#the character fixation has gotten so bad that he's just there in my dreams for some reason

[tasitime]

i made firth gifs too btw

spoiles i think waau

the first one is in spanish and it means "fucking cockroach die" btw

oh yeah and also that one topoda gif

[delulu-with-wandanat]

Objective: Teenage Dreams.

Pairings: Wanda Maximoff x Natasha Romanoff

Tags: Pride month, bisexual Wanda, mutual pining, canon divergence, lesbian Natasha.

A/n: My gift before pride ends lol, it a little rushed but uhh... I enjoyed writing it and I hope you enjoy reading it. It's kind of a crack fic honestly, just good vibe for ye gays :D (Ps. sorry if there are mistakes I kind rushed this andd it's been a while.)

Summary: It's pride month and Wanda still hasn't made her move. Being the self-proclaimed greatest ally, Y/n and two other decided to give them a push.

On lazy days like these, Wanda usually spends it by reading a book, maybe binge watching some shows. Other times she spends it with her brother, but ever since joining the Avengers, Pietro has made it his ultimate goal to have Steve Roger's physique. He trained almost day and night, honestly Wanda could enter the gym at 9 in the morning finding her brother in the middle of a workout, and by the time she was finished he was still there.

Often time he was also with her best friend, who is now his gym buddy, Y/n Romanoff. Who was just as much of a gym rat as Pietro. Honestly, the amount of time they stare at themselves in the mirror was concerning. She's almost sure she had passed a video on social media featuring them titled; 'How to train like an Avenger'

So nowadays she spends her free time alone, even though she wishes she could spend it with a certain beautiful redhead-

Although it wasn't all that bad. Wanda had found a new fixation to spend her time on. Which was Fanfictions.

Now how does one stumbles upon this... wonderful world you might ask? Well for Wanda it started when she was watching a new TV Show she had recently discovered called, The 100. It was fun until they killed off one of her favorite character, Lexa. Wanda naturally dropped the show in an instant. During one of her rants to one of the new recruits, Kate Bishop then sent her a link leading to a website followed a text that read; "The showrunners might break your heart, but fanfiction authors will be there to pick up the pieces."

And Wanda... Fell down the rabbit hole from there.

At first all she searched was merely about wlw couples on her favorite movies and shows, like that one Supergirl TV show she had been recently watching. Or that one cute show called 'Everything Sucks' that got canceled after one season. Basically any wlw couples she started to like, but couldn't be explored due to the showrunners being a pus-

It didn't matter, she founded the holy-site that held all the stories in the world. Then, when she found nothing else to read there, it lead her journey to... a site that shares the same name as drinking bottle; Tumblr. Minus the 'e'.

The site gave her access to a whole new world and whole lot more stories. It was on this website that she found out there was a whole fandom for the Avengers, and many stories was written about them in different scenarios. Sometimes it was cute, other times it was... questionable-

You can't really blame her, can't you? Her name and the word mommy was basically inseparable on this site.

This was where she learned that people have also been 'shipping' one Avenger and the other. Curiosity got the better of the witch when she started to search herself... and a certain former Russian spy. She was surprised to see how many stories were written about them here. Wanda... may have gotten a little out of hand.

This was her guilty pleasure. Reading stories about her crush and herself in a scenario instead of actually trying to talk to her. Can you blame her though? She was what the internet describes as a 'Loser Lesbian'.

The little voice in her head prefers the word 'Useless Lesbian', which wasn't even accurate as she mostly resonates more with Bisexuality-

"Happy gay month, cus you know you bi and stuff!" Ah there it is, the 'little voice' burst through her door unannounced, causing Wanda to yelp and quickly shut her laptop close to hide her 'shameful' activity.

Wanda glared at the young Romanoff who was carrying 3 different items in his hand and approaching her on the bed. "What the fuck is wrong with-"

"Here, I got you a gay balloon cus it got all the color because it's GAY."

"Y/n-" She reluctantly takes the balloon.

"And I gotchu a vinyl album with that Sweater Weather song cus you Bi." He handed her the vinyl, how thoughtful.

"Ok-"

Lastly, "And I baked you a cake that says, 'BeeEE who yoOOUUu aaRREEE, for YooUURE PRiiiDEEEEeeeEE'" He sang the word off tune.

"Ok- Thank you... Uhm-" She grabs all the items and looks at them with confusion. "This is..." Wanda furrowed her eyes at her friend. "Why- Why did you do this, why are you doing this??"

"You know... Cus you're Bi!"

"I'm well aware of that fact."

"Well my dearest Wanda, in this holy month of June I have a very important mission to accomplish." The young Romanoff suddenly jumps on her bed and dramatically opens his arms as if he was some kind of showman. "I'm gonna get you a woman!"

The youngest Maximoff cringes her face and with a flick of her wrist she knock the soldier off her bed, earning a high pitch scream from him. "First of all, you can't get a woman for yourself how do you expect to get me a girlfriend."

"I have plenty of girls!" He said rather defensively as he sat up on the floor.

"And second, why is this so important to you?"

"What you don't want a girlfriend?"

"I still like guys you know."

He rolled his eyes, "I know that, but you always told me you wanted to try dating girls."

"Not just girls... a girl-" She mumbles.

"What was that?" The man raised a teasing eyebrow.

"Nothing! Now shut up, you haven't answered my question." Wanda said while huffing and crossing her arms.

"Because my dearest friend being Bisexual is one thing, but being bi yourself is just sad-" That statement earned him a rightful pillow thrown at him at full speed. Which he thankfully manages to deflect this time with his reflex.

Wanda then groans and plops on her bed. "You're not going to stop, are you?"

"Nope." Y/n even popped the 'p' to emphasize his point. With a roll of her eyes, Wanda agrees with an exaggerated fine and he joined her on the bed with a grin. "Now, first thing on the list is we need to get you some new clothes."

Wanda hastily sat up looked down at her current outfit and glanced at the mirror in her room. She gave him a stinky eye. "What's wrong with my clothes??" This rude bitch-

"Nothing..." Y/n said rather sassily, "I just... think it might need a little spice is all." Without asking for her permission, Y/n grabs her laptop out of her reach and opens it. "I was thinking we could- WHOAAA..."

"What's- NO!" Her eyes widens in panic has her dirty little secret have been exposed. The witch lunges herself to him only for the young super soldier to hold out a hand to keep her at a distance while staring bewildered at the screen before him. "GIVE IT BACK."

"OH MY GOD???? YOu into this shit?!!" Oh the young Romanoff was having the time of his life. He grinned as he looked at what the story was about, "Natasha Romanoff x Reader? Ohhh ho HO, you really llike her huh-?"

"Y/n I swear to god, GIVE IT BACK." She yelled, Wanda was fucking furious. She already had an annoying brother to deal with, what was she thinking adding Y/n into the mix.

"I want to see your blog." It was like she was seeing red, blood thumping in her brain.

Wanda screeched like a maniac, suddenly overpowering the super soldier. She was practically sitting on top of him wrestling with the now closed laptop, Y/n hugged the laptop close. "Y/N I WILL KILL YOU!"

"I JUST WANT TO SEE!"

"NEVER!" Their screaming was probably heard all over the compound as they wrestle for Wanda's laptop. However, a stern voice stopped their childish fight.

"Enough, both of you!" The two whipped their head to the door to see Natasha crossing her arms and looking at them expectantly. The two scurry off of each other and Wanda made a final yank on her laptop out of his reach. The two stood up like guilty children caught in a fight.

"He took my laptop without permission." Wanda spoke up before Y/n could open his mouth. The look of betrayal on his face brings pleasure to Wanda as Natasha's anger was now directed to him.

"You-"

"Y/n, you know better than to take other people's personal things." Natasha glared at her little brother.

"You're just going to believe her right out of the gate?!" He retorted.

"It's the truth!" Wanda said while hugging her laptop tightly.

"You little snitch-" The super soldier turned to face her challengingly. Before the two were about to enter yet another screaming match, Natasha's stern voice puts them in their place once again.

"You two are acting like children. I have enough of this, Y/n if you don't stop this childish nonsense I'll have you grounded from any missions."

"You can't do that?!" His eyes practically bulge out of it's eye socket.

"I can, and I will." Natasha's death stare easily intimidates him as he quickly mumbles an apology to Wanda. The spy's gaze turned to the witch with soft and caring look, unlike the one she gave to her sibling. "Wanda, if he gives you anymore trouble you let me know ok?"

"Thank you, Natasha." Wanda said shyly, a faint blush visible on her cheek. The redhead smiled at her before giving one last glare to Y/n and left to god-knows-where.

It was so painfully obvious that the two liked each other. Except the only one that fail to realize that is themselves. Operation Scarlet Widow was going to be a lot more difficult than he anticipated, Y/n might need a little backup.

"I seriously don't get why you can't just ask her out instead of reading a bunch of stories-"

This annoying fuck- "DON'T talk to me about that!" She suddenly uses her powers to float him out of her room. "I don't wanna hear about it-" She practically throws him out, Y/n lies on the floor while looking at his friend bewildered. Wanda gave one last glare and shuts the door on his face.

"But-"

"And stay out!" Her voice yelled from inside the room.

Being the annoying friend that he is, he got onto his feet and proceeds to bug the shit out of the witch. Y/n started with those gentle knocks on the door. "Honeyyy-" He teased her.

"Ohmyfuckinggod. Don't call me that!" Wanda yells again. Y/n snickers at her response.

"Wanda, come on..." He knocks again, hearing no response the soldier knocks on the door harder. "You can't hide forever, come out!"

"Jokes on you, I already am!"

"Not what I meant, but ok!" He snickers again, clearly Wanda would not be opening the door anytime soon. He makes his way to the gym to recruit some people who shall help him in this mission.

------

Upon entering the training grounds, Y/n found Yelena and Pietro in the middle of a sparring session. Only these two would spend their Sundays training.

"Dearest Brother, nice of you to join us." Of course Yelena would know it was him, despite having her back facing Y/n.

"Let me know when you want to spar with someone who can actually throw a punch." The soldier said with a smirk.

"Fuck you, Romanoff!" The silver-haired speedster gave him the finger before focusing back on his opponent. "You're the one who's lacking, I thought super soldiers could do this all day?"

Y/n scoffed, "Oh please, I can take you down without breaking a sweat. You rely mostly on your powers."

"Barf, are you going to keep bothering us or join us?" Yelena said with a roll of her eyes, using the distraction Pietro surges forward in an attempt to tackle Yelena. Although she may not have powers, her skills were beyond his years. Using the techniques taught by none other than her own sister, Yelena manages to take down the speedster with ease.

"Hah!" She snorted seeing Pietro with his face on the ground and tapping the floor to announce his defeat. Yelena gets off of him with a smirk on her face.

"Oh come on! If this was a real fight you know you wouldn't stand a chance." The speedster grumbles.

"I'm not denying that, but take that power away and you're just another damsel in distress."

Pietro narrowed his eyes. In the midst of her overconfidence, he uses his powers to knock Yelena on the feet, causing her to fall backwards onto her ass. Normally, her instinct would've kicked in and she would prepare for the fall, but this time Pietro stands in triumph while crossing his arms with a smirk on his face.

"Bitch." Yelena mumbles in Russian before dusting herself off.

"Now if you're both finished, I would like to make an offering." Y/n said while putting his fingers together like some menace business man with bad intention.

"You want to steal Tony's car and do a high speed race on the highway? I call dibs on the Mclaren." Yelena spoke up.

"So long as I get the Ferrari-" Pietro chimes in.

"No, but we'll get back into that because I always wanted to try his Audi. What I have is, how would you feel on playing cupid for our dearest sisters?" Yelena only raises an eyebrow while Pietro squints his eyes.

"I am getting sick of seeing them practically eye-fucking each other at the gym." Yelena started.

"Hey, that's my little sister." Pietro said while puffing his chest out playing the overprotective big brother role.

Yelena rolled her eyes, "She's 27 dipshit, and you're only 12 minutes older."

"Still my little sister..."

"Look we can all agree that these two needs to sort out their feelings, and since the two are completely useless as one is an idiot who thinks staring will magically get her a date. And the other has deep traumatic issues where she struggles to have proper relationship due to her upbringing. I'd say, maybe they need a little third party help?" Y/n opens his arms as if to wait if any of the two objects.

"And how do you plan on pulling this off?" Yelena asked.

"I was hoping you might help me figure that out." Y/n threw back the question. Yelena rolled her eyes.

"So you came to us for help empty handed?"

"Well I would argue dedication and sheer will counts for something." Y/n puffed out his chest, he clearly has nothing.

"We don't even know if Natasha likes Wanda back." Pietro chimes in, which earns him a raised eyebrow from the two Russians.

"It's hard to miss."

"Yeah, I can see the oblivious genes runs in the Maximoff's."

Maybe it was less obvious to someone who was not close to Natasha, she was a trained spy overall. And these two were practically raised to be more observant than others. Or that could just be the oblivious Maximoff genes.

"All I know is, Wanda has had this crush ever since she stole Natasha's jacket."

Y/n furrowed his eyebrows at Pietro. "Wasn't that like... a year ago with Ultron?" Yelena barks out a laugh, "You mean to tell me she's been pinning on Natasha for a year??"

Pietro shrugs his shoulders and smirked, "Wanda has bigger pool, but I'm the one getting all the girls."

"Barf-" Yelena said while fake gagging, earning a jab on the rib by Pietro. "If we want a shot for our dearest love birds we have to be quick, cause I'm noticing a certain android having his eyes on Wanda."

"Who, the toaster?" Pietro said while cringing his face.

"Ok... I can see you don't seem so fond of the guy, and Vision's not so bad y'know-" Y/n said, it's not that he was close with Vision. But he didn't understand why Pietro would look so utterly disgusted.

"No, he's not bad. But if this works out, you and I would be brothers for real, y'know?"

Damn... This was true brotherhood. "Bro..."

"Bro..."

The two hugged like it was something out of a bromance movie. Yelena could only watch with her arms crossed, wondering what the fuck was going on. However, while the two gym rats were having their moment, a plan formed in her mind.

-------

The trio sprang into action in an instant, ordering a bunch of pizzas, heading to the city to grab some supplies, thankfully alcohols were already taken cared of.

"Ok! Now we just need everybody here." Y/n said with a satisfied grin whilst taking a shot to give himself a head start. Yelena mimicked his movement and so did Pietro.

"FRIDAY, assemble the team to the common room." The AI gave Pietro the acknowledgement, soon enough the team entered the common room with a confused look.

"What's going on?" Steve was first to spoke up as he looked around the decorated room with food and beverages.

Wanda glances to a certain redhead a few meters away from her, Natasha initially had a bored look on her face, arms crossed, and was probably mentally preparing herself to whatever the hell her siblings had in mind. And it was as if the spy felt a pair of eyes on her she looked to the side and locked eyes with Wanda, instantly, the corner of Natasha's mouth pulled into a tiny smile and a small shrug.

Wanda blushed instantly and turned her gaze to the floor, tucking a hair behind her ear. The trio, saw this and glances at one another.

"Well dearest teammates." Y/n started, taking a microphone and speaking to it as if he was an mc. "Tonight will be the night-"

"What's with the mic, Y/n?" Natasha asked with a roll of her eyes.

"I was getting there," He responded while putting his hand up, "Tonight Is the night we let loose!" He whooped, yet the only one cheered with him was Pietro.

"Seriously?" Natasha asked with a raised eyebrow.

Y/n scoffed at his teammates, looking at all the low faces and annoyed faces. "Sam! Come on, you're always game." He asked, needing ATLEAST someone to be in it.

Sam sighed, "Man, I would but honestly I was looking forward to sleep early tonight." Y/n looked at him as if his heart had been stabbed.

"Wanda??" He asked his best friend, and Wanda groaned at him. Oh this was a rough start.

"Honestly, I'm in the mood for some me time and not... whatever this is." She replied indicating to the alcohol bottles on the table.

"Sorry kid, looks like everyone is super tired." Steve added with a pity look, "Maybe next time plan things out."

"But that's boring!" Pietro exclaimed, and speeds to every single one handing out a shot glass filled with vodka.

"It's not just any normal drinking night, there's singing involved." Yelena finally chimed in while dunking another shot.

"Yelena, you can't possibly be part of this." Natasha asked her sister, and Yelena shrugged in respond.

"Any reason to grab Tony's alcohol is as good as any." The blonde replied.

Everyone glanced at one another, shot glass in hand, contemplating their decision. "Think of it like a team bonding." Y/n talked again, he cocked his head at Yelena who turns on a song and a familiar tune started playing, a song that would get anyone from any generation dancing (excluding Steve, perhaps). Dancing Queen by Abba.

Y/n had a goofy grin on his face, dancing into the tune, Pietro followed through while Yelena occasionally bopped her head. Sam was the first to grow a grin on his face. Steve, Natasha and Wanda looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "It's Abba!" The falcon said as a matter of factly, he then downed in shot.

"That's the spirit!" Y/n said excited as Sam danced to his direction.

Hesitantly, cap started to walk forward earning a disbelief gasp from Natasha. "Rogers, really...?"

"I mean, I really did enjoyed Mama Mia...." The American boy said with a sheepish smile.

As soon as the lyric's intro came in, Y/n puts an arm around Steve with a microphone in hand. "You can dance!"

"You can jive!" Sam pulled the microphone to himself.

"Having the time of your life!" Those who were already in the circle sang simultaneously, Natasha rolled her eyes but if you squint you could see a tiny smile there. Meanwhile Wanda shifted closer to Natasha watching the group in amusement.

"See that girl!" Y/n pointed at the two, and the other followed. "Watch that scene, digging the dancing queen." He sang, "Come on dancing queens get in here!"

Natasha shook her head fondly, holding back a smile.

"Wanda, Wanda, I know you want to join us girrlll..." Y/n said playfully to his best friend, the boys and Yelena were beckoning her to join. Natasha looked to her side and true enough, Wanda was biting her lips, contemplating whether or not she should join. "You like this song don't lie! Natasha, help me out." Wanda did in fact like this song.

The way her body swayed subtly to the rhythm, her eyes glinting with anticipation, the only thing that's holding Wanda back was herself. Fuck it, Natasha thought to herself. She then held Wanda's arms and dragged her into the group who cheered when they joined. "Wha- Nat, no I-"

"Come on, little witch." Natasha said, turning to face Wanda and raised her shot glass. "Loosen up a bit."

God, Wanda couldn't decline, especially when her crushed smirked like that. They clinked their shot glass and downed their drinks.

------

As the clock got closer to midnight, the more they drank, and the more they drank, the more chaotic it gets. The song they choose ranges to many different genres, in the beginning Pietro and Y/n mostly sang something boyish, like rap or rock. Then as the two gets progressively drunker they sang something what would be describe as 'Girly Pop'.

Steve sang some old 40s song, which was refreshing especially after hearing Y/n's off tune singing voice. Everybody except Natasha was surprised to hear Yelena singing American Pie wholeheartedly, Natasha even sat next to her and sang it with her briefly.

Although the highlight of the night was probably the time Yelena, Pietro and Y/n sang and dance to the song 'Wannabe' by Spice Girls. Natasha had to hid her face with her hand while Sam was laughing his ass off and leaning to Steve for support. Wanda was like a giggling maniac the whole time as she was secretly recording it for some black mailing material on her twin.

Mid-song, Yelena pulled her brother subtly and pushing a very drunk Pietro forward. "Take it for a spin, Maximoff!"

"So, here's a story from a to z-!" Pietro started rapping his part drunkenly.

"She's not drunk enough." Yelena said to Y/n who was trying to stable himself.

"Yep, the alcohol hasn't hit her yet, and Pietro's not going to be much help-" Y/n covered his mouth suddenly as he felt a vomit, he then answered after seeing Yelena's raised eyebrow. "Sorry- Don't worry I got this, hold a bottle."

"Slam your body down and wind it all around!" Pietro continued singing with Yelena twirling his ass in what this generation would describe as 'slay' manner, Y/n drunkenly sauntered over to Wanda who panicked when he started pulling her to the make shift stage.

"No- No, let me go, Y/n!" Wanda protested.

"Just take a shot and come with!" Y/n practically yanked her and they stumbled over to the middle of the living room. "Cheers!" He said while knocking his glass with hers and Wanda finally relents and knocked back her shot.

"-make it last forever, friendship never ends!" Y/n sang while putting an arm around his best friend, Wanda cringes at the bitter taste of the alcohol, she had a few drinks in already but she was never really fond at the taste of vodka.

"Wanda!" Yelena said, suddenly putting an arm around the her as well. "Oh, honey, you emptied your glass already."

"N-no, Yelena, I just dra-"

"Don't you worry, I got you." Yelena said while pouring her another shot, Wanda's eyes widens. She glances to the side and locked eyes with Natasha who raised a teasing eyebrow at her. "Yes, now we cling!" The blonde haired woman said while raising her glass.

Reluctantly, Wanda clinked their glass awkwardly and took a deep breath before taking another shot. She doesn't know how many shots she have taken from that moment, all she knew was that she felt like dancing.

