captain.”

The silence on the other end was pointed. Very pointed. 

So you gave him the intel, including last known coordinates. 

Captain grunted once. Apparently that counted as acknowledgement.

“And, Captain? You should hurry. He won’t stay there long.” You hung up without giving him a chance to reply. Sighing, you rubbed a hand over your face. 

Sometimes you wondered if you were getting too comfortable. And sometimes you just wondered about your sanity.

[arrowflier]

👀 for an outsider pov headcannon please

Okay last one for tonight, I let this get out of hand lol. The rest will get answered eventually but I'll mix them in with my speedwrites. Speaking of, there will not be a separate speedwrite today since I did so many of these, words are starting to get hard.😂

Tami

Tami loved Ian. She really did, honest. Their first meeting had been less than ideal, sure, but Ian had stepped up as an uncle right away, even when his brother was busy being a bit of an asshole. Ian was great with Fred, and super sweet, and one of the only Gallaghers to talk to her like she was actually one of them. Hell, he even offered to help with whatever she needed, no questions asked, any time.

So yeah, Tami loved Ian. That said, if she were Mickey, she would have murdered that carrot top bastard a long time ago.

"Are you serious right now?" she asked Mickey over drinks on a Friday night. They had met up at a little bar she knew while the Gallaghers dealt with some weird family shit--Ian had tried to get Mickey involved, but he slipped out on the excuse that if Tami wasn't family, neither was he--and an hour later they were several drinks in and ignoring just how tipsy they had gotten.

"Dead serious," Mickey confirmed, slurping a bright red, alcoholic slushie through a straw. Tami had convinced him to try it, but he had picked the color.

"Okay," Tami said, taking a fortifying sip of her own boring beer. "Let me just see if I have this straight. You told Ian you loved him, and he broke up with you."

"Yup."

"And then you went to jail for defending him, and he didn''t even visit," she continued.

"That's right."

"So you broke out and took him on the run, he let you think it was all good, and then he left you alone at the Mexican border." Her voice was getting louder, but she ignored the look she was getting from the next table. It was none of their fucking business.

"Right again," Mickey answered, then waved a hand in the air to catch someone's attention. "Hey, can get another one of these..." he paused, squinted at the glass in his hand. "One of these weird fruity fuckers?"

Tami would have laughed if she wasn't still trying to catch up with Mickey's history.

"Okay, okay," she said. "I get that much. But then you came back for him?"

A nod.

"And you went to jail for him?"

Another nod.

"And then he left you at the altar, and you still took him back?!" she finished, and Mickey just shrugged.

"I mean, yeah?" he said, accepting his new drink with a silly looking grin when it came.

Tami was lost again. And she didn't just think it was the beer.

"Why the fuck did you do that?" she asked. God knows if Lip had pulled half of that shit, she would have kicked his ass and left him in a heartbeat. Less than a heartbeat. Hell, she had almost left him like five times already for things that seemed pathetically minor next to the shit Ian put Mickey through.

"Because," Mickey answered her with a confused frown and a little eyebrow wrinkle. "It's Ian."

She waited for him to say more, but he just started slurping at his girly drink again.

"Uh, so?" she finally asked, and voiced what she was thinking. "No way in hell would I give Lip that many chances." She saw Mickey gearing up to say something, and cut him off.

"And don't even say that you did shit to him, too, cause that's not what we're talking about right now."

Mickey looked at her, then looked down at his drink. He twirled his little straw through the finely crushed ice of his drink, and shrugged.

"Yeah, well. That's cause Lip ain't worth it."

Tami couldn't imagine that anyone was.

"And Ian is?" she prompted, and Mickey smiled down at the table.

"Yeah," he responded without hesitation. "Yeah, Ian is."

Then he took a long sip of his drink until all the color was drained from it, nothing but unflavored ice left in the bottom. Tami watched as he stood and headed to the bar, presumably to get another, and drained her own beer before joining him.

Maybe someday, if she was really lucky, she'd be as crazy in love as those two were.

[stellocchia]

This is part 6 of the Comprehensive Analysis of c!Tommy and c!Dream’s relationship during the Exile Arc

Part 1 -  Part 2 -  Part 3 -  Part 4 -  Part 5

Here we go again. So, just to clarify: I honestly think that for the Mexican Dream stream almost only the parts where Dream is Dream and not Mamacita are canon, but I will check those other ones out as well for anything interesting. Drista’s stream however is like as vaguely canon as possible, so I will mostly give a general outline of it more so then analizing it bit by bit.

That said, a reminder that from here on out I will be only talking about the characters unless stated otherwise and that we will be talking about sensitive topics, so keep that in mind.

First stream we will be looking at is the infamous Mexican Dream stream: Tommy Speaks to Mexican Dream in Exile

Once again Tommy wakes up drowning, again just slightly further away from the coast in the opposite direction from L’Manburg. He also immediately takes off his armour.

“Wait, no, we don’t have enough friends to afford being angry at people” (by now even Tommy himself doesn’t value much his own feelings)

“So at the end of our last Dream smp stream, uh, we died [non canonically], but it’s okay because I got some of our things-” *Dream joins the game* *distressed noises* (I’m never not gonna point out Tommy’s reactions at Dream appearing)

Dream appears and immediately digs the hole for the armour. Tommy immediately gives it up actually apologizing for not doing it even before. Also right after this Dream investigates on wether or not someone visited Tommy while he was gone and he finds out about Ranboo.

“I’ve just been trying to keep you company” “Yeah, yeah, no, it’s been pretty nice” “We’ve became better friends” “Yeah, yeah, we have” (Dream and his ‘friendship’ agenda)

This is when they meet Mexican Dream who was just outside Tommy’s Nether portal. An interesting thing I want to point out is Dream immediately moving directly in front of Tommy when he notices him (probably got used by now to assuming a defensive position).

“We’ll make this place like home man...” (MD already making everything better)

“What did you [Dream] do to him man?” “No but he is my friend now, apparently- I think. You are my-?” (immediately starts questioning things with MD presence there challenging Dream’s)

“I’m your new friend man” “Oh, do you need me to put my items in a pit for you?” (...) “This is what Dream always makes me do, is this right?” (looking once again at Dream for approval in the last bit)

“Hey, wait, so now that you’re here do I even need to follow this man?” (talking about Dream here)

“Okay, wait, how do I know that this isn’t a Dream? Because I keep having Dream’s and shit. I’m like a hallucinator” (so we can add recurrent hallucinations to his ever increasing list of symptoms)

"Even though he may be naked and homeless- are you homeless? Do you need a home?” “I’m homeless man” (And this is why MD was a problem to Dream, he was more then willing to stay with Tommy)

“Oh no that guy [a squid] has committed suicide just at the sound of it! Oh that’s... I envy him” (he is now openly suicidal)

“I don’t like Mexican Dream, Mexican Dream is weird” (sure it’s not just because he admitted to wanting to move to Logstedshire permanently there Dream?)

“Alright, Thomas, come over here, come over here” *Dream starts following as well* “NO! NO! You stay the fuck away!” (this is why we love MD)

“You know actually, he is sort of actually borderline my owner” (I hate that there was a time were both Tommy and Dream thought this)

After this Dream swaps for Mamacita, so I’m really not sure how canon things are here... there is a scene where MD comforts Tommy while he’s looking at pictures of Tubbo and then Mamacita destroys all but one of them.

“I really miss my family man” “Oh I miss my- I miss my family too” (would his family be Tubbo for Tommy?)

Dream does swap back to being Dream for the last 25 minutes. And he proceeds to immediately takes one of MD’s lives. It’s technically his second life because the first one was from a creeper exploding.

“No no shoot me not them, [the pictures of MD’s friends(?)] actually shoot them. I definitely don’t have my confidence back” (Dream immediately setting him back on his progress)

Right after the kill Tommy asks if he can bodyguard Dream in hopes of keeping him and MD from fighting so that MD would be safe. It doesn’t work. Also pretty sure that Dream canonically decapitated somebody. 

“Mexican Dream, I-I’ve had enough of you” (Dream immediately ging back to be terrifying right there)

Dream then takes MD’s third canon life. Of course, in true Dream style, he immediately ignores all the distress Tommy is in and moves on like nothing happened.

“You just killed my last friend” (I hate that he’s not even angry)

“So Dream, do I not have any friends left?” “What do you mean ‘you don’t have any friends left’? You have me!” (Dream is the only friend that Dream is willing to allow Tommy to have)

Also I want to point out how Dream keeps ignoring any and all accusations of having killed MD, despite having done so right in front of Tommy. And then he proceeds to try and convince Tommy that he died of a drug overdose (which is just yet another example of gaslighting there from Dream). He then proceeds to make Tommy burn his remains, despite Tommy opposing this quite a bit.

“I know I haven’t really delved into my health with you ever, because I know you don’t really care, but I don’t think I have really long left” (at least he is somewhat aware about Dream not caring)

“I thought maybe we could have someone move in with us today, no. No He doesn’t allow that. Which is fine! Which is fine because, you know, it’s his- his uh- his rules now”

Once again I want to point out that this truly is just a glorified kidnapping. Tommy not only is confined to a very small area and not allowed to keep many items, he also doesn’t get to have anyone move in his area. Dream doesn’t want him to have any company that isn’t him, going as far as to literally kill someone to insure it (not too different from what he was planning to do in the season 2 finale). Either way the stream ends on a very pessimistic note about Tommy not having the will to go on for much longer at this point. 

Now let’s move on to the Drista stream: TommyInnit Speaks To Dream's Sister AGAIN

As I said I’ll just give a general outline for this one since it’s honestly barely canon as is, so here we go:

Tommy doesn’t start off drowning this time. Drista arrives and starts immediately being chaotic as usual. They mess around for a while in the Nether, start building a tower (Dream at one point tries to convince Drista that it was Tommy to have killed MD), get bored and mess around some more. Also Drista gives Tommy a bedrock block and writes “Drista” out of bedrock near Logstedshire. Then Drista convinces Dream to let them go back to the main Smp for a while (though we do see Punz trying to kill him for breaking the rules before finding out Dream had given his permission). Once in Dream Smp they meet up with Quackity for a little bit.

Also, Tommy, king of always being in character, constantly asks very uncertainly: “Are you sure that I’m allowed here? This feels wrong...”

They then spawn in a bunch of dogs and wonder around in the smp. After a while Techno gets added to the call and Tubbo starts kinda following them around (though Tommy thinks he has a hallucination). I honestly don’t think any of this is canon. Anyway after a while Techno gets a bedrock block as well and he almost manages to give a stolen Pigstep to Tommy, but it gets intercepted. After a while their time is up and he has to go back by Dream’s order. 

“If you don’t see me again in this, you know, in this shape, I’m sorry. (...) Yeah, in this alive form on this server... you might see me you knoa a bit- a bit- I don’t know... maybe a bit ghostly” (foreshadowing to his death that never actually happened during the Exile Arc thankfully)

The stream ends with a promise from Dream that he’ll be there the day after.

Moving on to the last one for today, we have Quackity’s visit: Quackity Visits TommyInnit in Exile

So, Quackity decides to go visit Tommy to try (and miserably failing) to lift his mood by giving him gifts supposedly from everyone in L’Manburg (which are pictures).

“I’ve got no reason to live” (and we start off immediately in the most depressing way possible)

Also, while we’re talking about this stream I have to point out that Tommy has a lot of self-harming behaviours, mostly drowning himself and shooting himself with arrows. Which is rather worrying to say the least.

“Big Q I have very little will to live right now” (again he's very open about his suicidal thoughts by now)

“Forget about Tubbo! Listen, listen Tommy, there are so many things you can turn to when you’re depressed, alright?” “I’m not depressed... I’ve got Dream, I’ve got Dream, I’ve got Dream” “Dream?! (...) Who escorted you out of L’Manburg? Who escorted you out of L’Manburg? Who gave you 30 minutes to go to L’manburg? [In the Drista visit]” “I want Dream”

This is Quackity trying albeit clumsily, to break Tommy out of Dream’s conditioning, though by this point it was far too ingrained for anything to be effective. Also we can see Tommy asking for Dream when he is distressed, which is something that keeps happening during the Bedrock Boys Arc as well.

After a little bit they decide to build a church and a “gambling place”. Techno also joins them after a while. (Also, according to Quackity, c!Dream is canonically racist for killing MD, do with that what you will). Also why does Quackity have a flight or flirt instinct with Techno?

Tommy, sarcastically: “I’m fine, I’m okay, it’s not like I have canonical depression”. That is a fair objection in any and all conversations. 

The stream end a while later with nothing else of note. It is very funny though, so do give it a watch if you feel like it.

[bechloeislegit]

My Spy - EPILOGUE

Set fives years after Beca and Chloe [finally] got back together. Warning: Lots of fluff ahead.

I know I'm late posting this, but I just love this AU so much I wanted to keep going. I do intend to come back to it for some one-shots and such at a later date. Enjoy!

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

Beca woke to her alarm and immediately shut it off. She snuggled closer to Chloe and exhaled a sigh of contentment.

"Happy Anniversary," Beca mumbled.

"Mmmm," Chloe mumbled. "What anniversary is today?"

Beca pulled back to look at Chloe.

"You don't remember?" Beca asked. "It's been five years since you moved to LA; five years ago today since you moved in with me."

"Oh," Chloe said, kissing Beca behind her ear. "Maybe we should celebrate."

"Dinner out tonight?"

"I was thinking more along the lines of something we could do now. In bed."

Chloe kissed Beca's lips. Beca moaned and pulled away.

"I have to be in the studio in less than an hour," Beca said. "I really don't want to go in all hot and bothered. Raincheck after we get back from dinner?"

"Okay," Chloe sighed. "But I'm going to hold you to that."

"I promise," Beca said, giving Chloe a chaste kiss on the lips. "I'm going to take a quick, mostly cold shower, and get ready for work."

Chloe reached for Beca. Beca moved out of her reach and slipped out of bed, quickly rushing into their ensuite to shower.

"I love you!" Chloe called after Beca as she closed the bathroom door.

Beca poked her head out the door, smiled, and said, "I love you, too."

A few seconds later, Chloe smiled when she heard the shower start and then Beca's squeal as she stepped under what was most definitely cold water.

~~ My Spy ~~

After work, Beca came through the front door of her LA home to find Chloe sitting on the couch, talking on the phone. She set her bag by the door and made her way over to Chloe. Beca laid on her back, putting her head in Chloe's lap.

Chloe continued her conversation and started playing with Beca's hair. She slid her fingers through to lift the strands before letting them fall back down to settle around her lap.

"Beca just got home and we're going out to dinner, Aunt Peggy," Chloe said, smiling down at Beca. "I'll be sure and tell her. Okay, I'll talk to you later."

Chloe ended the call and leaned down to kiss Beca. "Aunt Peggy says Hi."

"Hi," Beca said, smiling and sitting up to thoroughly kiss Chloe. "How was your day?"

"It was quite exciting," Chloe said. "And a little bit heartbreaking."

"Oh," Beca said. "How so?"

"Well, at recess, Timmy Dexter lost a tooth on the playground," Chloe said. "We spent almost twenty minutes looking for it. We didn't find it and he was quite upset because he didn't have anything to leave for the tooth fairy. I felt so bad for him."

Beca chuckled and said, "I can't wait until we have to deal with things like the Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny, and Santa Claus."

"I'm just glad that we'll be dealing with all those things together."

"You're such a cheeseball," Beca said, smiling at Chloe. "And I love you even more for it."

"Good," Chloe said, giving Beca a quick kiss. "Because you're stuck with me for life."

"That's one life sentence I don't mind serving," Beca said. "As long as I'm serving it with you."

"Now, who's the cheeseball?" Chloe said, chuckling as she stood. "Where do you want to go for dinner?"

"I've been craving Mexican food all day," Beca said.

"Are you craving Mexican food?" Chloe asked with a sly smile. "Or is Baby Beale craving Mexican food?"

"What?" Beca asked in astonishment. "How did you know? I was going to surprise you and tell you at dinner."

"Babe," Chloe said, smiling at Beca. "I wasn't totally positive, but I had my suspicions. And you just confirmed that I was right. So, when are we due?"

"I'm only about six weeks pregnant now," Beca said. "So, we're due sometime in mid-to late-November."

"I'm so happy right now," Chloe said, as a tear ran down her face.

Beca stood and pulled Chloe to her. She wiped the tear from Chloe's cheek with her thumb.

"Our lives are truly about to change," Beca said. "For the better. I can't believe I got pregnant on the first try."

"I know," Chloe sniffled. "I can't wait to tell Aunt Peggy. She's going to be over the moon."

"I can't wait to tell the Bellas," Beca said. "We were the first to get married and now we're the second to get pregnant."

"Is everything a competition with you and the Bellas?" Chloe asked, chuckling.

"Yes, and as far as I'm concerned, I'm, um, we're winning," Beca said, kissing Chloe.

They kissed for a few minutes and Chloe pulled back.

"Do you still want to go out to eat?"

"We can just order something for delivery."

"Or, we just skip dinner for now and finish what we started this morning."

"I like the way you think."

Beca grabbed Chloe's hand and pulled her up the stairs to their bedroom. Chloe giggled the entire way.

~~ My Spy ~~

A few hours later, Beca and Chloe were sitting up in bed, eating from a tray that Chloe had put together for them.

"I almost forgot," Beca said, grabbing some grapes from the tray, and popping one in her mouth. "Amy called me today."

"Really?" Chloe said, biting into a cracker with cheese. "What did she want?"

"She's decided she's done seeing the World," Beca said, popping another grape into her mouth. "And she's planning to relocate here to LA. She wanted to know if she could stay with us while she looked for a house to buy."

"When will she be here?" Chloe asked, finishing her cracker.

"She's planning on coming back to the states in early September," Beca said. "I told her I'd have to discuss it with you first. It's a ways off so we have plenty of time before we have to give her an answer."

"Why wait?" Chloe asked with a laugh. "She's a Bella and she's family. We both know she'll be staying here. You could have just told her yes when you were talking to her."

"I know," Beca said. "But she called right after Dr. Matthews called to tell me I was pregnant. And I was too excited to say much of anything to her. I'll tell her she can stay with us, but she has to be out by the time the baby gets here. I'll tell her after we let the Bellas know I'm pregnant."

"That's a good idea," Chloe said. "How and when are we going to tell the Bellas?"

"We can tell them once I hit the three-month mark," Beca suggested. "Everyone is scattered all over and the easiest way to tell everyone at once is on a Skype or Zoom call."

"I like that idea," Chloe said, biting on her lower lip. "So, um, speaking of the baby, I wanted to talk to you about something."

"You're not sorry I'm the one carrying it are you?" Beca asked, her voice tinged with concern. "You're still okay with that, right?"

"Of course, I'm okay with it," Chloe said, turning Beca's hand to intertwine their fingers. "I promise, everything's fine. In fact, everything's perfect. I've never been happier."

"Then what do you want to talk about?"

"I was hoping that I could put in my notice at the end of this school year," Chloe said, looking down at their intertwined hands. "I really want to be a stay-at-home mom."

"I thought you liked your job," Beca said.

"I love my job," Chloe said, lifting her eyes to look at Beca. "I just love the idea of being a stay-at-home mom more."

Chloe sighed and ran her free hand through her hair. "I want to be involved in every aspect of our kid growing up. I hope that's okay."

"It's more than okay with me," Beca said, smiling at Chloe. "I don't want our kids raised by nannies. I'm actually envious of you. If you made more money as a teacher, I'd quit my job and stay at home with the baby myself."

"I'm so glad you're okay with me quitting and staying at home," Chloe squealed and threw herself onto Beca, causing Beca to fall back onto the bed with Chloe on top of her.

"I guess we're done eating," Beca said, raising her head to capture Chloe's lips in a kiss.

"Maybe you are," Chloe said against Beca's lips. "But I'm just getting started."

"Oh, okay," Beca said as Chloe moved her lips to Beca's jaw and then down her neck. "Mmmm!"

Chloe continued dropping kisses down Beca's body. After momentarily stopping to give some attention to each of Beca's breasts, Chloe kissed Beca's stomach and continued moving down, causing Beca's hips to lift off the bed when Chloe's tongue found its mark.

"Yes!" Beca cried out, moaning again as she spread her legs to give Chloe more room.

~~ My Spy ~~

A month later, Beca and Chloe were enjoying a quiet evening at home. Beca had just completed arrangements to have a Zoom call with the Bellas to tell them about Beca's pregnancy.

"We're scheduled to do a Zoom videoconference with the Bellas on Saturday," Beca said. "It's confirmed for ten in the morning to accommodate for the time difference in Mykonos for Aubrey."

"Okay," Chloe said. "I want to call Aunt Peggy and tell her today if that's okay with you?"

"Is everything okay?" Beca asked, looking at Chloe.

"What do you mean? Everything's fine."

"You act like you need my permission to do stuff," Beca said. "You know you don't need my permission to call Aunt Peggy or do anything else you want, right? I love you and trust your judgment without question."

"I'm sorry," Chloe said, wringing her hands. "I'm just really nervous about the whole pregnancy and becoming a mom thing."

"I'm nervous about all of it, too," Beca admitted, smiling softly. "But, I'm also very excited about it. We're going to be the best moms ever. Now, let's call Aunt Peggy and tell her the news, okay?"

"Okay," Chloe said, pulling out her phone. "I love you. You know that, right?"

"Of course, I know that," Beca said, pulling Chloe into a kiss. "I love you, too. Now, stop stalling and call Aunt Peggy."

"Yes, ma'am," Chloe said and placed the call.

"Chloe, dear, how are you?" Peggy's voice came through the phone. "How's Beca?"

"We're both good," Chloe said. "We have some news to tell you."

"Oh," Peggy said. "Who's pregnant? You or Beca?"

"Beca is," Chloe said. "But, uh, how, um, how could you possibly know that's what I was going to tell you? We never told you we were trying."

"I'm so happy and excited for you," Aunt Peggy said, ignoring the question. "When is Beca due? Are you going to find out the sex? Do you have names picked out?"

Chloe laughed. "Slow down," she said. "The baby is due in November and we haven't discussed finding out the sex. So, no names have been picked out either."

"I can't wait to tell your Uncle Matt," Peggy said. "I'm sure he'll be as thrilled as I am."

Beca walked to stand next to Chloe, causing her to look at Beca.

"Ask her if they want to come here for Thanksgiving," Beca whispered. "And meet the baby."

Chloe nodded and said, "Aunt Peggy, we know it's a few months off, but Beca wants to know if you guys want to come here for Thanksgiving. I mean, the baby should be here by then and it would be the perfect time for you to meet him. Or her."

"I'd love that," Peggy said. "And I don't see any reason why we couldn't, but I'll talk to your Uncle Matt and let you know for sure."

"Okay," Chloe said. "Give Uncle Matt our best. We love you."

"We love you, too," Peggy said. "Congratulations and I'll talk to you soon. Bye, Chloe."

"Bye, Aunt Peggy," Chloe said and ended the call.

"So?" Beca prompted.

"She thinks they'll be here," Chloe said. "She needs to check with Uncle Matt and she'll let us know for sure."

~~ My Spy ~~

Saturday morning found Beca and Chloe sitting in front of Beca's laptop waiting for the Bellas to join the Zoom call. Beca was chewing her thumbnail as her leg bounced up and down. Chloe reached over and gently placed a hand on Beca's leg.

"I'm sorry," Beca said. "I'm just so nervous. I know they'll be happy for us."

"It's okay, babe," Chloe said. "It will be fine."

Chloe leaned in and kissed Beca. As she started to pull back, Beca grabbed her behind the head and held her in place while she deepened the kiss. Chloe put her hands on Beca's waist and melted into the kiss.

The laptop pinged indicating people were joining the call. Beca and Chloe looked at the screen to see that several of the girls were smiling back at them.

"Oh, um, hey guys," Beca said, blushing as she gently pushed Chloe from her. "We, um, we'll wait until everyone is on before we get started, okay?"

Chloe sat back and took Beca's hand in hers.

"Okay," Jessica and Ashley said.

Emily, Flo, and Aubrey all nodded to signify their agreement.

"Hey, Pitches!" Amy yelled out from the screen.

"Glad you could join us, Amy," Beca said. "Oh, hey, Stacie. Will we get to see Bella, too?"

"Not today," Stacie said. "She's with my mom."

"That's too bad," Emily said.

CR and Lily joined the call and it looked as if everyone was connected.

"Beca, I think we're all here now," Aubrey said, getting everyone's attention. "So, what's going on?"

"Are one of you pregnant?" Stacie asked, causing Beca's head to snap over and look at her through the screen.

"There's no surprising anyone is there?" Beca huffed to Chloe.

Chloe smiled and kissed her cheek. She turned toward the screen and said, "Beca's pregnant and she's due in November."

"That's aca-awesome," Aubrey said. "Congratulations!"

"Yeah, congratulations you guys," Emily squealed.

"I knew it!" Stacie yelled.

"Maybe we should invite whoever wants to come for Thanksgiving here," Chloe leaned in and whispered in Beca's ear. "Make it a real family affair."

"Should we?"

"Yeah. We can have Thanksgiving together and they can meet the baby, too."

"Sounds like a-"

"What are you two whispering about?" Amy asked, causing all the girls to stare at Beca and Chloe through their computer screens.

"Um, we were just talking and wanted to know if any of you can or want to come here for Thanksgiving," Chloe said. "We'll supply all the food and you can all meet the baby. He or she should be here by then."

"I'd love to," CR said. "Can't wait to meet Baby Beale."

"I'll already be there," Amy said.

Emily squealed and accepted the invitation.

"I accept, too," Aubrey said. "I'll be coming back to the U.S. in October, so I can be in LA for Thanksgiving."

The rest of the Bellas accepted and they agreed to discuss it further as time got closer.

~~ My Spy ~~

Chloe's last day of teaching was bittersweet. She loved her students and had become friends with several of the teachers. The day was over and her students had given her flowers and all hugged her as they were leaving.

Chloe was looking around the room one last time, ensuring she hadn't forgotten anything, when Sandy Clark, one of the teachers, walked in carrying a bottle of champagne.

"We can't have you leaving without a little celebration," Sandy said, waving the champagne toward Chloe. "Come with me. The others are waiting in the Teacher's Lounge."

Chloe smiled and followed Sandy out the door.

"Surprise!" Everyone yelled as soon as Chloe entered the room.

Chloe gasped and placed her hand over her heart.

"You guys!" Chloe exclaimed, looking around the room at the decorations.

Not only were they giving her a going-away party, but they were also combining it with a baby shower.

"Beca!" Chloe squealed, seeing Beca standing at the back of the group.

"Hey," Beca said as Chloe pulled her into a quick kiss.

"I thought you were in the studio all day," Chloe said.

"I actually worked from home until I had to leave to come to this," Beca said, chuckling. "Eleanor over there was quite persuasive in her instance that I be here. They pulled the loud surprise on me when I walked in, too."

Chloe looked over at Eleanor and smiled.

"We can't have a baby shower without both mothers, can we?" Eleanor said.

"This is all so amazing," Chloe said.

"Here," Sandy said, handing Chloe a glass of champagne.

Chloe took the glass and looked at Beca.

"Go ahead," Beca said. "I took a Lyft so I could ride home with you. Drink up and I'll drive us both home."

"God, I love you," Chloe said, kissing Beca and then taking a sip of champagne.

"Here you go, Beca," Eleanor said, handing Beca a ginger ale. "Some bubbly for the little mama without actually drinking the bubbly."

Beca laughed and took the drink. "Thank you."

"Okay, everyone," Eleanor said. "Eat up so we can get to the presents!"

Everyone started chattering and making their plates. Chloe made a plate for her and Beca to share. Beca had made plans to take Chloe out to celebrate her last day of work and they didn't want to spoil their dinner.

Once everyone had their fill, Sandy and Eleanor gathered everyone around Beca and Chloe.

"Chloe," Sandy said, holding out a box wrapped in pink and blue bunnies. "This is from me."

Chloe took the box and handed it to Beca.

"Babe, why don't you open it?"

"Let's open it together," Beca said.

She and Chloe pulled at the paper and opened the box.

Everyone 'oohed' and 'awwed' over the onesies in the box.

"They're so small," Beca exclaimed as she held them up.

~~ My Spy ~~

Amy moved to LA but did not stay with Beca and Chloe. She found and bought a home online.

"You bought a house without seeing it first?" Beca asked as she spoke to Amy on the phone.

"I saw the pictures, Beca," Amy said. "It has everything I was looking for. And the fact that it's only two blocks from you is an added bonus."

"When do you move in?"

"At the end of September," Amy said. "I'll just be traveling until then. I've hired a decorator and will have everything already set up when I move in. I won't have to worry about any of that normal moving stuff."

Beca chuckled. "I can't wait to see it. And you. I've missed you."

"I've missed you, too. And, don't worry, I'll send you an invite to my epic housewarming party," Amy said. "Gotta go, my date's here."

"Have fun," Beca said, ending the call.

~~ My Spy ~~

Summer quickly faded into Fall and Beca's pregnancy advanced as it should. Regular checkups indicated that all was going well.

Chloe didn't have work anymore so she kept herself busy by working on the nursery. It was her pet project and she was trying to make it perfect for their soon-to-be addition to the family. Her biggest decision to date was what color to paint the walls. The couple had opted not to find out the sex of the baby; they wanted to be surprised so Chloe was looking for a neutral color.

Early one Wednesday morning in late October, Chloe was startled awake by the ringing of her phone. She heard and felt Beca stirring beside her and quickly grabbed the phone off the nightstand.

"Hello," Chloe croaked out in answering the phone.

"Chloe?"

"Yeah?"

"This is Carol Baxter," the voice said. "I'm sorry for calling so early but, I was wondering if you would be willing to come in and substitute for Sandy's class?"

"Is she okay?" Chloe asked, sitting up in bed.

"Her father passed away last night and she has to go to Wisconsin," Carol said. "She thinks she'll be gone for a week. I just need you to sub for today while I find someone to take the rest of the time she's out."

"I'll do it," Chloe said. "And I can do the whole week."

"Are you sure?" Carol asked.

"Yes, I'm sure," Chloe said, getting out of bed. "I'll be there by eight."

"Thank you, so much, Chloe," Carol said. "I certainly do appreciate it. I know the kids and teachers will love seeing you again."

"Thank you, Carol," Chloe said. "I'll see you in a few hours."

"What's going on?" Beca asked as soon as Chloe ended the call.

"Carol asked me to sub for Sandy," Chloe said. "Sandy's dad passed away and she has to go out of town for a week."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Beca mumble sleepily. "I don't have to be in the studio for a few more hours. I think I'm going to go back to bed for a while."

Chloe went to Beca's side of the bed and leaned down to kiss Beca.

"Have a good day," Chloe said. "I'll see you when you get home."

Late that day, Beca came home to find Chloe sitting on the couch with papers all around. Beca joined Chloe and moved some of the papers so she could sit down.

"What's going on here?" Beca asked, looking at one of the papers.

"Just grading some papers," Chloe said, smiling. "It was great seeing everyone today. I missed them."

"Are you rethinking your decision to quit?"

"God, no," Chloe said quickly. "I'm all in to be a stay-at-home mom. Seeing the kids today made me even more excited about our own kids. Watching them grow and go off to school. Helping with their homework. Being there for their first steps, first words, all their firsts. I don't want to miss any of that."

"I love how much you love me and our baby," Beca said, smiling.

"I do love you both," Chloe said, pulling Beca into a kiss. "Very much."

Chloe kept her arm around Beca's shoulders, and Beca snuggled into her side.

"What's for dinner?" Beca asked.

~~ My Spy ~~

October moved into November and Chloe was becoming a nervous wreck. Every time Beca so much as groaned or put her hand to her stomach, Chloe was by her side to make sure she was okay.

After about the fiftieth time in a week of this happening, Beca was becoming frustrated.

"Babe," Beca said the next time it happened. "I'm fine. You need to relax. All this checking on me is making me frustrated and anxious. That's not good for me or the baby. So, please, if you love me, you'll relax, okay?"

"I'm sorry," Chloe said, shaking out her hands. "I'm just so nervous about everything. I mean, the nursery is ready and we have all the big stuff we need. But, what about the little stuff? Do we have enough diapers for when we bring the baby home? Do we need more bottles? Can we-"

"Babe," Beca interrupted, with a gentle smile. "We're ready. I promise. We have everything we need to start out and can get whatever else we need when the need arises."

"You're right," Chloe said, taking a deep breath and letting it out. "I'll relax and let mother nature take its course."

"Thank you," Beca said.

Chloe kept her promise until Beca's due date came and went. Chloe became anxious again and Beca had enough the Saturday before Thanksgiving.

"Chloe," Beca said. "I made a list of things we need for Thanksgiving dinner. Would you mind doing the grocery shopping today? I want to make some dishes in advance so we can enjoy having everyone here and not be in the kitchen all day."

"Sure, babe," Chloe said. "Will you be okay by yourself while I'm gone?"

"Yes, Chloe," Beca said. "I'll be fine. I'll keep my phone on me and call you if anything happens, okay?"

Chloe breathed in through her nose and chewed her lip. "Okay, I'll go. But you'd better keep your phone on you and call me if you so much as feel a twinge."

Beca smiled as she leaned in to kiss Chloe. "I promise."

Chloe had been gone about an hour and was in the middle of the grocery store when her phone rang. She quickly pulled it out expecting to see Beca's name on the caller ID; instead, it was Amy's.

"Amy?" Chloe answered the call. "What-"

"Chloe, you have to get to the hospital," Amy blurted out.

"What?" Chloe asked, stopping her cart in the middle of the aisle.

"Beca's at the hospital," Amy said. "She's in labor and she's shouting for you."

"What hospital?" Chloe asked, abandoning her cart and sprinting toward the exit.

"LA Presbyterian," Amy said. "You'd better hurry."

"I'm on my way," Chloe said, unlocking the car door. "Tell her I'll be there in fifteen minutes."

"Okay," Amy said. "See you soon."

Chloe drove calmly but quickly to the hospital. She pulled into the parking lot and rushed inside to the main desk.

"I'm Chloe Beale," Chloe told the receptionist. "My wife was just brought in. She's in labor."

"One moment, ma'am," the receptionist said. "What's your wife's name?"

"Chloe!"

Chloe jerked her head around to see Amy and several of the Bellas standing a few feet away.

"Thank goodness, you're here," Emily said as she rushed over to Chloe, grabbing her arm. "Come on."

Chloe rushed off with Emily and joined the other girls.

"Are Beca and the baby okay?" Chloe asked.

"We haven't heard anything yet," Aubrey said.

"How are you all here?" Chloe asked, looking around at everyone.

"We all came early to give you guys a surprise Baby Shower," Jessica replied. "Turns out, we were the ones who were surprised."

"Yeah," Ashley said. "We went to your house and Beca answered doubled over and told us she was in labor. Everything started happening so fast."

"We thought we were going to be delivering the baby ourselves," Stacie said.

"Family of Rebeca Beale?" a voice called out, causing all the girls to turn toward the sound.

"Um, I'm her wife," Chloe said, stepping forward.

"I'm Dr. Johnson," the man said. "Congratulations, you have a son."

The girls gathered around Chloe and started chatting and oohing and awwing over the fact that Beca and Chloe had a son.

Chloe's eyes were wide as she stood there stunned. "I have a son?"

"Yes," Dr. Johnson said. "Would you like to see your wife and son?"

Chloe swallowed and nodded her head.

"Follow me," Dr. Johnson said, smiling at Chloe.

Chloe followed Dr. Johnson and entered the room where he held the door open for her.

"Chloe!" Beca cried out. "We have a son."

"I heard," Chloe said, as she rushed over to Beca's bedside.

Chloe looked down at the newborn cradled in Beca's arms. Tears started streaming down her face.

"He's beautiful," Chloe whispered in awe. "And, so tiny."

Chloe sniffled and wiped at the tears on her face.

"I can't believe I missed his birth," Chloe said.

"I'm sorry," Beca said, reaching up to cup Chloe's face. "It all happened so fast. If the Bellas hadn't shown up when they did, I might have had him on our living room floor."

Chloe chuckled as she sat on the side of the bed, her eyes never leaving the baby. "That would have been quite the story to tell."

"So," Beca said. "What are we going to name him?"

"Can we name him after my dad?" Chloe asked.

"I'd love that," Beca said, looking down at the baby. "He looks a bit like a William. Or maybe a Billy."

"Billy Beale," Chloe said, looking down as the baby stretched and yawned in Beca's arms. "I think he likes it."

Beca looked down at her son and said, "Billy Beale I'd like to introduce you to your mama." Beca then turned to look up at Chloe. "Mama, meet your son, William "Billy" Beale."

Chloe gently took the baby from Beca and bounced him lightly in her arms.

"Hello, son," Chloe whispered.

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

A/N: I know, I know, I left it open-ended because I really like this AU and I may come back to them later for some holiday one-shots.

Thanks for sticking with me to the end. This is not goodbye, it's just ta-ta for now.

[imadeoutwithmikeywayonwarpedtour]

since we’re having conversations about the problems we have with hockeyblr today, let’s talk about the mostly subtle and sometimes overt racism that bloggers/players of colour face on this side of tumblr.

will preface this by saying that these are my experiences as a non-black qpoc. if there’s anything that black bloggers would like to say for themselves, i open this post for additions.

firstly, one of the bigger problems i have is the way that white bloggers on here treat players of colour in the nhl. during the playoffs, a lot of people were recognizing matt dumba, evander kane, akim aliu (who is not in the nhl but i digress) because of their work with the hockey diversity alliance, and them speaking out about the racism they’ve faced, and also being brave enough to stand up for themselves.

now, everyone was obviously talking about this at the time, because it was a feat of activism from these players of colour. but then people began to branch out and reblog things that weren’t related to their activism or the hda. i’m speaking specifically about matt dumba here, but i noticed and uptick in his appearances on everyone’s blogs. which is great, and is not the problem i have with this.

as a filipino person like matt, it made me wonder. why weren’t people reblogging him before? is it only when we’re loud and fighting for the least amount of respect that we deserve attention? i also noticed a lack of acknowledgement of matt’s asian heritage, and even saw him being included in gifsets that were exclusively black players. it seemed as if white bloggers on here were using him as a token, and rarely ever actually looked into his background. (i will say that i know matt dumba is mixed, and even he doesn’t know his complete heritage, which, ditto).

after making matt everyone’s hockey boy of the month, he effectively disappeared from everyone’s blogs, just as the way it had been before.

another problem i have is the sometimes racially insensitive posts that will be directed at players of colour. i will say that i have nothing against these people, and i hope they have learned for the better. 

but, as an asian/hispanic person, seeing posts that are incorrectly defining someone’s asian ethnicity, posts talking about a mexican player being sent over the border. posts about that same mexican player calling him “papi,” which, in hispanic cultures, is a name that is reserved for immediate family only and is considered taboo to be not close to someone and call them that. (please i’m begging you just say daddy)

it hurts. the lack of effort that is put in to correct those biases/choices that people make, the lack of research that is put into ethnicities when making posts about an entire roster.

i know that unlearning internalized racism is an everyday step for everyone, myself included, but please, check yourself. if this post you’re making might be offensive or make someone upset, it would just be better to say nothing at all.

also, i’m not gonna expand on it too much, but the calls for physical harm to an asian player for excelling and having a bit of personality was fucking weird to me. not to bring race into everything, but dude. what. and then those same people were then praising him after everyone’s favourite white boy turned out to be a bigot. funny.

this doesn’t fit into any section really but the way that when people found out that there are like, 3+ trumpies on the blue jackets, and their immediate reaction was to be like “omg!!! save pld!!!” just because he has expressed a dislike for DT. pld is white, like it should be obvious that he will literally be fine. one of the things i think about everyday is the way that k’andre miller soon has to share a locker room with white supremacists that have used slurs and expressed their intolerance for ‘political correctness’. i am scared for him everyday. he’s already faced backlash from fans without even breaking into the league, and will most likely face it for the rest of his career, from both fans and teammates. why do white people worry about their white fave facing a little “discomfort” instead of prioritizing actual racism.

next, the way that white bloggers will praise their white faves for saying literally the bare minimum.

during playoffs, a lot of players released statements regarding black lives matter and the ongoing civil unrest that was happening during those months. (and still is).

white bloggers on this site began to say things like “king!!!” regarding any player that had released a statement. the problem with this is that, they’re literally doing what should be expected of them. they should not be praised. 

people were acting like a simple statement then completely excused their fave of being racist ever again. which, is acting as if racism is something you can just switch off. it’s an everyday process that everyone should be taking to unlearn their own racism that is ingrained.

it also seemed like people were acting like just because a player said something regarding blm, it excused them of all other types of racism. as far as i know, no nhl player has said anything about the attacks against asian people because of the pandemic, or expressed any discomfort over the literal concentration camps the u.s. has at the southern border.

just because your favourite white player has said something regarding the black lives matter movement, it doesn’t make them exempt from still being racist, especially regarding other races.

a complicated, and the biggest problem i have with hockeyblr is the performative activism and the almost too loud voices of white bloggers.

i would rather have bloggers of colour, especially black people, make no post at all, than have 10 white people have their own take on the latest racist thing that has happened. the step people should be making is to amplify voices of colour. 

i’m not saying that people shouldn’t be making their own posts to voice their own opinions, but it seems extremely in-genuine of white people to make posts talking about racism within this league when they will never experience racism themselves. it just seems like they’re trying to look more “woke” than others. a white person should not be the immediate voice that people look to.

i also find it annoying when people find out that some white boy is a conservative, and then the immediate thing people complain about is “cancel culture” which, is a whole thing in itself. it’s not cancel culture, it’s called being a responsible adult.

imagine the feelings of people of colour when they find out someone they look up to and praise, effectively believes that they are less than white people. it’s a constant disappointment that people of colour face everyday. and we ask white bloggers of the absolute bare minimum, which is to no longer support them. remember: to have a truly tolerant society, we must be intolerant of the intolerant.

and then white people will have the audacity to fight people on this. saying that it’s simply an opinion someone holds. an opinion is not liking a certain type of ice cream, not whether marginalized people deserve rights or not. or they’ll find any little evidence to defend their white fave and say ackshually!!!! you’re wrong!!! and just REFUSE to hold people accountable. you cannot claim to be an ally to people of colour and then continue to support someone whose beliefs directly contradict our identities.

this is just me saying my piece, and obviously i’m not the spokesperson for all poc on hockeyblr. but after speaking to other poc, these are some of the common issues that we tend to have.

all we ask, is to stand by us. please, continue educating yourself and undoing racist actions you find yourself doing. do not think you’re exempt.

[twinklelilstarkey]

Family Time - Walter Marshall

Pairing: Walter Marshall x Female!Reader

Words: 3k

Summary: Faye doesn’t really like Y/N, because she feels like she’s trying to steal her mother’s place in the family, and Walter has had enough.

Warnings: Some cursing. Kinda daughter hating dad’s girlfriend... (does that need to be a warning? not sure)

(A/N: This is not my gif)

Whenever Walter is working on a new case, you’re in charge of the house, since, well, somebody has to look over it when he’s occupied. He trusts you.

In other words: he believes you can keep the apartment from exploding.

You two have been dating for almost three years and your relationship with his daughter is still rough. 

You never really expected Faye to welcome you with wide open arms, since... In her eyes you’re taking her mom’s place. But you did believe that she would eventually warm up to you.

And that did not happen.

You have been familiar with the tradition of Faye coming over to spend a week  at her dad’s ever since you started dating Walter, so you’ve already got the calendar down. And you absolutely hated whenever it landed on Walter’s rough cases, seeing that it meant: being with Faye all on your own.

Today is the first day of that (kind of) week, and since Walter is too busy to go pick up his daughter, you’re in charge. 

Sophia, Walter’s ex-wife, also trusts you enough to let you pick up Faye, which is what you believe to be the only good thing about that side of the family.

You stay on your phone, leaning back on the car, while waiting for Faye to walk out of the house; and you are not surprised when you notice that she’s already 20 minutes late.

She must be pleading her mom to not have to stay with you for a whole week. 

It wouldn’t be a surprise to you.

The sound of the front door opening is heard from where you’re standing, and you lift your head to look at both Faye and Sophia.

“We’re so sorry for the delay” Sophia says right as she’s close enough to you, “We couldn’t find Faye’s favorite shirt”

Bullshit, you thought to yourself.

“It’s okay” You say with a soft smile.

As Sophia starts her usual small talk with you, Faye walks by you and opens the backseat door, jumping in without directing a word at you.

“How’s Walter?” Sophia asks and you look away from the closed door.

“I haven’t seen him that much lately” You start, making Sophia nod understandably, “But from what he says in the phone calls, he’s both tired and hungry”

Sophia smiles at your words, even giving you a little chuckle, and then looks over at the car and at her daughter, through slightly tinted glass.

“You two should go, now. I need to leave for work in a few minutes” She exclaims.

You smile at her, finishing your conversation and walk around back the car as she goes back inside her house. You open the driver’s seat door after a big deep breath, and take your seat.

“How have you been?” You ask the teenage girl, trying to sound as sweet as possible.

Silence. That’s all you got.

“Okay...” You say to yourself before turning the key on the ignition and starting the car.

During your drive to the apartment, you decided to turn on the radio, in hopes that it would eventually kill the awkward silence between the two of you, but it didn’t really work that well. You actually believe that it made it worse.

But the worst part was the whole elevator trip to the floor of the apartment. Faye looked like the most depressed kid beside you, she didn’t even check her phone once. She just stared at the doors the whole time, emotionless.

Once the door of the apartment was open, she moved right past you and settled herself on the couch, with her back towards you.

You sigh and throw your head back to stare at the ceiling, trying to regain strength to carry on with total patience. This is just the first day.

You grab her backpack from the ground and take it over to her room, walking back to the living room/kitchen once done.

“Do you want anything to eat?” You ask the girl as you stood by the island of the kitchen.

She shakes her head in response.

“Uhm… Do you want to watch a movie?”

She shakes her head, again.

You bite your lip as a way to deal with your frustration and stare at the back of her head.

This is going to be fun.

[…]

You stare at the TV and sigh in boredom. The only thing that can be heard in the whole apartment is the TV. It really feels like you were home alone.

Faye ran to her room a few hours ago and you decided to just sit down and watch something random on the TV, right after she did that.

The truth is: If Faye wasn’t in the same apartment as you, you would be laying in your very comfortable queen-sized bed, taking a nap and sleeping like a total rock. But since you didn’t want to play the nonexistent “babysitter” towards your boyfriend’s daughter, you decided to stay where she could see you if she ever needed you.

The front door of the apartment unlocks, and you almost snap your neck when trying to see if it’s Walter. 

(Even if that was highly stupid of you, since, nobody else has a key except for the two of you. But you just couldn’t believe that he was home).

As your boyfriend walks in the apartment, you get up and walk over to him right away.

“Look if it isn’t the man who has abandoned me for the past week” You tease as he looks over at you. Walter smiles and quickly pulls you into a hug as soon as you open your arms from him. He lifts you off the ground, as always, and hugs you as tightly as possible, “I’m surprised I even remembered your face”

Walter smiles at your joke and you peck his lips once, cupping his face. 

You take a good look at his tired expression while running your thumbs over his cheeks, but that was simply until you remembered about the absence of his child.

“She’s in the bedroom”

He frowns at your words, since he had assumed that she had been sitting next to you on the couch this whole time, and puts you back on the floor.

“What do you want for dinner?” You ask him before he could walk off, since you can start making you right now.

“We’ll order something in”

You walk around the small island of the kitchen as Walter walks away, and you look at him while he knocks on his daughter’s bedroom door. 

A small voice is heard over the sound of the TV and you see your boyfriend open the door slowly and walk in.

Walter steps into the dark bedroom and his eyes land right on the bed, where his daughter laid with her phone in hand (it also being the only light source in the whole room). 

She doesn’t get up to welcome him or any of the sort, so he walks around the bed and sits down beside her.

“What’s wrong?” He asks as he runs his hand down her arm, comfortably.

“Nothing” Faye answers in a whisper.