Natasha watched as Wanda's dance move progressively become more fluid and at ease in contrast to her usual shy self. The spy smiled to herself, dance with her. Natasha shook her head at the impulsive thoughts. At some point during the song 'Teenage Dreams' by Katy Perry, Wanda was handed a mic by Yelena. Thankfully this time Wanda was drunk enough not to refuse, and instead grinned like a goof.

When Wanda sang the second verse, Natasha almost lost her breath because she sounded so... beautiful.

"We drove to Cali and got drunk on the beach. Got a motel and built a fort out of sheets."

Wanda sang with her eyes closed, smile on her face, swaying her body to the rhythm. "I finally found you, my missing puzzle piece, I'm complete." The witch opened her beautiful green eyes just to have a similar looking ones staring right back at her.

Wanda giddily approached Natasha and extend her hand, "Wanda-"

"Come onn, Tasha!" Wanda pleaded. Tasha, well that's new-

Natasha hesitantly looked around, the trio were holding onto each other while slurring to the song, Sam had passed out, and Steve... Well, he gave Natasha a knowing look before helping Sam up to his feet and gave Natasha a look that says 'Don't mess this up, Romanoff.' And walking off with a drunken Sam.

"We can dance, until we die. You and I..." Wanda sang waiting for Natasha to finally grab her hand, finally the spy relents and took the witch's offering hand. "-we'll be young forever!"

Wanda practically yanks Natasha into the middle of the living room.

"You make me feel like I'm livin' a teenage dream. The way you turn me on, I can't sleep. Let's run away and don't ever look back, don't ever look back!"

The younger woman puts a hand on Natasha's shoulder, swaying her hips while singing the lyrics. Natasha was unsure if she should put her hand on Wanda, keep it to the side, on Wanda's waist perhaps?

"My heart stops." The witch suddenly tilt Natasha's chin so their eyes meet. "When you look at me," Natasha's breath hitched in her throat, "just one touch...." And the rest of the lyrics seems to died on Natasha's ears as all she could see was a drunken state Wanda making her confession crystal clear.

Wanda turned and moved her body sensually against Natasha, without hesitation, the older woman puts a firm hand on Wanda's hips to guide her moves. Wanda shivered when she felt Natasha's hot breath on her ear. "Imma get your heart racing in my skin-tight jeans." She grabs Natasha's hand and trail it up her body, a silent plea to the older woman to touch her. "Be your teenage dream tonight..."

Fuck... if Natasha had no self-restraint, she would've taken Wanda here and there. "Let you put your hands on me in my skin-tight jeans" Wanda turns around to face Natasha again and this time the younger one guided Natasha's hand to rest on her thighs. "Be your teenage dream tonight...."

The song reached it's mini pause. Wanda, almost in desperation and system full of alcohol wrapped her arms around Natasha and leaned in til their nose was touching. "I want to kiss you so bad..." She whispered.

"I-" The redhead was at lost for words, her eyes looking deep into those beautiful green eyes, searching for any signs of hesitation. Blown pupils were looking right back at her, slowly it travels down to Natasha's lips. Fuck this.

As soon as the song started again, Natasha gently cup Wanda's face with one hand and pulled her into a soft kiss. Oh Wanda's heart could explode right about now, for a second her mind became stone-cold sober so it could remember this moment properly. Wanda drops the microphone she was holding and puts her hand on the older woman's cheeks, using her thumb to caress her soft delicate skin.

"You make me, Feel like I'm livin' a teenage dream The way you turn me on, I can't sleep Let's run away and don't ever look back, don't ever look back."

The two women were now lost in their own world, they failed to notice the cheers from their own respective (very drunk atm) siblings. Wanda was taller than Natasha, but she went on her tippy toes and wrapped her slender arms around the spy. Natasha craned her neck a little, smiling into the kiss, her arms securely on (her) the little witch's waist.

"My heart stops, when you look at me. Just one touch, now baby I believe this is real. So take a chance and don't ever look back."

Wanda felt like she was on cloud nine, feeling Natasha's soft lips on hers. Oh those sweet plump lips she's been day dreaming about for months, honestly, she felt like the main character in a movie. A teenager if you will in a coming off age movie, is this what Simon felt like from Love, Simon? The song was quite spot on, as Natasha made her feel like a teenager once again, or at least what she assumes a teenager would feel. She never really got to properly enjoyed her teenage years, but here she is. With the woman of her dreams.

"We're siblings for real!" They finally broke the kiss after hearing a drunken Y/n made the statement, arms on both Yelena and Pietro who were just as equally drunk as him. Pietro mimicked his sentence, and Yelena only nodded her head while occasionally raising her glass. Natasha and Wanda shared a look as they held each other, the spy snorted while her counterpart giggled at the scene.

It seems like the trio had put Katy Perry's song on shuffle, because the beat to 'Last Friday Night' started playing.

They started chanting "We did it!" matching their words to the tune of the song, the two couple shared a look.

"Do you wanna get out of here?" Natasha asked, a small smile on her face.

"Yes, please." Wanda replied shyly before being dragged out of the living room by Natasha.

-------

The witch woke up groggily on her bed, her eyes needed time to adjust to the light that were peaking into her room. She groaned and fell back onto the bed with a thud, shielding herself from the light like a vampire allergic to it. "Ugh... what did Yelena put in my drinks." She grumbles.

All of the sudden everything came rushing back into her memory like a tidal wave. I kissed Natasha...

She hastily sat on her bed and looked around. She remembered they kissed, but... how did they end up here. Wanda remembered Natasha asking her to move out of the living room, oh my god did we slept together? The witch's face started to match her battle suit as she thought of the possibility, wish I could've remembered.

Her throat felt dry so she decided to grab herself some drinks in the kitchen. And to her surprise, Natasha was already there. Humming to herself and cooking breakfast, Wanda let in a sharp breath at the sight. Of course, being the trained spy that she is, Natasha greeted Wanda without having to turn around.

"Good morning, Wanda. Slept well?" Natasha asked kindly.

"I don't know how you do that." Wanda muttered.

The spy chuckles to herself, "What I was trained for, little witch. I already put a glass of water for you by the table. Bacon and eggs alright?"

Wanda glanced at the table and surely enough Natasha already prepped a big jug of water and a glass for her. "Oh thank you, you're a godsent..." The younger woman took a seat and dawned her water, and then also her second glass of water.

Natasha walked by her and set a plate for both herself and Wanda. "What a night was it?" She said with a hint of tease.

The brunette only nodded her head while drinking her water like it was the last one on earth. She dropped her glass with a sigh of relief and glances at Natasha, a faint blush appeared on her cheek almost immediately. Wanda cleared her throat before answering, "It was, thank you for breakfast."

"You're welcome." She replied simply, her body still angled a little to the side, one arm propped on the head of the chair whilst staring intently at Wanda.

"Natasha, I..." Wanda started, oh god suddenly her throat feels dry again. The spy gave a small nod, urging her to continue. The younger woman started fidgeting with her finger. "I don't regret it," Wanda finally looks at her. "Kissing you, all of it, I don't regret any of it."

A smile tugged the corner of Natasha's lips, but before she could answer, Wanda started rambling on.

"B-but it's ok if you don't feel the same. Or that it was just a heat in the moment kind of thing."

"Wanda, relax." The older woman put a gentle hand on Wanda, she inhaled sharply at Natasha's action. "Listen... I'm no better at this. However, if your interested, I would like to take you out on a date." Natasha smiled at her, oh god, Wanda's heart was beating a mile minute. Wait, wait, she said date?

"I- Yes, I would love that." Wanda averted her gaze, the intensity of Natasha's green eyes was too much. The sheer intensity of the spy's gaze could turn her into a puddle of mess.

"Good, I've been dying to try this restaurant." Natasha said while turning her body now to face her breakfast, she took one bite of the bacon before continuing. "I hope Southeast Asian cuisine isn't too spicy for you." The spy said teasingly.

"Oh please, you underestimate me." Wanda responded with a slight bump of their shoulders, yet a question still lingers on her mind. "Hey uh... Sorry, I was just wondering. Did we uh... do anything?"

"What do you mean? We kissed." Natasha answered cluelessly.

"Yeah, but I remember you took me to my room. I couldn't remember anything from there, so... I was just wondering if we did anything." Wanda asked, her voice progressively gets more timid the more she explains.

"Hmmmm, like what? Watching a movie?" The spy said while looking up to the ceiling as if deep in thoughts, small smirk on her face.

"Tasha, stop messing around." Wanda said with a playful eyeroll.

"Tasha, huh? That's new." She continued to teased her little witch. Wanda playfully pouted her lips, of course Natasha couldn't help but give in to that. "Don't worry, little witch, nothing happened. I took you to your room, we made out for a little bit and before you finally fell a sleep in my arms. It was a adorable." Natasha added the last bit with a shrug and a smirk.

Wanda's face got increasingly red, "Ugh..." She groaned at hid her face in her hand. "I'm sorry."

"Don't hide that pretty face, as I said, it was adorable." Natasha pried away Wanda's hand, the witch relents and was greeting with a fond smile from Natasha. One she rarely saw, god she's so fucking beautiful.

And unfortunately for them, it had to be ruined by the trio... Again.

"Ughh.... my head-" Y/n groaned.

"I feel like skipping gym today." Pietro chimed in.

"Keep up." Yelena responded with a bored tone. She was sweating, probably went on a run.

Wanda and Natasha mentally cursed at themselves and returned to their own respective breakfast. The trio rummages through the kitchen, finding cereals and bowls, Yelena opted for an apple instead. They sat down across Natasha and Wanda, Y/n was first to point out the obvious of course.

"So...?" He asked them excitedly.

"So what?" Natasha raised an eyebrow at him.

Only for him to raised his eyebrow right back, "Did you guys shag?" Yelena piped in, Pietro groaned.

"No, don't answer that-" The older Maximoff covered his ears while Wanda shrunk in her seat.

"I'll take that as a yes!" Y/n yelled excitedly.

"First of all, we didn't." Natasha said firmly, "And second, I don't see how that's any of your business."

"Oh, but it is." The redhead narrowed her eyes at him, but it was too early to deal with her brother's antics.

"Look whatever you saw, zip it." Natasha stated, "I personally want to keep this under wrap, if this goes out to the press they're going to have a lot of questions and I don't want to deal with that."

"I'll second that." Wanda muttered, casting Natasha a grateful look to which the older woman smiled in response.

Y/n scoffed, "Whatever, I'm great at keeping secrets. Beside, I'm just glad the whole sexual tension can now be resolved-" He shuts up immediately upon seeing Natasha's glare.

After a few minutes of silence and eating their breakfast, Y/n's phone notification started going off like crazy. "Oh, Piet I think one of our videos got viral."

"Where let me see." Pietro leaned over to take a look, and upon opening the app, their eyes quickly widens. "Why would you upload that?!"

"I didn't! I must've- Fuck..." Y/n panicked, and by that, really panicked.

"What's going on?" Natasha asked.

"Nothing!" The two men said simultaneously, fuck... if Natasha finds out they're screwed. However, before they could delete the evidence, Natasha snatched the phone from her brother's hand. Wanda leaned closer to take a look and gasped. Yelena only snorted and excuse herself as she had an idea where this was going.

It was a footage of them, kissing, wrap up in each other's arms, lip tight in a passionate lock. Fuck, Katy Perry was right, Pictures of last night ended up online and they were screwed. "Y/n..." Natasha said warningly.

Without a second thought Y/n dashed away from the table with Pietro who zooms past him with his superspeed.

"I'll fucking kill you both!" Was Natasha's last word before hunting them down one by one.

[ryverbind]

Faceless Fixation: Cat-FISHER [19]

A/N: in honor of 50k on Wattpad, LET'S GET ITTTTTT!!!!

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

VIOLETVIOLENCE: it's really pathetic that i have to pull you aside like a child to tell you to tone down your shit.

VIOLETVIOLENCE: grow up.

SALLYFʌCɜ: grow up? look who's talking. might i remind you of a verbatim quote by yours truly... "lint licking, cunt flap, cum infested puss bubble of a fucklet"

VIOLETVIOLENCE: i give back what i receive. you can dish but you can't take?

SALLYFʌCɜ: i can take twice as much as i dish.

VIOLETVIOLENCE: i'm so sure that you can. fuck off, sal. quit being an asshat.

SALLYFʌCɜ: so now it's asshat? what happened to llcfcipbf? you're losing your creativity. do better, your fall from grace is disappointing even to me

VIOLETVIOLENCE: fuck you.

SALLYFʌCɜ: i'm sure you want to

He's real fucking cheeky. Excited, if you will. What's gotten into him?

Three days ago, while purposefully and pleasurably butchering Sal's character in Dead By Daylight, if anyone would have told me that the bane of my miserable existence and I would have a personal chat box open— I'd have laughed in your face. I'd have gone full Edgar Allan Poe. You would be in a Speed Bump Grave™️. I'd hear your phantom heart beat under my floor boards.

And now, here I am, simultaneously working through the worst shift of the week and having to bitch at Sally Face Fisher via discord DM's.

I don't know what I've done. Maybe it's just my existence, I'm not sure, but he's targeting me. It's horrifically bad. Every message from him, even if he's in the middle of conversing with one of the other of The Faces, has something about me included. And it is always shitty.

I'm not scared of him, how could I ever be? So I opted (more like I was seconds away from punching his scrotum through my phone screen) to reach out to him personally and nicely ask him to stop... okay so that's obviously a lie but I had to threaten and insult him back. It was the only way I'd feel better.

But now I'm stuck with this loaded last message from him and I have no idea how to continue. Because it's a repeat. A repeat of that fated Discord call that threw my entire existence askew for a week. Or four. Maybe I'm still askew.

His necklace isn't under a shoe in the farthest corner of my room for no reason, after all.

Today was supposed to be simple. Not easy because working at the diner is never easy, but simple. Simple fucking worked. And now I have this conversation with Sally hanging over my head when I was actually looking forward to what's meant to come after I finish my shift.

I brought my mask with me today. My plan is to immediately go back to that mask store after my shift and convince the sweet woman who helped me to sign her work, give me her name, a business card— literally anything so I can tell the world who gave me my start. But now I'm anxious enough to plead not guilty by reason of insanity due to not-so negligent or accidental arson. And on top of that, I'm starting to map out an intricately laid out plan for Sal's Speed Bump Grave™️. Today's ordeals have taken my mind by storm and I'm about to bring everyone down with me in this descent toward madness.

I'm just angry. And bothered. And low key wanting to message Sal back with, "Yea, I am. What are you gonna do about it?" But I must stay strong. I must soldier on. I know the repercussions, I've tasted them for myself— felt them burn my lungs to a crisp. I went through what felt like decades of chain smoking in just mere seconds.

And it's all because of—

A chime rings. A chime that came from my phone. It echoes through the diner's break room, startling me so hard that I nearly leap out of my chair. It's like waking up from a dream where you suddenly start falling.

What was that? What just popped up in my notifications?

Unknown: are you a poe fan, by chance?

My kingdom. My entire kingdom for a chance to start making a Speed Bump Grave™️. For myself? For Sal? For the inexplicable human race? I don't even know anymore.

I thought he'd given up on Lexi. So what the hell is this? Why now? Why today? Why right after he finished— flirting? Baiting?— me.

My mind goes blank. Maybe... maybe he's onto me. Maybe he knows. That I'm Lexi. And now he's finally decided to enact his revenge. On today of all days, when I feel so sick with anxiety and paranoia that I could throw up every square inch of my bowels. My feminine rage is so ragey that I wouldn't be shocked if I sprouted a pair of testicles just so I'd have an excuse for whatever bruised masculinity I'm experiencing right now. Sal must be projecting on me all the way from Nockfell.

Never in my entire life have I felt so hopeless, so cornered. Every time I feel this way, I think it can't possibly get any worse.

And yet.

Me: umm, can't say that i am! don't know much about him.. but how are you, sally!

I don't know what's possessed me. In a normal world, I would have blocked him by now. Or better yet, if I wasn't so disgustingly deplorable and had a damn backbone, I'd have texted him a picture of myself and said "Haha, gotcha bitch!"

The sad truth in this way-too-real life scenario is that I don't have a backbone. And I'm too far gone to go back. I can't revert. There's a part of me that still holds onto my first live interaction with Sal. I just can't get the memory of him— smooth, gentle, kind, and likable— out of my head. No matter how hard I try.

One thing I can be proud of is the amount of petty packed into the fact that I never saved his number in my phone.

Unknown: good. perfect, actually. i brought some poe with me today, a story i think you might like

Some kind of doom-ish feeling washes over me. Like a storm cloud forming above my head. Poison seeping into my pores, infesting my blood. I don't like the way he said that. I don't like it at all. It feels a lot like the time some kid threw up all over me in second grade.

I'll never forget the sickening chill that spread through my body as soon as I realized what happened to me in the middle of educational centers in Nockfell Elementary. This situation feels threateningly similar.

Me: oh cool! so i guess you'll be having a chill reading day? wish it was me :,)

Unknown: not quite. but hey, are you working today?

That storm morphs into a hurricane. And there's twin tornadoes in the background, growing closer and closer to make a torrid, lethal combination. I have to take this in stride. Be smart, y/n. Whatever hell may come, handle it accordingly and do not make mistakes.

Me: ah, no! out of town to visit family :) really, crappy, awkward family get together... yikes...

He'll totally buy that right? I didn't overdo it. It was perfect. Overdoing it would have been an entire paragraph about how much I hate my mom. This is good, this is fine. I'm totally not breaking out into a cold sweat with clammy palms to match.

Oh, God. What if he sent someone to spy on Lexi? What if he hired some murderer off the dark web to take care of me and clean up the mess? I wouldn't put it past him. And this scenario isn't even worst case!

Worst case... I don't even want to think about it. I can't.

Unknown: damn, lex... on the day that i'm finally back in la and you're out of town? :(

Oh, thank God I'm a paranoid chicken shit.

Then again, fuck the fuck off. It's worst case scenario, the thing that I didn't even want to think about. The thing I wouldn't allow to cross my mind.

What do I do. What do I do? I leave work— that's the smartest decision. Naturally, this is the place he once went to and, out of boyish fantasies, he'll probably come back here with some expectation that Lexi will miraculously pop up despite her being in like... Iceland or something, whatever it is I manage to come up with in my next text to him. Which—

Unknown: i'm at the diner rn. was hoping we'd get to hang out this time. when do you get home?

Oh, no.

It's a fucking disaster on top of twenty other disasters. This is what a pregnancy scare must feel like. This must be the equivalent to walking into a room full of snotty, sick toddlers. This is dropping an uncut birthday cake.

I think I'm gonna puke.

I look up from my phone and take in the empty break room surrounding me. The off-white, paint-chipping walls are closing in. I have no escape— this is prison. Trapped in my mind's clawed vices with no way out. Except, my mind's fears have transcended into reality. My worst fear has come true and I had no time to prepare for it. The time is nigh. Ruin is, unfortunately, now.

Think, y/n. It's not so bad. I can just leave through the back door and tell my boss I'm sick again. The door is literally to my left.

But to get back to my apartment, I have to cross in front of the diner that's full of windows. Sal is here, meaning he's paying attention to everything in hopes of finding me... even though I told him I'm not here.I just know he's that kind of romantic, if he even qualifies as such.

He'd spot me in a heartbeat and that can't happen because maybe Vi's mask concealed Lexi who was hidden beneath, but he's about damn near fucked Vi. He knows her body better than she does herself— than I do. Fuck, I have so many different personas I can't even remember that they're all me.

Clusterfuck. That's what this is. A massive clusterfuck, all of my doing.

I'm going to have to bite the bullet. That's my only option. And by bite the bullet, I'm going to fight tooth and nail to keep this bit going. I should just admit the truth, but I'm not humble enough for that, apparently.

My chest begins to ache. It's a slow-to-develop pain that only catches my attention when it hurts a little too much. And then the shallow, short breaths follow. And then the phantom feeling of something lodged in my throat, blocking my airways and filling me with dread.

This is a panic attack, one that is long overdue. One that still can't breach the surface quite yet. I need to make sure I'm home free first— I can weep and be dismayed later. Because the harsh truth is, yes this fucking sucks, but it's not going to kill me. It's just hard for me and my body to truly get a grasp on that.

I swallow down the anxiety that's billowing in my body like linens ominously drying outside a house in the middle of nowhere. I take a couple deep breaths, calming the doubt and fear raging within. My limbs shake a little less, my breathing is better controlled, and my chest doesn't hurt half as much. The pain is still there, but this is bearable. I can do this.

I rifle through my cubby which doesn't give me much to work with. I don't have a change of clothes. I have nothing to hide me, not even a hoodie.

"You... good, y/n?"

I whirl around, hope scraping at the insides of my cranium. Fuck yes. Best lobotomy ever.

I could really cry right now because this is a clear sign that I'm not as alone as I think. Even if it feels like I am, even if my dear coworker Ophelia can't really help me out all that much, she can definitely help me in some way.

I don't have to girl boss everything on my own.

"Lia," I start with, breathless as I practically teleport over to her with the quickness of my panicked steps. "Do you have something I can change into? I can't explain right now but... I would really appreciate your help."

Her big doe eyes take me in curiously, one of her perfectly arched eyebrows raised in question. She bats her long lashes, seemingly processing what I've asked of her before giving me an answer.

"Um, I was planning on going out after my shift tonight? Would a dress work?" She grimaces a bit, probably worried that she won't be able to help me out because Ophelia is just like that.

"That would work fine!" I say excitedly, but think better of it, my hopes crumbling a bit. "But I don't want to take your outfit for the night. I can probably come up with something else."

Lia rolls her eyes lightheartedly, placing a hand on my shoulder. I follow the action, noting her long and sharp blood red nails. I gulp, looking back into her pretty ebony eyes. "Y/n, take what you need. You know Mike can drive me back home to get another outfit! We don't live too far away, and we don't need to be in Anaheim until 9 anyway. Do what you need to do-- you know I'm cheering for you, girl."

I grab onto her hand and hold back the intense admiration infecting my soul. I'm giving Ophelia the most visceral care bear stare I can possibly muster up and she notices, giving me a cute little upside down smile.

"You are an angel," I whisper, "And your future husband is too. Power couple of the heavens, really."

Lia giggles and bends her head down, forcing her pin straight black hair to fall into her face, thus accentuating the really eye-catching red money pieces that match her red nails. I aspire to be this woman. "It's not that serious, Ducks," she says, using my dads nickname for me that she overheard a couple months ago. She thought it was precious, so it stuck. "Let's go get you changed, 'kay?"

Change, I do. But I see where she was concerned about me wearing it too. It's for clubbing, cock-tailing, socializing for sure, but... I can make it work. I've got this. It'll be fine. Thank God I am an avid Doc Martens-wearer. Doc's go with absolutely anything.

Lia has taste too, it's a short, little red dress with spaghetti straps that flares out at the ends. It shows a lot of leg, but not much of anything else. I can't imagine how amazing she must look in this.

"You're super sure that you're okay wearing this?" Lia asks, looking over me. "It looks great on you, I'm inclined to tell you to keep it, honestly."

I scrunch up my face. "No, I'm giving it back to you tomorrow," I laugh gently, using my phone camera to try and get an idea of how I look. I can't see much, which is kind of a blessing because I might hate it and be too afraid to brave LA if I end up not liking it.

"I won't argue with you," Lia sighs, patting my back in a reassuring way. "So do you want to talk about what's going on?"

"Um," I murmur, a shiver running down my spine. I almost forgot why I'm having to do this. It feels like hours have passed, but it's only been five minutes at most. "It's very hard to explain, but I might have to get you or Mike involved, whoever's hosting today." I can't help but grimace as the words leave me, but it's the unfortunate truth that I'll have to talk to one or both of them. I'm ever so slowly hashing out a plan in my head.

Sal is undoubtedly going to ask about Lexi, and what the hell am I supposed to do whenever someone goes, "Lexi? No Lexi has ever worked here." So I have to bite the bullet, again, and stick around to at least inform Mike or Lia about that part of my major, gargantuan fuck up. That also means there's a good chance that Sal will see me, but he'll likely ignore my presence, and then I can slip away quickly.

"Mike is up front and hosting today," Lia says, frowning at me. She's so pretty, like if Marilyn Monroe was alternative. Goth mommy and whatever. No shame on my part.

The chef's booming voice carries into the break room, Lia's name floating along with it. She winces at the sound, flinching in surprise. She gives me a pitiful look, tilting her head almost as if to apologize for having to do her job. Poor little love, she is.

"Will you be able to talk with Mike?" She asks me, heading for the door.

I nod hesitantly. "Yea, I'll get to him. Thank you so much for all your help, Lia. I really appreciate you." I send her my most genuine smile, one that she returns.

"Anytime, y/n! You look beautiful, by the way. Go knock 'em dead, literally or figuratively!"

And she's gone, but she hyped me up in the gentlest way possible. Bless her dark, lovable heart.

I take a breath-- a deep, fortifying, 'ohfuckohfuck' breath that does nothing to calm my soul, but I try to trick myself into believing that it worked... at least somewhat. Then I move over to my work cubby (because we're all still in primary school according to my boss) and grab my old backpack that I bring every day. It's raunchy at best and holding on by a thread. I kept it from my high school days. It's a plain black Jansport with coffee stains on the bottom and questionable white splats that are front and center for everyone to see. I'm pretty sure it's just crusty white paint that I never bothered to peel off, but I won't correct anyone if they guess something else. What's the fun in that, right?

I open the zippers and dig in, working past a random beanie from winter, pads and tampons, and a makeup bag. All the way at the bottom, buried under my other things for protection, is my mask. I put it on then look down at myself one last time.

The flashy red of the dress I'm wearing does not match the deep violet of my mask but not everything can go right, so I'll take my little loss. Things could be worse-- oh wait, they are. Sal Fisher is outside this room. Whoops, forgot things were already devastatingly bad.

I run my fingers over the forehead of my mask, feeling that ache creep into my chest again. I wish things weren't going this way. I wish I was brave enough to go outside and just keep working. Because I'm undoubtedly going to lose my job after today. I'm backing myself into a corner, even risking my finances because of this guy that I'm too scared to face as my real self. I've reached peak pathetic.

My dad must be disappointed to have such an incompetent daughter. No wonder my mother and I don't speak anymore.

I swallow past the uncertainty, the guilt, and the unadulterated fear gnawing at my soul. Then I follow through with my plan by throwing my backpack onto my shoulder and pushing the back door open despite knowing that this is not worth it. It's not worth it at all.

I circle around the outside of the diner, heart rumbling like an earthquake as the putrid scent of garbage wafts into my nose from the dumpster I'm currently passing in front of. The sounds of cars honking, people laughing and chatting idly.

Los Angeles is the people's place. It hosts all necessary components of life, some more than others. Socialization, food. It's a dopamine powerhouse. But when it's me, when I've been living here for over a year and seeing the same things every single day, it's stripped me of all my feel-good chemicals. Especially right now when LA is only bringing me problems and trouble (Sal Fisher).

This doesn't feel real. I can't believe I'm doing this to myself. I can't quite wrap the fact around my head, that I'm about to be in Sal's general vicinity yet again. I thought I had time.

I turn the corner, coming out onto the sidewalk in front of the diner. I don't stop in my stride, eyeing my apartment building that isn't very far from me. A five minute walk. I'm almost home. Almost free. I just have to get inside the diner, unfortunately inform Mike of the tea, and hopefully dodge Sal. So long as I keep my eyes on the host table, I may not even have to see him. I might just be psyching myself out. Everything's going to be just fine!

My heart is in my throat, my limbs jittering nervously as I push the glass door open and look forward, noting the short line of people waiting for seats. Sal isn't one of them, so I assume he's been seated already.

I walk past the people in line, getting a few looks from them. That'd be the mask's fault.

Mike's looking down at his seating chart on the host table, most likely mapping out where someone could go whenever I stop in front of him, placing a hand on the table to discreetly get his attention.

He looks startled for a moment before tilting his head up, brows scrunched together as if to say 'The audacity!' but then he sees me and his eyes widen a bit. And then I'm not sure what his next expression says.

"What the--" he chokes out, "Shit! It's you? Hold on-- wait-- mind-fuck--"

I lift a finger to my lips, eyes wide as I hope he takes the note to shut up. Adrenaline is starting to spike in my veins and if he draws anymore attention to us, especially since my mask is already drawing enough, I'm going to piss myself right here. And sue him for public embarrassment, or whatever that thing is. Public defecation? No, that's public defamation... anyway.

Michael's mouth snaps closed, but he keeps watching me. I watch him. We just watch each other as I forget absolutely everything I had planned.

I swallow, blinking at my friend and coworker. "Mike," I say quietly. He flinches at the sound of his name. "I need you to do something for me and I am sincerely sorry about this but..."

"Yea, Yea, y/n-- um, what should I call you...?" He cuts himself off viciously, slapping a hand over his mouth. At least he cares.

I lean my forearms across the table, settling my weight against the front to relax myself at least a little bit. I'm so tense. I feel eyes on me. I need to get out of here.

"Don't call me that," I say lightheartedly, puffing out a breath. "Just call me Vi. For now." I lick my dry lips. Mike of all people finding out about my identity as VioletViolence is the very least of my worries. "There's a guy in here. He has blue hair, can't miss him. I'm sure you already know who he is. He's looking for a girl named Lexi and he'll probably ask his waiter about her. Just say that Lexi isn't here today, you don't have to answer anything else about her."

"I'm guessing... you're Lexi?" He winces, leaning forward a bit.

"Wow," I say sarcastically. "How did you figure that out?" I send him a little smile then focus on the task at hand yet again. "Anyway, I need you to be his waiter. Please. I'll take your entire shift on Friday. I will do anything." I tilt my head down, peering up at him through my lashes in an attempt to portray how badly I need this.

Mike's brows bunch together again and he mutters, "Yea, of course. Whatever you need. But it's-- he came in with the rest of The Faces. Do you want me to... entertain them too? Do they know about Lexi?"

The world stops turning. Everything pauses, no one's moving anymore and I feel like I'm going to vomit with fear, burst with excitement, and pass out right here from exhaustion. The plan I had is ruined, and I couldn't be more equally devastated and exhilarated about it. Ash is here. Larry's here, Todd too. What the hell is going on?

I blink, the action bringing me back to the present.

"Hey, is that Lia's dress--"

"The Faces are here?" I cut him off, holding a hand out in pause, trying to drill this information into my head. Trying to make it real so I can come up with a new plan.

Michael watches me like I'm stupid, a rueful expression on his boyish face. "Yes. I already said that they're here. Why are you wearing my girlfriend's dress?"

"Because we're fucking on the side and she came all over my work outfit." I watch as he makes his little offended face, and my tongue prods at my cheek as instant regret slaps me in the face. He's trying to help me, I shouldn't be giving him this attitude. "Sorry," I admit. "You know that's not true. I'm just-- I'm on edge."

"That's okay," he says hesitantly. "You know I'm going to get you back for that, anyway."

I pinch my lips together, accepting yet another minor defeat. "Fair." I shrug. "I was going to go back home and leave you to the wolves but... I'd rather risk myself. Ash is my best friend. You won't have to handle them alone now, so yay!" I give him a cheerful grin that I'm really not feeling. I even throw in jazz hands.

Michael runs his tongue over the surface of his teeth, clearly not looking forward to the fiasco I've dragged him into. "Alright," he settles on, sighing as he looks down at his feet while grabbing another menu. "Let's see how you manage to back yourself further into whatever shitty corner you've created. I'm eager."

"I'm sure," I grind out, knocking down all the fear that overtook me on my way here and replacing it with impenetrable, desperate yearning to find my friends. I finally cast my gaze around the diner, quickly zeroing in on the one head of blue hair in this entire building. They're seated at a booth all the way at the back of the restaurant and next to the bar, the one place that's away from most prying eyes. A request of theirs, I'm sure.

But my next question, now that I know everyone's here, what the hell are The Faces doing in Los Angeles? And why wasn't I told?

Ash didn't say a word to me. Do they not want me around? Maybe they don't like me as much as I thought they did. Maybe Ash would rather hang around with other friends than me. And that would make sense because we never see each other, besides Vegas, of course. But just thinking about it makes pain erupt throughout my entire body, a pang in my heart. Especially while watching the back of Ash's head tip down while Larry laughs in front of her. Sal and Larry, I can see them, but Todd and Ash are facing away from me.

Another deep breath.

"I'm going to head over there," I tell Michael, looking over to him again. He's watching me closely, his expression of pity mimicking Lia's from earlier. The sight makes me a little sick.

"Alright," he says gently. "I'm going to be there to take orders soon. I hope everything goes well. Don't be nervous."

I huff out a humorless laugh. "Are you and Ophelia psychic or something? Or is my face just that readable?"

He shrugs, grinning slightly. "I can't see your face, so I guess we're psychic. I'll be in your dreams tonight."

That makes me laugh. It wasn't forced or fake, it was genuine and I need that right now. I think Mike knows that too.

I start taking quick steps over to where The Faces are, nerves slapping at my insides to make me turn around and forget that I ever saw them. I'm attacking myself with my own mind, and my mind is attacking my body in turn. Mental illness is crazy, right? Death by anxiety and whatnot.

But, you know, I'm already here. My job is in purgatory, I'm five steps away from them and Larry has noticed my movement, his head twisting toward me to see who's growing near.

Poor Larry. When he sees me walking toward them, he shakes his head and rubs his eyes like he doesn't believe what he's seeing. He looks at me again, and that's when his eyes start to widen, when his jaw drops. And he doesn't say word, that open mouth just turns into the brightest smile I think I've ever seen.

Seeing his excitement makes my insides flutter about and I feel a little better about actually going over to them. Imagine I get there and they shoo me away? But I can tell that Larry won't. That look on his face screams barely held back hugs.

I gulp, trying to ignore my major cotton mouth. I need water. Or tequila. Something.

I also don't give my brain even a second to psych myself out. When I reach the table, I simply plop myself down beside Ash and act like it's a normal, every day thing for me to do.

All heads turn to me (Larry's never turned away from me to begin with) and then I hear a quiet, uttered, "Fuck" followed by incessant, eardrum bursting squealing in my ear.

Arms. A lot of arms. A ton of squeezing. Lots of kisses all over my mask and face. And all the love makes me think that my sweet Ash had a good reason for not informing me of her visit.

I struggle, but I throw my arms around Ash too, squeezing every little inch of her that I can get. Her sweet, coconut and strawberry scent overwhelms me and I feel so at peace. So calm. Home. Back in Nockfell. Comfortable.

Her hair is in my face and I know she's crying because my bare shoulders are wet, thanks spaghetti strap dress. I don't care though because I'm seeing Ash again much sooner than I imagined I would. I thought it would take us years to have some time together like we did in Las Vegas. And Ash is so emotional, I feel like she's being ripped apart by the sight of me alone-- that's both adrenaline-inducing and terrifying.

This is a nightmare, but a dream come true at the same time. I'm so glad that I was paranoid enough to force myself to tell Mike about the Lexi situation. Things couldn't be any better.

"Ash, fucking let go, man. It's my turn." Larry's voice is right next to me, and then another pair of hands that envelop my waist whole. I'm then yanked out of my best friends arms and spun around to face Larry who hugs me so tight that I have to stand on my tiptoes.

I shut my eyes, grinning as I reach my arms up his back, hugging him the best way I can as he nuzzles his face against my mask. The smell of cigarette smoke and pine trees lingers on his clothes, yet again overwhelming me with familiarity. The smoke is a more recent addition, but he's always had a unique scent to him that's always reminded me of Christmas in a way.

The scruff on his cheeks scratches against my jaw, his skin is warm, his grip tight. I really miss home... and LA is not home. Home is back with all of my friends. I don't want to stay here anymore. I don't want to be where they aren't.

Larry takes a deep breath into my shoulder, likely bathing in my comfort just like I did with him. Then he backs up, holding me at arms length and I look up with tears welling in my eyes no matter how much I wish they weren't there. I hate crying, especially in front of other people, but I'm just so happy. It's like the anxiety I felt while walking over here never existed.

"What the hell are you doing here, Vi!?" Larry exclaims, dragging his hands up my arms to cup my face in his large palms. "I thought you lived in Connecticut?"

I place my hand on top of his, a spark of what I thought was fantastical anxiety rushing through me at the instant fuck up I've just made. Again. Crap. I forgot that Ash told them I live in Connecticut...

"Uh," Ash voices beside us, her tone taking the form of the smartest kid in class who's about to correct a mistake. Todd-coded. "I said she's from Connecticut, not that she still lives there." Good save, Ash. "Word choice is important, Lar! Pay attention!"

Larry's eyes swing between Ash and I before settling on me, stars dancing in his irises. "Wait, so do you live in LA, then?"

I can't help the excited little grin that's slowly climbing onto my face. It's Larry's turn to squeal as he suddenly realizes.

I look back over to Ash, catching Sal's gaze momentarily before I look over at Todd to wave. He waves back at me, a soft and pleased smile on his thin lips.

"So," I say, letting go of Larry whenever he backs away from me. I sit beside Ash again, leaning against her side as she throws an arm around my shoulders. "Why are you guys here?"

Ash hisses, frowning suddenly. I frown back, wary of her reaction. "Crap!" she exclaims, rolling her eyes. "Well, I was going to surprise you and the guys. But I guess you ended up surprising us instead..."

"Oh, so it's not just y/n that we're visiting while we're here? You knew Vi would be here too?" Todd asks, chewing on his bottom lip contemplatively.

Another spark of nervousness. They're here for... fuck, all three sides of me are expected in this situation. This... maybe was not really worth it. I'm erasing all the sides of my corner. Everything's starting to get really small and very tight.

Ash side-eyes me, a discreet little look before she answers Todd. "Yea, but I'm not quite sure where she is in LA. I'm going to have to call her later to get some updates on her whereabouts."

"I could just call her now. I'm super excited to see her, I'm sure she'd love to meet Vi too-- oh, and to tell her why we're here!" Larry says, excitement making him shimmy around in his seat as he pulls out his phone.

My body reacts instantly, tensing up like a cat in shock. Ash jumps too, nearly leaping over the table to stop Larry. "No! She's working!" She yells. It's so loud that you'd think she's trying to flip Larry's phone away from him with sound waves alone. True Stranger Things style.

"Oh...kay..." Larry trails off, pulling his phone closer to him so that Ash can't reach. "It's not that serious. I'll call her later, then. What's your deal?"

I swallow. Her reaction was really too much, but at least she's trying to cover for me. I would've sat there and let Larry call while my phone went off in my pocket.

Ash clears her throat, sitting back now that she threw the scenario into the trash. It was rocky, but her deflection was successful. "I know, just don't bother my girl while she's making money," she says matter-of-factly, holding her head high.

I note the way Sal shakes his head across the table. I haven't acknowledged his presence, nor has he acknowledged mine. It's awkward for the most part, but I think that awkwardness is only stemming from me. He seems to be perfectly in control with his short sleeved, black Iron Maiden shirt that shows off his tatted arms. I guess the LA summer heat was too much for him to wear a hoodie for once.

His electric eyes meet mine, no emotion in the endless depths of his irises. Like he couldn't care less that I'm here, which sounds a lot like him. And still, I fidget in my seat under his gaze. Can't help myself.

The edges of his dagger tattoo peek out from behind his hair, the shape of his Adam's apple clear due to the sun shining in through the window, casting shadows in all the right places. Necklaces are around his neck, some kind of silver chain and and old, really intricate cross necklace hanging right below it. And then his hand comes into view, the one that folded into a fist as a result of my touch just weeks ago in this exact restaurant.

There's something different though as he moves to grab onto the drink in front of him, dragging it closer.

The bottom of his prosthetic lifts as he sips from his straw, but that's when I notice what's different. It's a new tattoo-- Saniderm wrapped around his hand. It looks like... a skeleton hand tattooed onto his own. It's pretty sick and I'm so tired of him having great taste in art. Damn. Now I have a terrible excuse to stare at him some more when I shouldn't look anywhere near him at all.

On the other hand, have I ever mentioned how much of a blessing Michael is?

"Hi, everyone," his cheerful voice effectively distracts me from ogling Sal. I look over to my friend, noting his pink cheeks. Huh. "I'll be taking over as your waiter tonight. Your waitress had to leave," he glances at me as if to tell me that I made a good call by stepping out when I did. That's exactly the moment I realize that we're sitting in my section of the diner. Talk about a close call.

Okay, I should get the hard part over for him right? To thank him. I've got this. "Oh, hey, Mike!" I say, "Long time no see."

Poor Mike looks at me like a deer caught in headlights. "Hey... Vi..." he says quietly. Oh, Michael, please don't crap out on me now... I'm going to have to buy this man a cake for carrying me like this.

I smile at him awkwardly, trying to bypass this horrible excuse of an excuse that he and I are about to do horrible improv for. "So, how's Lexi?" I don't dare look a Sal whenever I say the name, but I do feel a shift in the energy at the table. "It's been weeks since I last saw you guys."

"Lexi doesn't work here anymore," Michael spits out nervously, sweat beginning to build on his forehead. Oh no, don't fucking fumble the bag, Mike!

I give him a look. One that has so many emotions and so many questions, but I just force out a simple, "What?" because what else do I say to that? Things are already beginning to go terribly. But it's okay. I'm a pathological liar at this point, and a catfisher? Maybe? Ha... Cat-FISHER.

I'm going to have a panic attack.

Michael pinches his lips together, red-faced as he glances at Sal. I turn my gaze to Sal too, noticing the way he's eyeing Mike like a hawk.

"Lexi is my girlfriend and she doesn't work here anymore." Michael says, his tone brave and assertive, but his facial expression says an entirely different thing.

Great heavens. Okay, so he's radically screwing everything up but that's okay— I'm a flexible person. He's... doing his best. I can work with this. I hope.

I have this image of him and I duking it out in my head. I have him by the collar, shaking him around like a ragdoll while I scream in his face that he's fucking up the plan. And in my mind he's just taking it because he's playing pure sub right now. I'm not even this submissive-- Michael is straight up breaking the BDSM spectrum.