“Then why are you in a dark room all by yourself and acting all depressed?”

The joking tone flies right over Faye’s head as she looks up from her phone at her dad.

“I just don’t want to stay in the living room”

“Why?”

“Your couch is uncomfortable”

Walter snorts at his daughter’s words and she holds in her smile. His laughter will always be contagious to her.

“This isn’t because of Y/N, is it?” He asks in a lower tone and she looks away, back to her phone, not wanting to talk about you. “Did she do anything this time?”

As Faye continues to stay silent, Walter lays down next to her, making the twin sized bed look and feel rather smaller, to the point where if one moves, the other is going down. Being the ‘other’, Faye.

“Do you want me to talk to her?”

“No”

“What can I do to make you like each other, then?” He asks, the tone of his voice sounding rather frustrated.

“Nothing”

Walter clenches his jaw at the dry tone and looks down at Faye with annoyance all written over his face. It’s been three years for god’s sake, the man has to have a breaking point.

“Will you ever give her a change, Faye?”

“I already gave her one”

“When?”

“When I first met her” She answers, taking her eyes off her phone to look at her dad, who stared at her, “It’s true”

“We both know it’s not”

Faye shrugs her shoulders and looks back at it, ignoring her dad. And that was until her phone is snatched right out of her hands.

“Hey!” She says loudly as her dad sits up with the phone on his hands, “Give it back!”

“No,” He says while getting up, turning on the lights, “You’re not having it back until you walk into that kitchen, with a big smile on your face and with your good manners, and give Y/N a real chance” He orders, emphasizing the world ‘real’.

Faye stares at Walter with annoyance all written in her face, just like his, and quickly gets up.

“Fine,”

Walter nods at her while turning to the door and opening it widely, grabbing your attention all the way back in the kitchen. 

You didn’t hear a thing, except for Faye’s shouting to give something back.

“So, what do you prefer…” Walter starts loudly while walking back to the kitchen with his daughter right behind him, still in the small hallway, “Chinese food, Mexican food or pizza…?”

You two stare at the young girl and she looks at you for a quick second.

“Chinese” She answers her dad quickly, who nods and grabs his phone, probably to make the order on a app.

You two stare at the man in silence, not really knowing what to do without him starting a conversation, and he looks up when feeling the two pair of his on him.

“You guys can go watch something” He says, almost as if he was remembering you two that you were free to go whatever the heck you wanted (well, except for Faye, she’s still a minor).

You walk over to the couch and as you sat down, you notice Faye taking a seat right beside you. You look at her with shock in your eyes for almost a minute, until she speaks.

“Do you want to watch something together?” Faye asks you, making you almost gasp at her words.

“Uhm” You start before looking back at her dad, who looked right in between the two of you, “Yeah, sure. You can choose”

What type of dark magic did Walter do to Faye?

You look over at the young girl as she scrolls through her phone to find a movie on Netflix and Walter decides to take a seat beside you.

“You better chose a good movie, I don’t plan on falling asleep before dinner gets here” Walter says to Faye, teasingly, making you smile at him.

Faye rolls her eyes and passes her phone over to her dad, probably for him to check if the movie is okay and up to his non-sleeping standards.

“Yeah, that one’s fine”

(…)

You grab the last plate from the coffee table and walk over to the kitchen, ready to start washing the dishes, since Walter is mostly passed out on the couch.

“Can I help?” Faye asks from behind you.

You look over your shoulder and nod with a smile.

“Yeah, can you just put the leftovers in the fridge, please?” You ask her, not wanting to be a bigger pain in the ass by making her do something more tiring.

Faye nods and almost runs over to the coffee table in the living room, grabbing the take-out boxes, some of them weren’t even opened, considering, Walter's habit of buying more than he can eat.

As you wash the dishes in silence and Faye is done with putting everything away in the fridge, you start putting everything inside the dishwasher. 

The young girl steps in beside you and grabs the three plates from the sink, taking them over to the dishwasher, helping you a whole lot, since you’re still trying to figure out how you’re going to fit the last glass cups.

“Thank you” You tell her, when noticing what she’s doing, and she simply looks up and smiles.

“You’re welcome”

As you turn the machine on, Faye walks back to the couch and sits down next to her dad, who is still half awake. You sit down as well, on Walter’s other side, and his arm wraps around you to pull you in closer.

You lean your head on his shoulder and in the matter of seconds, Walter is asleep, laying his head on top of yours. 

You continue to stare at the TV in silence, your eyes are also starting to feel heavier and heavier by the second.

“This movie is boring” Faye whispers and you move your head slightly to look at her, and she is already looking at you, with a small smile.

“You can change to something you like” You tell her, and she shakes her head.

“We’re only in the beginning, it might get better at the end”

And with that, the two of you stared back into the TV, trying to see if Walter’s taste in movies is as good as he says, but slowly, the two of you fell asleep next to the man himself.

(…)

You wake up with a crashing sound coming from the kitchen and once you lift your head as a reflex, you notice that you’re laying in bed. 

Walter is asleep right next to you and did not moved a muscle. Judging by his change of clothes from the ones last night, you’re quick to guess that he is the reason why you’re laying in the bed in the first place.

You sit up slowly, taking Walter’s arm from around your waist and walk over to the door. As you walked out and peeked in the kitchen, you see Faye with a frying pan in her hand.

“Hey” You tell her as you close the door and walk in the kitchen, she look up at you, “What are you doing?”

“Breakfast” She answers while turning on the stove, “You and dad were still asleep, and I was hungry, so now... I’m doing pancakes”

You still need to get used to her ‘longer’ answers.

“Do you need any help?”

“Nope”

You nod at her answer and walk over to the kitchen island, taking a seat on the high stool to watch her cook.

You two stay silent as music played from Faye’s phone at low volume and you watch her cook. 

This time, the music wasn’t like the one in the car, it actually made you two feel comfortable with each other rather then awkward.

As Faye pours the first scoop of batter into the pan, you look at her and notice how she slightly frowns when concentrated.

“Where’s my dad?” She asks while putting down the bowl back on the counter.

“Still asleep”

“I didn’t wake him up?” She asks with a shocked expression and you smile at her while shaking your head. “Weird”

The girl grabs a spatula from the drawer and flips the pancake in a quick second, lowering the heat after staring for a bit.

As she puts the spatula down, she walks around the island and takes a seat next to you.

“I wanted to talk to you about something” She starts, and your mind quickly fills with the various possibilities, like: ‘what if she’s only being nice because she broke something of mine’.

“Okay…”

“I wanted to say I’m sorry for…” Oh no, “being such a bitch to you”

Your eyes widen at her words and you open your mouth to speak but she beats you to it.

“I was a bitch because I thought that you and my dad would never work out, no offence. And in the beginning, I just wanted my dad and my mom to be together again” She admits while sometimes looking down at the ground, “It was childish of me. I just… Didn’t want you to take my mom’s place”

You frown a bit at her words and give her a small comforting smile.

“That was never my intention… To make it seem as I wanted to take your mom’s place” You start and she nods, looking back at you, “And if I ever did show that, I’m sorry as well. I love your dad very much, and that comes with loving you too- Even if that means having to ignore each other for a whole week”

Faye smiles a bit at your words, and you lay your hand on her back.

“I’m really sorry” She says with a sad tone.

“Don’t worry about it too much,” You say while running your hand on her back, comfortably, “I forgive you”

Faye, without a second thought, grabs your arm and pulls you closer to her, so she can easily wrap her arms around him and pull you in a hug. Your eyes widen a bit as you were not expecting that, but slowly your arms wrapped around her as well, hugging her back.

“Why the hell does the house smell like burning?” A deep voice sounds from the hallway and Faye gasps in your arms.

You pull away quickly and she jumps out of stool, running over to the stove to flip her pancake. She groans as the side of the pancake is now black instead of the satisfying golden brown, takes it to the trash right away.

Walter walks in the kitchen as Faye closes the trash and he points his finger at her.

“Should’ve guessed that it was your doing” He says, “Who else would’ve wanted to burn my kitchen down?”

Faye rolls her eyes at her dad and he smiles at her as she walks over to him. The girl hugs his torso as to say a quick ‘good morning’ and he kisses the top of her head.

“What were you two talking about?” He asks as his daughter pulls away to restart her breakfast.

You open your mouth to answer him, but Faye is quick to beat you to it, again.

“Nothing” She says before turning around back to you and sending you a wink.

Walter frowns while looking at the two of you and Faye grabs his hand to pull him towards her, saying something about him helping her with the pancakes.

There’s no way in hell that he is knowing about her whole speech this early in the morning.

- - - - - -

Hope you guys enjoyed it.

[magiaordinaria]

In Defense of Frida Kahlo

◊please see my note on these images at the end of the post, because yes, this is a form of imitation for the sake of expressing desire to belong.

Frida Kahlo has become a difficult subject, some would argue an easy target- which to me is tragic because she was a person with a life and with struggles and today she can no longer defend herself.  I personally think she doesn’t have to. I understand her as a historical figure that shaped Mexican history and the Mexican image. Lately I found myself understanding her on a different, more personal level when in October 2020 I came across an episode of the Nerdy Latinas Podcast, who were responding to a Tweet by an Indigenous Mexican woman accusing Frida of cultural appropriation.  My interest was piqued.  

“Frida was Mexican. How is it appropriation?” I thought.  

In the episode, Chismeando About Frida Kahlo, the hosts explore Frida’s background and a bit of her social context. I listened and I recommend you do too.  I gave a few comments to one of the hosts and was later invited to share my thoughts on the episode.*  Below is bit of background and my response to the episode follows after that.     

Prologue

When I initially listened to the episode my gut reaction was to become defensive, protective of Frida, despite not having had a single artifact of hers (my stance on purchasing her work or her image is a different story).  I began to explore those feelings, and once I talked myself through this gut reaction, I realized this is actually very much worth exploring.  It’s important to take into account the complexity of the social, personal, and historical context that Frida was experiencing and a part of.  

One of the things the Nerdy Latinas brought up was the fact that Mexican schools during Frida’s childhood emphasized that the indigenous cultures of Mexico were the true cultures of Mexico.  Frida, it is well-known, is half german and half Mexican. This conflict in identity was something that I deeply related to as a Mexican woman born in the US.  

They pointed out that there were indigenous women who spoke out about Frida’s use of their clothing at the time, but were ignored. In the same episode, they talk about how indigenous women who make these clothes live off the sale of their indigenous clothing- Which makes me think,  who is allowed to buy or not buy these clothes?  It reassured me that there is more to cultural appropriation than simply wearing or using things “not intended for you”.  Does intent matter? How are we verifying a person’s, in this case Frida Kahlo’s, intent? Short answer is, we can’t really.

 Later in the episode, they ask the question, why aren’t other dark-skinned Mexican women artists spoken about?  There are many indigenous artists that were overshadowed by Frida.  An important example they bring up is Maria Izquierdo (ees-kee-ehr-doh). She was a contemporary of Frida’s and a student of Diego Rivera.  She was doing well in her time and “showing promise” according to Diego himself. But when she spoke out against Frida’s feminist group Izquierdo lost a prestigious art commission to Diego Rivera and his male artist friends.  I consider this claim of overshadowing pretty unfair, because it’s not entirely up to Frida who gets seen or not. And if we’re being perfectly honest, Diego and his friends probably jumped at the opportunity to take it for themselves.

She is still, after the paint dries, a woman in a white man’s world.  

In my response, I come from a personal perspective with a lifetime of identity crises to fuel it.  I focus in on the question of whether Frida can be accused of appropriation as well the concept of appropriation itself.  

Is it fair to say that Frida had all the cards in her hands?

Is it productive to be upset over her perceived appropriation when there is so much today that is so blatantly grossly appropriated and mocked from my culture? 

My Response:

“I definitely think it’s worth exploring Frida’s Use of clothing. I think, understandably, it brought up a lot of personal feelings because it’s something that I personally grapple with; this idea that my appearance could constitute  grounds for appropriation.

...I think when Hispanic*** Americans learn about negative criticisms of Frida Kahlo they take the criticisms personally because that’s what they and myself included..., understood it looked like to be Mexican. 

And if she’s wrong about her use fo clothing, it can’t easily be understood as an homage or as uplifting or as an act of rebellion against the whitewashing of the Mexican culture, which i think is something that is important when you live outside of Mexico.  I think hispanic people--we just want to take care that our culture and our identity doesn’t get erased. so without the clothing that Frida wore the rest of us have only what we are calling the colonizer’s version of how to present ourselves as Mexicans. 

Additionally, I didn’t really find her mixed ethnicity all that significant because since Mexico’s inception as a hispanic country most if not all non indigenous Mexicans are mixed.  

our DNA is a map of people having been invaded, transcontinental travel in Europe, and slavery, 

so i never really understood Frida as a white woman, even though her father was german. I’m 48% indigenous, the rest is North African, European--and on top of that I’m born in the US. That’s all to say that Mexican is a complex ethnicity but it’s Mexican all the same.  I do see Frida as separate from indigenous and I’m also understanding that the way a person lives the culture is important.  Personally, I feel sometimes I can’t consider myself Mexican if I’m not living the cultural practices. I find it hard to justify, for example, celebrating Day of the Dead. In contrast, I feel a responsibility to connect with those aspects of my culture in order to feel like I belong somewhere, or I know who I am, what my point of view is, and what I could do in order to impart a positive view of my culture to the Americans watching me now.  

My thoughts are maybe Frida [thought so] too.  In a way, maybe that was her intention. This episode brings up the idea of a crisis of identity for Frida and I think because she was born in a time when Europeanism** was being criticized heavily her schooling was perhaps in reaction to that.  To give you a very popular example, the poem La Calavera Garbancera° most commonly known as La Calavera Catrina was written by Jose Guadalupe Posada around when Frida was born.  That icon we have today (La Catrina) was actually a symbol of derision for Mexicans adopting European values.  And I think when you’re taught certain ideals in the wider space in which you’re meant to integrate, it’s going to create a conflict between the way you’re raised and how you would like to see yourself in order to fell like you belong.  So a personal example would be me growing up in the US.  Saying the word Mexican was like saying a dirty word. For a very long time I was convinced that I should be ashamed of saying that.  I tried more and more to become what was considered American- which was synonymous with being “correct” and for that I have been called a coconut or whitewashed by the same people who would deride me for being so Hispanic. 

Today I want to undo all of that, 

and i find myself [thinking] if I buy from indigenous craftswomen a handwoven dress to wear and to show to my wider audience that “this is Mexico, this is what indigenous women can do and it’s beautiful,” I fear I’ll face the same criticisms as Frida when I genuinely find [the dresses/clothing] lovely to wear and I only want to support the craftswomen of Mexico.  So I don’t think appropriation happens when you buy indigenous crafts directly from indigenous men and women.  As an artist myself, I would think they’d want to sell as much as they could, sharing their pride in their work.  I think appropriation is buying from American corporations that are making money off of a diluted form of culture from oppressed people, stealing those complex designs expertly executed by thousands of years of knowledge and skill.  To buy these goods from white companies, from huge manufacturers is to really whitewash culture.  And on the flip side, I think it would be way worse for me to say, 

oh no I’m not buying from indigenous people because I’m not indigenous.  

But then turn around and buy something cheap from a huge manufacturer instead.  

I think there’s room in this conversation to believe that Frida felt some kind of genuine desire and made a genuine attempt to connect to the Mexican identity she was taught in school. 

 I think she made a choice to embody what she felt was fundamentally Mexican but to what end, I honestly can’t say.  Was it to bring awareness? was it to feel like she belonged? was it a statement? And that’s the thing we just can’t be sure.  

All of this is not to say she didn’t offend people, and in the process took the light away from indigenous women.  Or that this topic isn’t worth confronting.  I was confronted with the question, though, of how much of that is or was  her fault or her intention and how much of that is the time she lived in and her society’s discrimination.  I’m glad you guys brought up her social milieu because 

it matters a lot who were and are the voices speaking of her and approving her for public consumption. 

 I think Frida’s international travels and being on the cover of Paris’s vogue at the time, and the mystique she built around herself coupled with the fact that her skin color was internationally acceptable made her the icon that she is today around the world.  That much is true, but can it also be true she made an honest attempt to honor Mexican heritage in defiance of those popular racist attitudes? I think there’s room for that. 

 I don’t think it’s entirely fair to say Frida is guilty of appropriation not really today, especially because we have much more blatant and grossly offensive forms of appropriation happening in our time.  I’m sure I don’t need to go into that if you do a simple google search of “Mexican Costume” you can actually find white people dressing up as caricatured versions of Mexicans.  

So I think a more productive conversation regarding appropriation in our world and in our culture today would be how to teach our diaspora across the globe to value handmade crafts. sure it can be more expensive, but you’re not buying a single object, you’re buying hundreds of years of knowledge and tradition.  I would even argue that homemade is preferable to buying cheap, ready made stuff from corporations that have no regard for tradition or quality and who are actually drawing attention away from indigenous communities and diluting our cultures.”

Further Musings/Conclusion

I think that we are learning a valuable lesson in what is done is done, but what do we do now?  My main concern is that there is outrage over the women that Frida Kahlo “overshadowed”,

 but the simplest solution is to stop talking about these indigenous artists within the context–in the shadow– of Frida Kahlo.  

They should be spoken about in their own right.  If the dialogue about these women doesn’t revolve around or rely on Frida and her history, it would do these women justice.  They are out there and they can exist.  The problem is, how to talk about them without drawing comparisons to Frida? Should we avoid placing them in the same context? Questions for which I personally lack the answers right now.  

What I do know is that I think we should avoid turning this into a situation where we tear down one woman- 

who in the grand scheme of things accomplished a lot- in order to raise another.  No, no mijita, as my mom would say.  Eso no se hace, that’s not something we should do.  

This feels too much like a situation in which someone like Frida becomes the target of appropriation because it’s easier than confronting really tough situations like white companies selling “ceremonial grade” chocolate.  

Let’s tackle that sometime.

Personally, as you may have been able to tell,  I understand Frida from the perspective of a person caught in the middle of two worlds.  I don’t exactly feel like I belong in my American homeland nor in my familial, ancestral home of Mexico.  I am part of a community that feels a sense of disconnection from our roots and therefore, lack meaning; we lack a true sense of self.  But the more I interact with others like me, the more I create a community for myself, the more I understand that my place is where I want to be seen.  I think it’s possible that that’s what Frida chose.  

notes

◊This set of pictures is a type of homage centered around a very conscious  imitation.  I created these images back in September 2020 about a month before I learned of the Frida Kahlo tweet or the podcast episode.  They were created in an attempt to portray a desire to belong to the culture I come from.  Everything worn is a symbolic imitation in search of identity.  In contrast to the last set of images where I wear the braid headband again.  Here it is inspired by, rather than imitation; a carrying forward of traditions (like those seen here) into a more understandable form for myself.  The evolution of the outfit is taking me one step closer to figuring out what my place is and what my voice is within the greater scope of my Mexican heritage. 

*I recorded a few thoughts in audio format, sent it off to Short Latina and that was that.  To what extent my comments were included, I’m not sure, I haven’t had the chance to listen to their follow up episode.  Perhaps I was proven completely wrong! 

**Europeanism- I know it’s not a real word, but It felt right :P

***I imagine Frida is important to a lot of Latinx, but for the purposes of this argument, I specifically mean Mexicans and Mexican-Americans because of the specific ties to cultural attire.

°It’s actually called: Remate De Calaveras Alegres y Sandungueras; Las que hoy son empolvadas Garbanceras pararan en deforme calaveras

[pftones3482]

Commission for @extrasensorious-zoroark, who asked for a Luca and Lance fic. Gotta admit, this one was a little tougher for me, just because we have less than an episode of content with Luca, but overall I think it turned out well.

Set post-Voltron, is otherwise canon compliant (sorry, couldn't think of a good excuse to keep Allura alive within the word limit). Under a cut for length.

~~

When word reached the paladins that Luka hadn’t, in fact, been lost to them like they had thought, it was a stampede to make it to the med bay, with Romelle at the head of the group.

Lance thought Romelle might have felt a bit responsible for Luka’s death – she was, after all, the last one who had spoken to her before Honerva had done…whatever it was she had done to kill her. She’d spent the majority of their time in space looking guilty, and nothing anyone said could snap her out of it.

After Allura’s death, of course, Lance had sat down with her, and they’d done nothing more than just sit silently and cling to each other.

Now, as they gathered outside the med wing in the Garrison, Lance leaned over to Shiro. “How-?”

Shiro shook his head. “No idea,” he murmured. “Doctors didn’t say what changed, just that she suddenly revived right after we left for space.”

“And they didn’t tell us?” Romelle snapped.

Shiro’s hand fell on her shoulder and squeezed. “We had to have our focus elsewhere,” he said, and Lance watched her expression relax.

The doctor appeared at the door, looking weary. “Thank you all for coming,” she said. “I’m Dr. Reynolds. Luka is stable, has been for several weeks, but she still refuses to speak to anyone. With Honerva gone, we don’t believe her at risk for relapsing and suffering as she did prior. We still think it best if familiar faces be let in.”

Her gaze turned to Romelle and then to Lance and he blinked, lifting his hands in front of his chest instantly. “She doesn’t know me, she-”

He remembered, then, the marks on his face, and his gut twisted. “N-No, I’m not-”

Romelle’s hand gripped his elbow. “Please, Lance,” she murmured, her voice cracking. “I need an ally in there. Just in case.”

He slumped, offering a weak smile. “Sure. Sure, I’ll go.”

He glanced back at his teammates as Dr. Reynolds led them inside, and they all gave him sad smiles that did nothing to quell the churning in his stomach.

When Luka laid eyes on the pair, she scowled and flung her pillow at them. Romelle and Lance both dodged easily, and the other Altean hissed at the doctor. “No. Anyone but them,” she spat.

Dr. Reynolds nodded quickly. “Of course. Another time, then.”

Despite not wanting to come inside in the first place, Lance felt his gut sink. He’d been feeling pretty useless since Allura, uncertain, and despite their history, he’d been hoping that maybe, just maybe Luka could’ve been helped. To see that she wouldn’t even try? That hurt.

He hesitated to follow Romelle out the door, setting his hand on the frame as he looked back to her and searched her stony expression. “Well. We’re here, if you need.”

She flipped him off.

~~

He went back two days later, some of Hunk’s fresh gumbo cradled in his hands, and hesitated outside her door. Lance hadn’t told anyone he was planning to come here, so if he got the steaming stew thrown back in his face, he’d have a lot of explaining to do.

Luka was reading something on a tablet when he leaned in the door, tapping his knuckles on the frame and offering her a weak smile as she looked up. “Um. Hey. I brought you some not-hospital food, if you want it?” he offered, holding up the bowl and spoon. “Fresh from my teammate Hunk.”

Luka sneered. “Oh, you mean from the people who only destroyed my home planet? The ones who now keep me imprisoned here? No thank you.”

Lance shifted on his feet. “W-Well if you decide you want it, I’ll just…”

He set it down on the dresser at the end of her bed and gave her what he knew was more of a grimace than a smile before bolting back to the hallway.

When he walked by later, the gumbo was gone and the bowl was outside waiting for pickup with the rest of her dishes.

Lance didn’t know if she’d eaten it or thrown it away, but something like hope lifted in his chest.

~~ “Dr. Reynolds said you liked reading,” Lance said, standing in the doorway of Luka’s hospital room with his arms piled high with Earth books that had survived the war. “I brought some of my favorites from…from before.”

Luka lowered her tablet and frowned. “You keep coming here. Stop.”

Lance licked his lips and set the books down, refusing to be swayed. “This one here is about the Greek gods? They were these ancient gods that people used to worship, a-and the book is about their kids. And this book is about a girl who is a necromancer – that’s like, a person who can raise the dead. And she gets sent to a group home cause people think she’s insane, but actually the whole group home is just teenagers with powers. A-And this one is-”

“Paladin,” Luka snapped, and Lance jumped in surprise. She softened, setting her tablet on her lap. “Stop. I don’t…”

She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose with her fingers. Her marks glowed faintly. “Your team…destroyed my home. It doesn’t matter how kind you act towards me, you will always be the people who killed my family. Just…stop. Please.”