I shove down my nerves and tilt my head at him. "Okay," I start with, slowly, feeling out what little room I have to work with. "I already knew she was your girlfriend," I say, raising my eyebrows even though he can't see. Saying this feels less incriminating for some reason. But I notice Sal snap his head down to the table. I almost feel bad. "But why doesn't she work here anymore?"

Michael looks off to the side, tapping his fingers against the menus in his arms. "Um, she's... she is..." I narrow my eyes at him. He's not even answering the question. I try to communicate with him through eye contact, bellowing at him to not. Fumble. The. Bag.

He gapes at me like a fish, our intense eye contact freaking him out even more. I sigh to myself. He fumbled whatever bag I'm going on about before he even got to our table.

He finally finds his voice after a second and says, "Lexi is working. At a... sperm... bank."

It takes every little inch of my being not to burst into tears. Holy hell. If anything I'm glad he fucked this up because the sperm bank excuse is hilarious no matter how you look at it. Even better is that it's so ridiculous and random that it's going to distract the entire table from the way he's royally screwing up this conversation.

Ash snorts beside me. Larry chokes on his coke. Todd is silent and so is Sal. Maybe the sperm bank thing will officially scare Sal away from Lexi. Yea-- this could work.

"That's a unique job," I struggle to push out, my voice wavering despite trying to forget what Mike just said. But it's hovering in my mind, like old memes from Vine that still make me cackle to this day. I really wish someone would have caught this entire interaction on video.

Michael glances to Sal again. And that's when I turn to find that the bluenette is glaring at my coworker with his arms crossed over his chest, a dangerous glint in his pretty eyes. Wow. That's a scary look, one that he hasn't even pulled out on me yet.

Mike is gaping again, trying to get words to, you know, word. I try to help him by saying, "I hope she likes it there! That's a big deal." But the words don't register in his mind. I can tell by the look of terror on his face, his gaze still glued to Sally.

My friend takes another second to gather himself, and right as a syllable leaves his lips-- one that he used his one working brain cell to come up with-- Sal interrupts him. He took perfect advantage of Mike's vulnerability.

"I'm not sorry for flirting with your girlfriend."

My eyes squeeze shut as butterflies slap at the lining of my intestines. This is ridiculous and I shouldn't feel flattered. I tilt my head down for a moment, trying to gather my wits. I figured out everything for Michael and I, but I didn't take Sal's response into account. I didn't think he'd have a response to begin with. I never would have thought he'd come up with this either.

"We'll, um," I say hoarsely, clearing my throat to regain my voice, but my heart is flitting about with excitement. I wish Sal never would have spoken. I look up at Mike, sending him a dismissive smile. "We'll order in a little bit. I'm still not sure about what I want. Thanks, Mike."

I've never seen someone scurry away so quickly before in my life.

"Is Lexi the chick you were trying to see over here?" Larry asks as soon as Michael's gone. I bite down on the inside of my cheek, watching as Sal glares at his step-brother. Yikes...

"I'm gonna head to the bathroom," I say, scooting out of the booth before anyone can stop me. I need to not be here right now. Ash is quick to stand up behind me, grabbing onto my hand. I turn, fearful that she's going to stop me, but she just smiles and juts her head forward, signaling me to keep walking.

I hope she doesn't ask me about Lexi. You couldn't even beat this information out of my dead body.

Ash and I take a singular step toward the bathroom, only to get stopped by my least favorite customer. I just want to die at this point. The stress is not worth anything. Not at all.

I've said before that many of the men that come into the diner are assholes of the patriarchy, the ones that tell me to stop talking and make them a sandwich, or comment about women's bodies. The shit that ticks me off beyond belief.

This man in particular smells like mildew and three years of straight sleep and bad breath. He's also not a looker, mind you. And then he's an asshole on top of it? I hate when my boss sends me to his table.

Even worse is watching him eye me after calling out to Ash and I with the words, "How much do you charge?"

My eyes narrow and the boys go quiet behind us. We're close enough for them to hear, especially for Ophelia to hear behind the bar.

She glances up at me, cleaning a glass and frowning.

I look back at the man. I never bothered remembering his name. "Excuse me, sir?" I ask, confused. I don't want to converse with this dickface.

"You're dressed like a whore so you gotta be selling yourself right?" he continues, a humorless chuckle following the grubby words.

I open my mouth then snap it shut, heat taking over my body. I'm embarrassed, really insecure about myself now, and pissed off. He thinks he can just say shit like this to anyone? What a pathetic joke.

Usually I can't do anything about this man since I'm the one serving him, but he doesn't know who I am and I'm not working at the moment. I can reign whatever hell that I want.

But I'm also exceptionally tired. Tired of this horrible job and little pay. Tired of holding up some persona that's already beginning to crash around me. Just tired.

"I'd rather look like a supposed whore than look like I just stepped out of the dumpster, sir. Have a day," I say dismissively. I don't have time for him and I've said my piece. If I go on any further, I'll get kicked out anyway and I've already given my coworkers enough trouble today.

'Have a day' is my favorite thing to say to customers who piss me off because they don't know if I forgot the 'good' or purposefully left it out. It's ominous and vaguely threatening.

Ash and I go to the bathroom and we don't stay there long. Neither of us talk. She just waits for me, like she knew I needed space but that I also needed her companionship. Just a moment away from the mess. Silence. Which is so much more than appreciated, I can't even begin to explain how much I adore my best friend.

She watches me wash my hands through the mirror, her arms crossed over her chest and a content smile on her lips. As we start to walk out, she says, "I'm not sure how long you'll be able to keep up the lie about y/n." and she's right. I'm going to face a dead end soon here. "You're obligated to have a sleepover with me tonight so we can come up with a plan, and so you can answer some major questions I have about you right now. My spidey senses are tingling super hard."

Her hand rubs my back and I nod, smiling thankfully at her. Of course she has questions. My entire presence here is questionable right now.

We resurface next to the bar, but looking up at where our booth is shows that it's empty. I'm about to voice my confusion to Ash, but then I notice Lia running around the bar to get to us.

My eyebrows scrunch together as my coworker stops in front of me, eyes on Ash before they focus on me. She mulls over her thoughts for a moment, gaping just like her boyfriend does. Did the boys do something bad?

"We had to... We kicked Sally Face out," is what she says, shocking both me and Ash.

"What?" Ash asks, startled. "What happened?"

Ophelia blinks at Ash, cheeks turning a light shade of pink. "He, uh, he walked up to that... that guy at the bar. Kicked his stool out from underneath him. Then he asked me for a drink. Malibu and pineapple."

Ash sighs and I blink at Lia. I don't even know what to think. Did Sal do that for me? And to ask for my favorite drink on top of that...

No. It's impossible. There's no way he would. He just did it for the sake of feminism. That feminism that is nonexistent when it comes to me. Yea, he definitely didn't do that to avenge me. And he was probably just in the mood for alcohol and pineapple juice right? He could never remember the one drink I ever brought up around him. There's no way.

"Sal doesn't even drink all that much," Ash hisses. "What the hell is he doing?" She bites down on her thumb nail, free hand on her hip.

I swallow down all the emotions building up in me. There are so many that I don't even know how to distinguish a single one right now. This is too much. This entire day is too much.

"Okay," I whisper to myself. "Thanks, Lia," I say gratefully. "And thank Mike for me, too, please. I'm going to get everyone out of here before-- yea." I nod to myself, but it isn't very reassuring.

Lia grabs my hand. "We didn't call the police because that asshole had it coming, but someone else might have. It's better to go now."

I nod again, taking yet another deep breath before guiding Ash to the front doors of the diner. The boys are standing right outside, no doubt waiting for Ash and I.

I feel very similar to the way I did when Sal ended our shit-uationship. I'm so confused and so hopeless, but hopeful. So pained, but relieved. I don't know how to handle the way I feel. I can't work myself out of this awful situation now because he's here. He's here and his hair is billowing softly in the wind, showing off his tattooed neck. And a cigarette is between his index and middle finger as he looks out at the jam-packed street. And then his boot is stomping out the butt of his cigarette on the ground.

The nail in the coffin is when he bends over to pick up the cigarette butt and throw it into the trashcan right outside the diner. He would be perfect if he wasn't such an emotionless prick.

I want to cry. I want to feel him again. I want to shoot him with a paintball gun one more time. I want to run my fingers over all his tattoos. I want him to shiver in fear and pleasure because of me. I hate him so much that it's become obsessive.

I lick my lips as I come to a top in front of my friends, more notably, right in front of Sal.

He turns away from the trashcan behind him, his shoulder-length hair following his movements. When he notices me, he stops and stares disinterestedly. The action is so forced though that it feels like it's hiding something else. Like he doesn't want me to know what he just did in the diner.

I watch him. My eye contact is a threat, a warning, a question, begging. Everything, I try to show him through my gaze.

And then I nod at him subtly despite myself. Even if it wasn't for me, he put that guy in his place and I think that's something to appreciate. But at the end of the day, he still left me upset and he's an asshole so I can't find it in myself to physically tell him thank you. The nod will do.

I turn my attention to the rest of The Faces. "I can make brunch in my apartment if that works with y'all?"

And that's how I've made another mistake today. That's why The Faces are walking down the streets of Los Angeles, my apartment just two buildings away.

There's so much wrong with this decision I've made. I should have never invited them over. What if dad is home? He shouldn't be-- but still. There's so much that could go wrong.

But the walk is going disturbingly well. Ash and Larry ooh and ahh at the streets of Los Angeles— which are normal to me. But I understand the charm too. I was very fond of LA when I first came here.

We walk into my apartment building, everyone speaking a little quieter as we traipse through Lobby. I don't speak, I just listen. And I take it that Todd and Sal are doing the same.

My apartment building is nothing special. It's boring, it's the lowest end of mainstream you can get. It's like a 90's apartment in Manhattan, but make it modern and LA. To put it short, it's the cheapest Dad and I could find here.

Having The Faces step into my territory feels like a time bomb ticking down the last few seconds. It's scary, and it puts me in a vulnerable position. I don't have much of a choice— I'm the one who thought of this idea. And I feel like I owe it to my friends to make them something to eat after they got kicked out of the diner. Not that it was my fault, but it was my customer's fault. I feel guilty for some unreasonable reason.

There's always risk though, and I run through my list of said risks as we take the elevator to my apartment. Being in someone's living space is daring, considering that family stuff is all around. Photos on the wall, artwork with family name's on them, doctor appointments and reminders on the refrigerator. Everything is risky, risky, risky.

Lucky for me, dad and I still haven't quite settled in yet. It's been a year, but we're also both constantly moving around. Dad is in hotels for weeks on end and I work most days. We unloaded and fixed our necessities, but other than that, our walls are bare and nothing of note is on our refrigerator. I should be fine.

We finally empty out into the hallway that leads to my apartment and I have to swallow down the anxiety rushing through me. Nothing has gone wrong and I can only hope that the last leg of this walk will go well for me. I just want one thing to go right today, just one. That's all I'm asking.

I get to my door, I shakily slide my key into the lock, and I open it and let all my friends in, watching their eyes bounce around the living room. I nearly slam the door shut once everyone is safe and inside.

I got my wish. Thank you to whoever granted me a little bit of peace on this unfortunate day.

"You need to get a new carpet."

It's the second time I've heard him speak today. The raspy, monotonous, alto tone of his makes me pause. He wasn't insulting, the way he said that was just commentary. But his voice alone feels like a declaration of war and all the panic and fear I've been enduring for the past— what? Half hour?— is replaced with some kind of desirous agony. Like I've been waiting for him to just... just speak.

"You have a problem with everything, don't you?" I respond, my voice biting into the stale air of my living room. I should've simply asked why he felt that way, but I have reasons. For example, the shit I've put up with today has me on edge. Another reason is Sal bombarding me on all ends without him even realizing it, then being so tense with all these horrible decisions I'm making. I'm really itching for a fight right now and I know I can get it from him. I can practically feel my eyes dilating with the excitement that's ransacking my body at the mere prospect of an argument.

Sal's head turns over his shoulders, body somewhat rigid. One hand in his pocket, the other with the fresh tattoo resting at his side. His eyes are narrowed, scrutinizing me and no doubt wondering who the hell I think I am.

"There's a giant fucking stain on your black carpet," he snaps, gesturing his tatted hand at the light green splatter that dad fussed me for weeks ago. That time I was watching The Faces' Youtube video and spilled my damn mint chocolate chip ice cream. When this entire thing between Sal and I was started. Because he had to go and judge me without getting to know me first. "Be happy I even mentioned it," he mutters, tone clipped.

"You think I didn't notice?" I laugh humorlessly. I wasn't lying when I said he has a problem with everything. Seriously— he just stepped foot into my home and has something negative to say about it. "And why don't you guess who's fault it is that the carpet is stained, huh?" The words rush past my lips, all hardly held back fury and expectation for the worst.

Sal tilts his head in a way that begs me to try him again, then turns his entire body to me. He shuts his eyes and holds up a hand, pausing before saying, "It surely isn't my fault if that's what you're implying." He even adds a snort at the end.

"Actually," I say cheerily, chin up and head high because it's quite literally all his fault that I dropped my ice cream whenever I heard him talking about me all those weeks ago. "Yea it is. I was sitting right there," I point to the edge of the sofa nearest the stained part of the carpet. "While listening—"

I feel like I've been punched in the stomach, and I did it to myself. Again.

How could I be so stupid? Here I am, openly and happily about to expose my true identity just to make a point. Just to be right. To win. To gain some catharsis from a meaningless argument.

I snap my mouth shut, swallowing over the relentless pounding of my heart. I blink at Sal who's waiting expectantly for me to finish what I was saying. What do I say? How do I save myself?

My palms sweat, my legs quake. Oh, this is so bad. Is this my real downfall? Is this where I break? It's going to happen. I'm going to pass out or have a psychotic break. Maybe I'm going insane— maybe I've been clinically insane for weeks now. At least I could plead not guilty at my murder trial. I've had a lot of murder on my mind today, haven't I?

But there's a knock at the door and bless the heart of whoever is about to punch my door hinges off. Any other situation and I'd be losing my mind over someone knocking so hard, but my savior is behind this hunk of wood.

I let out a shaky breath and tilt my head downwards, pretending like I'm too fed up to continue my argument. It's perfect. The best excuse.

But Sal's eyes burn into me, the scrutinizing, heavy blue trapping me in my own guilt. A narrow waterway hidden behind the confines of his prosthetic, haunting me day and apparently at night too. I find myself stuck, my gaze piercing his and waiting for something that will never come. I don't even know what that something is.

"Never mind," I grunt, spinning on my heels and taking a singular step toward my door.

I twist the knob, relieved by the silence behind me. No one cares enough to ask what that was about. I escaped... somehow.

And then I swing the door open, gaze up at the last person I expected to see, hear a resounding and excited, "Bitch!" and intellectually (smartest decision I've ever made) slam the door back in their face.

Oh no. Oh no, oh fuck.

I forgot.

____________

A/N:::::: 50K is such a dream come true and i really wish i could find more words to explain how excited and whole i feel. when i first started writing at 13, i was also reading on wattpad and fanfiction.com. I saw all these writers getting so many views and comments about their works, and i wondered if that would be me some day. i worked hard for the first couple years of my writing career and my only reader was my lovely sister (thank you amititty) and i realized that i needed to do something different. i started practicing more, and then i got into fanfiction rather than just fiction. and that's when something changed. i'll never forget the day when maybe today got 1k views-- i cried and wept like a baby for HOURS because it meant the entire world to me. little 18 year old ryver had no fucking clue that we'd get this far. that 1k on my trial book would turn into 50k on the next. i'm in tears typing this right now, in disbelief. every single one of you are my reason for writing, for brainstorming, for getting through my day... i consider you guys in everything i do. all the love in this world-- every ounce of affection, of adoration, of admiration-- does not compare to how special all of you are to me. you are all so dear to me, my friends and penpals that keep me going and remind me that the world isn't all bad, that not everyone is bad. so thank you for following me down this road and i hope we can continue like this. i wish we could all stay this way forever! but maybe, just maybe, i'll get to sign published copies of my books for you guys someday. get to follow through on my dream to hug all of you. there's never a way to tell what the future holds, but i believe it's pretty bright. thank you. i love you all with all the working neurons in my brain and numerous blood cells in my body <333

so about this chapter-- i have been looking forward to it since the very first chapter of this story. a lot of things have changed since then, including the chapter, but i still think the contents are a nice surprise and fucking HILARIOUS >.< i just hope you guys like it too! it was kind of hard to get out because i had all these ideas and images and feelings that i desperately needed to portray perfectly, but some things are just unable to be captured by words. my goal was to get as much as i was feeling onto paper (or computer?), so i hope you guys feel all the fear, desperation, and admiration going on! i deleted, retyped, and deleted again so many scenes and parts of this. and jesus christ this is an exceptionally long author's note MY BAD

anyway, as always, you guys own my heart and i love you to infinity and beyond!! i'll link pictures of y/n's red dress and sal's tattoo below <3

p.s. i have an announcement coming soon! nothing big, but i am trying something new so stay turned :3

[autisticempathydaemon]

hello everynyan :3 /ref

4 the redacted match-ups ! not sure if you're still doing these or not bc i'll be damned i'd give up after the first 3 🙌🙌🙌 power 2 ya ! (if you ARE, in fact, not doing these anymore pls ignore this. this never happened. kay.)

What song are you fixated on at the moment? What lyric or verse, and why?

this was the hardest question bc i LOVEEMUSIC so bad i can never really pick ONE fav bc it changes every 2 seconds but !!! gun to my head as of rn i'd say -- "but not kiss" - faye webster

'i want to see you in my dreams,

but then forget.

we're meant to be,

but not yet.

you're all that i have,

but can't get.'

i chose this song primarily because of the aesthetics & instrumental,, + the feels - i love how the piano carries and portrays every feeling (dread? maybe?) alongside the vocalist ugh sick to my stomach /pos

as for the verses i've chosen i just. really like the way she sings them HA i guess depending on my current mood i might relate to the lyrics for .5 seconds due to a past relationship of mine that had me fuckedd anyway.

Do you love gargantuan Youtube video essays, and if so, which is your favorite and why?

i WISH i could enjoy these as much as others but i have the attention spam of a fucking goldfish i need to be stimulated 24/7. i cannot stare at the same face and occasional photo/clip for over 10 mins.

i might watch more of em if they had like a satisfying slime video in the corner or smth. i find i only watch ones that have a topic/interest of mine that i am actively curious about/into????if that makes sense??

for instance, the only one that comes to mind rn is "in defense of chat noir" by toon ruins UGH ITS SO GOOD i used to be a huge fan of miraculous so that defffinitely takes part in why i rewatch it every few months.

What is your go-to way to fall asleep?

on my stomach. arms under pillows. one leg up. yo i bought these headphones made specifically for sleeping while listening to relaxing noises or smth & i kid you not i use them shits to listen to asmr/rp audios. sometimes it puts me to sleep other times i'm up all night tryna figure out what position the listener and 'character' are in. anyway!!!

If you had to change your name, what would it be, and why? (In tandem, if you have changed your name, why did you pick that one?)

first thing that comes 2 mindd for whatever reason is 'may' ?? possibly bc i really like my birth name already and 'may' is somewhat close to it already? also because i'd love writing it over and over in my handwriting . probably just an excuse to write the letter 'y' actually.

What is your favorite of Redacted’s audios, and why?

fav character changes ALLL THE TIMEE for no reason my fav is all of them rlly i just wanna love and be loved BUT when i reaaaally think about it ?? hudson. even though he's like. an easter egg. i cant have anything. wanna "D D D D DDDJJJ ANXIETY" into his pants. what. who said that. just got hacked wtff

What Redacted boy holds no appeal to you, and why? Like, not the one you hate but the one who you don’t get the hype for. (I won’t judge, I promise.)

a know a LOTT of ppl love david but i am sorry i just cannot. angel better than me idk how they do it. srry. my momma raised a bitch. i've never ever gotten to finishing any of his videos so maybe im the problem but from the get-go THIS BITCH IS SCARY BRO he's so damn intimidating . the fact that his voice is rlly deep doesn't help either :C ..& don't even get me started on early david.

Which Redacted boy are you platonically attracted to? Like- forget dating, which dude do you want to be your best friend?

this is such a good question rlly makin me think . hmm . OK I FEEL LIKE A BASIC BlTCH BC PPL HAVE BEEN SAYIN THIS ALREADY BUT . hux. we like this 🤞 . as for why?? i feel like i need and would . honestly really appreciate more,, warmth and positivity in my life - and i def get that sorta 'aura' from him. & i know damn well he'd give the best hugs. and we could go to the gym together. it'd be so fun. so precious.

Do you have a go-to thing you ramble about when you’re tired, and if so, what is it? (For example, my boyfriend knows I’m ready to sleep when I start talking about space.)

ok first of all #relationshipgoals that is so sweet awe :((

i wouldn't say i really 'ramble' per say -- i just talk. to myself. like a normal person. mhm. i struggle with sleep in general, so i'm usually up till like 5am. typically endlessly scrolling through my phone, or talking to the abyss about something personal that's been on my mind for a while. if it's really bad, i cry in my voice memos. if i just need to - refresh? get smth off my mind so i can sleep? i write songs.