Lance winced, thumbing the cover of The Hunger Games absentmindedly. “Luka, I’m sorry. We didn’t do that, though. We never hurt your home. Honerva brainwashed you to-”

The tablet shattered against the wall next to his face with a sickening sound and Lance jolted away, the book smacking the floor next to the broken glass. Luka’s cheeks were bright red and her eyes were filled with tears, the sight of which made Lance's chest ache. “Don’t you ever speak her name, you little-”

Lance threw his hands up, backpedaling out of the room before she could say more. His heart was beating fast, too fast, too hard, and he was back to their paladin wing by the time he realized he was crying too.

~~

Despite Dr. Reynolds advising against it, Lance kept bringing her food. Kept bringing her books, especially when he noticed the slightly dog-eared pages of the ones she claimed to have never touched. He never spoke to her, just dropped off Hunk’s latest cooking endeavor and a new set of books, and then took the read ones back to the library.

His teammates noticed, of course they did, and eventually Lance found Keith at his side, pulling down books at the library and handing them over silently, Pidge knocking on his door late at night with a novel she’d just finished in her hands, Hunk approaching him with more Altean themed dishes. He appreciated the efforts more than they could ever know, more than he could tell them.

Luka was lost, just like he was. She’d lost so much, in such a short span of time, and Lance understood that pain. He just wanted her to realize that there were others in the Garrison who understood what she was feeling. Needed her to realize it.

He’d be damned if he let her spend her whole life locked up here. Not after getting it back.

~~

“Your friend is a good cook,” Luka said as Lance set down the Mexican food Hunk had made that day. He blinked, not having expected her to talk, and looked up. Luka offered him what could only be called a grimace. “He um…knows his way around the kitchen. The Fineom he made the other day…that was an Altean dish.”

Lance nodded, turning to face her. “Yeah. Coran showed him how.”

She pursed her lips. “Coran is…the orange haired Altean, yes?”

“Yes,” Lance confirmed. “Hunk wanted to broaden his cooking horizons, and Coran knows some of the oldest recipes. He’s awful in the kitchen though,” he said with a chuckle.

Luka’s lips twitched in what look suspiciously like a smile, and she looked down at the book on her lap – To Kill a Mockingbird. She’d long since stopped hiding that she was reading the books Lance was bringing her. “Your world is so young,” she murmured, which was a shift in topic Lance wasn’t expecting. “You have dealt with so much that Alteans had forgotten ever happened on our world.”

Lance looked back to the book and hummed. “Yeah. We’ve come a long way. Got a long way to go. Cleaning up after the war is helping with that, shockingly,” he laughed. “Humans were pretty blind to everything outside our solar system – I think finally being able to interact with other planets made us realize how stupid and petty we all were.”

“Pettiness and stupidity occur no matter how old the planet,” Luka said, and her tone was bitter.

When she looked up, her eyes searched Lance’s with a depth he couldn’t fathom. His mouth went dry, and she shut the book. “May I…join you for lunch today? In the canteen? W-With you and your friends? I think…”

She put the book down and clasped her hands together. “I think I’m tired. Of eating alone and being stupid.”

Lance felt his face relax into a smile, and he held out an arm for her to cling to. “You were never stupid. But you’re welcome to join us – I and my teammates would really enjoy that.”

She reached out with a tentative smile and took his elbow.

[prorevenge]

Screw the department to force us to re-hire you? I don't think so.

Disclaimer: Although my part in this revenge was kinda small, it was the nail in the coffin for the douchebag. Also the story is kinda long for the sake of context. Also English is not my mother language and after reading some stories I might as well share even just for the sake of it.

I was hired in a smartphone manufacturing plant as a mechanical engineer, this was my first job as an engineer so I was kind of excited... until I met a technician, we'll call him Z-man. Z-man was a technician that was very angry that they "hired a bloody engineer instead of paying him more". I want to make clear that the more I knew him, I found out that not only he was not only very lazy, but he had only two tricks that kept him here: He had one of the few laptops with the files to program the assembly robots and knows how to speak English well. Addressing both points, he did not know how to program really, just to change some parameters.

Also, we are in Mexico, and there are different levels of English among technicians and engineers, and he obviously had the upper hand on most when speaking English, but he was downright terrible at writing in English and Spanish. Most people struggled with his fluidity of speaking English, even against other Engineers and educated people (he was deported from the US), he used it to intimidate other technicians who weren't fluent in English and behave like their supervisor (spoiler alert: he wasn't). He soon found out however that he couldn't do the same with me because not only I was as fluent as him (if having a more "mexicanized" accent), but also I knew how to write better than him (not joking, he made awful mistakes in any language).

He was manipulative and lazy, but I could not do much about him because I was not his supervisor, even if I was above his rank and in the same department. Also his direct supervisor was not allowed to fire him. There was even a legend about the previous manager firing him before the manager quit, "mysteriously" all the data from the robots disappeared and Z-man had a copy by "coincidence" and was re-hired by the new manager. Even the previous manager told the new one he was making a "big mistake".

Another thing I would like to add is that I'm not making justice on how much of a douche he was, he would call other departments to fix problems that were our own department issues, making enemies with these people.

Anyway, two years after dealing with this asshole, but not directly, his direct supervisor quit to move to another company, and by the same time he left, I put my two weeks notice for a better paying job. My direct manager said "hey WorldBlackened, could you please be the supervisor of both teams for the next two weeks?" I said "sure" and hauled ass. While my department was well behaved and needed little to no supervision (no joke, there would be times they even would pressure me because I taught them most technical stuff to make them independent), the department Z-man was in was in complete anarchy, but ironically with Z-man at the top, sending "weaklings" to do his job. I even told him he should leave the lab if he wasn't writing a report, complaining while complying (he spent too much time in there watching youtube and delegating his own tasks).

Weirdly enough, my boss was tired of him and told Z-man to get a job in two weeks. he panicked and went to the department he made enemies with to plead them to hire him, they told him to do a test and submit the CV. This is where we found out how much of a fraud he was: He made a CV with not only tons of grammar mistakes, but also he claimed he graduated from the University of Florida as an engineer, a HUGE lie that was easily testable. Also the test was leaked and in very simple engineering questions that probably middle schoolers could solve half of it, he failed with a 0.3%, not a 30%, A 0.3%!!!

The "enemy" department still told our own "yeah, we're going to hire him... don't worry about it". Little did we know it was a set up for Z-man. They exploited him to do any and every job, ironically even some that were related to our own department! He was exhausted, this was their way to exploit him to force him to quit.

Now this is a part where I cannot prove anything, but the situation was pretty obvious: One of our machines stopped working, I was the only on-site engineer left at this point and the technicians were struggling to make it work. Since most of their experience was with mechanical issues they were limited on what they could do. We saw from a window Z-man laughing at the technicians not being able to make the machine work. Desperate, the technicians asked for my help.

Little did they know, I was a mechatronics engineer, meaning I had some electronics background so I ask them to ask the electric engineering department for a multimeter for basic checks since they tested all of the mechanical issues and most of the electronics were not only sealed, but also the machine was not the property of the company, so only basic repairs and diagnostics could be done. That's where I found out a presence inductive sensor was not "working", I will not go into a lot of detail, but these are very basic with most of the signal handled by a basic bipolar junction transistor, of which there are two types: NPN and PNP. Today I cannot remember which type was which in this case, but for the sake of the story let's say the non-working machine had a PNP sensor, I asked them to check another machine that was working to see what label the sensor had and sure enough, it was a NPN sensor. We swapped it and it worked perfectly, just as we were testing it, Z-man walk by the window to see the machine working, his face was of panic and sadness. That's when I knew that's was his last ditch effort to return to the department where he reigned with fear ended. It seems that he was going to extort the department into rehire him once again by sabotaging the machine. Just in case, I did a crash course training for the technicians to do basic electronic diagnostics so they could handle the situation better.

That friday was my last day, two weeks after, I was contacted by a technician that I still am friends with after so many years:"hey! dude!!! Z-man resigned! He couldn't handle any more!""What? Did he had something wrong with him?!""Nah! he just found out what working really meant."

I can't feel pity for him. He tried to make a living hell of his colleagues and my technicians. I did my best not only to protect them but to make a stand against him and I would like to believe it worked.

It has been one of the highlights of my professional life, even if I cannot add it to my CV.

(source) story by (/u/WorldBlackened)

[hollenka99]

Introductions

Summary: Ghostbur arrives in the Void and meets the half of Alivebur that never returned to the Overworld. It is not always plain sailing. Chapter 1 of Unequal Halves.

Warnings: Implied/referenced self harm, derealisation(?), unreality, death, smoking, alcoholism mention

There is the low hubbub of quiet conversation in the air. All around him is rubble and he can't quite recall how L'Manburg came to look like this. If he asked Phil, his father would likely explain. Something bad must have happened if he can't remember. So... maybe it was for the best that his mind goes blank whenever he thinks about it. It was probably just the result of Alivebur blowing the country up anyway, he didn't get a great vantage point before he died so the theory is feasible. Ghostbur must be misremembering how L'Manberg looked before- Huh, no it got restored at some point, he knows that. Not Alivebur's doing then. Phil would know. Phil knows a lot of things, including how to potentially bring back Alivebur. Speaking of Phil, his father was stood next to Eret, both of them lingering by the little recreation set. Ghostbur isn't paying much attention but his best guess is that the topic revolves around their third resurrection attempt today, the reason they've all gathered here once more. He wonders whether the others like Tommy, Fundy and Tubbo will join them. He wouldn't mind leaving for a few minutes to make absolutely sure he's said his goodbyes to them and others. That said, he has had nearly an entire week between the last attempt and today to do that. Not to mention the few days prior to that after he and Phil had organised the first round of re-enactments. Perhaps if this works out, he could influence Alivebur somehow and say goodbye posthumously. "Well, if we're going to do it, better sooner rather than later. Unless we're waiting for the exact time of day he died." "No, let's do it now. I've got the totem and sword, we're all here... there's no point in waiting for the stars to align." "And if it goes like the last two times?" "Then we deal with it. I'll take the blame for wanting to use our third and final chance." There is a pause and in the corner of his eye, he can sense Phil looking his way. "Ghostbur?" "Hi, Phil." He floats over. "Is it time to try again? I've been going over my lines so nothing can go wrong." "I'm sure you have, mate." Phil takes his arm so it is outstretched with an open palm. Into his awaiting hand, a small figurine is placed. It resembles a villager with tiny wings poking to the sides and eyes made of emerald. He believes the closest he's come into contact with one of these totems is that time some citizens of L'Manburg locked Techno in a cage as a prank. Was that thing he saw Techno use a totem? He can't recall correctly, he's not even sure he was fully paying attention since he was watching Friend sniff around at the time, but the light show had been very pretty. "This is a totem of undying. It's going to help us with resurrecting you. Do not drop it at any point. Hold it as tight as you can, got that mate? You holding on to that totem is more important than any lines you might have rehearsed." He playfully tosses it between his hands. "Okay." "Ghostbur." Phil snatches the item from mid-air. Ghostbur catches a glimpse of his father's scornful expression and instinctively averts his eyes. "This is serious. Do you understand how important it is for you to hold this totem or not?" "I do, Phil. Sorry." The item is returned to him. Like he's been instructed to do, he grips it tightly and refuses to let his hold on it weaken. Their little dramatisation goes well. He says the crucial line, the button gets pressed and even more impressively, Ghostbur doesn't flinch in the slightest when the sword meets his semi-corporeal being. This is the third time he's properly died as himself and the sixth since Alivebur's birth. He's sure that if there's any deity in charge of death, they'll be going 'oh it's you again' in a second. ---- It's an odd thing to see your doppelganger in front of you. Wilbur is certainly not a twin and he's never met anyone he's shared a particularly strong resemblance to either. Even during the genetic mishmash that created him, both sides of his family tree had won their battles yet neither claimed true victory over the other to represent themselves more heavily within him. So sure, there were traits you could see he'd inherited from his mother but it wasn't as if he looked like her. However, he was yet to meet someone whose similarity in appearance took him by surprise. The first time had been a shock. He'd been tolerating Schlatt's company with Mexican Dream making the experience a little easier to endure. The Wilbur duplicate had randomly appeared while the three of them had been sitting around, wasting time at a table. The guy is only there for a matter of seconds but it's enough to register his appearance. There's the matching dull grey skin and the hair that's darkened with death. Wilbur's vaguely aware he used to own a sunflower yellow jumper like that in life. It's certainly not the chequered top he's wearing. It happens again shortly after. Wilbur Two doesn't stay long but he appears at the exact spot where Schlatt was sitting. A flimsy connection seems to form, strong enough for the ex-emperor to speak through the ghost and have an extremely blurred view through his eyes. Wilbur sits there as his political rival talks bullocks about jacking off, protein powder and cigarettes. Wilbur would tell him to cut it out if he had cared enough about his counterpart being used like that. All he says when Schlatt seems present within himself once more is impatient prompting to continue their game. They'd anticipated another visit but his clone hasn't shown up since. By now it's been... months maybe? It was hard to tell with the only natural variables when it came to the passage of time being whether it was day or night, sunny or raining. He's been stuck in what he believes is the transition period between spring and summer ever since he got here. Which is absolutely ridiculous given that he has some creative control of this place. Regardless, he's honestly half forgotten about the incident when they truly reunite. The clone sticks out in his bright jumper. It's one of the days Wilbur's dragged himself away from whatever tree roots he's picked to curl up besides. Upon spotting the other Wilbur, he follows from a distance. He ascends a nearby tree. He swears he's been here before, amongst the highest branches to observe someone who didn't know he was there. It's the kind of deja vu he hates, the one with not even the slightest hint of why he might feel that way. Well, maybe one reason but he'd rather not dwell on that. Listen, he tells himself after travelling through the treetops, he's not going to be whole until the two of them interact so he'd better just get on with it. Well, here goes nothing. He pushes off and hops down with a thump. ---- It's peaceful here. Daisies are dotted around, as are oak trees. Despite not knowing where exactly he is, he appreciates how at ease the occasional sounds of wildlife or the leaves of trees rustling in the wind make him. Well, at least for a while, that is. He swears it's just birds. Honestly, what else would it be if not birds? He's being silly. Although, maybe he should escape from any potential creature's line of sight. A part of him he can't reach urges him to not seek out any dirt walls, to head in the opposite direction of them in fact. He's pretty sure he doesn't have anything to protect here other than himself but the instinct to fool potential pursuers directs his movements. A weighty object impacts the ground behind him and he abandons his efforts. Ghostbur risks peeking over his shoulder. And that is how he finds himself face to face with the man who'd been following his movements. "Well, took you long enough." The stranger was certainly not there a moment ago. The fact they are his mirror image is naturally the most striking detail to notice. Although, he will say Alivebur doesn't look too well. His beanie helps with hiding the full extent of his hair's dishevelment despite said hair potentially being able to somewhat distract onlookers from noticing how permanently exhausted his face was. It doesn't matter to Ghostbur. Regardless of the disapproving crossed arms he is met with, he politely introduces himself. "Hi, I don't think we've met before. My name is Ghostbur! What's yours?" "You know our name." He's rifling through his pockets, seemingly unconcerned by the momentous occasion. "Oh, you're Alivebur then." "Ali-" The other Wilbur's head whips up to glare at him. "Do I look alive to you?! We are both the same person, a person who is very much dead." "Deadbur then." "Wilbur is fine. It's our name so I don't see why you can't use it." "It doesn't matter anyway." Wilbur abandons his quest to locate whatever he was try to find. Instead, he sticks out his hand, offering for it to be shaken. "Since you haven't disappeared 2 seconds after showing up this time, I think it's high time we wrap this little charade up, don't you? My best guess is we need skin contact or something along those lines." "Charade?" The hand's altitude falters slightly, almost as if the disgruntled sigh it was paired with had caused it. "Us being apart. I'm sure you've had your fun but it's time we fused back." He should take Wilbur's hand. He really should. This is what Phil, Eret and the others were working towards. People wanted Alivebur back as it was. So that meant he had to go. Think of all that time and effort to prepare everything for something he suggested they do in the first place, wasted by cold feet. Was he the first one to bring up resurrection? He honestly has no clue. There isn't a guarantee that this will work anyway. Same as... something he's sure has slipped his mind. Oh wait no, the button! He hadn't been sure about whether that would be successful either. But it had been. So this would likely be too, right? Except, he doesn't want to. He's not ready to give up the feeling of sunshine as he strolls around, the aroma of ingredients as he brews potions, the ability to chat with his friends while checking in on them or any of the other things he's enjoyed while himself. It was him who helped make the lanterns that once floated above New L'Manburg, him who attempted to collect enough books to start a history-preserving library and it was him who tried to build Tommy a nice holiday home to cheer his brother up during their time away from their nation. He knows he told Phil he was willing to relinquish his existence to return Alivebur to everybody but... maybe he didn't entirely mean it in his heart. They'll never be enough time, regardless how much the universe may wish to grant him, yet this doesn't feel like it's close to enough. "...No." "No?" "I don't want to go back yet. I..." He isn't too keen on that scowl. Perhaps if he makes up an excuse, things won't be so tense. "I just got here so why would I leave before I um, explored?" Shoulders loosen and Wilbur is back to absentmindedly rummaging through his pockets. "Guess I won't force you. And well, if you're going to be here for the indefinite future, I can give you a tour of this place." "That would be really helpful. Thank you." He breaks into a grateful smile. "Okay so to the north is grass and trees, to the west is grass and trees, same to the south. Oh but the east is actually quite exciting. You'll find trees and grass there." "I... see. Sounds great." Keep smiling, no need to ruin any potential future rapport so early. "I can't wait to look around." "Ghostbur, was it?" "Uh huh!" "Guess I'll be seeing you around." Having finally found his cigarette, the one native to these lands waves him off, the soon-to-be lit stick inbetween his fingers. He begins to stroll off into the cover of forest. He's sure he's being silly but Ghostbur could have sworn the quantity of trees gains density as it conceals the other man. Still, Ghostbur has seemingly been left completely to his own devices so he comes to the decision he will spend the rest of the day exploring. It can't hurt to get a feel for his surroundings. Honestly, how monotonously repetitive could this world really be? --- This is fine. All this is a setback but not one they can't overcome. He'd meant it when he said he wouldn't force Ghostbur to do anything. This was all a waiting game, to be honest. He could win it with the mouth that had long ago rallied people to a cause. He once believed in the phrase 'words over weapons' and how nobody in L'Manburg should wear armour because they shouldn't need that level of protection on a daily basis. The reality of tyrannical violence had proved him wrong. However, it was a negotiation that ultimately won them the war, albeit not one he was part of. He still likes to think Tommy's success that day was potentially due in part to Wilbur rubbing off on his right hand man. So in the pursuit of victory, Wilbur vows to stay civil where possible. --- As Ghostbur wanders, he comes to realise how true Wilbur's summary had been. The longer he explores, the longer the green persists. This world truly seems to be comprised of forests and open fields. It's his third day of checking what each path may offer when he finds himself in the midst of trees. However, the woods here were familiar. All around him was birch bark. They're scattered about and nothing about them indicates a natural path that can be made. Yet, as Ghostbur walks, he seems to know instinctively how to navigate the area and the way in which he should weave through the trees. It surprises him to eventually discover a stream flowing by these woods. Yet, at the same time, he feels like he should have been expecting to find it. Why does this place feel familiar? Oh. This was where Alivebur met Tommy, wasn't it? He could almost picture it. He had been wandering around the area surrounding their latest base. At least this part of the world tended to have fairly warm Aprils. Even better after the two months Phil had made them spend in a tundra during winter. It was completely nonsensical and Wilbur had made sure Phil knew his thoughts on the matter beyond any doubt. But they'd evaded any of nature's potential attempts to make them hypothermic long enough to get through it. Now all Wilbur needed to focus on was enjoying the not-yet-scorching sunshine while Phil was... off collecting resources, he believes. He's sure he's slightly lost. The general direction of their temporary base, that was no problem to discern but the actual way to reach his destination? Who on earth knew. It was just birch tree after dumb birch tree. There weren't any of those markers that he'd been taught about either so it was like he was destined to get lost. But then, a break in the tree line? A stream, actually! He's sure Phil has the essentials like water down already but it wouldn't hurt to gather a bucketful more. Phil did lend him a chest for a reason, after all. It's not the cleanest nor clearest body of water he's ever seen. Who really cares when there's ways of purifying it. It does seem to go on for a great distance, further than Wilbur's eyes can tell. The stream itself isn't particularly wide. He reckons he could easily leap over from one side to the other. On the opposite side of the bank, there's a hole that seems to have been hollowed out by hand amongst all the mud. Rather bizarrely, there's also a random child lingering there. Wilbur was hardly an expert on determining someone's age, especially when it came to younger children. However, he'd soon know with hindsight that the little boy in front of him had been roughly 4 years old at that moment. Blond hair messy to the point it might be easier to shave it all off than attempt brushing it, clothes tattered and dirt visible in several spots of his skin, it was evident from this kid (regardless of their isolated surroundings) wasn't meant to be here. "Hey, are you lost?" "No. Go away." A thin branch makes an attempt at threatening him. "Are you planning to hit me with those sticks?" The little boy glances back at the pile nearby. "They're my Scary Ouchers." "Scary Ouchers. Uh-huh." He forces himself not to laugh. This kid must have undoubtedly been through a lot if he's out here on his own seemingly long term. "And am I scary?" "Maybe." "What if I tell you my name, will that help me be less scary?" "Dunno." "Well, I'm Wilbur. And I promise I'm not here to hurt you." The kid seems to shrink within himself slightly as he weighs whether this 11 year old stranger is worth trusting. "Tommy." "Tommy? Okay. Hi, Tommy. Do you want me to take you home?" "I have a home." "Then let me bring you back there. I'm sure your Mummy and Daddy are worried about you." "Got a home." He repeats, banging the stick in his hand against the earth. "Tommy," Wilbur sighs. "You get that this isn't a good home, right? Come on, I can take you to my camp. Me and my dad will help you out." Tommy's confliction persists until he tentatively raises a hand, all fingers folded inwards except for the smallest one. Wilbur giggles as understanding dawns. One pinky encompasses a much smaller one. "I promise I won't let anything happen to you, Tommy." "You sure?" "Just pinky promised, didn't I?" Tommy considers this then nods with all the solemnness that only a child his age could treat such a practise with. They gather up all of the so called 'Scary Ouchers', god Phil will probably get a kick out of hearing the story tonight, and dump them in the chest. With Tommy tasked with guarding their wares upon the shoddy wagon Wilbur had constructed himself ages ago, the older boy guides them back to camp. Phil is understandably confused when he sees another child by the tents. He quickly resigns himself to their new reality. The conclusion that there are no parents to speak of, at least not anymore, is kind of obvious. Any memory of them will be stolen by time and the inability of a developing mind to store any event for potentially lifelong recollection. It's fine though. The four year old has a new family now, one that will love him for years to come. And after they return home to the little house situated in a valley? Well, Wilbur's little brother only gains volume when he speaks and far too much energy the more comfortable he becomes with his new life. In response to this memory, he longs to have Tommy here, to be the good Alivebur who can be trusted to be on better terms with his little brother. The two of them used to be really close, despite how often they drove each other up the wall. But Ghostbur had seen how Tommy didn't seem too fond of Alivebur anymore. There was also the fact Alivebur had become bad at some point down the line, driving Tommy as well as others away. Because nobody is born bad and Ghostbur struggles to reason that an 11 year old boy who genuinely wished to help a homeless kid approximately a third of his age was bad too. Here, in this secluded area full of birch trees with flowing water as part of its soundtrack, Ghostbur imagines a teenager obnoxiously laying across his lap in the gentlest of ways. Tommy calls him a bitch through chuckles and playfully chastises him for being 'all sappy and shit'. It's reminiscent of moments that truly did come to pass once upon a time. His little brother once made him a daisy chain while in this very position but unfortunately, this was back when Fundy was still tiny and all it took was little hands being allowed to inspect the item before the stemmed links broke as a result of tears. It had still ended well, the remnants were sprinkled in Fundy's then-wispy hair while the baby's giggles joined the laughter of his father and uncle. God he misses Tommy. He hopes that one day, if- when he and Wilbur manage to reform into Alivebur, things will improve and they can have that again. --- By now, he knows not to expect Wilbur to look his way. It's okay, he's used to it. People would talk to him then struggle to continue fully politely hiding their desire for him to leave them to their own affairs. At least Wilbur is more willing to be upfront with it, he supposes. Wilbur has things he wants to do and so must Ghostbur. When the rain descended upon them yesterday, their conversation resulted in them clashing. Wilbur can come out with a spiteful anger without much provocation. It usually lies restrained on the surface but Ghostbur dreads when it is fully unleashed on him. For the most part, there is an understanding that for whatever reason, Ghostbur is not inclined to view him fondly. He wonders if his rejection of the merging request has anything to do with Wilbur's negative bias. Perhaps it is best that Wilbur keeps his distance. He doesn't want to believe that is the case though. It is for this very reason that Wilbur approaching him with an friendly offer takes him by surprise. "I'm going to visit Schlatt and Mexican Dream. Want to come? I think it would be interesting to see how you'd affect our dynamic. Plus, an even number of players means we could do teams." "Of course." A grin bursts onto his face. He follows Wilbur's lead as they traverse the path. He's getting used to the scenery but when he notices a mushroom his eyes had previously missed when passing by, he knows he's far from done yet. There is no time for admiration right now and he's fully aware Wilbur will outwardly make known his frustration otherwise. When they reach their destination, Wilbur tears a section of the bark off from a spruce tree. Instead of revealing more inner layers, a fully lit pathway stretches in front of them. "Well, go on. It's not like I can hold a rip in our reality open forever." "Oh!" He slips past obediently, watching Wilbur join him immediately afterwards. "You must be quite strong then if you do this regularly." "Sure. Became a real bodybuilder out here." The deadpan causes Ghostbur's attention to flick momentarily to the black sleeves that certainly aren't filled, least of all by muscles. The corridor practically belongs in an aquarium. The arching walls are made of glass, allowing for full view of all the dolphins, turtles and large variety of fish on display. The pathway itself is unusually wide but since they were heading to meet with Wilbur's friends, he can only assume they liked spending time here and therefore needed the space. Following each pair of glass panels were strips of wood upon which torches were hung. It created a lovely ambiance along with the shadows from the waves outside. To be fair, his only complaint is the temperature. It's freezing, nearly unbearably so. Perhaps they are in the sea by a tundra, sheets of ice floating above them on the surface. That would seem like a plausible answer. Ghostbur could spend a good long while here if he found a warmer outfit. "It's very pretty." "Yeah. Just wish I didn't keep having to see it for the first time each week." He wants to harness the inquisitiveness of a toddler in order to learn how exactly Wilbur would ever be able to forget a sight like this. But something tells him it's not the time nor place. Maybe the view out of the windows shifted with each visit. That seems like a decent explanation. So instead he comes out with "I like the lighting too." "Ghostbur," He momentarily glances back over his shoulder. "You can't expect me to create a dark single-file pathway. There's no steps to a dead end either, see." It's muttered with such quiet sincerity that Ghostbur questions what happened to the Wilbur who scorned him and carried an air of resentment towards everything. He wishes he had some blue to offer him right now. Whatever Wilbur's issue with dark and narrow corridors was, Ghostbur can tell it's awful, too awful for him to ever understand. As they make their way between areas, Wilbur debriefs him on what to expect. It nothing too elaborate, simply a few rounds of card games. Until they get too bored or fed up with each other. They mostly stuck to solitaire and poker if he's going to be honest. Sometimes they'd pull out board games for the sake of variety. The three of them had promised Monopoly was for when they wanted to watch the world burn which hadn't happened yet but there'd been threats to manifest a game the next time they all met up. First there was Schlatt. When Ghostbur completely blanks at the name, it is begrudgingly explained to him that this was the guy who succeeded Alivebur as president. No effort is made to hide the fact Wilbur does not view Schlatt's continued presence in his post-mortal existence in a positive light. He even admits to the game he played whereby he attempted to guess what the J in JSchlatt stood for. It did nobody any good but it served its purpose of annoying Schlatt quite well. The ex-president was a poker kind of guy which also caused clashes between them. Ghostbur is told to expect alcoholic drinks being available, especially the stronger varieties. The man's fatal heart attack hadn't been helped by his drinking habits so honestly, it seemed pretty much on brand. Either way, the less Ghostbur allowed himself to do with Schlatt, the better in Wilbur's opinion. The other member of the group was Mexican Dream. Ghostbur remembered Quackity, right? Well, Mexican Dream was his cousin. He'd been generous enough to allow Wilbur the opportunity to learn Spanish as a way to pass time. He shrugs when he says it's something to get up for. He wasn't the best student because he frequently missed scheduled meet-ups by accident or simply let practising what he'd learned when he did show up slip his mind. Regardless, Mexican Dream was an alright guy who tended to hang around Schlatt and Wilbur more for the sake of company half the time. You just had to watch out for when he began going on about his love life. Ghostbur's new, Wilbur warns, so as fresh ears he'd be a prime target for the laments regarding Mamacita. The other half of Alivebur wishes him luck if that becomes the case. Oh and before he forgets, don't ask about his death. Touchy subject apparently. The civilities go well. Given the warmth (or lack thereof) he receives, Ghostbur would say Wilbur's assessments of temperament weren't too far off. Ghostbur sticks by Mexican Dream's side throughout their games, chatting as they attempted to ignore the tension ever brewing between the former political leaders of L'Manburg while they played. Wilbur does not take long to lose his temper at Schlatt. "You can't put a joker directly under a king. Also they're both spades so not only are they in the wrong position of the sequence, they're the wrong colour and suit for that move to be legal." "You know, Wilbur, this is why I always say we should start with poker." "Oh you and your poker. If you love poker so much then why don't you make it your vice president so it can leave you the minute you piss it off one too many times." "You don't like poker because it's too hard for you to understand." "Says the one who can't even understand that a black king can't be immediately followed by a black joker." "Well at least I don't have a tell that even a newborn could recognise." "And at least I'm not so untrustworthy that two-faced is an understatement." Wilbur glares before adding an ever so succinct "Wanker." as his closing statement while he collapses back into the chair. "Asshole." "...I have a joker and it's red. Would you like it, Schlatt?" "Thank you, Ghostbur." Schlatt grins in a way that somehow makes Ghostbur wish he wasn't in his company. Wilbur's face gently slams into open palms. When his fingers are finished with their journey down his face, he plucks the offending card out of his counterpart's hold. "Put the card down. We can't start mixing packs like this." Wilbur abruptly rises to his feet. "Actually, you know what? Sod this. Between you and Tweedle Dum here, I feel like he's the lesser evil. Come on, Ghostbur, let's go back." Like a plus one whose only way in and out of the event was their invited friend, he has no choice but to follow Wilbur's lead. He would rather stay and get to know Mexican Dream better but it would seem it wasn't on the cards for today. He waves the pair goodbye. Mexican Dream returns it genuinely. Schlatt's smile comes across as sinister and his attention appeared to be on Wilbur as it was. "...I can see why you like Mexican Dream more." He comments in the tunnel home. "Yes, guy's less of a twat." He distracts himself from this disaster of a meeting with the marine life outside. It doesn't prove as effective as he would hope. --- He doesn't understand why or how but it seems that Wilbur has developed the ability to have a hunch as to where Ghostbur could be found. Today this hunch led him to a peaceful stream. The water flows uninterrupted and he can't recall the last time he was in the presence of such clear water. He suspects it goes on for a while before meeting a larger area of water. Ghostbur himself is seated by the bank, admiring the scenery surrounding them. He periodically remembers himself and returns his focus to a little notebook he was scribbling in. "What's this?" "Wilbur." The ghost lights up at the sight of him for whatever reason. He pats the ground beside him. "Come, sit here. It'll be fun." "I'm... I'm good thanks." "If you're sure." There's that wide smile again. There's no way he can't call major bullshit on it. "Has anyone told you how unnerving your constant good mood is?" "You're just saying that because you like being moody." "I'm saying it because it's the truth." He scrutinises his other half. "Nobody has the ability to be that positive 24/7." "I- Well, I do." There is an argument he could begin having with Ghostbur but he hasn't got the patience for it. "What are you writing about?" "Oh, this is my diary. I don't want to forget what I've been doing while here." Wilbur is struck with the desire- no, the need to discover what Ghostbur has been writing about him. As a general, intel was everything and as a fugitive, every bit of insider information had the potential to prove useful. Ghostbur correctly interprets his extended hand but still hesitates before adhering to the request. It's pointless though as there is nothing regarding himself to analyse. Day 8 (24/1/21) I am in the Void so I think the plan worked. I wish I could tell Phil because he seemed quite worried about the process failing. I have been counting the days at the back of this book because they all look the same and there doesn't seem to be any calendars anywhere. So I'm guessing it's January 24th right now. I think I'm getting used to the Void. Everything is very green but I like it. Exploring has been quite fun and Wilbur introduced me to a couple of his friends for a games night. The tunnel to get to them is beautiful but I think I'll need to craft a few campfires to help combat the cold there if I want to watch the wildlife. I also need more cornflowers to make blue with but they seem to be difficult to find which is a shame. I will have to keep looking but that's okay. Maybe I can convince Wilbur to help me if he's available. I'm at the stream where Alivebur met Tommy right now. I really like it. It reminds me of the picnics Alivebur used "A picnic?" "Yeah! Alivebur used to have lunch on a raft with his mum whenever they could find one. It was fun." "Good for us, I guess. I wouldn't know anything about that." Except maybe, it seems, he might. The feeling of feet bounding against the earth. Excited yelling. Ruffling of hair with something that wasn't an arm around his shoulder. An exasperated chuckle while something sweet was on his tongue. Playing lookout by a window. A contest that ends with a soggy lap. Surrounded by laughter and happy chatter. He realises what this is too late. As it fades, he chases it. No, come back. Don't leave. He needs it, even if it's the vaguest of scraps. Please, please, come back. "Wilbur?" "Sorry, I might have just spaced out for a minute. I was thinking about... about... I don't know, something." "Here." Ghostbur presents blue dye. "I haven't been able to find many cornflowers to make it but I think you should have some." "What's this for?" "You look like you're about to cry. Blue's very good at absorbing all your sadness away. You let it soak it all up and then throw it away. I promise it works. Honestly, try it." "Thanks but I'd rather not stain my hands with blue dye for the sake of humouring you. That shit takes forever to get off. Although... this does explain why your clothes are like that. I thought we'd be smarter than to wear something bright while frequently handling a substance that stains easily." "Well okay then. The offer's always there if you want it though." "I'm fine. Just need a breather. Don't uh... don't wait up for me or whatever." The worst thing is he has no clue why he's suddenly upset. Sitting on top of a hill, he overlooks land with the potential to be built upon, land that had seen construction in a world similar to this one. He's not sure if he's in the exact spot but it's close enough. In his mind's eye, L'Manburg springs into existence, a diagonal line cuts through the wall as it is destroyed by Fundy's pickaxe. Their country had come close to death before but that day had arguably been its last one. The reason why Tommy wasn't by his side in that moment is lost to him. A spark of resentment temporarily roars into a flame as he thinks of how his former right hand man should be present for this in a way more than simply joining in at the end of the anthem over a voice call. Oh who cares anymore? It doesn't matter now. Alone, he witnesses L'Manburg die before him for the... how many times was it now? At least if he's going to be mournful, he should mourn something he actually knows he's lost. --- The entry concludes with a final paragraph. I've also met Wilbur. He's the other part of Alivebur and he wants to fuse so we can be Alivebur again. We will have to eventually but he seems willing to wait. I hope he stays that patient because I don't know how long it will take me to say yes. In the meantime, I want us to become friends. He can be so dismissive and angry but despite how mean he seems, I think we could still get along if we really try. I think getting more blue should be on my list of priorities because he really needs it. Which reminds me, I need to draft a list of priorities. I think I should get on that as soon as I can so goodbye for now. --- Ghostbur makes the decision on the... well he needs to check his memory book to remember exactly what day it is but whatever today was, that was when he sets himself the goal of working on a house. It'll be a nice place, not too fancy (at least not at first, he can add to it later if he so desires) but it can be a lovely base for himself. Maybe Wilbur too, if he can get the other half of Alivebur to join him. The problem was he wasn't sure where to take inspiration from. He built a house for Tommy during their holiday and he really liked how that simple little place turned out. He also recalls Tubbo's house from when he and Tommy were messing around shortly following his arrival in the area. Now that house was very pretty. It would take some more effort to get right, especially when all he had for reference was the memory of it, but he feels it would be worth it if he wanted to go down a similar route in terms of design. Oh! Didn't Techno have a lovely looking cabin too? Perhaps he should keep that building in mind as well. Or he could come up with something new entirely. He wasn't sure yet. He thinks it may be best to experiment first. It's as he is figuring out the size and shape he'd prefer the ground floor to be that Wilbur comes across the soon to be construction site. Arms crossed, he doesn't look too impressed. But then again, when does he? "What is this?" "Oh hi, Wilbur. I thought I could build myself a house. It could be our house if you'd like. Or... Or maybe I could add a bedroom just for you if you already have a house." "I think I'll pass. Though this does explain all the missing oak trees around here." His gaze flicks to the pile of wood Ghostbur has gathered. "Anyway, you're just doing this by hand?" "How else would I be doing it?" "I have my ways. You probably have the same ones." The two of them venture through a taiga until they reach a hill overlooking an empty field of plains. Even before he truly lays eyes on their expanse of their destination, he can sense how far of a drop it would be to reach it without caution. "Wait!" The warning comes too late to have any effect. Wilbur leaps from the edge. Rushing forward instinctively, Ghostbur dreads the scene he is sure will be upsetting to witness. He shuts his eyes but risks a peak regardless. It's to his utter shock that Wilbur stands waiting, perfectly fine. "I know we pretty much have all the time in the world but I'd rather not spend it waiting for you to get on with it and jump already." "You're not hurt?" "What? No, of course not. Why would I-?" Realisation arrives and Wilbur's only reaction to it seems to be an eye roll. "We're dead, you idiot. When was the last time your feet actually touched the ground? In fact, when was the last time you even had feet?" "Oh." "Yeah." Wilbur continues to walk ahead, using an arm to beckon Ghostbur in the right direction. "Now come on." Once they settle on a spot for the demonstration, wooden blocks materialise without warning. They arrange themselves into an empty birch cube that is perhaps twice as tall as they are. It's not a complex structure, pretty non-descript. Ghostbur had been hoping to be a bit more ambitious with his construction work than this. However, he supposes Wilbur is simply only showing him the basics. There's no need to go overboard in an attempt to show off. "It's pretty simple, really. All you have to do is picture what you want and boom," A final block of birch comes into existence. "It shows up without much effort. It saves a lot of time and hassle. Got it? How about you summon a torch to test it out." He imagines a stick. Even a branch will do, he feels. As he does so, a weight grows in his hand with the appearance of a long brown object. The stick he summons is actually fairly substantial once it solidifies. For extra measure, he concentrates on the tip. He devotes his thoughts to warmth and autumnal bonfires and an orange glow then- Oh! Well, next time he should make sure he's careful when causing spontaneous combustion. "See? Easy. Now toss it here." With the rudimentary house completed and torch in hand, Wilbur carelessly allows the flame to linger too close to the wood. Ghostbur is unable to cry out a warning before the building is set alight. It gradually dawns on him that, somehow, this was a deliberate action to achieve this consequence. It leaves Ghostbur more lost regarding the workings of the other man's thoughts than ever. "What is the point in this? I don't... I don't understand." "It's warm." He acts as if this is the obvious answer. "Do you feel it, Ghostbur? Do you feel the cold, the way any and all sources of heat seem to be sapped while you try to make the most of them? You've been here days, you must feel it. Took me a day to recognise what it was. It's the Void, Ghostbur, it's the Void. It- It- It takes the heat from this place. We could be standing in the middle of the fucking desert right now but you'd still feel a chill, like someone left the window open and caused a draft. I... you know, I made this place to get away from it but it followed me regardless. Just... got muted, I guess. I carved out a little bit of the Void. Not even that big. It simply feels that way because it's like in those drama productions where you have the scenery on a rotator or whatever it's called. Not using it? Just poof, gone on standby or- or taped over. Mixing my metaphors here." "Stop standing there before you're on fire." "Hmm? Oh, don't worry about that. Doesn't scar or anything. I can reverse any damage, make it seem like it never happened." "Just get out of it." The ghost reaches out to his friend. Wilbur steps back to avoid him. "Ghostbur, I'm fine. I only want to be warm." "I can make a fire if you want. A normal one, in a pit." "Like I haven't made a bonfire before. You really think I haven't tried that?" "Let's get some water. You just have think about it, don't you?" "Wait, no! I tend to watch it burn. Gives me something to do." "O-Okay." So they witness the structure's demise to fire. Ghostbur mourns the loss of the materials that seem to be going to waste for the sake of entertainment. He can't help but succumb to the desire to be enraptured. The flames dance with curls and bows and sways. He breaks his gaze away to glance at Wilbur, curious to see if he is having a similar experience as him. His companion has only a hardened expression to show, one that pairs a set jaw with calculating eyes. Yet a light, separate to that reflected from the fire, can be spotted dwelling within those same eyes. What one finds aesthetically pleasing albeit wasteful, the other studies as if he can learn how to tame it in order to command it to do his immoral bidding. --- Wilbur thinks of buttons. How technically easy they are to press. How, despite this fact, he'd been getting closer and closer to a dozen attempts before bailing. How one of his last memories (from the ones he'd been oh so generously permitted to keep) was that of burning. Fire is destruction, the chaos of something that aims to consume indiscriminately, a means to an end. But at the same time this is safe, controlled, something he can force to stop if it goes too far. There are 101 reasons why he has every right to hate Ghostbur. More, he'd argue actually. Since they became two, he's been left with the shortest end of the stick. Ghostbur got to go have fun and enjoy himself, got the opportunity to act like everything had always been alright since he'd deliberately discarded the evidence that suggested otherwise. And the personified form of the discarded evidence had simply been forced to endure the nightmares, to desperately avoid triggers he's not willing to confront in any shape or form yet, to attempt to find comfort in familiarity regardless of why an object or location may seem familiar to him. He's done this before. Not every day, mind you. He's not that big of a masochist to pull that shit. Perhaps once or twice in the span of what might be considered a fortnight, if that. Other times he's simply not done anything for a while. But Wilbur has gone through this process before. He has stood in flammable structures and allowed the flames to take their course. He hacks when the smoke increases to the point of becoming overwhelming. It hurts, of course it does (it's fire for crying out loud). Yet when he leaves the scene of arson, any blisters that have begun bubbling on his skin disappear at his command. The main incentive to act so stupidly is to remember. He can recall bombs and the devastation of witnessing his safety being ripped away before his eyes. Over and over, he attempts to confront the things that keep him up at night. The door is always right there, waiting to be flung open the second he decides it is more than enough for that session. In Albert Einstein's eyes, he could qualify to be called insane. He would disagree but then again, they are using different definitions. While alive, he had developed a smoking habit. It began as something to help alleviate stress. Then not inhaling nicotine ironically became a source of stress for him. That's how addictions form, he supposes, with stupid destructive cycles such as his. The inherent need to risk slowly killing his lungs for the sake of feeling relatively decent didn't seem to carry over to Ghostbur. Lucky bastard, always getting the better end of the deal. By his design, most likely. Be civil, he reminds himself, since it will increase his chances of securing victory. Now that Ghostbur is here, he is a step closer to getting what he's wished for since they'd died. It is only a matter of time before he rediscovers the peace of being whole once more. What he hopes will be peace. Wilbur thinks of buttons and fires and explosions. Most importantly though, he thinks of how nice it must be to witness something subjectively beautiful and not question a myriad of life choices. --- Ghostbur didn't appreciate the loneliness. Back down with everyone else, his friends and family either tolerated his company or told him to leave them alone. Even the friendlier ones had a habit of getting tired of him hanging out with them for too long. Sometimes he happened to catch them when they were busy. It was fine and certainly no big deal. Everyone needs alone time. Wilbur, for instance, likes a lot of alone time. Then there were those that Alivebur hurt and struggled to not be reminded of the man they once knew whenever Ghostbur was around, like Phil and Tommy. It was nobody's fault. He did have a striking resemblance to his pre-death counterpart. All this in consideration, Ghostbur could really a friend. Or perhaps more specifically, a Friend. He's seen Wilbur do this practically effortlessly so how hard could this be? He thinks the best way to go about this is to take it slow and begin at the bottom. He brings himself to an open space so he can have as few obstacles during this important moment as possible. Two pairs of hooves appear, already upright on the grass. With them comes four legs then a torso adorned in naturally blue wool which is accompanied by a tail. When the process comes to an end, Ghostbur is met with a familiar face. He wraps his arms around the neck of his closest companion in a hug. "Hi, Friend. I've really missed you. We can hang out whenever Wilbur is being grumpy or wants to be alone. Would you like that? Maybe we can even convince him to like you too. But that might be hard since he doesn't seem to like anyone." He feels it should be common courtesy for Ghostbur to introduce Friend to Wilbur. After all, his twin had already extended that courtesy to him the other day. --- "Wilbur!" There is no need for him to acknowledge the voice calling out his name. Even if he didn't recognise the owner of said voice, there is no-one else it could be. Yet when he does, he isn't sure whether to curse his reflexes for making him see the sight in general or be grateful for the minute's forewarning it grants him. Encouraged to tag along with Ghostbur is an affront to nature. "So..." He begins when the two visitors are near enough. "The sheep." "Yeah! His name is Friend. I had a sheep just like him when I was with everyone else so I thought he could keep me company while I'm here." He's not even sure how to respond to this development. He simply stares at the animal as he attempts to process it. It's so weird because he swears the sheep has one of those rare genetic variations where their wool is quite literally blue naturally. It's obviously not been dyed at all because you can tell with that sort of thing. Somehow, Ghostbur has straight up manifested a sheep with a rare coat colouring. He wants to be more thrown off by it than he is. Yet he struggles to do so. Because, in the several days since he's met the one he shares a face with, he can't truthfully claim he's surprised. "Friend, huh? Well, you really have a knack for coming up with names, don't you?" "I guess." "You asked me the other day what you should call me. You seem to love these cute little versions of our name. Given the way I treat you, I'm surprised you haven't been tempted to call me Meanbur or Sadbur or even Why-The-Fuck-Won't-You-Take-A-Hint-And-Just-Leave-Me-Alonebur?" Ghostbur hesitates, clearly a little shocked by this outburst. He quickly corrects himself, changing his expression instead to something more akin to content thoughtfulness. "Oh, I know! What do you think of Soulbur? I like Soulbur. Because you're half of his soul." "Fine, whatever makes you happy. Though if you really need to bother someone, I'd rather you go to Schlatt or MD." "But do you like Friend?" He glances back at the sheep for the sake of humouring his twin. "I... I suppose it's alright for a sheep. Don't want too much to do with it though. It's your pet." "He is more than a pet." And it comes off as if he's offended him. "He's well, he's Friend." "Gho- It is a sheep. I get that you're attached to it- him so you're hardly planning to serve mutton anytime soon but he's still just a bloody sheep." As he distances himself from Ghostbur to escape this nonsense, his ears catch muttered assurances that 'Soulbur' was not worth listening to. Plus, what kind of name was 'Friend'? His ghostly counterpart sounded like a child who'd decided their stuffed toy deserved a name to fit the role of lifelong companion. He'd retaliate but he's far from in the mood. --- Okay, as it turns out, he does begin to get used to the new moniker. For one thing, it's easier to differentiate himself from their pre-death self (though Ghostbur seems to have that covered thanks to his insistence of using 'Alivebur'). Soulbur likewise continues to tolerate him for the sake of civility. Hence why he's sat by a small fire and performing the absolutely redundant task of eating a meal. No matter how much he attempts to explain neither of them physically need sustenance, Ghostbur remains persistent on his thoughts regarding the issue. "No cows were harmed in the making of this steak." "Oh that's good." Ghostbur beams. "And you made a joke. You don't do that often." "Listen, I might not have a reason to laugh anymore but I do still have a sense of humour." "You know, you sound like Techno when you speak. All serious and bored." "Doesn't surprise me." He mutters. "Besides, you're the one who kept the happier emotions in the split. I'd be worried if I didn't sound like I have the more exhausting ones." "What?" "What are you confused about? You said you can't remember upsetting things, right? Well where did you think they went, the back of your mind, left stranded in the void- no, actually I suppose that one is technically true. Either way, the oversimplified version of events is that you got the good stuff and I got the bad." There is silence but there is also calm. From it, Soulbur gains the courage to put forward one of the questions he's been deliberating on for a good long while. "Ghostbur…" He frowns. "How did we die?" "You don't remember?" "No. For some fucked up reason, we apparently thought so low of ourself that it was a good memory. That or you took it to spite me." "I-" Soulbur holds his hand up. "No excuses, no rambling in the hopes you can beat around the bush. I just want the truth. Because all I can remember is Phil showing up, us getting frustrated then this unbearable pain as if... as if something was cooking us from the inside. I don't know I- it just hurt. A lot. Then we were dead. So what the hell happened to us?" The ghost is focused on fiddling with the sleeves of his yellow jumper. "I don't want to say." "Bad memory then. So... an unnecessary theft. As much as I hate to admit it, that was supposed to be mine if it was traumatic." "Wasn't nice but it was a good moment." "Well, was it good or bad? Make up your mind! I told you, I didn't want any messing around. I'm not expecting an essay from you, only a sentence or two." He groans. "Okay, how about this since you can't give me a straight answer. Did we press the button, yes or no?" "We did." "Brilliant! We got somewhere. I suspected it was burning debris but couldn't be sure. That's all I wanted." Soulbur manages only a handful of steps before his twin's voice is heard once more. "It wasn't debris. The explosion didn't kill us." "Then what did?" If his patience wore any more thin, somebody would have to pull out a microscope to view it. Ghostbur appears conflicted, ever tugging on his sleeves. "Phil was the Saint George to our dragon. He stopped us from hurting anyone else." "Whoa whoa whoa, hang on that's- Phil wasn't always the best parental figure to us, I know that, but he would never... kill us. That is not the kind of guy he is." "We asked him to." "Why would we-" "Don't ask me. You're the one who's always grumpy. You should know." Ghostbur argues back. "Even if we begged him on our hands and knees, as shitty as he could sometimes be, Phil would never cause us deliberate harm." "But he did." Soulbur visibly mulls this over in his mind before a scowl settles on his face. "Can't win, can you? Unbelievable. Couldn't even trust Phil to be on our side." "But he-" "He was supposed to take care of us. I can excuse him not being father of the year because he only took us in out of pity so we wouldn't end up on the streets. But the bare minimum I would have expected from him is to not kill the kid he's raised since they were little." "I don't know what you want me to say. You said you wanted the truth? Well the truth is Phil stabbed us with a sword because we asked him to. It was a... it was a sword with fire aspect, I think. That's why you think it hurt." "I don't think it hurt. I know it hurt." "Can we stop talking about this? I don't like it." "No. No, we are talking about this. I'm not letting you slink off at the first hint of something upsetting, Mr Repression." "I'm not slinking off. I just don't want to think about this." "Well, welcome to my life, every single bloody day since you ran off. At least you have the privilege of avoiding it." "Stop it! Stop it! Why do always have to be so- so- I'm going to find Friend. At least he's nice to me." "You are literally proving my point right now." "I don't care." "Fine! Piss off then. That's what you seem to do best, cry and run away at the slightest bit of trouble. But you can't do this forever, you know. You're going to have to accept we've been through a lot of shit one day." And for the first time in what he believes has been roughly two weeks, Ghostbur frowns. It is not the slight frown from whenever he is unsure or downtrodden, Soulbur's seen that before. Those times had been more akin to a pout. No, this expression has been witnessed by him before. He saw this occasionally in his reflection while alive, especially in the lead up to the festival and war between Manberg and Pogtopia when he'd been steeling himself to play his role in it all. So perhaps frown is not the most accurate word for it. Ghostbur glares, he scowls, he glowers. And then the façade breaks as if the universe cannot permit an angry Ghostbur to exist. Dark blue pools by his eyes and begins to spill down his face. Soulbur doesn't think he's seen his other half cry either actually. It doesn't feel right, watching the one who kept going about everything with a smile cry and descend into sobs while he's at it. The universe doesn't swiftly correct itself at this though so Soulbur will have to make of that what he will. "I'm going to find Friend." Ghostbur repeats. And that is that for the calm dinner between both halves of the same person.