...and then i record them on my $15 wireless headphones. onto that very same voice memos app.

Tell me your go-to gas station and drink combo.

if im being honest,, depends on my mood . but god could i fuck up some strawberry milk and mini oreos right about now. . mind you i've had strawberry milk like once but it changed my life u dont understand

Tell me about your favorite playlist at the moment.

i mean i don't listen to it 24/7 but man i outdid myself w this one. it's called "insanity" and every single song matches the vibe of . just straight up 'otherworldly' ?? if u catching what im throwin?? all songs r pretty 'out-there' - in terms of the vibes - at least i like to think so. for reference it has songs like "goth - sidewalks and skeletons" and "eternal youth - růde" . IDK i guess it makes me happy when songs from a playlist actually match up with one other

What’s your guilty pleasure media, and why?

i listen to this japanese-kawaii-metal-based group called BABYMETAL and i loveee them soso much. a few "metal enthusiasts" go out and call their work 'not real metal' , which is why i guess you can technically call their music a pleasure media -- as well as the fact that whenever i put on one of their songs mfs r like ... what is this - cause its three young japanese girls talking abt bubblegum with the the most insane guitar riff in the back. their newer stuff is incredible. womanhood at it's finest. give them a shot plspls /nf

ALL DONE !! ty 4 reading & have a lovely day/night, wherever you may be <3

Oh, this one is perfect and required, like, no thought. Vibes-wise? Given your energy? It’s just gotta be Guy.

Building on that, I love that you write songs and he writes screenplays(?). I think it’s so cute to pair writers together so that you might inspire one another and be each other's biggest fans. I also like Guy for you because he strikes me as one of those people who calls themselves “polyjamorous”, listening to basically anything and everything. He loves all your songs and all your playlists, vibing along to all of it even if there’s no words or words in another language. He doesn’t care: he’s with you, so he’s having a good time.

I would predict a fun, artistic life for the two of you like parallel-playing co-writing sessions with the two of you having individual headphones on, making funny faces at one another when you catch the other staring. You take turns showing each what you’ve created and hyping each other up, offering critique. When the writer's clock keeps y’all up till 3 AM, he’s got leftover pizza and any snacks you could possibly want. (He strikes me as the sort of guy who always has junk food caches.)

Song:

It was just two lovers/ Sittin' in the car, listening to Blonde/ Fallin' for each other/ Pink and orange skies, feelin' super childish/ No Donald Glover/ Missed call from my mother/ Like, "Where you at tonight?" Got no alibi/ I was all alone with the love of my life

Given your passion for music, I tried to pick a love song for y’all that was emotionally evocative to the mind and the ear. I chose this one because I thought the piano instrumental and how it evokes that mental imagery of sitting with someone during the golden hour might resonate with you. I also like it for y’all because this song got really popular on tiktok, and Guy would probably know it from there.

Runner-ups:

Obviously, we have to have Hudson as a runner-up. As a DJ, he’d be so loving and so supportive of your craft, hyping you up on air all the time and playing your work whenever he can. He’d also make you really bomb-ass playlists. A less obvious runner-up would be Anton, but I really like this one. You’d be more of an opposites attract sort of pair, but I think it’d be cute, and listening to music would remind Anton of you while he’s away~

Read this post and send me an ask if you’d like a match-up of your own! 💌

[quaranmine]

6, 12, and 25 for the mcytblr fic author asks?

6. Do you like using the mcyt multiverse as a concept? (all SMPS and MC content exists in the same universe)

Yes!! To the point where it will bother me if I can't make them all fit, lol. Usually I like to keep the Dream SMP, Hermitcraft, Evo and Life Series all within the same universe. I like MCC as an event where people from these servers can intersect. Empires though is a problem to me, as it often contradicts things quite heavily due to the characters' lore. So whether or not Empires (S1 or S2) is canon sort of depends on what I am writing. I also often disregard random one-off SMPs as well--I'm not going to try to figure out how Rats SMP fits into Hermitcraft fits into Empires, it's just a nice little series in its own right.

12.Funniest comment you've ever gotten in a piece of work?

I think the funniest is when I posted a Firewatch AU chapter and @ivi-prism sent me a screenshot of her fake-buying plane tickets to Texas on an actual airline website to come kill me

Also I do find it pretty amusing that I am so loudly fixated on fire lookouts that I am aware of more than one person who have started reading my fanfic without even being familiar with Hermitcraft LOL

25.What works and/or authors in the fandom do you recommend?

Well, I've got to rep some of my friends first! Ivi is the creator of this ask game, and you should definitely check out her works -- Off-world vacations is a sweeping dsmp x hermitcraft crossover that has been in the works for years, great for Fundy fans. chrysalizzm is one of the most talented writers I've ever met, and I've seen firsthand the incredible research and depth and soul he's poured into the wasteland series. another excellent writer is prismartist, who probably has something for everyone since they've written life series, hermitcraft, dream smp, qsmp, and empires.

Really though, I need to get better at actually bookmarking my favorite works. I often kudos and then lose them oops

I have to recc definitelynotshouting's hunger au, although I feel like that's quite well known in the fandom already (for good reason)

sunlight over me no matter what i do by odaigahara is a GREAT oneshot, but mind the gore and body horror (grian cuts off his own wings to get rid of watcher influence)

I'm pretty fond of a specific subset of Watcher!Grian stories where the old Grian died and a Watcher/something else just kind of uhhhh took over his body with his memories? So I must recommend tempering by sixteenthdays, as well as You Say You Feel Hollow (and you know it's 'cause you are) by writing_and_worrying. still slightly similar in concept but not quite the same is the body is an object by ruffboi. And it's probably distinctly different enough that it shouldn't even be grouped here, but I also adore Covet by Oceanbreeze7 for a good Creature-y Watcher!Grian.

I like Enderwoah's Jimmy/Bad Boys fics. The two I have in my bookmarks is i've got problems (not just the ones that are little) and i can see the pattern (but i don't know what i can do)

Finally, I don't always blog about hermitshipping but I do sometimes read it, so I'll leave you with a scarian fic that has killed me like three separate times: Baby, just let me bleed in peace by mossman_mothman

[shiraoyagi]

just an extra note. tsukasa's room ingame is stated to be his room, so yeah, that horrible room design is real LOL

anyways yeah i agree with this

the trophy case is also interesting because it basically contradicts everything about the way tsukasa presents himself to others.

our impression of him during dazzling would be something like "oh, he's strangely humble about piano, that's weird." but all the trophy case does is make this weirder, because if tsukasa is someone whose supposedly loud and proud about everything he does, why would he choose to hide those trophies away in his dresser? you'd think he'd actually display them. not only that, it insinuates he made an understatement about his mother entering him into "small [piano] competitions", especially since his skill at piano is alluded to in dazzling itself supported by the fact that harumichi aoyagi likes tsukasa enough for him to have let touya go to kamiyama. yknow. the guy that wouldn't let touya have friends and abused him all the time.

my personal prediction is that something happened with those competitions that lead to him forgetting that piano was his coping mechanism. he may have continued doing them to try and make his mom happy (he wants external validation), which might've also resulted in tsukasa forgetting why he wanted to be a star at the beginning of the main story. his dream was put on hold while saki was back in the hospital again in middle school (since she had almost gotten out for good only to collapse again), and since tsukasa defines his worth by other people, it could be that something happened with those competitions that caused him to repress his dream and only remember it as a thing where he wants attention. for example, if something happened like his mom's validation of him started to not make him feel anything -> tsukasa stops doing piano out of fear/disgust/some kind of negative reaction -> tsukasa needs more validation to compensate for his self-esteem -> he represses everything and becomes fixated on his image (and in main story is scared of even admitting he ever has forgot something important). something like that idk

also, i think the whole situation of mafuyu and tsukasa's rooms always kinda indicated to me how much of their identity is tied to other people. mafuyu was not allowed to express herself, so her room is only full of the pieces of mafuyu that mafumom likes— only what is necessary for her to be a "good girl." meanwhile, tsukasa imposes the same kind of thing on himself— because he wants to be a world future star and supportive big brother— he only has the things that he finds neccesary to do that, like you mentioned.

and then also about the hospital visits thing... the problem is also the whole situation of tsukasa not being taken with saki to the hospital, when both he AND saki would like to see him be there. obviously, he can't be there if saki was going through a procedure, but the tenma parents could've at least let him sit in the hospital waiting room where he would Actually have someone watching him instead of creating situations like in hinamatsuri where he literally was 7 years old and ran to the hospital and scraped his knee just to return a doll to saki in the hospital 😭

like i find it strange that the only other characters with significantly physically absent parents (due to work) are shiho and shizuku, but their grandma would literally watch over them so now whatever is happening with tsukasa and saki's childhood looks wayyyy worse. (so does an's but i'm not getting into my elaborate ken shiraishi "he's shinei's foil but it's in a really bad way and an has had resentment against him since main story" slander)

like it's not just the way tsukasa was treated... everyday i think about how saki, in one of her birthday cards, literally apologized to her mom for "burdening" her by being disabled. and nobody corrected saki and told her that she shouldn't blame herself for something she can't control. even worse, in saki3, we know that saki has felt that way for a long time surrounding her family and it's really fucked up man. and not only that, tsukasa's always had to be kind of like a parent to both him and saki to make up for the lack of emotional support they were given, which is further supported by that one 4koma where the plushies and miku refer to kaito as their mom— despite the fact that kaito is supposed to be a "big brother"— the ideal big brother and star that tsukasa wants to be.

(that last part may be a reach idk. i think it makes sense)

hot take ??

the only reason people say that "mafuyu and tsukasa have nothing in common" when presented with mafukasa parallels is because they equate mafuyu and tsukasa being similar to "tsukasa has depression" because the fandom equates mafuyu's personality to being depressed and nothing else.

it doesn't help that people (primarily younger people in the fandom) who DO believe in mafukasa parallels end up making the mistake of portraying tsukasa as depressed because as of right now he is not (although it's possible he was in past because of his Very Unclear Middle School Backstory but that's irrelevant)

anyways, mafuyu and tsukasa are narrative foils because their core personalities are built off of the concept of wanting to make the people around them— especially their families— happy.

they both developed personalities at a young age based on someone they looked up to. for tsukasa, it was seiichi amami's performance that inspired him to be a star— a hero that could cheer anyone up. for mafuyu, it was her mother taking care of her that inspired her to be a nurse— and you can see the similarities from there.

for mafuyu, her identity would first come into conflict when her mother expressed her want for mafuyu to be a doctor— suddenly, "everyone's" happiness didn't match what she wanted to do, leaving her in a state of disorder and eventual depression.

for tsukasa, his identity was something he nearly forgot in its entirety at the start of the main story— becoming arrogant and fully absorbed in a hero persona, forgetting the kind person he truly is. furthermore, his current character arc seems to be foreshadowing that what "being a star" to him is going to be called into question— maybe it is something more than just being the main character that saves everyone.

their insecurities are incredibly similar.

in mafuyu's first mixed, mafuyu feels insecure towards ichika because unlike ichika, she feels as if her lyrics have no genuine meaning to be expressed to other people— despite them being her very real feelings. this is brought up again in her second mixed as well.

in tsukasa's third focus event, something similar happens. when watching seiichi's performance, he thinks that his acting is "real" and feels inferior towards him, which is ironic because tsukasa has been method acting this whole time. when tsukasa is acting out rio or bartlett or really anyone at this point in the story, it's not just those characters— it's a reflection of his traumas.

just like mafuyu, tsukasa undermines his passions he's poured his feelings into because someone else's work is more genuine in his eyes.

now, then, foils have many similarities and parallels (and i could honestly list a lot more), but how i define them is that they usually have some kind of major branching difference that MAKES them foils.

for mafuyu and tsukasa it's pretty straightforward.

mafuyu's people pleasing behavior comes from external expectations and pressures— her mother's demands.

tsukasa's people pleasing behavior comes internally, from himself— if he can't meet his own standards, if he can't be the perfect big brother or the perfect star, then he is nothing.

and even then, there's some overlap.

tsukasa's behavior was indirectly encouraged by his mother praising him for being a "good big brother" over the phone instead of asking him if he was okay while home alone.

mafuyu's terrified to be herself around other people because she doesn't want to worry or bother them— she doesn't want to be a burden— and projects her mother's expectations onto them, not realizing that they would prefer the real mafuyu if they knew the truth.

and the concept of mafukasa being foils is most perfectly and blatantly portrayed in these two cards.

mafuyu, the marionette, sitting limp on the floor— puppeteered by her mother's demands and donning a mask to hide her true self.

tsukasa, the jester, standing above everything else— puppeteering silenced plushies— his feelings. he's not being completely honest with himself, and he doesn't even realize it.

mafuyu has cut her strings and ripped her mask in half. she has acknowledged her true feelings and expressed them to her mother, even if she had to run away in the end.

tsukasa has not yet cut his.

[mandoalorian]

Return of the Jedi [Max Lord x gn!Reader]

Summary: You and Alistair are heartbroken when you find out opening week tickets for Return of the Jedi have sold out. So Maxwell calls an old friend and organises a special surprise for his little family.

Warnings: food mention

Word count: 2000>

Author’s note: I received a request to write a Maxwell Lord x neurodivergent!Reader from @smoldjarin . They provided me with so much information in regards to autism, stimming, hyperfixations and more. I had so much joy writing this and I hope you find joy in reading it too. I couldn’t have done this without Melissa. I just hope I done it justice. (PS— I wanted to include Melissa’s love for Star Wars in this. I think we all, as Pedro stans, love Star Wars).

Maxwell wanted to pull his hair out. He had no idea what you and Alistair were yapping on about, but, evidently, it was something you both felt very passionate about. He’d seen you enthusiastic like this before, sure, but this was the first time he’d ever seen Alistair so hyped up. His brown eyes were gleaming as he hopped up and down.

“He literally said ‘I am your father!’ you laughed and Alistair let out a long groan.

“Yeah but he’s the bad guy! And the bad guys always lie,” Alistair explained — and that statement alone was enough to make Maxwell frown. ‘The bad guys always lie’ ... Ironic, to say the least. But, Alistair did make an excellent point. “I don’t trust him.”

You giggled and pulled Alistair into your lap. You’d never found it easy, touching people and being so close to them, but Alistair has grown to be an exception. He was like a son to you.

“Well, I suppose all will be revealed next week.” you told the ebony haired boy, pressing a kiss to his forehead.

You and Alistair got along really well, and Maxwell couldn’t be more grateful, but it was the moments when you both babbled on about Star Wars that had him feeling the most clueless. Granted, he hadn’t found the chance to sit through the movies, but he wanted to because he knew how much it meant to you and his son.

He was also made blissfully aware that the third and final instalment of the trilogy was being released next week, because you and Ali couldn’t stop talking about it. Even in the moments when Alistair wasn’t there, you expressed your excitement to Maxwell. He found it endearing though. He loved it when you talked about your interests and current hyper-fixations. Which is why his heart broke when you read the Friday morning paper and found out all the tickets for opening week were sold out.

Max, despite having no interest in Star Wars, was devastated when he saw the look on your face. He especially didn’t want to be the person who had to break the bad news to Alistair.

“I was really looking forward to it.” You mumbled sadly, your eyes fixated on your cereal. You only had a little left to eat, but truthfully, you’d lost all appetite. These movies and this franchise meant the absolute world to you, and now no doubt you’d have the final movie spoiled for you at work or by the television.

“Oh darling,” Maxwell hummed, wrapping his strong arms around you and holding you tight. You relished in his warmth and found yourself getting lost in the comforting scent of his sweet musk cologne. “I know. And I’m sorry,” the silence between you both broke his heart. “Don’t worry honey, I’ll fix this.”

You weren’t sure how he could possibly fix this. There were simply no more seats available in the movie theatres. He couldn’t just spawn in more seats. What Maxwell Lord did have though, was power, influence and money— and when he put his mind to something, he was sure to get it done. You had never met anyone more determined than him.

He didn’t want to leave you that morning, but duty called and he had to go to work. You tried your hardest to push through the day, ignoring this morning’s revelation. You opted to meet up with a friend at the park, and got ice cream. But when you’re friend told you they’d got tickets, you couldn’t help but feel a pang of jealousy. You deserved these tickets. It just wasn’t fair.

Maxwell was struggling to focus on his work too. He was running out of bright ideas, but he didn’t just want his statement from this morning to be another empty promise. He actually wanted to fix this. He’d do anything to make you and Alistair happy.

Then it struck him. If his life was a kids cartoon, an illuminated lightbulb would’ve popped above his head. He buzzed his assistant, Raquel, into his office.

“Mr. Lord?” she smiled, walking towards his pine wood desk. Maxwell combed his fingers through his golden locks of hair and looked up at the blonde girl.

“Do I know anyone who is in the uh— the new Star Wars movie?” He inquired.

Raquel was expecting some question about the latest oil numbers, or a request for more supplements — so to say she was taking aback by her boss’ query was an understatement.

She thought for a moment. “Well, Harrison Ford has been a long time investor for Black Gold. He attended last year’s charity gala. Do you remember?”

Of course Maxwell remembered. How could one forget about being in the presence of Hollywood A-Lister Harrison Ford? “Harrison’s in Star Wars?” Maxwell quizzed, trying to hide his piqued curiosity. “Bring me his number. I have to make a call.”

———

Maxwell was so excited to get home and share the good news with you and Alistair. You greeted him just as you normally did, with a loving embrace and a gentle kiss.

“How was your day sweetheart?” your boyfriend asked, smoothing out your hair.

You shrugged. “Fine I s’pose,” you told him. “How was work?”

Maxwell’s grin only grew. “Bring Alistair in.” he beamed.

You called for the boy who had been playing with his action figures in his bedroom. His mom had dropped him off about an hour before Maxwell got home. You and Ali snuggled into each other on the crushed velveteen sofa as Maxwell paced backwards and forwards. It wasn’t nervous pacing though, he was bubbling with anticipation.

“I hope you’re all excited for tomorrow night,” Maxwell began, before flashing three pristine Return of the Jedi tickets before yours and Alistair’s eyes. “Because I met with my good friend Han Solo for lunch and he has given us access to a private screening on Sunday night. So we get to see the movie before the rest of the world.”

You felt like you were in a dream. He’d done it. He’d actually fixed it. You didn’t know how and you knew better than to question him, but it didn’t matter because he somehow managed to fix this and it was all to you and Alistair. You’d found it so hard to find someone who loved you for you, who didn’t mind your stims and who encouraged your hyperfixations. But Maxwell was that man and you couldn’t believe how lucky you had gotten.

Alistair bounced up and jumped on his dad, almost knocking him over in the process. Maxwell wrapped his arms around the six year old and picked him up.

“Daddy! Thank you thank you thank you!” he squealed, unable to contain his ecstatic grin. “I had no idea you were friends with Han Solo!”

Maxwell smiled. “Oh yeah, me and Han go way back. I used to co pilot with him on the—“ Maxwell paused for a second as he tried to recall what Harrison told him. He had to get this right. “—Millennium Falcon?”

Both yours and Alistair’s jaw dropped. Gods, he was good at this. Maxwell may have been a brilliant businessman but he was an even better father.

“Does that mean you know Luke and Leia too?” Alistair asked.

“Oh yes.” Maxwell nodded, despite having no idea who Luke and Leia were.

“And Chewbacca?”

Chewbacca? Maxwell thought. What kind of name was that? Never the less he smiled and nodded. “Absolutely.”

“And Artoo and Threepio?”

Maxwell blinked. “Yep.” he replied through gritted teeth.

“Wow daddy,” Alistair hummed, snuggling into his dad’s chest. “I’m so excited.”

Maxwell dropped Alistair the ground and kneeled to his level. “You should put on your jammies and have an early night. That way, tomorrow will come around quicker.”

“Okay!” Alistair agreed enthusiastically before running back into his bedroom.

“And remember Ali!” Maxwell called. He cleared his throat and pointed his finger. “I am your father.”

That was it. That was the last straw. You’d tried your hardest to hold back your laughter as Max humoured his son, but seeing your boyfriend do a Darth Vader impression was something else.

Max sighed and sat down next to you, pulling your body into his lap. “I love you so much, my dear.”

You grinned and pressed a kiss to his lips. “I love you too. I can’t believe you did all of this.” you revealed.

“I always keep my promises.” he replied with the most genuine smile.

———

The movie was a success, and even Maxwell enjoyed it, which was very unexpected.

“I can’t believe Darth Vader was telling the truth,” Alistair sighed, exasperated. It had been a long day for sure, and his cheeks were still rosy with excitement. “I’m so glad Darth Vader isn’t my dad.”

Maxwell tutted.

“But he turned good in the end,” You smiled, taking Ali’s hand. “He saw what truly mattered. He had to save his son.”

Yeah, the parallels between Vader and Luke and Maxwell and Alistair were interesting to say the least.

“Daddy, who was your favourite character?” Alistair asked.

Maxwell thought for a moment. “I liked that guy in the green armour, he was cool. He sorta reminds me of, well, me.”