[emerald-studies]

Diverse Perspectives | Discussion 3

I sent some questions to @jasperwhitcock​ for her perspective as a POC woman and daughter of an immigrant.

[ It is required to participate and watch/read these discussions, in order to follow me. Participate or get tf out. We aren’t performative in my lil’ area on Tumblr.

This discussion isn’t representative of an entire population or meant to be super professional. It’s to share different perspectives and also is an opportunity for me to practice what I preach: intersectionality. If you’d like to participate in this series please send me a pm or an ask and I’ll get back to you ASAP. We can do a written, audio, or video interview.]

As a mixed person, do you feel isolated from your community?

J: If you mean community as in the community I currently live in, I’m fortunate enough to live in a very diverse place. Surrounding the city of Houston, there’s a lot of prejudice integrated into a lot of the suburban neighborhoods, but in terms of the city itself, I think the POC communities really uplift and support each other. I’m a concert photographer when there’s not a pandemic, and I’ve always appreciated the way latinos and black artists are respected in the indie community. Houston’s a very rap/hip hop/R&B city, so black artists are especially celebrated. There’s also great latinx bands that I know, latinx venue owners/employees, and latinx brands connected to the indie community. We’re very well represented in this area.

If you mean community as in the latinx community, I wouldn’t say isolated, but depending on the day, I might say that I can feel distanced at times. This isn’t particularly due to the latinx community itself, so much as it may be a distance that I create in my head. As a mixed person, I think there are times where you can feel confused on where you belong. I’ve brought up the quote before from the Selena movie, where Selena’s father Abraham is speaking on the potential difficulty of Selena being accepted in Mexico because of the fact she is Mexican American: “We have to be more Mexican than the Mexicans and more American than the Americans, both at the same time! It's exhausting!” It can be difficult at times to navigate your sense of belonging when you are in between two cultures because you want to recognize that you may have privileges someone of full Mexican descent may not have, but at the same time, your life is still very much defined by being Mexican and having Mexican blood while living in America too. You’re definitely not absolved from having latin experiences. Latina stand up comedian Anjelah Johnson made a joke in her stand up about there being a Latinx hierarchy. She said that Spanish speaking latinos are better than the rest of us who are not fluent in Spanish (such as herself), and it was funny because sometimes you do feel that that can be true. My tías will always ask me why I’m not fluent in Spanish, and my mom will be like “yeah, why don’t you?” and I’m always like… because y’all didn’t teach me! My parents speak Spanish to each other at home. My father is not only fluent in Spanish, but his Spanish is oftentimes superior to a lot of Spanish speakers according to my mom and my tíos. He used to teach English in Mexico, so there is no reason that my sister and I shouldn’t have been perfectly bilingual. The reason they didn’t teach us as children is because they didn’t want us to be speaking Spanglish. (Spoiler: it happened anyways). Around white people, I definitely feel that I am not a white person. I feel very much latina in a group of white people. But then around latin people, I sometimes feel white enough to feel a sense of shyness. I definitely feel more at home with latinx people, but overall in both groups, I definitely feel that I am mixed.

It doesn’t happen often, because I think although the majority of latinx people have pride in their background, the hyperawareness of our identities right now is relatively new, but there have been instances of latinx gatekeeping the latin identity. Growing up, I didn’t think about what I was labelled as or think about how my family structure is different to other families. I didn’t consider how in some areas, it is an abnormality to have an immigrant parent or a parent with an accent. I definitely noticed that my family was different, but I didn’t understand why until much later. My mom, her sisters and brothers, and my primos… They don’t live their lives with the awareness of being defined as Mexican immigrants. Of course, they again have pride in where they came from. They live as Mexicans and engage in Mexican culture, but overall, the way the youth today has really grasped onto the labelling of our identity is kind of a new thing. There are some young latinx people who do try to quantify and measure whether or not your experience is valid. I know it comes from a place of protectiveness of their own experience, but it’s ridiculous to gate keep because something that really characterizes latin culture is our warmth, our sense of family, our willingness to embrace other people as part of that. If you’re of latin american descent, you have a place in the latinx community.

Since your parents don’t have college degrees, do you believe college is important and/or necessary?

J: I think it depends! I think a lot of immigrant parents really push for their children to get a college education because they see that as opportunity, particularly when they did not earn college degrees themselves. I think college can be important depending on what you want to accomplish, but I also think it’s not completely necessary. For my career path as a photographer/videographer, I chose not to do college. I do think I would have enjoyed college because I like learning, but because it was something unnecessary for my job, I couldn’t justify the time invested or putting my parents into a difficult financial situation. Especially because my college education would have overlapped with my sister, and I saw how difficult it was to juggle handling my sister’s student loans. For my sister’s career path (she is studying to be a nutritionist/therapist to help teenagers with eating disorders), college was necessary.

Your Mom has been stuck in the US, unable to return to Mexico for awhile, has your Mom’s experience with immigration changed your views in some way?

J: As context, my father lived in Mexico for a decade and married my mom in Mexicali. They hadn’t planned to move to the United States, but when they came to the US to marry here so that she could have citizenship and be able to visit his family, there were complications that made it to where she couldn’t leave the country. Luckily, the time she was unexpectedly stuck in the United States didn’t last super long! Long enough to become comfortable enough to decide to settle down in California, but we have been able to travel to Mexico often. I think it really highlights how unnecessarily complicated a lot of the processes regarding immigration are. The people in the country who are very malicious about undocumented immigrants love to jump to saying, “well, why can’t they just become an American citizen?” when the reality is that every process in place has a lot of complications. Not everyone has access to the resources to be able to make these transitions happen smoothly. Also, the time it takes to acquire your visa is not an overnight thing. People severely underestimate the difficulty involved.

What do you think about the “hard-working immigrant” stereotype?

J: I hate the idea that immigrants work hard because they’re low-skilled, but I do love that there is a lot of pride in how motivated immigrants are. It’s always been a ridiculous claim that immigrants are taking American jobs. Immigrants work the jobs that the majority of Americans have no interest in doing, especially the people that make this complaint. For a country that prides itself on working to make your dreams come true, Americans neglect to recognize that immigrants have a drive that most Americans don’t have.

Which parent do you feel more connected to? Your Mother who’s an immigrant or your Father who was born in America?

J: I really do feel that I am a coalescence of both my parents, so I think I feel equally connected to each of them. I feel a very strong emotional connection and concern for my dad because his mental health suffers a lot. His mother had bipolar depression at a time where mental health was even more stigmatized, and she endured a lot of ridiculous, merciless treatments that are no longer utilized today. When he was nine years old, his mom committed suicide, and this was an event that really defined his life forever. I think that kind of heaviness passes down through your family. When my dad is not doing well, I feel really imbalanced and emotionally impacted even if I’m not home to witness it. It’s kind of like that idea of an invisible string tethering you to someone, and it’s a weight that I carry always. However, overall, he’s a very positive person. When he is going through his kind of manic highs, he’s a lot more of what I recognize of who my dad is. He’s creative, a musician, and deeply caring for other people. His mother’s death has empowered him to really try to make a difference and “paint a picture of a better tomorrow.” I’m a lot like my dad in personality, but in disposition, I’m so much like my mom. She’s tough and outspoken at home, but in public, it takes awhile for her to open up. My mom’s very selfless, kind, and very much shy and quiet. She definitely exemplifies a lot of the sacrifice that you see many immigrants make. I do like both sides of my family, but I definitely feel more at home with the Mexican side. My dad’s side is loud, vivacious, and very much funny, but I feel extremely shy around them. My sister and I have always felt a tiny bit left out. I think they’d be hurt to know we feel this way, but I definitely don’t think they do anything to intentionally enforce this division. But I think it developed because there is a bit of a cultural disconnect between my aunts and my mom. It’s also very interesting to me that when they first met my mom, my mom didn’t speak any English. It’s fascinating to consider how it might change your perception of someone to go from not being able to communicate with them to watching them learn your language. My mom enjoys the time that we do spend with my dad’s family, but she’s kind of the odd one out in that her humor isn’t the same and her experiences are so different. I think that my dad’s sister and brother’s families were able to connect in a stronger way, so sometimes my mom, my sister, and I feel just a little isolated. In those moments, I feel the most aware of my Mexican background. With my mom’s side of the family, it’s a lot more comfortable. My dad’s able to develop his humor in a way that translates well into Spanish, so he fits in very easily.

You’ve lived in a “Blue/more liberal” state and a “Red/more conservative” state, which state has affected you more?

J: Definitely the red state. Seeing how intensely and ridiculously conservative some southern people are has really radicalized me in a way. I feel overwhelmingly liberal because there’s a defensiveness that develops when you’re in a space like this where you have this intense disbelief that people hold the ideas that they do. Especially because in Texas, black and latinx culture is a major contributor to southern culture. There’s a lot to be said about how black culture shapes the south, but because I’m latina, I’m focusing on latinx culture with this question. White conservatives want our food, they want our work, but they don’t want us. I don’t understand how anyone can be all #TacoTuesday one day, and then the next, be anti-immigrant. If you really want Mexicans out of your country, then maybe you should start living your life without any Mexican influence. Stop eating Mexican food. Clean your own pool and mow your own lawn. It’s ignorant to speak down on immigrants when their life would be so altered to be rid of immigrants. They rely on immigrants. Their lives are shaped by immigrants and built by immigrants.

(I had to chime in here: )

 Are you proud of your parents?

J: Absolutely. As a young teenager, I had a lot of problems with my parents. I think I still have issues I’m working through as a result, but now that I’m older, I really do feel a deep sense of admiration and respect for them. Growing up really makes you view your parents differently and understand them as people rather than just as parents. I held onto a lot of anger and resentment, but I’ve come to truly see how they really did do their best. They’ve worked very hard, and I think not having everything that kids around me did really helped me grow into a more grateful person.

Have you faced discrimination for your race?

J: Of course, but in all honesty, it really rolls off my back. I think hate that is personally directed at me doesn’t bother me, but the discrimination that does affect me is anything directed or related to my mom. I remember my parents had a customer who made a really ugly complaint to my father about my mom’s english. My mom essentially handles most of the written communication with their business, and she still speaks and types in broken english often. The majority of my parents’ clients are latinx, so it’s typically not an issue, but it’s unbelievably offensive and ridiculous the assumptions people will make about your intelligence based on your english. The customer had no idea that the woman she’d been communicating with was my father’s wife rather than just an employee. It’s really sad how someone can see someone as unworthy of respect until they’re tied to a white man, and then they’re suddenly apologetic. This is another extremely mild example, but I’ll get a few laughs when I mispronounce something or don’t know how to say certain words. People always find it funny as though it’s embarrassing –– and it definitely can be –– but people forget I learned english from a woman who speaks two languages.

As the child of an immigrant, how has the anti immigrant talking point affected your mental health?

J: I think the toll the anti-immigrant bias in the United States has on immigrant children is a relevant conversation to have, but I think I’m very lucky in that I feel very tough in the face of that ignorance (which is not to say anyone whose mental health suffers as a result is not tough!) If anything, I feel pity for the people who are so hateful that they see other human beings in such a derogatory and entitled way. Similar to what I said before, my outrage really comes from a place of defensiveness for others. The talking point doesn’t hurt me, but it hurts me that people can speak about my family and my community the way they do. It hurts me that there are other immigrant children who have to work as hard as their parents to make their sacrifices worth it, and people are so insensitive as to not respect that. I’m pretty strong, but it does break my heart when my people are disrespected. If someone were to say something to me, that’s fine, but if i saw someone mistreating a little mexican lady in the store… I may be 5’3 but that don’t mean I won’t come for your ass. Okay, in all honesty, I’m really not a violent person. I’m more of a rise above kind of person because the hate someone has in their heart is not worth our time, but some people do need a chancla thrown at them to learn some respect.

In your opinion, in what ways does the Latinx community need more support?

J: I think because the latinx community is so much so composed of hard workers, people really need to support latin businesses more. That’s a direct way to impact latin lives. There’s an abundance of latin small business owners in every category. So many white kids love going to Cozumel for Spring Break and love wearing sombreros on Cinco De Mayo, but then the rest of the year, they have no care or respect for the authentic culture. For every dollar a white man makes, hispanic women still make statistically less than white women, asian women, black women, and native women. We gotta back up these businesses. Choose local taco shops or restaurants over chains. Choose online shops and Mexican boutiques over fast fashion. And this applies to everybody. We can always support black business or asian businesses over large competitors. It really does make an impact. I also think a lot of latinx children need access to better mental health resources. I’m lucky in that because my father struggles with mental health issues, mental health in my family wasn’t exactly a taboo, but in a lot of latin families, mental health is something that is hard for older parents to validate. Latin children need those resources. A simple google search of “latin mental health resources,” bring up a bunch of organizations that you can support. I think every POC community needs to be boosted right now because although we’ve been under attack, conversations about minority communities are being had by white people right now. We have their attention, and we do need their support to enact change because they have the power as the oppressor. We need to be going to bat protecting black people right now because of the insane damage the community has been enduring at the hands of police, and we need to be protecting immigrant children from what’s happening to them at the border. I know the election is extremely controversial right now, but I would urge anyone who has the ability to vote to really consider the importance of doing so. People love to be cynical about how our votes don’t matter, and I understand that cynicism, but a lot of immigrants don’t have the luxury of voting when the results of the election will directly impact their lives. I hate that there is no option of a president that will perfectly support POC communities, but there are options whose party is far more aligned with supporting and protecting POC communities than Trump is. Trump spews hate and fuels racism and prejudice. He calls Mexicans rapists and black protestors thugs. He encourages the blaming of the coronavirus on the asians in our country. He does not need any help winning the election. We need to get this hateful man out, and I strongly encourage anyone who can vote to do so.

--

Let’s have a discussion! Did you learn anything new from this conversation?

Let me know here.

-

To close out each post, I’d like to write a lil’ paragraph about the person I talk with:

I’m so lucky to have you as a friend darling. You always bring a smile to my face when we chat. You’re funny and so smart. I admire you deeply for being able to share your perspective in a clear way. Thank you for putting up with my 2 am messages lol 🖤🖤🖤🖤Your continued support makes me feel safe and very, very, loved. I hope I encourage the same feeling with you. 

You’re the best babe,

-Faithxx

[atlasfreak]

hell is hot from your mistakes

chapter three; Tumblr edition

The afterlife is a mess of time and space.

Dream got the brunt end of that mess, of time, and bad luck follows Tommy even in death.

Dream is mere seconds too late reviving him.

Tommy wakes up in a familiar, unfamiliar world in a familiar, unfamiliar body that looks so much like an old friend of his, and yet he remembers everything when really, he shouldn't. His brother's voice guides him, the Nether is blistering heat and dust and his hands are hoofed.

ArchiveOfOurOwn Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30073104/ or THIS

Tommy spends the next day on high alert.

They don't leave the cave, to Wilbur's annoyance; Come on, it'll help things. You- you always took walks when you were upset back before exile, didn't you? His voice floats around distantly - as though he wasn't really back at Tommy's side yet - but Tommy can hear him well enough to be pissed.

"We're not going outside, Wil. We went out fucking yesterday - less than a day ago! And someone fucking died. We stay in here. I wouldn't be allowed to go, anyway."

Fine. Fine. But we should head outside. I have t- I'm rather bored.

"Wilbur, I swear to Philza fuckin' Minecraft-"

Truth is, Tommy did want to go out - he wanted to roam the red fields and forests, counting shroomlights and watching zombified piglins growl at each other. He can't stand it, being cooped up in a cave too empty, space next to him too cold.

But it'll be a long, long while yet before his piglin mother even considers letting him leave the safe sanctuary of the cave.

Speaking of - she's curled in on herself, watching him with a hawk's eye, red from tough Nether tears; tears sapped of all water, tears leaving saline stains along her cheeks. All day she's been torn between getting lost in her awful, awful grief and caring for him, watching over him, protecting him. If not for Tommy, she'd probably sleep the day away in her pain. So Tommy spends the afternoon in the red red cave, trying to entertain his guests and keep his mother from mourning... too heavily. Right now, that means running all around and jumping over her and over the soul soil patch and over the edge of the far side of the cave, where it leads down into a second one.

He's trying, anyway. Wilbur isn't making this any easier. At all.

He sounds in Tommy's left ear. Tommy, if I scout ahead do you- and then he's too quiet for Tommy to hear, -forest? How about that?

"You cut out, Wil," Tommy murmurs, crouching down and bunching his haunches to jump. Mama piglin sprawls out, giving him less of a challenge.

What? You're not just trying to get me to shut up, are you? Wilbur pauses, I'm- I'm cutting out?

"I dunno. You just sound really far away."

I- how long have I sounded far away for?

"A day or so," Tommy mumbles, springing up and landing on all fours on the netherrack behind his mother. She purrs and he feels her tail whip his arm as it wags. Approval. "Ever since you left."

Left?

"To go take brother piglin to the dead zone, right?" Tommy asks. "You know. You went silent. And you were back when I woke up."

Oh! Oh, yes. Yes, I took the piglin to the - how do you call it? The Death Zone, so you could be reunite when you die, Tommy. Lemme tell you, he did not want to leave you guys alone.

"Oh. He's safe then?"

Yes. He's safe - he's with a friend.

The former blonde laughs. "A friend? Yeah, he'll either love or hate Mexican Dream, I think."

Oh, he loved Mexican Dream, Wilbur smiles. Very entertaining fellow, M.D.

Wilbur's voice grows no louder, no closer as they talk; still it sounds far off, distant. Tommy brushes it off and glances to his side. Mama piglin is laying over on her side now, eyes closed.

Tommy rumbles gently at her. Wilbur pauses in what he's saying to stare as Tommy goes to lay beside her -she deserves rest.

Is your mother asleep? Wilbur asks quietly, as if she could hear him.

"Yes," Tommy whispers. "She would've growled back otherwise, even if she's sad."

Good. Come on, let's go.

Tommy glances over, like he'll find Wilbur; like Wilbur will be standing beside him. "What?"

Let's go. Y'know, outside. Come on, Toms, we're going to the forest.

Tommy feels panic flare up in his stomach. "No, nonononono, no. I'm not just leaving her, Wilbur!"

We'll come back, don't worry, Wilbur insists. I'll make sure you don't get jumped. Come on. We need to find- I need to show you something.

Tommy hesitates. He's not.. sure about this. About following Wilbur again. Trust only goes so far when you're TommyInnit, post death.

He voices his hesitation.

Theseus fuckin' Innit, I won't let anything happen to you out there, Wilbur declares. Come on. I'll protect you.

"How're you gonna 'protect me' if you're a fucking voice?"

I'll spec. I'll warn you and scout- it's called ghosting for a reason. It's ok, Toms. I have your back.

"You're sure," Tommy mumbles, casting one last look at his mother. "And nothing- nothing bad will happen?"

Nothing bad will happen. I swear on my life- well. My death.

Tommy swallows and he weighs his options and he makes a decision.

He follows Wilbur's voice out of the cave.

Wilbur does keep his promise, though; whispering Not there, there's a pack of piglins or Watch out to the right, there's a hoglin over there whenever he senses movement. Tommy's head shoots up at every creak or murmur or whistle, jumpier than a chicken on Christmas Eve. Wilbur chuckles.

"Wil, where- where are we going?"

It's somewhere. I don't know exactly.

"Wh- I thought you had a plan!"

I- I kinda do, I don't bloody know!

"Wilbur!" Tommy shouts, "Why'd you lead me out here if you didn't have a plan?"

Keep your voice down. You don't wanna end up like m- mister piglin brother.

"Low ass fuckin' blow," Tommy snarls, but he lowers his volume. "If I die out here, Mama won't even find my body. The hogs will eat it. I don't wanna die again, Wil, I really, really don't."

You won't die, Wilbur says, voice confident as a dying man - take that how you will. If you die, I've failed. You won't die.

"You're so fuckin' weird," Tommy growls as they continue walking - just a little piglin and his disembodied voice of a brother, wandering through the brush. "You're so fuckin' weird today."

Hey, Tommy - look. What's that? Wilbur suddenly asks. His voice is clearer, closer than it's been in hours. Tommy glances over. A little stream of lava falls from the Nether roof and spills across the netherrack floor. Two little red creations bathe in its fiery warmth.

"That's a strider, innit?" Tommy mutters. "You ride 'em cross lava."

Tommy, go up to it, Wilbur whispers. It's friendly.

"How'd'you bloody know that it's friendly?" Tommy grumbles, but he approaches the lava anyway. The nearer strider turns at his footsteps - it sees his hooves one step too close to the heat and it rushes to knock him away at the same time that Wilbur screams Not THAT close!

The strider shivers when it drags itself out of the lava to stand with Tommy - it's young, and Tommy is taller just barely. He moves a hand up to pet it. "Wil, go look for little blue and orange mushrooms. I wanna take the strider home."

I don't see anything, Wilbur says after a moment, but maybe it'll follow anyway.

The purple critter makes a noise akin to a fire crackling and Tommy plays with the frills on the side of its head. "Aw."

Tommy listens to the creak and chattering of his new friend and Wilbur is silent for a moment, then We should keep going.

"We found a strider. We can just head back. No need for all this, it'll keep us entertained for awhile. Little pet strider! I'll name it Shitass."

Wilbur sighs. Awful name. I hate it. What's it gonna speedrun - death? No, and that's not the only reason I lead you out here. There's something else I want you to see.

"Not the only- you wanted me to find a- you're so fuckin' sus today, I swear. Whatever." Tommy rubs his eyes with a groan. "Just tell me what you're looking for. We'll go find it some fuckin- some other day."

Fine.

Tommy blinks.

Then he falls to his knees. His head explodes with hundreds and thousands of voices, all screaming at him, all shrieking at him, all loud, too too loud, too fucking loud-

Wilbur is sus! Aww, Wilbro! Can you name the strider after me? What the fuck is that? Can you say hi to my friend? You missed diamonds. You need blue fungi to lead a strider! Kill it for string. Boat with legs!

Tommy clamps his hands over his ears.

Chat.

"Tommy."

He looks up.

Wilbur is visible.

He's visible! Translucent, yes, but he's there, sitting atop the strider, wearing the dirty old trenchcoat from Pogtopia, hair tangled and eyes gloomy. He points into the distance, across the Nether - the crimson forest ends in a cliff and leads into the wastelands.

"There." he says. His voice is clear as ever - real, not just in Tommy's head. "Over there is a fortress with intact blaze spawners and unlooted chests. It's just over that crest."

"What?" Tommy manages through the mind-wrecking chorus in his ears. He doesn't see anything- no stormy red-black bricks anywhere in sight, just black fuzz creeping into his vision with every new voice, shattering his eardrums. "A- a fortress?"

"You have to learn to fight like this - as a piglin," Wilbur instructs. He tilts his head up. "And you need to get blaze rods. Then- then you can go back."

Woah! DUDUDU! E. Dude just find the smp portal hub, 4head!.Go get them rods, you can take a blaze or two!

Tommy whips around to stare at Wilbur. "I thought you didn't want me to go back."

"I don't," Wilbur sighs. "I really don't. But- but it's not as safe here as I thought it was. I.. you need to get back to the Overworld. Not the DreamSMP specifically, but the Overworld. So.. I'll help you. There's a fortress across the Wastelands, completely untouched. You can get blaze rods and maybe obsidian and gear from it."

Tommy is silent.

Wilbur hops down, but his hand never leaves the strider's head. "That's a long time from now. Prove to me that you can survive it, I'll take you there."

"Why are you so incitement that I can't die?" Tommy demands. "I'll respawn, won't I?"

"Insistent, not incitement," Wilbur corrects with a shake of his head. It's so odd - Tommy still isn't used to seeing him. "You're a mob. You have one life and one life only and Tommy, listen to me. You can't lose it. You can't lose that life. You can't die."

"Wilbur, you're scaring me."

Suddenly, chat is gone. Tommy peaks open his eyes, his head is still aching like a bitch.

Wilbur's gone, too. There's only open space where he had just stood, the strider blinks at him slowly. Must be confused, poor thing. There's no trace that Wilbur had ever been corporeal - just empty air.

Good, Wilbur says; back to a lonely voice, back to being chat. Good.

Tommy swallows.

"Come- come on, Shitass," Tommy whispers after a moment. "Let's.. let's go home."

It's quieter than late nights in the van, quieter than the blanketing silence of L'manburg in chunk-error ruins. Wilbur doesn't speak, but Tommy can hear his breathing. It comforts him; Wilbur hasn't gotten tired of him, hasn't left him behind. The strider follows them without the encouragement of food, and Tommy is grateful. He doesn't want to have to search this place for a single speck of blue just to have a friend that's not a disembodied voice.

"Why don't you do that more often?" Tommy murmurs as they walk. He still isn't heavy enough to leave tracks like his mother, Tommy notes.

Do what?

"Become.. real. Ghostbur."

Other people can hear me, and see me. It's not safe.

"Chat gets really fuckin' loud when you do it," Tommy comments. "It hurts like hell. You're chat, usually, but like... a moving chat. Like you're real, just not visible. When you became see-able, chat came back. Are you blocking them?"

I should be more careful with that first bit, Wilbur hums. But now I want to go ghost less. If it hurts you and there's no point to doing it, why should I?

"Be more careful with w- wait, 'go ghost?'"

It's a reference.

"What to?"

This thing called Da-

Tommy freezes. He feels ice sink through his veins, weighing down his legs. A new sound, a sound neither Wil nor Tommy have ever heard before - it echoes through the Nether, loud and piercing. It hits his ears with the force of a sledgehammer on a bell. The strider pauses and Wilbur shuts his mouth. It's almost like a scream, a cry, a call. A desperate one.

Shit.

"Mama! Mama, it's ok, it's ok!" Tommy can't describe his voice as anything other than frantic, desperate. "Mama, I'm right here, I'm right here, I'm safe!" he shrieks, running through the brush, stumbling over roots and thorns and bushes. The strider follows slowly.

He tries to match her scream, tries to tip her off - I'm right here, I'm right here! - but he doesn't hear her come to him, doesn't see her relieved white eyes. Wilbur is in his ear, whispering warnings and observations and-

"I don't care if there are hoglins, fucking- find her! Find her, you useless fucking ghost!" Tommy screams at Wilbur.

There's just a beat, a single heartbeat of stunned silence. Tommy pants, a mixture of exhaustion and fury trying its hardest to escape him. Wilbur's voice echoes in his mind as he whips around, looking desperately.

If you go forward a bit, there's a cliffside. Below is a very tall tree, far left of the cave. She's standing beneath it.

Tommy runs. He runs faster than he ever had with hooves, maybe faster than he had with feet. His mother glances up as he scrabbles down the cliffside, slipping down jagged rock. He feels hot, wet pain run down his leg but he doesn't slow to check, just tumbles to the ground with a yelp. She shuts her mouth and scruffs him immediately, sniffing his head and checking, reassuring herself, please be alive please be alive please be alive despite the very real squirming and very alive "Mama, please calm down, please, I'm fine."

She collapses when she realises he's safe and fine and alive and she's not childless and she holds him close.

If it were anyone else, Tommy would squeal and try to wiggle out, away, but it's his mother. He lets her hold him, forcing a purr. See? I'm fine.

Wilbur's voice rings out, distant. Tommy, what about the strider?

Tommy doesn't respond. He just lays in his mother's arms, eyes closed.

Nevermind, got it! Tommy turns around to see the strider hit the ground right in front of them with a distressed crackle and an OW THAT MUST'VE HURT out of Wil.

His mother has it dead in seconds.

GOD DAMMIT! Wilbur screeches. I JUST GOT THAT B- I JUST GOT THAT DOWN!

Tommy flattens his ears. His mother snarls as the strider falls apart in a cloud of smoke and dust and string.

Wilbur sighs. Tommy raises an eyebrow. "Can't you just bring one back by yourself? You can- you can 'go ghost', you literally didn't need me."

There's no response.

"Wilbur?"

Not even soft breathing. Tommy's tail falls limp. His mother hugs him closer, as if the lack of wagging meant he was about to drop dead, evaporate like the strider had.

Wil's gone. Tommy can only hope he's going to come back, like he did when his brother died.

Maybe Wilbur just doesn't like death.

Tommy leans into his mother's soft fluff.

"I'm sorry for leaving."

She huffs.

"Please never - fuckin' - please never scream like that again."

Her response is a low snort. You made me afraid. I was afraid. Never run away like that, and I will never scream, Tommy understands.

"Ok, Piglin Mama," Tommy murmurs. "Ok."

Wilbur runs his hands through his hair - real hair. Real, physical, human hair. Living hands, real hair.

He's furious. He won't let it show.

"What's this?" He asks, calm and collected and cool. With a soft smile and curious eyes - he's used to playing a mellow role, an innocent role. "What've you done?"

Dream narrows his eyes. "Why now did it work? Why couldn't I bring you back before, Wilbur?"

Wilbur ignores him, instead digging through his trenchcoat pockets. "Oh, I still have my deck!" he chirps. "Wanna play solitaire?"

"Is it why I can't bring back Tommy?"

"Or are you more of a poker guy? What about war? That's easy enough for you, I think."

"Wilbur," Dream hisses. "Listen to me."

"We could play Uno - queen can be pick up two, king can be pick up four, joker can be skip! Or reverse-"

"WILBUR!"

Wil smiles. "Yes, Dream?"

"Why can't I ressurect Tommy?"

"Do you not like card games? I'm afraid I've only got cards." Dream stands and Wilbur raises an eyebrow. "Aw, do you really have to look up to make eye contact with me?"

"It's because you're wearing tall boots. I'm not wearing shoes," Dream insists. "Sam took them," he adds quietly.

"Sure it's the boots, Dream," Wil snickers. "Sure."

Dream blinks. "Don't distract me."

"I didn't do anything."

"Listen up, Wilbur Soot," Dream snarls.

"Bit formal, what with the whole full name bit, but I'm listening. I'm listening, go ahead, Dream." Wilbur tilts his head, insufferably smug.

"You will tell me how to revive Tommy - you'll tell me what you did, you'll stop tampering - or I will kill you. Do you hear me, Wilbur? Do you understand me? I will kill you."

Wilbur sorts through his deck, counting cards and yawning. Unimpressed.

"I will kill you and bring you back and kill you again. Over and over and over, as long as it takes. Every minute of every hour of every day of every month of every year until. You. Spill. Your. Secrets. Now do you want to listen to me, and do it the easy, easy, easiest way, or d-"

"Actually, I'm a bit - little itty bitty bit, tiny bit - tired of of this whole living thing, love," Wilbur interrupts. Dream stutters as Wilbur runs past Dream, spins round to face him and fall back, arms spread like a bird and wearing a shit eating grin. Wilbur Soot throws himself at burning, starving lava with a silly salute and bright eyes.

"BYE, DREAM!"

The freckled man can't do anything but stare as Wilbur's face contorts in awful, horrible pain for just a moment, then gone. Fully, completely gone - nothing but a swirl of smoke. The scent of burnt flesh stains the air and Dream feels like he's going to vomit. A charred sleeve falls to the ground in front of him - embroidered patches display old flags.

Dream picks up the cloth.

Green and white and pink, blue and purple with a white... sun? And-

He clenches his hand around the scrap.

Half a black circle, a fine yellow border and a bold yellow x. A line of blue runs along the top, and red along the bottom, and white cuts through the center with two more crosses.

The flag of a fallen nation.

Dream holds the patch with shaking hands, fury racing through his veins like hot fire, the fire that ravaged fur and ravaged flesh. He lifts the chunk of fabric to the lava, flinching as the fire swallows it eagerly and licks at his skin with a flash of searing, searing pain. Tears prick at his eyes as he holds a scorched, damaged hand to his chest, breathing like sailer too close to the sea and its sirens. Dreams turns and he swipes the water off his face and he throws it to the ground, to the ring of red blood (his own, his own blood, his own horrible horrible red blood) and a single glove, a single fingerless glove taken from his own hands, a glove with just traces, traces, traces of a dead man, miniscule little skin cells, gloves he had borrowed long ago from hands stained gray with gunpowder, and he waits for the blood to lighten and glow and he waits for Wilbur to appear again with the same cold, cold eyes.

Wilbur doesn't respond.

Dream punches the wall. "STOP TAMPERING! STOP TAMPERING!"

He almost hears the mocking laughter.

Then stop trying.

Far, far away, a small piglin opens his eyes. He's tucked against a bigger piglin, a sow who had never let him sleep beside her before.

There's a baby strider sleeping in front of him an a kind voice in his ears.

Good morning, Tommy.

"Oh, Wilbur! Wil, you're back! Wil. Wil. Wil. Wil, where were you?"

Off. Visited an old friend, brought a new one. Sorry about- about yesterday.

"It's ok, I think. And, by the way?"

Hm?

"Thank you, Wilbur."

For the strider?

"For... everything, really. Everything here."

Oh.

Tommy doesn't hear Wilbur's quiet ...Don't thank me yet.

[grantyort]

Prelude IV: Relight

Post-Surgery: DAY ONE

[Sean sits in the hospital bed, legs crossed, staring into space when he hears a familiar voice.]

Joey: Sean, Sean Diaz? Well damn. I never thought I’d see your sorry ass again!

Sean: Geez Joey. Is that how you talk to all your patients?

Joey: Just the ones I like.

[Sean chuckles]

Joey: C’mere big man.

[Joey gives Sean a big bear hug]

Sean: How’ve you been Joey?

Joey: Can’t complain. These days, they got me up in hospice care. You’re probably the first person I’ve seen today that didn’t need their bedpans changed.

Sean: Sounds terrible.

Joey: It’s all not all bad. Lot of these folks have stories that you wouldn’t believe. One of my patients has lived through five wars and two depressions, tells me I’m a credit to my race.

Sean: Yeesh.

Joey: (shrugs) She means well. It’s almost flattering compared to some of the stuff I’ve heard. Been on this job almost ten years now, some people still treat me like I have no idea what I’m doing.  

Sean: That sucks Joey.

Joey: Yeah... Anyway, you seem to be doing pretty well for yourself. From what I heard, this procedure cost a small fortune. You must have friends in high places.

Sean: Yeah, something like that.

Joey: And no guard at the door this time. I assume everything got cleared up with the police? Not planning to make a break for it again are ya?

Sean: Nah, no daring escapes this time.

Joey: Good. I don’t think I’d survive another blow to the head.

Sean: Listen Joey I’m really sorry-

Joey: (laughs) Relax Sean! I’m just messing with you! It’s ancient history as far as I’m concerned. Say, did you ever end up finding that brother of yours?

Sean: Yeah. He’s actually coming to visit me tomorrow.

Joey: Can’t wait to meet him!

Sean: Famous last words.

Joey: So… what you been up to these days?

Sean: Mostly just cramming for the SATs, drawing, listening to music. Normal teenage shit.

Joey: That’s good to hear. I was worried about you man. You went AWOL after the hospital. I got police and Feds breathing down my neck for weeks. Then a month later, I hear about a couple of kids trying the border to Mexico on the news.

Sean: Sorry I never reached out. I just didn’t want to get you more involved than you already were-

Joey: You made the right call. They questioned me for hours. My apartment was filled with G-men, my girlfriend was freaked. I honestly thought she was going to dump my ass.

Sean: I’m really sorry Joey.

Joey: Don’t sweat it Sean, it was for a good cause. Besides, everything worked out in the end.

Sean: Yeah I noticed, how long have you been-

Joey: Almost a year now. We’re expecting our first baby in the summer.

Sean: Congratulations dude!

Joey: Thanks, but honestly, I’m kinda nervous, don’t think I’m ready to be a father.

Sean: You’ll be a great dad, Joey. You’re awesome at taking care of people.

Joey: You’re damn right. Speaking of which, we should probably take a look at that eye of yours.

[Joey takes off the bandage and gives Sean’s eye a thorough examination]

Joey: Well it looks a helluva lot better than the last time I saw it.

Sean: That’s good to hear. I wasn’t sure it would work.

Joey: Well it’s too early to say if your vision will fully recover. But at the very least you won’t have to walk around with a patch anymore.

Sean: Good. It’s hard enough finding a prom date let alone one that’s willing to go with a pirate.

Joey: Still with the pirate jokes huh? Hopefully, you’ll have to write some new material after this.

[Joey applies a new bandage on Sean’s eye]

Joey: And you’re all set. Now as much as I love our talks, I gotta make my rounds. Buzz me if you need me.

Sean: Later Joey.

Joey: See ya tomorrow Sean.

 [Joey leaves the room. Sean turns to look out the window. The door shoots open, and a small figure comes bursting in.]

Daniel: Sean! 

[He jumps onto the bed and into Sean’s arms]

Stephen: (out-of-breath) Sorry, I tried to stop him, but he outran me.

Sean: You okay Stephen?

Stephen: I am… just need a minute to catch my breath. The old ticker ain’t what it used to be- I need to sit down.

Daniel: Take it easy grandpa.

Sean: What are you doing here, enano? I wasn’t expecting you guys until tomorrow.

Daniel: I made grandpa book an earlier flight. I just couldn’t wait! 

[he hugs Sean again]

Sean: Haha easy. I just had surgery, remember?

Daniel: Oh right, s-sorry.

[There’s a brief flash, followed by a shutter click]

Sean: What’re you doing, gramps?

Stephen: Oh nothing, just commemorating the moment. Thanks to your brother, I finally got the hang of this newfangled smartphone camera.

Daniel (whispering): He had it stuck on selfie mode for days. Anyway, did it go? Is your eye…

Sean: I mean… it’s not 100% yet but I can sort of see again.

Daniel: T-that’s awesome! Can I see it?

Sean: Dude last time I showed you my eye, you almost cried. Besides, the doctors say I still need to keep the bandage on for a bit, while it heals.

Daniel: Right. That makes sense. Oooh this room looks cool. Do they have Netflix or a Playbox?

Sean: It’s a hospital, dude.

Daniel: Lame.

Sean: So catch me up. Did I miss anything interesting at home?

Daniel: Nah… Chris is still on that fishing trip with his dad so there’s no one to hang out with. Oh I almost forgot. He made you this card. Isn’t it awesome?

[Daniel gives Sean a hand-drawn “get-well-soon” card from Chris]

Sean: Yeah. It’s pretty cool. We can have Claire put it up when we get back.

Daniel: Grandma’s still in that feud with the lady from church.

Sean: Which one was that again?

Daniel: Agnes, the one who gives off major Lisbeth-vibes. She says grandma stole her casserole recipe for the church bake-sale. Lying bitch.

Stephen: Language!

Sean: Maybe one of us should try to smooth things over before it gets nasty.

Stephen: Hell hath no fury… lemme tell ya. I’ve been married to your grandmother long enough to know once that woman sets her mind on something… there’s no stopping her. Best to just let things run their course.

Sean: Claire can get a little… passionate sometimes. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen her lose her temper for real.

Stephen: There’s a fire in that woman. It’s part of the reason I married her. Just pray she never turns it on you. I hope I’ll never live to see that day, god willing.

[Sean notices Daniel circling the hospital bed, pressing his hand on various parts of the mattress]

Sean: (laughs) What are you doing, enano?

Daniel: Just trying to figure which side of the bed I want to sleep on tonight.

Sean: Dude. There’s no way this bed’s gonna fit both of us.

Daniel: The one in Mom’s trailer was way smaller!

Sean: Yeah well… you were a lot smaller back then.

Stephen: They have a nice area for visitors down the hall.

Daniel: But I want to stay with Sean!

Sean: I guess I could ask Joey to bring in a couch or something.

Daniel: Who’s Joey?

Sean: The nurse who took care of me after the accident. I told you about him, remember?

Daniel: Oh right! I can’t wait to meet him!

 DAY TWO

Joey: How are we doing today? Any headaches, dizziness, socket pain?

Sean: Nah it’s all good. Still getting used to having depth perception again. It’s kinda weird.

Joey: You’ll get used to it. Anything else to report?

Sean: Nothing major. I’ve just been having some really weird dreams.

Joey: We have a psychiatrist on-site if you need a professional to talk to.

Sean: Nah it’s alright, probably just the drugs messing with my brain.

Joey: Well your vitals look good. We’ll go over some basic tests. You know the drill.

(Sean covers his right eye and tries to read the chart. Joey then shines a light and asks him to follow along. Finally, he asks Sean to put the cap back on the pen.)

Joey: You passed with flying colors. The doctor will be in for a final exam tomorrow and then we can discharge you.

Sean: (sarcastically) Too bad, I was ready to become the first Mexican pirate to attend college. So much for being a trailblazer.

Joey: Good to see you haven’t lost that snarky-ass sense of humor.

Joey: Anyway, I’m taking my lunch now. Want me to get you anything from the cafeteria? Wait… don’t tell me. Chocolate pecan?

Sean: You know it.

Joey: I met your brother in the hall. Cute kid.

Sean: (deadpans) Give it a few days. Then see if you get a “second opinion.”

Joey: He does seem a little… “energetic”. But that’s normal for kids his age.

Sean: Yeah one minute I’m his favorite person in the world. The next, he’s off doing God knows what, and doesn’t want me “bossing him around”. You know how it is.

Joey: Can’t say I do. Grew up in a house with three older sisters. Guess I must have been the annoying one. Daniel’s lucky to have you looking out for him. Must be tough sometimes.

Sean: Oh you have no idea.

[Joey claps Sean’s shoulder, he feels a jolt shooting up his spine, everything goes white] 

(Sean sees a door marked: “Miranda A. Connolly, Hospital Director”)

Connolly: You’ve been a valuable asset to this hospital. Stellar feedback from all of your patients and attendings.

Joey: I sense a “but” coming.

Connolly: But, given the dubious circumstances surrounding your transfer and your past involvement with the law. The Board thinks it might be better for one of the other nurses to take this spot.

Joey: Please. I’ve got a kid on the way. We just bought our first house. Can you at least consider bumping up my pay? I haven’t gotten a real raise since I started here. There are kids coming out of nursing school that make what I make!

Connolly: The hospital has limited resources as it is, and the State just slashed our funding again. I just can’t justify raising anyone’s salary right now.

Joey: I break my back for this hospital, work extra shifts, get to know the patients. You promised me at the annual review that I’d-

Connolly: That was before this new information came to light. I’m sorry Joseph, maybe next year.

[Sean snaps out of his trance]

Joey: Sean? Sean are you okay?

Sean: Sorry, Guess I spaced out. Must just be the medication.

Joey: I can have the doctor come by and adjust your dosage.

Sean: I’m fine Joey. I swear. Weren’t you about to take lunch?

Joey: Oh right. We’ll pick this up later.

[Joey leaves the room, looking slightly puzzled.]

Sean: (thinking) W-what what was that? A dream? But It felt so… real.

[Sean takes out his phone and enters the name of the hospital, He finds their website. Under the ‘About’ section he scrolls to the Executive team bio. There is a photo of the woman he saw in the vision followed by a small blurb]

“Miranda A. Connolly is the President and Chief Director of Mt. Cedar General Hospital. She was appointed back in 2016 as Associate Director and has since made ground-breaking changes to the field of medicine and medical care. Under her leadership, this hospital was able to expand greatly, hiring new diverse staff members and vastly improving quality of care for all its patients.”

Sean: (thinking) Holy shit… it’s real. Does that mean I…?

Daniel: Hey Sean! What you looking at?

Sean: Dude! Don’t sneak up on me like that!

Daniel: I wasn’t sneaking. I was practicing my stealth!

Sean: Yeah sure.

Daniel: Are you looking at the new Playbox Pro? My birthday is right around the corner you know.

Sean: Birthday? It’s still January!

Daniel: Never too early to start preparing.

Sean: (rolling eyes) Yeah cuz everything’s always about you.