“Boba Fett?” Alistair quirked an eyebrow. “Oh daddy, no one is as cool as Boba Fett.”

Maxwell feigned a gasp. “Not even your old

man?”

Alistair giggled and rolled his eyes. “I liked the Ewok!” he announced and then tugged on your hand. “Who did you like?”

“I like Leia,” you beamed. “She’s strong and beautiful...”

“Just like you.” Maxwell whispered, brushing his

lips against yours.

The night came to an end and you couldn’t have been happier. As you lay in bed, you thanked Maxwell for all he had done. He was truly the best boyfriend in the world. He loved you so much, and he swore in that moment, as you fell asleep in his arms, that the next promise he’d make would be a promise to himself.

He was going to marry you.

———

Permanent taglist: @paintballkid711 @supernaturalgirl @phoenixhalliwell l @ah-callie @stardust-galaxies @wickedfrsgrl l @goth-topic @nerdypinupcrystal l  @kiwi-the-first @pedroepascal l @castiel-barnes @honeymandos @rocketqueen  @dybalalover10 @girl-obsessed-with-things @elena-myth @moth-guillotine @pedro-pascal-love @hayley-the-comet @pinkninja200 @maxiarapamaya @autumnleaves1991-blog @artsymaddie @harrys-stan @kennedywxlsh @cripplingmoon @cheekygeek05 @mrschiltoncat @rye-flower @theamuz @persie33 @sleepylunarwolf @martellthemandalor @pedro-pastel @steeevienicks @rrtxcmt @saphic-susperia @ladyjenny19 @readsalot73 @softmedics @jade10077 @dodgerandevans @planetariumx​ @pascals-cat

[sun-stormz]

Genshin Impact Visions & Gods

This has been bugging me since i started playing in mid november, but what makes a certain Archon give a Character their Vision. Considering i couldnt find any official info, I decided to do some research on each Archon and then on the player Characters we have of each element as of beginning of December 2020.

This will contain spoilers on characters & story!

Note: The travelers will not be included due to them not having Visions and having more then one Element.

I am basing this on overlaping themes and not on anything related to the actual Archon. I did add some info on the archons tho, due to this being about Visions and archons

“It is unclear whether Visions are directly granted by its element's corresponding Archon or by the nation's Archon. There is also the possibility that granting a Vision requires approval from both Archons. Yet another possibility is that they are granted by neither, and are instead given by the gods on Celestia.”

-Genshin Wiki on reciving Visions

Starting with my Favourite Element, Electro.

Electro wise, We have five Characters as of right now: Kequin, Razor, Beidou, Fishl and Lisa. The Electro Archon, God of Eternity, Baal, is the ruling Archon of the Area, Inazuma, whitch is the area we are getting in the 1.4 update in 2021.

To start off i read into any info i could find on Baal and i gotta say, she is a interesting Fellow. As of right now we know that Baal has locked Inazuma down and has initiated a Vision Hunt Decree, due to her thinking Visions should be under the sole domain of divinity. She also hasnt handed out any Visions since this decree which means all Electro characters we know have gotten theirs before this drastic change.

Now, why did these 5 characters get their Visions? Well each character has a different reason, from Razor wanting to protect those he calls friends to Lisa simpley saying it would be of use to her and just getting it. From what I've found there isnt really a big overlap in the reciving of the characters, but what is overlaping is their fixation on something.

Razor recived his vision due to him being fixated on getting stronger to protect his friends after he failed to while being dragged away by an abyss mage

Kequin was fixated on sharing her beliefs, that the people of Lyiue shouldnt rely on Rex Lapis and have their Pride and that their views are of Equal importance

Fishl was so fixated on a book series she changed herself to be like the main character, fishl and her Vision manifested in the form of Oz, one of the characters from said book

Beidou was fixated on killing Haishan, a sea monster, from a young age and recived her vision when she did so

Lisa is pretty much fixated on understanding magecraft and the cost of reciveing a Vision.

Now onto a easier Element, Geo

The Archon of Geo and Contracts, Morax, Archon of Lyiue.

Morax or Rex Lapis, was one of the oldest gods, defended Lyiue in the Archon war, the Currency in Teyvat, Mora, is named after him and as of Chp.1 Act 3 we know that he has taken the form of Zhongli and has retired as the Geo Archon.

Morax, Along with Barbatos, are the only two Archons of the Original Seven that havent been replaced.

Now, who are our Geo Characters? Noelle and Ningguang, two dedicated powerhouses! This one is fairly simple, thanks to voicelines we have of Zhongli since he came out as a player character (Bless the pity pull for giving me this man)

In his “About Ningguang” Voiceline he says: ”Despite the multitude of affairs she deals with in a day, Ningguang always continues to press on. A rare gem indeed. I'm reminded of the time that she used to walk barefoot from Yaoguang Shoal to the south wharf, trying to sell her wares as she went. Time is cruel to humans.”

Noelle recived her vision when Jean Acknowledged her hard work when she tried to get into the knights of favonius. in her “Vision” story it states: This was a lucky day that she would always remember, for she would receive recognition from two all-important sources this day: once from Jean, and the other from the gods. Her hard work has been remembered after all.

So for short: Hard working and dedicated = Geo Vision

Next up we have Anemo

Our wonderful Tone deaf bard, Venti or otherwise known as the Archon of Anemo and freedom, Barbatos, the not really ruling Archon of Mondstadt.

Barbatos is a freedom loving guy and refuses to rule over Mondstadt, the city of freedom and is by far the weakest of the Archons, despite this the people of Modstadt still love and adore their windy God.

I went into this one thinking “Oh this is easy, itll be love for freedom or something!” Nope, it surprisingly wasnt. Jean and sucerose recived their visions through their Determination it seems. Sucerose from doing her 159th Dandilion seed Simmering experiment and Jean seemed to be determened to be a good grandmaster and to protect Mondstadt.

That aside, i couldnt find many overlaps with the two, they are both free spirited and love what they do.

Now on to Pyro

Pyro, the Element of the Archon Murata who is also the god of War, is wielded by the fan fav Diluc, as well as Klee, Xiangling, Amber, Bennett and Xinyan.

Not much is known about Murata, Venti describes her as a “ wayward, warmongering wretch” and thats about all we know. She presides over Natlan.

Now to the characters, this was acually the easiest of them all: Passion.

Every Pyro user has a huge amount of passion that a rolemodel or Loved one ignited within them.

This one definitly surprised me the least and i am really excited for when we meet Murata and Natlan.

Diluc has the same passion his father had

Klee has a passion for Explosives that her mother ignited

Xiangling has a passion for food and cooking she got from her father

Amber got her Passion for Mondstadt and the outriders from her grandfather

Bennett got the Passion for adventure from all the old adventurers he calls dads, yes Dads as in plural, that raised him

Xinyan has a passion for Rock, tho i havent found out more of her story due to her being so new.

Now heading onto Hydro

Hydro, along with Dendro, is the only element where we do not know the name of the Archon. All we do know is that they are the Archon of Hydro and Justice and rule over Fontaine.

So straight to the Hydro characters: Barbara, Mona and Xingqiu.

I dont really count Childe due to the only thing talked about is his dilusion and i am rather confused on if he even has a real vision but i still love him lots

Im going to be honest this one really had me running the brain gears for a while.

All three recived their Vision as an extension of the self.

Barbara  got hers after helping a sick boy by singing to him to help him sleep through a fever, Mona rekindeled a learning aid to her vision, to aid her with her search for the truth of the rules of the world and Xingqiu got his after he explained the principles of his clans martial arts anew, litterally saying that martial artists should see Visions as a extension of the self.

Last but definitly not least, Cryo

Cryo, the Element of the Archon know as the Tsaritsa. We acually dont know her corrisponding ideal nor her acual name and this one was just as geargrinding as Hydro.

The Tsaritsa, Ruler of the fatui and the one that gives them their Dilusions, is one interresting lady. We get a description of her from Childe: “Her Royal Highness the Tsaritsa is actually a gentle soul. Too gentle, in fact, and that's why she had to harden herself. Likewise, she declared war against the whole world only because she dreams of peace. Her gaze was cold but pure, arrogant yet sharp. She was not only the sacrosanct Cryo Archon but a true warrior also.”

Kaeya, Chongyun, Diona and Qiqi, our current four Cyro userer, all have rather interesting storys when it comes to how they got their Vision.

All dont accept something

Kaeya felt guilty about hiding who he was from the family that adopted him after his father abandoned him to be a spy in Mondstadt, and told Diluc, someone he used to be very close with, the truth, since then he sees his vision as a stern reminder that he must live his life under a heavy burden of Lies. He pretty much doesnt accept the truth of his situatin and would rather live with that heavy burden

Chonyun is surpressing a part of himself, the condition he has, and as Xiangling says in Chongyuns stories, is denying a part of him. He trys to work around his condition and wont accept it as the way to go about how he practices exocrism.

Diona wont accept the truth about her father being a Alcoholic, and places the blame on the Alcohol industy instead of accepting that he isnt as high and mighty as she thought. She wont accept that her fathers bad control over his drinking habits is the reason he acts as he does and instead blames the alcohol industry.

Qiqi didnt want to accept her death nor does she really accept her Zombie like traits and only uses them when she needs to defend herself.

My theory is the Cyro Visions are recevied when you wont accept the grim reality as it is, if this is positive or negative variates

When it comes to the last element, Dendro, we sadly know nothing nor have we seen any dendro character in action. So that might be a addition later on.

I’m really interrested if we find out the actual criteria for reciving each Vision one day

[thanksjro]

Dark Cybertron Chapter 11: The Word “Logic” Doesn’t Even Mean Anything Anymore

Our issue opens up with a flashback to establish some things.


Because despite the six literal issues of prelude, and all the ham-fisted exposition we’ve gotten throughout the “Dark Cybertron” event, we still don’t have all the information we need to understand what the hell’s happening.

I have a feeling this won’t quite cut the mustard, either.

Anyway, back during the events of MTMTE #1, when Rodimus was making his call to action to his fellow Cybertronians (and by “Cybertronians” I, of course, mean “Autobots”, because prejudice is a hard habit to kick, even for the best of us) Brainstorm was doing science on Hardhead. He was doing this science to make sure that the Dead Universe hadn’t killed him without him realizing. This is a very common issue in the world of IDW2005 Transformers, considering that zombies are a part of canon, so it’s just best to be sure. Nova Prime’s lifeless body sits in the corner like the world’s worst coffee table book.

This will take some explaining, because this is Phase One related.

In Spotlight: Sideswipe, Nova Prime beefed it, except he didn’t, because his “essence” returned to the Dead Universe. This is because he was chosen by the Dead Universe to enact its will on the other, much cooler, Not-Dead Universe. In short, he’s a weird robot zombie-ghost with a save point in the Dead Universe.

Brainstorm has his corpse in his lab to make sure this bastard is true and proper dead, or that the body he left behind is at least. That, in combination with Hardhead proving to be very much alive, means that today can be counted as a win for everyone! The “Alive-People-Counter” machine proves it!

…This is why we can’t have nice things.

Brainstorm being undead does have some precedence within the narrative, given what happened in MTMTE #3.

Though I can’t help but wonder what the guy’s been doing for the last year and a half, that he didn’t notice being dead, when his soul is a large, glowing orb with physical presence. I dunno, he just seems like the sort of guy to keep up to date on that sort of thing, if only for scientific purposes.

In the present day, in the beautiful city of Iacon, everything’s gone to shit, and Whirl’s gotten hot for some reason, as billions of Ammonites fall out of the sky.

Who friggin’ drew this-

I should’ve known.

Up on the Lost Light, Ultra Magnus is breaking out the fancy swears, as a… tornado, I guess, of Ammonites hits the underside of the ship. Bumblebee wants to evacuate the friggin’ planet- which, I don’t know if you know this, would be a little difficult to do, even with a ship the size of NYC. Unfortunately, that’s not gonna fly, however, because all the stars in the sky are blue-shifting.

Wikipedia tells me that this is probably a bad thing, and Perceptor agrees, calling it “the end of everything.”

Over in Shockwave’s Lair of Villainy and Magical Bullshit, everyone’s favorite purple science gremlin has stabbed a “time drive” into his chest. Galvatron is laying dead on the floor in the foreground, but this isn’t about him. Shockwave orders Jhiaxus to activate the time drive, I guess because he doesn’t have long enough arms to do it himself. Jhiaxus warns Shockwave to be mindful, lest he lose himself in time, and then we get a return to a Roberts writing staple that we haven’t seen in quite a while.

Waxing poetic on the nature of time- this time, in a visual medium!

Awful lot of fixating on your ritualistic amputations there, Shocky-boy. I suppose this is ONE way to try to cope with a lack of control in your life.

Of course, to those on the outside of Shockwave’s brain, this doesn’t look nearly as impressive- it actually just looks like him screaming really loud at the ceiling. Bludgeon isn’t sure that this course of action is a healthy one to take, but Jhiaxus is too busy being sapiosexual to worry about that.

I-

Sure. I’m not even going to bother trying to understand this anymore.

Jhiaxus orders Monstructor to go keep the Autobots away from Shockwave.

Also, Galvatron isn’t dead. Good for him, I guess.

Over inside Metroplex, Windblade’s face seems to be stuck in the generic “I am a nice, nonthreatening female character who is also pretty” position, as Ultra Magnus tells her that the universe is ending. Chromia watches in the background as this happens, likely wondering if being relevant in modern media again is worth this bullshit.

Hearing that Bumblebee plans to take the fight to Shockwave is enough to get Metroplex back on his feet, which is good, because I don’t think we have a lot of time to convince the guy to do anything- this event ends next issue.

As Metroplex windmills his arms through swarms of Ammonites, the Lost Light lands, and Bumblebee, Megatron, and all their experts disembark. Bumblebee makes an unsolicited comment about Megatron’s body. They go to meet Soundwave, who isn’t terribly thrilled with Megatron having become all buddy-buddy with Bumblebee. Megatron mentions that the Decepticons are going to have to rethink their strategy once this is all over, with the implication being that they’re going to- gasp- work together with the Autobots.

Then Starscream shows up with Metalhawk, Skywarp, Rattrap, Waspinator, and Scoop for some fucking reason, in tow. Skywarp is going to teleport everyone into Shockwave’s Bastardization of the Concept of Science House, even though he pretty clearly isn’t feeling too well. What a guy.

Starscream and Megatron have a bit of banter that won’t set your hair on end with how awful they are to one another, Metalhawk tries to apologize for attempting to kill Bumblebee, and we really don’t have time for this shit right now. The narrative knows this, because it shifts to focus on Prowl and the Constructicons. Things are looking real rough just about everywhere, and it’s coming down to the wire, so they gotta do the thing.

The thing Prowl really doesn’t want to do.

The thing he said that he wouldn’t do again.

So anyway, they form Devastator.

As Monstructor gets ready to get punched in the face by a bunch of construction workers and a cop, everyone down below is firing off laser blasts and gearing up for a teleporting adventure. However, there’s a small problem- there are too many people to teleport! Oh no! The only solution is for Soundwave and his cassettes, Scoop, Getaway and-

Excuse me, Hook?

Hook, my dude? What the fuck do you think you’re doing? You’re supposed to be a leg right now, motherfucker, why are you here? GO HOME, HOOK.

Anyway, I’m really glad we wasted the time establishing that Soundwave and his band of merry little men were coming along on this trip, only for them to not come along after all. Love that shit.

I don’t actually love that shit. I’m sorry for lying.

With the load lightened, Skywarp teleports the rest of the gang to where they need to be, and Waspinator is immediately stabbed with a massive raging poisoning sword of doom. Bludgeon’s here to greet everyone, and Metalhawk is gonna try his damnedest to get the guy to come around to their side.

You remember when Metalhawk did things like connive, and scheme, and actually had more depth than a sidewalk puddle? Because I remember. Now he’s just... Beast Wars Silverbolt, but he’s not even attempting to be charming. I bet he wouldn’t even call his evil girlfriend “my soul’s delight.” Lame.

Bumblebee, Megatron, and friends book it for Shockwave, while Magnus and Skids get ready to kick some ass. Brainstorm isn’t feeling so hot, but this isn’t about him.

Starscream is having a minor crisis over the fact that Scoop stayed behind in a literal war zone for Starscream’s sake. I dunno that he did it specifically for Starscream, but Starscream seems pretty convinced that he did, and who am I to argue with the leader of a whole friggin’ planet?

The gang makes it to Jhiaxus’ ship, where they find-

I swear to god, if there’s not a fucking explanation for what the shit is happening right here I’m going to scream.

…So anyway, Metalhawk and Jhiaxus start beating each other up, Starscream gets bent out of shape by Jhiaxus’ trash talk, and we get an explanation for his new look.

Which, y’know, thank fucking god.

Jhiaxus has new reactive armor, which takes anything thrown at him and adapts it to his own body for personal use, which feels like some Grade-A Kids Playing Pretend bullshit, but WHATEVER.

While this is going on, Megatron and Bumblebee have run into the center of Shockwave’s Laboratory of Morally-Abhorrent Mystical Buffoonery Masquerading as the Scientific Method. Dreadwing tries to make a case for self-defense of his property, but unfortunately he doesn’t understand how property rights work, and gets blasted for his troubles. Galvatron reveals himself to be alive to Megatron, who immediately grabs the dude by the throat.

Galvatron’s feeling pretty down about having inadvertently helped end the universe, and is throwing himself a little pity party. Megatron’s not having it, however, tossing the man into the ground and revving up to fusion-cannon him to death. Bumblebee stops him, for some reason, and then starts rambling, I guess STILL trying to be Optimus Prime 2.0.

Bumblebee, you put bombs in people’s heads to make them fall into line. You don’t get to talk to Captain Warlord about moral nuance. And weren’t you also berating Metalhawk for trying this same thing not five minutes ago?

Bumblebee’s words reach Megatron, and instead of annihilating Galvatron, he offers the dude a hand up.

Then Bumblebee gets shot and dies, while Shockwave just… stares menacingly, I guess.

Cool.

The death of his very best friend in the whole wide world sends Megatron into a rage, and he punches Shockwave in the face. This doesn’t really faze him much though, as he bats Megatron across the fucking room like he’s made of papier-mâché and dreams, going on about how the universe will save Cybertron by being its power source “in an endless forever.”

Shockwave, you’re a man of science. You ought to know that “forever” as a concept, doesn’t fucking WORK scientifically. It’s nonsense. You’re nonsense, and I hate you.

Back with the Bludgeon Ass-Kicking Squad, Brainstorm’s having a bad time, while everyone else sort of awkwardly poses. Skids gets stabbed. Skids falls down. Brainstorm falls down. Ultra Magnus is concerned, but he’s too busy not being stabbed to help anyone.

Brainstorm’s in a lot of pain, and then a hand bursts out of his chest and-

GODDAMMIT JAMES.

Fucking- Team -Imus burst out of the Dead Universe from Brainstorm, who I will remind you, is undead thanks to Dead Universe lightning bullshit, making him a link between it and the much cooler Not-Dead Universe. Everyone is posing, even Cyclonus, who absolutely should think that sort of thing is beneath him, but whatever.

That’s the end of the issue. Go home.

[maaji-maji-majima]

some kissing hcs for Majima?(if u can make it nsfw)

So I'm in a weird place with this. I don't want to leave you unanswered but I know you won't like the answer that I give. It has been a long time since I was active on tumblr and I'm not sure when along the timeline headcanon became synonymous with fanfiction. I appreciate fanfiction authors for their creativity, but I am not one myself. I use headcanon in the older definition of "this isn't in the source material, but it is true in my brain". They are either random things my half asleep mind thought of while walking home from work or a character analysis. At the same token your ask had crawled into my brainmeats and won't leave. So again, I apologize that this most definitely is not what you're looking for, but I hope someone out there finds this to be an interesting read.

Without further introduction, here is a character analysis of our favorite pansexual, gender fluid, emotionally stunted goblin in regards to relationships and why the he desperately needs therapy as brought to you by a different pansexual, gender fluid, emotionally stunted goblin who got therapy but probably needs more.

Trigger warnings: Abuse, self harm, mental disorders, poor coping strategies, unhealthy relationships, random tense changes, not fanfiction

Spoilers for the whole franchise, but very specifically for 0, K1, and 5.

Abuse does weird things to people's brains. In Yakuza 0 Majima has barely been out of the hole for a year. He might no longer be suffering the actual physical torture he had been subjected to the year prior, but he is still directly in the hands of his abusers and being watched every moment. He is still in a cage even if it doesn't look like one. He is depressed and likely suicidal, but doesn't follow through with those thoughts because he is determined to make sure Saejima has a home to come back to. He is willing to endure just about anything to allow Saejima a chance to exact that final moment of retribution because Saejima is the one who deserves it and Majima doesn't feel that there is any possibility for forgiveness. In all likelihood he hasn't sought out anyone for a hookup or paid company for an evening due to a combination of not feeling like he deserves anything that feels good and the fact that he's constantly being watched. The year in hole means he no longer really has a concept of privacy, but he's worried that getting close to someone, even for a few moments, could put them in danger if Sagawa or Shimano feels like holding something else over his head. It isn't worth accidentally dragging someone into his own personal hell. He no longer lives for the present, he is only living for that far-off future that he hopes isn't just a pipe dream.

Enter Makoto. At first she is a stand-in for Saejima's sister Yasuko, but it morphs rapidly from there. She is the light and kindness and hope that he hasn't seen in years and she's being dragged into his bullshit. He knows in his heart of hearts that she doesn't deserve what she is being forced into, so his mind snaps into the immediate and does everything he possibly can to save her. This is is the hill he wants to die on. Maybe, just maybe, he can end his miserable existence with a final act of good and he feels that Saejima might just be able to understand. But because he no longer has any relationships in his life that are not strictly professional or the abusers he cannot escape, he has little recollection of what a nuanced relationship or even friendship is any longer. Due to circumstance she is also the only person that he cannot keep at arm's length, no matter how desperately he tries. So he falls for her and falls hard. But in the end, after everything they go through he does the impossible. He lets her go. She has a life and a future, whereas he has neither of those. What would she do? Become his ane-san? Have some temporary happiness before she realizes she has a target on her back for the rest of her life? No. Majima believes she deserves so much more than that even though it hurts him deeply. What is one more hurt on top of everything else? He's gotten extremely good at burying his pain.

Getting to Tokyo flips a switch in Majima's brain. Like many people with mental trauma who don't have access to therapy he falls into excess as a way of self medicating. He fits virtually everything on the hedonism checklist. Drinking? Yeah. Violence? Hell yeah! Promiscuity? Yeah, but I ain't judging. Drugs? Probably, even though it isn't explicitly stated in game. Everything from his shift in personality to his wardrobe has become, intentionally or not, a defense mechanism. He has escaped from all of his abusers except for Shimano and he refuses to allow anyone to gain that kind of power over him again.

It is a double edged sword, however. His depression and PTSD are running unchecked. In all likelihood he hasn't fallen hard on vices as a way to reclaim ownership off his own body. Instead it seems more probable that he is dissociating. After everything he has been through he doesn't care what happens to his body in the long run because it isn't actually his anymore. Risky behavior, which is practically Majima's middle name, is also frequently used as a passive form of self harm because the end result is either temporarily feeling better thanks to endorphins and adrenaline or permanently feeling better after embracing death. He could achieve a similar feeling by taking up jogging and chasing a runners high, but that takes more time and energy than chugging a handle of whiskey or goading some chump into throwing hands. Sadly even now admitting to mental problems by seeking help is fairly stigmatized in Japan and it was only worse in the early 90s. Can't have a problem if no one tells you it's there, right?

Then he meets Mirei. She's intense but not wild like Majima. At that moment in time she is everything he needs. Head strong, domineering, and very, very determined. She knows exactly what buttons to press to wrap him right around her finger. And he lets her take the reigns, lets her run his life because he realizes he was doing a terrible job on his own. Better her than Shimano, right? Doing something wrong results in the cold shoulder instead of a vicious beating, and doing something right leads to more than simply the relief of avoiding a beating. He decides that making her happy is enough to make him happy. Until suddenly it isn't. He never wanted to be a father, but even the idea that he could have been was enough to cause a fundamental shift in his entire outlook on life. He could have had someone to live for, instead of just survive for. But he had no say in the matter and didn't know until the decision had been made for him. When Mirei told him she had an abortion he snapped. He hit her. The one and only time he raised his hands against her. Disgusted with himself, and wounded by her decision, he left. If he was capable of that, he knew couldn't be the person she had been trying to mold him into. He realized he was nothing but a weight around her neck dragging her down. And so that day signals the end of their short marriage. He spends the next several decades drowning in guilt for his actions while still resenting her for her choice.

That leaves us with Kiryu. Poor, oblivious Kiryu. Majima's fixation is multifaceted but in no small part due to the fact that Kiryu is one of the few people strong enough to hurt him, but is the only one that doesn't want to. And Majima just doesn't understand. After everything, he only deserves to hurt, right? Saejima, Yasuko, Makoto, Mirei. Everyone who gets too close to him ends up worse for it, so why won't Kiryu and his sense of honor seek justice on their behalf? So he does everything he possibly can to wind up Kiryu enough to Pay Attention Damnit, Fight Me. But Kiryu's response is always just flustered awkwardness because he doesn't want like fighting, it's just a part of his job, like wearing a suit or answering a phone. To Kiryu fighting isn't a thing done because it's enjoyable, it's done because it has to be. But he's still the only one who doesn't flinch when Majima brandishes a knife inches from his face.

And then Kiryu is arrested and in jail for ten years. And ten years is a long time to build someone up onto a pedestal. Like only wanting to talk about the best of a person after they've died. The same thing happened with Saejima. Build them in his mind to what he wants or needs them to be since they are not there to actively correct it. The decade is pretty miserable, going through the motions and trying to not make waves with the bigwigs while terrifying the minions into obedience. When he hears Kiryu is being released it is like waking up again. He all but waits at the taxi stand at the entrance of Kamurocho on the day of Kiryu's release, all but vibrating with excitement. It's a fight he has been waiting on for a decade, too bad it was little more than a disappointment.

So Majima decides to bring him back up to spec in that very Majima flavored way. Small fights, big fights, surprise fights. Kiryu is still reluctant because he doesn't have a reason beyond Majima's dreamed up training program he doesn't actually want to be a part of. Of course this only leads Majima to do everything possible to get under Kiryu's skin, including sharing his personal vulnerabilities while disguising them as jokes just to cause fights, but Kiryu just kind of rolls with it which leads to confusion and frustration on both sides. After a while Majima starts to get into Kiryu's hobbies, like pocket circuit, ostensibly as another form of picking a fight. And he discovers he actually enjoys a lot of it. And they are both too dense and emotionally stunted to realize they're basically dating at this point. At multiple points Majima takes potentially lethal blows meant for Kiryu and the excuse that he is the only one allowed to kill Kiryu is very, very thin. He just can't quite admit out loud that he doesn't want to see Kiryu truly hurt because that's weakness and he is Not Weak (tm).

Shimano's death and Kiryu's departure from the clan come as a whirlwind that destroys him all over again. He's left directionless. So he leaves the Tojo in an attempt to find his own way in the world, for the first time in over twenty years.

I think I need to call it here for now. I know I've left out Saejima and Daigo, among others, but I've been working on this for days and my progress has been eaten twice and I just don't have the energy to keep going right at this time. Maybe some day in the future I'll find the time and energy to write out the rest for all the other games.

tl;dr What Majima wants and what he needs are two different things. He wants to fightfuck, but he needs to be bear hugged into submission so that he can have that mental breakdown he's been carefully bottling up for over thirty years. He needs a good, ugly cry. And therapy. Lots and lots of therapy.

[rock-speaks]

OKAY OKAY RANDOM HEADCANON TIME!!!

Louie

- autistic with ADHD overlap

- Inattentive

- the longest he’s slept for was 25 hours

- Deep as hell sleeper takes him at least and hour or two to come to full control

- Has 0 filter will literally say whatever comes to his mind regardless of how mean it may be or how crazy it might sound

- Talks to himself a crazy amount

- Louie has a banging TikTok where he just flexes and makes fun of Scrooge

- Louie has a huge social media presence in general he keeps it on the down low nobody knows about it and Louie would like to keep it that way

- Louie is a picky eater but eats all the time constantly snacking if the pantry is empty it was probably Louies doing

- He probably watches shitty movies and claims it’s too make fun of them but he really just likes them

- Probably really good at impressions his favorite person too make fun of is Huey

- Definitely needs therapy

- Secretly a big sap for romance those cliche movies where lovers embrace in the rain? Louies weakness

- Him and Lena are definitely super close not as close as Lena is too Webby but they’re still besties

- Prank king

- Sometimes just too “see what will happen” he tells people fake facts they almost always believe him (except for Huey) because why would they not? He has no idea why he does this but he hasn’t shown any signs of stopping

- Whenever he’s alone with Scrooge he says oddly cryptic and strange things no body knows why, sometimes not even Louie

- I imagine all the nephews have really curly hair Louies the only one who doesn’t straighten his hair

- Excellent judge of character

- Wise ass

Huey

- autistic!!!

- Will bring up the fact that he’s the oldest sibling in conversations that have nothing to do with it

- He’s probably a big saver and is definitely a person who has a penny collection

- Big collector!!! I swear he probably uses one of Scrooge’s unused rooms too keep foliage and rocks that he found

- He’s definitely got great posture

- Huey will randomly bring up a random memory if it somehow resurfaces to his mind no one knows how he remembers half this stuff and sometimes he brings up stuff they’d wish he’d forgotten

- Has definitely never said anything he didn’t mean

- Never says “I promise” if he knows he can’t do it

- Huey really just wants to be good at everything he tries so when he isn’t he just kinda gives up on it

- So obviously Huey isn’t a “practice makes perfect” kind of kid he’s more the “if it’s not right the first time scrap it and never try again”

- Huey probably holds himself to such a high standard and puts so much stress on himself to always be perfect

- Loyalty to the fuckin end

- Him and Lena get into “fights” all the time Lena is constantly trying to fuck with Huey and he’s just not here for it (yet another reason why her and Louie make such an insufferable team)

- Bad at video games

- Definitely takes the most after Donald in the sense that he’s so fucking rage full and I mean full Donald rage like fists flying in the air shouting with a red face type angry

- Needs fucking therapy and definitely has anxiety

- Has a bad sense of humor and laughs at everything part of the reason Dewey and Louie think they’re so funny

- Only has his one iPad and really only uses it for planning and other nerd stuff

- All fruits are Hueys favorite fruits but his favorites are blue berries

- Has a celebrity crush on Gizmoduck

Dewey

- This was pretty much confirmed murder on killmotor hill but he’s bisexual

- Long Huey shows up in his nightmares

- Always the first to start a pillow fight

- Has abandonment issues needs therapy

- Secretly listens to punk music and only Donald knows and he couldn’t be more proud (I wrote this before Louies eleven came out!! Lmao canon!!!)

- Loves to draw even though he probably sucks at it

- Dewey is totally the kid that will literally do anything for validation jump off the roof too seem cool? He’d do it in a heart beat

- Pretends not too care but he totally does

- Dewey is ADHD personalized never stops moving never stops talking something is seriously wrong when he’s quiet

- This is technically canon but he’s so petty

- Dewey is the type of guy who would NEVER ask for directions no matter how lost

- Speaking of he was probably the triplet to get lost the most

- Dewey loves robots like loves loves LOVES robots his dream is to learn to code and learn mechanics and build one him and Huey and him used to do those little “build your own robot kits” when they were younger

- Dewey has like 50 different dream jobs

- Launchpad has turned him into a hardcore darkwing duck fan

- THEATER KID

- Sort of forces himself to be an extrovert

Webby

- Webby loves to draw

- Has definitely cosplayed

- Knows about Louies secret social media accounts but he doesn’t need to know that

- You’re trying to keep something from Webby? What a joke

- Webby knows pretty much every ancient language

- Webby doesn’t know what a joke is and takes everything literally

- Definitely writes fan fictions

- Autistic

- Stims with her whole body excited jumping and screaming constantly

- Probably orally fixated out everything in her mouth

- Sometimes forgets things she literally just did or said often she asks “wait what did I just say?”

- Favorite movie? Men in black for sure

- Has always secretly wanted to be in a play

- If Scrooge says anything nice to her she thinks about it weeks after even if it’s something as small as “thank you”

- Feels really bad for glomgold and just really wants him to be happy

- Webby is cuddle central doesn’t matter when or where or who

- It kind of bothers her that Lena seems to always take Louies side

- HATES CONFRONTATION will console a friend in a heart beat but never NEVER EVER wants to fight

- Bad with social cues due to her ASD luckily she has the triplets and Lena and Violet to help her out in bad situations

- If no one stops her will talk about one thing for hours Lena always lets her

- Probably knows how to play like a shit ton of instruments

- Really likes cooking but she sucks at it Scrooge ate her cooking once to make her happy but promptly through it up when she left

- Was definitely a lego kid

Lena

- If any elderly woman tries to touch her she flips due to magicas abuse good thing she’s got two gay dads now

- Loves Violet so much and thanks her every night before bed

- After extensive therapy that was suggested by Violet had the rest of her friends she’s able to look at her own shadow again even if sometimes it really freaks her out

- Lena is a lesbian 100% open about it

- Wishes she were a vampire and definitely reads those dumb vampire/werewolf stories

- Really likes that she’s taller than all her friends uses that against her Huey fucking hates her for it

- Her favorite crime is arson

- Because she’s a rebellious teen her and officer M’ma have had a few run ins

- Shes probably never actually been to Paris but rather said that to impress Webby

- Lenas the type of emo to cover her face in every picture of her

- Has always cut her hair herself and when her friends talk about wanting to cut their hair she does it for them trying to convince them to let her dye it the whole time

- Lenas is responsible for most of the graffiti in duckburg

- Loves Launchpad she thinks it’s really fun to tell him stuff that isn’t true and he’s cool when she tells him she was just joking

- Has always secretly wanted to be a florist

- Loves licorice

- Magica probably didn’t intend for her to have a personality or a life at all really so Lena definitely picked the name herself

- Magicas not really controlling her nightmares anymore but she’s still very much in them they’ve gotten better but they still happen every so often

- Sometimes if she’s sitting on the couch and someone’s sitting right in front of her she kicks them in the head not hard but enough to bother them

- Probably can’t read

- She probably doesn’t have an official birthday so she doesn’t really understand the celebration of one one day Webby the triplets and Violet surprised her with a birthday

Violet

- in my head Duckula and Von goosewing will always be her parents

- Violets favorite thing to research is definitely trees

- Weak ass immune system probably gets sick all the time

- Definitely dresses however see feels on her off days she throws people off when she shows up ripped jeans and leather jackets

- Her biggest pet peeve is when anyone does anything loud

- Violet has been teaching things that Lena wasn’t taught since she never got a traditional education

- Violet is still a hard core skeptic despite having a sister made of shadows and a father who is a vampire

- Her hair is always a frizzy mess so she chooses never to do anything with it and just keeps it in a bun

- Really doesn’t get any memes ever

- Violet is probably a very low key germaphobe

- Pokemon is her favorite game and she knows all the originals and is a pro at all the games

-Huey and her do that thing we’re neither of you are fighting but rather both talking loudly that makes people think “oh it’s getting pretty heated over there”

[420pogpills]

( just sending it again if u wanna answer it!)

Omg I want to talk to you about the final lore stream!!i'm honestly so happy how it turned out in the end!! I wasn't personally happy about the whole techno and dream teaming up that time but the finale was SO satisfying omg!!! I loved it!! If dream wrote the finale script then good on him! as a villian he still wrote himself "losing"... for the moment. which I was sceptical that would be the case since I thought Tommy or tubbo... or both, would die and dream would win since he seems like the type who would like winning and having the upper hand constantly lol but his acting and writing skills are truly so good rn. Kinda...hot if I may say so🥵

I actually wasn't into the lore from the beginning, I originally got into the lore the stream George got the kingship when he was building his cottage lol. I got into it in hopes George will have a bigger role in the lore and that knight dream x king George was such a yummy trope to me😭. But alas George got dethroned and didn't participate in the lore at all but by then I already have gotten lowkey invested in Tommy's "potential" exile and it all went downhill for me and got fully into the lore lol. My favourite part was Tommy's and Techno'd team up and their brotherly like relationship. I also enjoyed Tommy's and dreams interactions it was interesting and their friendship is so funny to me. Tommy loves to tease dream about George even in lore streams lmao.

I found it so funny and extremely grateful tbh that when Dream messaged Techno on twitter about needing that favour now when he was cornered and Techno was like "sorry can't im busy" LMAO like wbk that Techno cares for Tommy even if they fought. Peak siblings. I really wish in the future  to get more Techno and Tommy streams because they're so entertaining.Tommy is that annoying little brother to the big brother Techno haha. I saw some people say c!techno does not care of c!Tommy and idk man I think techno does care for Tommy but as we have seen techno is not good at expressing his feelings very well...lol kinda like Tommy. He shows his appreciation through loyalty and protection it seems. I just really love technos character so much I hope the next "season plot" won't ruin his character development.

I've seen also people say that Techno still owes Dream that favour and Dream will use it so Techno will kill Tommy or something like that.... bruh... I sure hope not. What do you think?? -🌰

god sorry for taking so damn long to get around to this! :’))) putting this under so it’s not such a long post

that finale was amazing indeed!!! i actually wasn’t expecting it, and there were still certain people there that i did not trust (mainly like punz and maybe sapnap) but now that we’ve gotten several prison streams, i guess everyone did actually turn against dream! when he went off with sam (and was it sapnap as well, or someone else omg i can’t even remember now) i thought omg what if the next lore stream someone turns up at the prison and he isn’t there? but he is so i guess yeah :P

i agree i really loved tommy’s exile arc because him and techno had such a great vibe! it was hilarious but also comforting because techno pretends like he can’t stand tommy but you know he cared for him for sure :’) and i think tommy turning against him actually hurt him real bad :(

and i loved that we got to see so much of dream too since he came to visit him almost everyday. we got to see incredible character development during the exile arc for dream, i feel like that’s when people seriously started to realise like okaaaaay dream is bAAAAAAd 

i don’t know if i’d say techno’s character is in the right place morally but i feel like everyone on the smp has their own ideas of what’s right and what’s necessary, and a lot of them mix it up with what they want. take tommy with his discs as an example. he was willing to risk his own AND tubbo’s life just to get the discs back and it’s like?? i know they mean a lot but how can they mean more than yourself and your best friend??? how is it worth it?? i mean alls well that ends well, but it could’ve ended way worse had everyone not come to help. he literally would’ve watched tubbo die in front of him just because he had to go and fight for these discs :( i mean dream probably would’ve eventually lured him in, i think his goal was always to kill tubbo to hurt tommy.. but sTILL tommy was very fixated on those discs :’)

i don’t see dream using that favour for techno to kill tommy i dunno, i don’t think he would. i think it’s possible he’ll use the favour to either break him out or do some sort of something to help him break out, but i’m not sure! i’m excited to see tho, lore has been very egg-centred lately so it’s gonna be interesting to see how the lore progresses. i’m not holding my breath but i pRAAAAY we get to see george or sapnap visit dream in prison. george is unlikely but sapnap is quite likely i’d say! and c!dream hasn’t mentioned george in ages since george hasn’t been involved in the lore and stuff, i wonder if him mentioning him recently was potential indication that he might dip his toes in again?? also the fact that they went to see the egg during george’s stream hmmmm 

[incorrect-hs-quotes]

oohohoho you just opened the deepest can of worms on the planet

-mod dave, who wrote a fucking ten mile essay

first off, addressing the second anon, no theyre all humans. h., half humans at least. cause yall know me i fucking love my humanstuck aus off my ASS

(that would be funny as hell though. a troll from space walking into a camp on earth going “I AM THE SON OF ONE OF YOUR EARTH GODS. BITCH” like... holy shit)

so first things first their parents. im gonna lay this out, the beta kids and trolls are all greek (EXCEPT sollux hes roman cause his parent has no greek equivalent), and all the alpha kids and trolls are those gods roman equivalents (,,EXCEPT dirk cause he kinda balances sollux being roman out). i havent figured out how thatd happen like 16+ times yet cause in the percy jackson books theres only ever been one instance of two siblings of the same godly descent being greek and roman respectively in HISTORY so like.. i guess th. i guess thats just not a problem in this au

anyway this gets really long so im gonna talk about the beta kids and trolls cause i havent elaborated on the alphas at all ((peep the tags if you wanna see their parents though))

johns the son of zeus, rose is the daughter of athena, dave is the son of apollo, and jade is the daughter of demeter. they were all raised in their respective states, all had to come to new york for various reasons. jades been there the longest, shes been there 9 years and shes been on a couple quests. her biggest accomplishment so far is how she protected the camp from this big vicious angry hellhound that got past the barrier. naturally the girls fluent in Dog Training, so she steps up and instead of trying to kill this thing, she reaches out and tames it as fast as she can. it ends up actually working, and ever since that day she, her cabin, and the camp have a whole bodyguard sleeping right outside the demeter cabin! hes her steed in battle and hes a Very Good Boy. and his name is becquerel

johns the newest kid at camp, he has no idea who he is or why the fuck his school got attacked or why in the hell those anemoi thuellai were so fixated on him or HOW in the hell he absorbed the lightning one threw at him and ended up fine,,, hes just a big mess right now. a big enough mess that when he got claimed by literally zeus, no one else was around, he shrugged it off as some basic magical happening, and he stayed in the hermes cabin far longer than he should have cause no one! fucking knew he got claimed! by zeus of all people! dumbass. he ends up figuring it out though. like an off-hand mention about how this “weird lightning thing appeared above my head a couple weeks ago, haha weird right?” once he figures it out he realizes “hey i might be able to fly” so he sneaks off into the woods to try it. he succeeds fairly quickly but god almighty everyones face the one day the dude just yote himself off a small cliff without warning,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

dave and rose are really tight, theyve been there roughly the same time length, and since their cabins are across from each other they just bother each other all the time. daves the resident Doctor even though he really doesnt look it cause hes got the apollo powers. apollo is the medicine god. so if you wound your stupid ass in battle daves in the ER room patching you up with his glowy hands. rose on the other hand is a very good strategist. shes one of the only athena kids ever recorded to actually have a power - telekinesis. she has no idea how she developed it, she thinks its from birth, but it freaks her out. shes training it though.