Daniel: Oooh I bet you were watching those dirty videos again. I’m tellin’ grandpa!

Sean: Hey hands off my phone you little-

[Daniel tries to grab Sean’s phone. Sean wrests his hand away. There is another a jolt]

[Daniel stands in front of the vending machine, staring at the jumbo chock-o-crisp. He looks around to check that the coast is clear. Then he waves his hand causing the chock-o-crisp to fall off the rack and into the dispenser slot.He gleefully retrieves it and devours the candy bar in a matter of seconds]

Sean: Dude, I told you not to eat any more chock-o-crisps! Do you want another trip to the dentist?

Daniel: What are you talking about? I haven’t had one in weeks!

Sean: Yeah sure. So you didn’t pig out at the vending machine before coming in here?

Daniel: How did you-

Sean: Maybe I have magic powers or maybe… you’ve still got crumbs on your collar.

Daniel: Aw, damn it. Promise you won’t tell grandpa.

Sean: Oh so you can tell on me but I can’t tell on you?

Daniel: (smugly) Exactly.

Sean: C’mere ya little shit!

Daniel: Sean stop! Ha that tickles. Quit it!

(After their little bout, Daniel curls up next to Sean, resting his head on Sean’s lap. Sean ruffles Daniel’s hair absentmindedly)

Sean: You ever wish you were… you know “normal” again?

Daniel: You mean not have my powers? Nah. They’re a part of me now. Besides, being normal is overrated.

Sean: (chuckles) I guess it is. But do you ever get that feeling like you thought you wanted something for a really long time but when you finally get it, it nothing like you thought it’d be?

Daniel: Uhhh… you mean like how I begged grandma to get me a PlayBox Live Subscription, but then the exclusives turned out to be shit? And now I have to act like I love it?

Sean: Yeah something like that.

Daniel: (yawns) Meh I’ll just ask for a gaming PC for my birthday.

Sean: Dude you’re like the greediest ten year-old I know.

Daniel: How many ten year-olds do you know?

Sean: Uh… just you and Chris.

Daniel: So, you want me to be more like Chris?

Sean: Wouldn’t hurt.

Daniel: (imitating Chris) “Only the purest of hearts may wield the power of Captain Spirit!”

Sean: Guess that rules you out.

Daniel: (playfully) Shut up.

DAY THREE

Doctor: Okay Mr.Diaz. I want you to follow the light. Look to your right, up and to the right. Good, good, excellent pupil response.  Now look at the chart, cover your right eye and read this line.

Sean: Uh… A, O, E, P… T? Sorry I can’t really make out the last one.

Doctor: That’s okay, it takes time.

Doctor: Now this is probably the last thing you want to hear, but I recommend that you wear a patch over your right eye. It’ll be temporary of course, just until you learn to see with your left eye again.

Sean: (laughs dryly) And here I thought my seafaring days were behind me.

Doctor: You know… pirate actually wore patches so their eyes could easily adjust to the darkness and see below deck- Sorry my son’s going through a pirate phase.

Sean: I know the feeling. My little brother’s been through every phase imaginable.

Doctor: Kids, you gotta treasure every moment. Because before you know it, they’ll be all grown up, ready to go off on their own. Look at me, rambling on. Anyway, I signed your discharged papers. They’ll schedule you for some outpatient care in the coming months.You’re almost ready to go. 

Sean: Sounds good.

Doctor: And you’re sure you don’t want to get do something about that nasty scar? A good-looking kid like you, it would be a shame to-

Sean: That’s okay, I think I’ll keep it… as a reminder.

Doctor: Alright but if you ever change your mind, I could refer you to a great plastic surgeon.

Sean: Thanks Doc, for everything.

Doctor: The pleasure’s all mine, Mr.Diaz. The groundwork we laid here could help hundreds of other patients in the future. We are making history. Your nurse should be along in a moment to help you get discharged.

[Sean sits in quiet contemplation. Reflecting on his dreams and new “vision”]

Sean (thinking): Be careful what you wish for... 

Joey: Looks like everything’s good to go. Remember to use your eye-drops-

Sean: Twice a day. Yeah Joey, I know.

Joey: Guess it’s goodbye again. Don’t be a stranger this time okay?

Sean: I won’t.

Joey: Here’s my number. Call me if ever need professional advice or just want to shoot the shit.

Sean: Thanks Joey. Let me know how everything goes with the baby.

Joey: Oh don’t you worry about that. Soon I’ll be blowing up your phone with pictures.

Sean: Haha can’t wait.

Joey: Now hospital policy says I gotta wheel your ass outta here. For liability reasons.

Sean: At least it’ll be a smoother exit than last time.

Joey: (laughs) Get in the chair smart-ass.

Beaver Creek, One Week Later

Sean: Okay, you ready?

Daniel: (takes deep breath) Alright. Show it to me.

Sean: So… how does it look?

Daniel: Looks… normal.

Sean: You almost sound disappointed. Were you expecting a bionic eye or something?

Daniel: No. I just… it looks good. I like the scar; makes you look extra tough.

Sean: You think so?

Daniel: Yeah… totally badass!

Sean: Thanks, enano.

Daniel: You need a new codename, like Scarred Wolf or Deadshot Diaz!

Sean: Let’s leave the nicknames up to Chris.

Daniel: Hey! I make up awesome names too!

Sean: Whatever you say,“Superwolf”

[sebspocketsquare]

Quarantine 5

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader (online)

A/N: Heya guys! Here’s part 5, sorry it’s been a little bit. I had some trouble with this one because I really just wanted to get to part 6 LOL. Anyway, i hope you enjoy it! -T

Warnings: Flirting, language, quarantine, feels, fluff

The next morning, a string of texts wakes you. 

It’s J, letting you know his friend will be by in a couple of hours to install your security system and bring by groceries. 

He tells you to double check who’s on the other side of the door before opening it, and informs you that his friend's name is Sam.

Seems simple enough.

You get dressed, deciding to wear something a little nicer than the pajamas you’d been wearing lately. Makeup finds its way to your face and you even manage to brush your hair.

You could at least make yourself look human today, especially since you didn’t know how good of friends J and Sam were.. what if he went right back and told J you looked like you hadn’t bathed in weeks? 

That wouldn’t be good for your blossoming relationship…. friendship? Whatever it was.

You’re getting yourself a glass of water when someone knocks at your door. 

The couch had been moved back to its original position, and you look through the spyhole on your door to find a man standing there in a doctors mask with a backpack and bags of groceries in hand.

“Can I help you?” You ask through the door.

He makes eye contact with you through the spyhole. “I’m Sam, J’s friend. I’m here to install the security system for you?”

That was convincing enough for you. Opening the door, you offer a small smile. “Hi.. I’m uh.. I’m Clair.”

You can’t tell if he’s smiling through the mask, but he makes his way inside and sets the bags on the floor. 

“You mind if I take this off now? I promise I’m not sick.” He motions to the mask and you laugh softly. “No, go ahead. It’s fine. Just uh.. Stay six feet away.”

He removes his mask with a sigh of relief before flashing a pearly smile at you, “I’m Sam. Nice to officially meet you.” He looks familiar for a split second, but you convince yourself you’re merely imagining it.

Sam gets right to work with the install, and you take that time to put away the food and wine he’s brought. It’s too much for just you, it’ll last you months, but with everything that’s going on, you don’t know if you’ll even be ready to leave the house again anytime soon.

You make sure to shoot J a text telling him thank you.

Sam puts a device on each window and in each doorway of your apartment. A keypad is put right by your front door, and a panic button right beside your bed. He helps you set up a 4 digit pin that you’ll need to enter any time you come or go, and shows you how to set the alarm when you go to sleep at night. It’s so simple, but so secure.

J was right. It made you feel better. Safer.

Once everything is completely set up, he pulls a piece of paper from his back pocket and hands it to you. It’s an order form. For your computer and television. You’d made the decision to not let him replace your tablet. He was already doing too much.

“Oh..” is all you can manage to say as you look it over.

Sam chuckles in return, “He um.. he really cares about you, you know..”

Meeting his eyes, you risk asking him a personal question, “What’s your opinion in all of this..? How he feels about me?”

He looks taken back for a moment, but smiles fondly before he answers. “I’ve known him for awhile now, and.. He’s the happiest I’ve ever seen him when he’s talking to you.”

You can’t help but smile at that knowledge.

“And Clair?” 

You meet his gaze one more time.

“I know it’s probably weird for you, that he wants to take care of all of this for you, but.. let him. He’s a good man. He doesn’t have any ulterior motives. He just.. when he cares about someone, he’s all in.”

Your heart warms at his words and you nod slowly.

He smiles again before picking up his backpack and heading for the door. 

“Hey Sam?”

He turns to you just before he’s out the door.

“Tell J I said hi.”

He chuckles and shakes his head, “Will do… and don’t tell him what I said about him being a good man and all that…  he’ll never let me live it down.”

HIM

I know as soon as the system is installed because a crude outline of her apartment appears on my computer screen. 

I set alerts to let me know anytime someone approaches the vicinity, when she leaves and when she sets the alarm for the evening. If she presses the panic button, it alerts the authorities first and then me.

I have to take every precaution to keep her safe. 

I’m closing the window on my computer when Sam returns home. I hear him kick his shoes off and set his bag down before heading straight for the shower. He pokes his head in my room on his way there. “System is installed, also.. damn she is way out of your league.”

His observation makes my heart rate increase. “Wait, what? What does that mean?”

He laughs and shakes his head, leaving it at that as he continues on his way.

I find myself suddenly jealous that he’s gotten to see her with his own eyes and I haven’t.

“You could at least describe her for me!” I call after him, to which he just cackles.

My best friend is an asshole.

HER

You’re sitting on the couch watching random videos on your phone when a new message comes through from J.

[Sarge:] Everything go smooth? :)

You’re sure he already knows the answer, and you’re positive that Sam already told him all about you, but you decide to humor him anyway.

[clairv0yant:] Yes. :) Thank you again for everything.. I really appreciate you. I checked the tracking on the form that he gave me and everything should be here by the end of next week. 

[Sarge:] Doll, I promise you don’t have to thank me. I’m happy to be able to help you out. :) 

[Sarge:] It will be strange not gaming with you every night for a while, but.. We’ll just have to find another way to spend time together.

His words only cause the smile on your face to grow. He’s so sweet. So considerate. So genuine and unfathomably selfless. You weren’t sure what you’d done to earn the affections of such an amazing person.

[Sarge:] By that I mean.. expect phone calls every night ;) 

[clairv0yant:] That sounds perfect to me. :P

xxx

You spent more time on the phone with J over the next week and a half than you’d ever spent in your life. Constantly exchanging texts and making phone calls, but never once asking the other for a photo. Not that you weren’t curious, because you surely were, but you were afraid of what he expected you to be like. Did he already have an image of you in his head? An ideal Clair?

You’d tried to picture him several times, but failed at each attempt. He still remained a mystery to you.

When your new tech finally arrives, you nearly jump out of your skin with joy. You make sure to lysol the holy hell out of the shipping boxes before touching them, and once the product inside is removed and placed in the safety of your apartment, the useless cardboard goes into the recycle bin outside.

It takes you an hour and 45 minutes to get everything set up, but of course as soon as you’ve finished, J is insistent about playing.

It’d been so long, there was no way you were denying him.

You missed it just as much as he did.

“You know what I miss most?” You speak into your mic, keeping your eyes trained on the battle scene happening on the screen before you.

J hums a soft, “hmmm?” in response, trying to keep his focus too.

“Mexican food.”

He can’t help but let out a bark of laughter, obviously shocked at your most missed thing while locked away.

“Mexican food? Really?”

It’s your turn to hum a soft, “Mmmhm”.

He’s quiet for a few moments except for the sound of his keyboard clacking as he fights, determined to win this round.

When the word Victory appears on your screen, he speaks again.

“You know I um..” He pauses, and you can feel his anxiety seeping through the internet connection. “Nevermind, heh..”

“What is it?” The first emotion you feel is concern. What could he not feel comfortable telling you?

“Promise you won’t just laugh at me?”

That’s a promise you know you’ll be able to keep. “Of course, J. What’s up?”

There's a bit of silence on his end, and then you swear you hear his adam's apple bob in his throat in a gulp for courage. “When all of this is over, I.. I’d really like to take you out on a date..”

You’re stunned into silence, thankful that a new game has yet to start.

He must take the quiet as a negative response, because he immediately backtracks.

“I-I mean, that’s stupid right? You wouldn’t go on a date with some guy you met online.. Hell, I could be some cree--”

“I would love to.” You cut him off before he can ramble on too much.

“You-really?” You can hear the smile in his voice and it brings an even bigger smile to yours.

“But only if it’s mexican food.”

He lets out a soft chuckle, the rumbling of the sound making your heart flutter.

“I wish..” He stops himself again, letting out a little sigh, “I wish I knew when that would be though.. When all of this will be over.. I just.. I really want to spend time with you, Clair.”

A new match begins in the game, but you’re so distracted by his confession that you almost miss your window to pick your character.

“We’re spending time together right now, aren’t we?” You joke, but there’s a falter to your voice, a doubt. You know what he really means.

“You know what I mean, I.. I want to be there, with you.”

It’s your turn to exhale a sigh.

“I know what you mean..” A funny image comes to your head, and you find it slipping from your tongue before you can stop yourself. “What would a quarantine date consist of anyway? You sitting on the opposite side of my front door drinking beer, while I sit inside drinking wine?”

He’s silent.

Not even a laugh.

It’s a whole two minutes before he speaks again.

“You know.. That could work.”

TAGS: (I wasnt sure who to tag, so if you dont want to be, I’m sorry!! Just trying to get this out there. ALSO if you wanna be tagged INBOX ME! I tend to miss people in the notes :(  ).  @mindingmyownbusiness​ @plumfondler​  @buckybarnesappreciationsociety​ @loricameback​ @tinaferraldo​ @geminimoonbeamx​  @preserumsteverogers​ @moderapoppins​ @lowkeysebby​ @buckyshattergirl​  @jayattemptstoruletheworld​    @the-observant-fangirl​ @moondancewrites​ @moonbeambucky​ @trinityjadec​  @stevieang​  @bionic-buckyb​ @eyecandybarnes​ @propertyofpoeandbucky​ @promarvelfangirl​ @ballyhoobarnes​ @bucky-plums-barnes​ @cate-lynne​ @witchymarvelspacecase​ @imaginingbucky​ @theimpossibleg1rl​ @babygurl8840 @wonderlandmind4 @buckysthing​ @formulafun​ @curvybihufflepuff​ @fanficsformarvelkillme​  @shadyskit​ @lostinthoughtsandfeelings​ @reading–mermaid @fuckmestan​ @siliverin​ @verygraphicink​ @sallyp-53 @thatsbucknasty​ @steadyphantomcat​ @booktease21 @kiki5283 @lostinspace33 @drayshadow​ @theperditioncrasher​ @mmyepic​ @feelmyroarrrr@alien-beans @heartsaved​ @sideeffectsofyou​ @dreamingofonceuponatime​ @just-a-littlebit-of-everything​ @bluerorjhan​ @tarynsnotokay​ @jamdropx35 @turquoisekokiri​ @pinknerdpanda​​ @starkrobb​ @marvelgirl7​ @unscriptedtimetraveler​ @fangeekkk​ @wonderlandmind4​ @pinkisokay​ @mrsdaamneron​ @rynabarnesrogers​ @wish-i-had-something-better​ @stanning-seb-stan​ @oilersgirl35​ @vaisabu​ @paranoid-borderline-insane​ @bonkywobble​ @vikki-rogue​ @witchymegg​ @a--1--1--3​ @margetastic33​ @stuffandstuff-stuff​

[lovemesomesurveys]

do you sing in the shower? Yeah, I have a shower playlist on my Spotify I sing along to.

do you think money makes people happy? It certainly helps, sure, but you can still be unhappy and unfulfilled. It’s not everything.

what's your relationship status? Very much single.

what time is it? 3:29AM.

what emotion are you feeling right now? Tired and irritated.

do you have netflix? I do.

have you ever traveled outside your home country? Once.

coffee or tea? Coffee, of course. 

shower or bath? Shower.

what's your favorite pizza topping? Extra cheese and sauce, spinach, cilantro, green onion, garlic. 

what's something that makes you happy? Beach days.

do you have siblings or are you an only child? I have two brothers.

what's your favorite instrument? Piano.

what's your favorite food? Italian, Mexican, and American.

what is something you are always losing? My mind, probably. <<< That’s how I feel.

are you good at spelling? I think so.

what is one goal you have? Get my health stuff under control.

did you get a flu shot this year? No. I never have.

what's your favorite Disney movie? A few of my top favorites are Alice in Wonderland, Winnie the Pooh, Toy Story and A Goofy Movie.

are you bored? No.

what are you listening to? An ASMR video. what's your favorite foreign language? Spanish.

what do you do when you can't sleep? My nightly routine consisting of scrolling through Tumblr, doing surveys, and listening to ASMR.

do you like cats or dogs better? Dogs.

do you have any piercings? Just my earlobes.

what's your favorite vegetable? Potatoes, spinach, green onions, broccoli. do you eat meat? Yeah.

what's the best concert you've ever been to? All of ‘em. Concerts are just a fun, cool experience.

what's your favorite season? Fall and winter.

do you still write letters? No.

what would make you really happy right now? If I was able to have beach vacay.

what's your favorite song? I have a lot.

are you good at giving advice? I wouldn’t recommend asking me for advice; I’m a mess.

what's your favorite hobby? Reading and doing surveys.

do you prefer to talk or text? Text over talking on the phone.

what's your favorite pair of shoes? My Adidas.

how often do you read? (as in books) I read a lot. I finish one and start another. There’s a few different series I’ve been into that’s been keeping me occupied.

do you have any pets? I have a doggo.

what's your favorite day of the week? I don’t have one.

are you in college? No, I’m done with school.

are you/have you ever been in a long distance relationship? No.

how do you typically listen to music? I use Spotify.

do you like going to the beach? I love the beach.

did you make any new year's resolutions? No, I stopped doing that years ago.

how old are you? 31 years old.

do you know anyone who is blind? No.

who is someone you admire? My mom.

do you have a good singing voice? No, unfortunately. 

are your nails painted? Nope. It’s been a few years since I’ve painted them.

Are you an extrovert or introvert? I’m definitely an introvert. 

what are you having/had for dinner tonight? I don’t know, yet.

do you ever write in a journal? This is my journal/diary.

if you could time travel when/where would you go? My childhood. what's your favorite animal? Doggos and giraffes.

what's your favorite kind of cereal? The sugary ones.

how was your day? It’s only 4 in the morning. 

do you ever listen to classical music? Not often or regularly, no.

what inspires you? I haven’t felt inspired in a very long time.

how many pillows do you sleep with? Finally had to pack away a lot of them cause they were just taking up too much space. I currently have 4 on my bed, but prior I had like 10. I only actually use 2.

how many hours of sleep do you need? I never have enough.

do you have big or small feet? Small.

what's the weather like where you are? Miserably hot.

what's the most interesting thing you can see out the window? It’s pitch black out right now. 

does/did your high school have a school song? Yeah.

what month is your birthday in? July.

what's your dream job? I don’t have one. :/

are you excited for summer? Noooooo. D:

what foreign country would you want to live in for 6 months? Hmm. I’d have to really think about that.

did you have to go to school today? No, I’m done with school.

win a million $$ or never have to pay for anything again? Never have to pay for anything again, obviously. <<<

do you throw coins into fountains? Sometimes.

do you have a trampoline? No.

what's your favorite song lyric? I have many.

what did you eat the last time you went to the movies? Popcorn and mini KitKats. 

do you ever measure time in songs? When listening to music I sometimes do that. Like, when in the shower I measure how long to leave my shampoo in my hair that way.

do you know how to play chess? Nope.

what's your favorite game? (any type) Mario Bros, The Sims, various board games..

do you enjoy traveling? I don’t get the opportunity to do a lot of it, but yes.

do you tend to wait till the last minute? Yes.

have you ever owned a goldfish? Yeah.

how do you relieve stress? Cry.

without looking it up, guess the outside temperature? 82F.

now look it up - how close were you? Ha, I guessed way too high it’s only 52. It’s been getting really warm in the mornings so I assumed it was already high.

do you prefer digital or analog clocks/watches? Digital.

do you prefer to shop in stores or online? I’ve been doing a lot of online shopping the past few years even pre-COVID, but since COVID that’s all I’ve done until just recently as I’ve started to venture out to places like Target and Walmart. I haven’t gone to any clothing stores or any other store, yet, but I’m working towards it. Anyway, all that being said I do enjoy shopping online, but it’s nice to get out there and shop once in awhile. It’s definitely more comfortable and convenient for me right now, though.

do you enjoy coloring? I love my adult coloring books. <<<

do you like to dance? I don’t really dance.

have you ever owned a horse? No.

do you take selfies? Rarely. I did for the first time in a long time recently at my bro’s grad party.

do you ever listen to music in languages besides English? Not often, but sometimes.

have you ever cried from listening to a song? Oh, definitely.

what's your favorite song from a movie? I have several favorites. 

do you prefer headphones or earbuds? Earbuds.

who was your favorite music artist when you were 10? Britney Spears, N*SYNC, Backstreet Boys, etc. <<<

when was the last time you had to go to the dentist? It’s been a few years.

can you speak Spanish? Very little.

what's the last thing you watched on youtube? I’m currently watching an ASMR video.

now what time is it? 6:09AM. I clearly took a break. Well, actually I feel asleep.

do you ever watch musicals? Yeah, some.

do you know anyone who's a twin? Yeah.

do you ever get carsick? Yes.

what's your opinion on wolves? They’re gorgeous, but I wouldn’t want to be near one.

when you're sad do you prefer sad music or happy music? I go for the sad.

do you like seafood? Nooo.

do you enjoy going to the zoo? I enjoy seeing zoo animals, but I hate that they’re in captivity like that. <<<

are there any celebrities from your hometown? Yes.

do you shower in the morning or at night? At night.

do you prefer to work alone or in a group? Alone.

do you go to the gym alone or with a friend? I don’t go to the gym.

do you like coconut? I like the scent but not the food. <<<

who is someone you're jealous of? No one.

what's your favorite place to go out for breakfast? IHOP, Denny’s, and this local place.

do you still have your christmas tree up? Ha, no. And I actually have the decorations in my room put away as well, which prior to this year I had up for two years. 

do you have a favorite type of bird? No.

have you ever had an overnight flight anywhere? No.

if you use them, tell me 5 of your recently used emojis I don’t feel like checking.

do you know anyone that plays the violin? *shrug* I might.

how much money is in your wallet right now? Not sure, exactly.

anything you're looking forward to tomorrow? No.

have you ever auditioned for anything? Nope.

did you have a webkinz when you were younger? No.

how would you describe your aesthetic? I have no idea.

have you ever been told you look like a celebrity? No. 

when was the last time you rode a bus? Back when I was still in college, so 6 years ago.

if you saw $50 on the ground what would you do? If no one was around, I’d pick it up and keep it. If it was in a wallet, I’d turn it in. <<< That’s what I would do.

do you know how to play any unusual instruments? No. 

are you an early bird or a night owl? Both, really. Here I am at 6:17AM basically up all night. I dozed off for a bit, but still.

have you ever had trouble understanding someone because of an accent? Yes.

do you ever go to Massachusetts? I’ve never been.

do you personally know anyone who is transgender? Not that I know of.

what was the most memorable rainbow you've ever seen? (if any) Uhh.

do you remember anything from when you were 5 or younger? Just spotty preschool memories.

do you need to do laundry? No.

do you know anyone (including yourself) who actually enjoys math? Ew, definitely not me.

do you have a favorite poem? No. I haven’t read a whole lot of poetry.

if you were from somewhere else, would you visit your town on vacation? Uh, no. There’s absolutely nothing to do here. We’re not a vacation/touristy city.

where would you spend $100 if you had to spend it all in one store? Ooh, probably Boxlunch.

would you rather go to Japan or Greece? Greece.

now what song are you listening to? I’m not listening to a song at the moment.

what are you wearing right now? Leggings and a Mario Bros shirt.

any fun plans for the weekend? Nope.