so the beta trolls, are also all human(ish). aradias hades kid. but i pulled a pjo trope on her based on one of my favorite characters (im not saying for spoilers, but if you recognize the situation, You Probably Know Who Its Based Off) and aradia died. her mom, the handmaid, had been pulling some Shady Ass Shit and ended up getting herself killed, but aradia tried saving her and ended up going down with her.

so handmaid gets sentenced to the fields of punishment in the underworld, and aradia gets sentenced to elysium, heroes paradise. shes like “no i want my mom to be okay” so they take that away from aradia and they put them both in the fields of asphodel, the neverending grey space for Not So Good But Not So Bad people. her mom becomes a shade (shadow spirit, no human resemblance), as all people do, but aradia. doesnt? and she gets dunked in the fucking river lethe and if you dont know what that does it erases your memory. so she just. comes out of the river like “hello? wgat tae fukc goin on??” but she still remembers one thing. there was an “a” in her name.

tavros is the son of hermes, hes just kinda taken on the role of backup counselor for when the actual cabin counselor is out. hes in a wheelchair, but he also has prosthetic legs for when he needs to actually stand up and fight. hes really good at it too. also catch him in winged converse cause he Owns Those and Uses Them To His Advantage. hes trying his best to keep focused on the camp, cause aradia was his childhood friend, he misses her a whole lot, she never got to camp in the first place. and to his knowledge, shes still dead.

sollux is a janus kid. thats a problem cause janus is roman, and this is a greek camp. he grew up with dave, he showed up with dave, hes been at camp as long as dave. but hes been unclaimed since he showed up so he thinks hes unwanted by whatever parent he has. he knows hes a demigod, he got through the camp barriers, so what the fuck is wrong with him? he also feels shitty cause hes shit at the greek lessons, he cant read a lick of it which literally every demigod without exception should be able to do, he cant name any gods- well, he can, but.. he gets their names mixed up. why does he keep calling poseidon “neptune”? and he has a much, much different way of natural fighting than other kids. they slice, he jabs. he wasnt taught to jab. 

karkat is an aphrodite kid with vitiligo, and to make matters worse, hes ace and on the aro spectrum. to make matters WORSE, the aphrodite kids are kinda notorious for being really shallow, really materialistic, and really mean. karkats been dubbed the “runt” of the cabin, he gets made fun of for his spots to the point where he uses make up and magic to conceal them. worst of all? hes the kid of the goddess of love, for fucks sake. being reminded that “loveless people shouldnt be able to stay in this cabin, mom must have made a mistake claiming you” is kind of.. a blow to the self esteem. long story short he hates aphrodite for claiming him, and would have rather stayed in the hermes cabin. but he eventually goes on this big quest thats vague as fuck right now but Its The Main Plot, he ends up proving to himself that hes worth something and that his siblings are wrong, and my FAVORITE LINE IN THE WHOLE THING i came up with is HIS when he deals a final blow to some big monster: “REMEMBER MY FACE THE NEXT TIME YOU REINCARNATE. MY NAME IS KARKAT VANTAS, I’M THE SON OF APHRODITE, AND LOOKS CAN KILL.”

nepeta isnt anywhere near developed as others are unfortunately, shes a daughter of ares and shes really really good at hand to hand combat. shes small but she leads groups of people in things ranging from camp volleyball games to actual literal wars. shes a tough little shit

kanaya isnt really developed either, i have yet to figure out most of her powers too actually, shes a daughter of iris, the rainbow goddess though. (blatant reference to both kanayas vampirism and. h. her. sh. es ga. gay) ONE THING SHE CAN DO THOUGH is iris message at will without water or drachmas so really shes just everyones go to cell phone and its fucking hilarious cause people just come into the cabin like “KANAYA I NEED TO TALK TO [X]” and shes like “You Better Fucking Pay Me I Am Not Your Personal Cell Phone”

terezi is the daughter of nemesis and she has this really peculiar power she hasnt really gotten the hang of yet. she has synesthesia, so while she cant see she can smell and taste the colors of her surroundings and its really helpful. sometimes though she gets messages from her mom. they dont even come as dreams half the time, they come as almost a different plane altogether. tez has the power to literally tip the scales, pretty much. and when she gets like that, she can see. shes not on earth though, shit on earth stops when shes like that. shes just kinda In Her Own Head, i guess? and in her head she holds the two scales in her hands. she is the arms of the scale. and depending on which one she lifts up, she can literally alter the fate of the battle or happening thats going on By Herself. once she chooses she just whooshes back to real life though and nothing has changed. the only downside? it takes a LOT of energy and cant be exploited for little things. her one thing on her bucket list is to tap into said powers while getting something from a vending machine so like three things will fall out but it hasnt happened yet and shes upset

vriskas a daughter of tyche, the luck goddess, come the fuck on you knew i was gonna, i havent really elaborated on her either and im upset about that. but hey now you get a break from all those fucking paragraphs

equius is a hephaestus kid, and he kinda stays in the background. hes a range fighter, he spends a lot of time in the forge, and even though its been a project looooong since forgotten, hes been excavating the tunnels under cabin nine for years. by himself. he has no idea where they lead, but dammit hes gonna find out where. he has no idea about a certain bunker in the woods though...

gamzees just there for a fucking laugh tbh hes a son of dionysus and i love that cause hes the god of wine and parties and insanity. usually gamzees just zoning out somewhere hes Not supposed to be, and hes not affected by the maenads FUCKED UP BULLSHIT that goes down the forest sometimes. also hes so fucking scared of tavroses wing shoes he tried them on once while he was high and JESUS CHRIST

eridan is the son of kymopoleia, a SUPER obscure goddess. lets just say dont fuck with eridan cause his mom is the goddess of violent sea storms,

and naturally, feferi is the daughter of poseidon. cause who the FUCK else would she be the daughter of. WHO. NAME ONE GOD

OH AND JUST CAUSE I FORGOT CALLIE AND CALIBORN ARE SATYRS IN THIS AU. CALLIE HAS PAN PIPES. and caliborn still has a gun

[seblos]

is this home?

word count: 2,278

read on ao3!

Backstage was silent except for the voices of the actors on stage, a stark contrast from the jittery energy right before the curtain had risen. The show was going well so far, much smoother than High School Musical, and they were nearing Seb’s entrance once again right before ‘Home’. 

Carlos smiles, thinking about how proud he was that Seb had the courage to not only audition for Belle but actually go through with it when they had gotten the role. It was one thing to play one of the side lead females, and another to actually play the female lead itself. 

He remembers when Seb had first expressed their dream to play Belle. The two of them were hanging out watching Beauty and the Beast to prepare for Seb’s audition.

Originally, Carlos had been expecting them to want to audition for Gaston or even the Beast, but ever since they had come out as nonbinary, they had shied away from some of the more hypermasculine roles. It’s not that they couldn’t play such a role (Seb could play any role in the show and still be the biggest star to Carlos); they just preferred not to. 

Instead, Seb had expressed interest in playing Lumiere. So, the two had been watching ‘Be Our Guest’ when they had turned to Carlos out of the blue.

“Who do you think is going to play Belle?” Seb had asked.

It was abrupt, sure, but Carlos hadn’t thought anything weird of it. He had already been debating how the cast list might end up all week himself.

“I don’t know, honestly” Carlos admitted. “I know Nini and Gina are both auditioning again. Ashlyn was thinking about it, but I think she was leaning more towards one of the magical objects. Although she and EJ had been discussing playing Gaston and Lefou together if EJ isn’t the Beast.”

(He could see Seb growing more fidgety with the more people he lists, but he had assumed it was probably just regular pre-audition week nerves.)

“I think Kourtney is auditioning for Mrs. Potts,” he continued. “We tried to convince her to audition for Belle even though it’s her first show, but she said she’s not ready to play the lead yet.”

“So there’s a lot of competition?” Seb had asked, tapping one of their fingernails against the other. It’s one of their nervous habits, and it was ruining the light blue polish that Carlos had just applied on their nails.

He was about to reach for the nail polish again to touch it up when it had actually hit him. 

Was Seb nervous?

“Don’t be nervous,” Carlos had said instead of asking, already being able to identify the signs at this point in their friendship. He had proceeded to take Seb’s hands, which effectively stopped the tapping.

(They weren’t together, officially. Still aren’t. It’s been months of dancing around each other— literally and metaphorically— since that night at homecoming. Both were still too nervous to say anything about the situation. Small, affectionate touches like these, though, they could do.)

“Whatever role you do get, you’re gonna kill,” Carlos continued, and he remembers giving them what was hopefully a relieving smile. “Heck, maybe you should be the one to play Belle.”

“You think?” Seb had said, acting casual. Carlos had felt them tense slightly in his hands, though, and he could hear the same nervous-excitement in their voice after they first told him they wanted to play Sharpay. 

And suddenly, it had clicked.

“Do you want to play Belle?” Carlos asked carefully, and Seb’s face had dropped slightly. 

“Is that dumb?” they asked, and Carlos remembers the words making his heart tug at his chest. As if anything Seb did could ever be dumb.

“I know I don’t have to only play traditionally female roles,” they continued. “Which is why I thought I should play Lumiere, y’know? Since I played a female role last time, and Lumiere is pretty androgynous. And I still would love to play him, it’s just….” they had trailed off, and Carlos had squeezed their hand, urging them to continue.

They had finally turned to face Carlos, taking a deep breath before continuing. “It’s always kind of been a dream of mine,” they admitted. “Going onstage as Belle, under that single spotlight, and just belting out ‘Home’ to an audience made up people, and not of my stuffed animals.”

The last part made Carlos giggle, but everything else they had told him made his heart leap into his throat.

“So, why don’t you audition?” Carlos suggested because, at that moment, he knew Seb needed to. Whether or not they actually get the role, they needed to at least know that they have the ability to go for it.

Meanwhile, Seb was hesitant, like they were searching for an excuse to say no.

“Do you really think I should?” they had said finally.

“I really, really do,” Carlos said, squeezing their hand again.

“What will the others say, though? If I get it? Won’t they think that it would be out of bias because I’m telling you, and you work with Miss Jenn?”

“If I had any say in the cast list, then Ricky Bowen wouldn’t have played Troy Bolton,” Carlos assured them, which had made Seb laugh.

 “But, if I do get a say this time, I promise to do what;’s best for the cast,” he had said. “Let them think what they want, but at the end of the day, we all know that.”

“Okay,” Seb agreed, and that was that. The two had continued to study the movie that night, although this time with a little more attention to Belle’s role.

And while the rest of the cast was extremely talented, Carlos had known Seb was going to play Belle the moment they auditioned, the same way he knew they were going to play Sharpay before the cast list was even posted.

Months later, and Seb was finally on stage for opening night. There had been moments of hesitancy after receiving offhand comments to full-on backlash from ignorant students at the school, as well as some members of the greater Salt Lake region once word got out that Belle wasn’t being played by a girl.

The cast had been nothing but supportive to Seb, though. At the end of the day, it’s what pushed them to work even harder.

Now, they were approaching the moment Carlos had been waiting all night. Ever since Seb had mentioned wanting to perform ‘Home’, one of Belle’s biggest solos in the show, he had been attached to the performance. And after months of Seb perfecting it, he was the most excited for it.

Now was their time.

They had a few scenes on stage that lead up to the actual song itself, but that didn’t bother Carlos. Whenever Seb was on stage, he was captivated watching them in action. It was beyond memorizing to see them become a whole new person, even for a few minutes. If Sharpay hadn’t been enough, seeing them play the lead was damn near magical.

As soon as Ricky left the stage, (he had somehow managed to snag the lead, again) the opening bars began to play. Carlos feels himself take a breath, fixating on Seb as they begin to sing.

Yes, I made the choice.

For Papa, I will stay.

But I don't deserve to lose my freedom in this way,

You monster!

Carlos had already heard them rehearse it maybe 100 times, every time just as flawless. But this time, seeing them on stage with the costume, and makeup, and an audience, and that single spotlight.

It’s real.

More than that. Surreal. Like some sort of real-time fantasy.

As the ballad builds, it becomes more than a song. Maybe not to the audience, but to Carlos, and definitely to Seb.

He can’t imagine earlier in the year when they were doing High School Musical that they ever thought they would ever get to this point, and now here they were, living out their dream. It represents every obstacle they had to overcome to get to this point.

It was beyond inspiring, and Carlos feels so lucky to be able to experience it.

The longer the song goes on, the more vulnerable Seb becomes, and Carlos can see at least half the cast— including himself—on the verge of tears. (He feels bad for the girl playing Madame de la Grande Bouche, who has to make an entrance the moment the song ends.)

Is this home?

Am I here for a day or forever?

Shut away from the world until who knows when?

Watching someone play their dream role is always magical. Even more so now, watching Seb.

Build higher walls around me.

Change every lock and key.

Nothing lasts,

Nothing holds all of me.

The song ends with a surge of applause so loud that for a moment Carlos can’t hear anything, and so long that Kourtney has to pause before entering as Mrs. Potts for it to die down. (He’s pretty sure that it’s their family who is whooping and hollering so loudly.) Seb doesn’t break character of course, but Carlos can see their lips twitching slightly, the sign that they’re forcing away the urge to break out in a smile. 

Eventually, the scene does continue. It’s a short one though, and Seb exits onto Carlos’s side of the stage. Immediately, he envelopes them in the biggest, tightest hug he can give. (Which is a rarity for him; Seb is more of the hugger in their friendship.) It might not have been him on stage, or him playing his dream role, but Carlos’s chest is bursting with so many positive emotions that he can’t even name as he hugs them close. 

He loosens his arms around Seb after a moment, leaning back so he can see their face.

“You did it!” Carlos whispers, quiet enough so their mic won’t pick it up. 

They nod, not being able to say anything, but Carlos can see them almost on the verge of tears. He can practically hear them telling him “I did, didn’t I?”

They stand in silence, arms still wrapped around each other, and Carlos realizes after a moment how close their faces are. If Seb’s mic wasn’t on, and they weren’t wearing makeup, and backstage in the middle of a show, nothing would be stopping him from closing the distance between them right then and there. 

He does have to let them go eventually to prepare for their next entrance, but the thought stays in his mind all the way until intermission. 

As soon as the curtains close, Carlos immediately starts to search for Seb. There’s nothing more that he wants in the world than to sit down with them and talk about that song for hours. Unfortunately, they’re on a time limit, and if Carlos wants to see them at all, he has to hurry.

Carlos finds him after a few minutes in one of the dressing rooms across from the bomb shelter. The room is empty except for the mirror where they’re reapplying hairspray.

The moment Seb spots Carlos, though, they’re back in his arms. This time not as rushed as it was backstage, but the same amount of excitement and sweetness and comfort that makes Carlos want to stay in this position forever.

And before he can get a word out, Seb kisses him. It’s quick, and he can feel the makeup rubbing off onto his face, but his hands immediately go up to cup Seb’s face

Seb pulls away (Carlos wishes they didn’t.) “Hi,” they whisper, smiling.

“Hey,” he says back, still cupping their face.

“That was for you,” they tell him, and Carlos can still feel waves of nerves and excitement coming off of them.

“The song or the kiss?”

“Both,” they say breathlessly. “Everything that I’ve done tonight was because of you.”

Carlos smiles, shaking his head. “That was all you, baby,” he tells them, and Seb blushes slightly from the pet name. 

Then, he leans back in kissing Seb even longer and deeper than before. He can hear chattering from the cast and the tech kids calling out warnings for intermission ending soon, but they’ll deal with that in a second. At this moment it’s just the two of them, both having lived their dreams tonight.

This time it’s Carlos that pulls away. “And that was for you. For your amazing performance, and everything else tonight.”

“Just tonight?” Seb asks slyly.

“For you. Always,” he corrects, and he knows they’re both blushing but it doesn’t matter. 

“You have lipstick on your face,” they giggle, reaching up to wipe it away.

“So do you,” Carlos says, mirroring the action. “You might want to touch up your makeup a bit before you have to get back out there.”

“Okay,” Seb says, but they don’t make a move towards their makeup kit. Instead, they lean in and kiss Carlos again.

“Okay,” they say again, this time actually letting go.

As much as he doesn’t want to, Carlos waves them goodbye. As much as he wants to stay in that room with Seb, they’ve been working on this show for months, and arguably is more important. He needs to check in with Miss Jenn before intermission is over, and he’ll see them backstage. They’ll talk more when the show is over at Denny’s, maybe skip the cast party to hang out together, who knows. 

(And no, he still has no idea what they are or what this means. That doesn’t really matter either though. He’s found a home with Seb, and that’s enough.)

[imaginative-spirit]

hii! i found your twitter acc when i was searching for sefikura meta/analysis, and i found your tweet! i wanted to ask if you know some blog posts (or any posts) of their relationship analysis, as i am quite new to the whole ffvii series and i am intrigued by their relationship. i wanted to ask through cc but i noticed you dont have curiouscat so i’m asking through tumblr, sorry ;;

I didn’t mean to put all of this under a readmore but tumblr is being an ass so that’s what we’re doing now, I guess...

Hello!! Unfortunately I can’t really come up with anything on the spot, because despite seeing posts like that around before, I’m very unorganized and bad at keeping track of posts... so I decided to write you one on the spot instead, lmao!! I’ve been planning to write a more coherent, longer analysis for a while but still haven’t gotten around to it, but I’ll share some of my condensed thoughts here. The sefikura relationship is what intrigues me most about FFVII after all, and I usually yell quite a lot about them on twitter!

You say you’re new to FFVII, which means that I should definitely give a spoiler warning here. I’m going to address spoilery stuff from the OG, Remake and also some of the compilation material, because it’s hard to talk about their relationship without doing so. (I’ll also assume you’re familiar enough with the world of FFVII to know what I mean when I talk about stuff like SOLDIER, Shinra, Jenova, the Lifestream and such... this would get too long if I explained all of that here, lol)

Okay, so. Cloud and Sephiroth are narrative foils, which means their stories and arcs parallel each other in many ways. The most central themes surrounding them are their loneliness, sadness and how they cope with trauma.

Sephiroth was most likely raised by Hojo in a Shinra lab, and if you know Hojo, you know that there’s no way Sephiroth was treated as anything but an experiment. He never knew his mother, and the only person he had any respect for - Professor Gast - vanished when he was young and this seems to have given him abandonment issues. Cloud, on the other hand, had a mother but not much else. He felt alienated by the other children growing up in Nibelheim and seems to have been generally disliked by the adults as well, due to them blaming him for the time Tifa got hurt. In other words, they were both very lonely as children.

Shinra sent Sephiroth to war when he was very young (people disagree quite a lot on how old Sephiroth actually is but it’s assumed that he was around 12), and as the years went by, Sephiroth became the poster child of SOLDIER. We know that Cloud grew to idolize Sephiroth for how strong and brave the media made him out to be (A.K.A. had a celebrity crush on him), and that was what inspired Cloud to leave town and try to join SOLDIER.

As we see in the prequel game Crisis Core, Sephiroth at this point is well-respected by his peers after his efforts in conquering Wutai. His two only friends are Genesis and Angeal, who are also SOLDIER 1st Class, but they end up leaving SOLDIER, which means Sephiroth gets left behind. Considering that he already had abandonment issues to begin with, being abandoned by his only friends must’ve hit hard. I’d say this sets the foundation for Sephiroth’s downward spiral. However, at this point, I would argue that Sephiroth is still a good person at heart, despite all the trauma he has endured. He persists, refusing to hunt down his deserter friends, and even begins a hesitant friendship with Zack, who was Angeal’s apprentice.

Cloud befriends Zack as well, but doesn’t make it into SOLDIER and instead remains in the ordinary Shinra infantry, which is a crushing loss for him because he can’t achieve his dream. It’s at this point I like to imagine that if Zack had introduced Sephiroth and Cloud to one another, things could’ve gone better. Sephiroth is older than Cloud and outranks him, but with how isolated Sephiroth has been for his entire life I think there’s potential for a meaningful friendship here. They’re both very lonely and neither of them is really a people-person, so I think they’d get along well once Cloud gets over his hero-worship and Sephiroth manages to open up a bit. I would say that sefikura, if Nibelheim didn’t happen, has the potential to be a healthy relationship.

But of course, that’s not how canon goes. The Nibelheim mission happens, Sephiroth finds out that he’s not human and finally snaps after years of mistreatment, burning the town to the ground. Cloud manages to kill Sephiroth, ends up spending several years as an experiment, gets injected with Jenova cells, goes into a coma, wakes up just in time to watch Zack die, and ends up so traumatized that he creates a false identity for himself as a former SOLDIER 1st Class.

We’ve now reached OG FFVII. At this point, Sephiroth, while technically dead and chilling in the Lifestream, uses Jenova as a vessel to move around and takes advantage of Cloud, using him as a puppet for his own gains. He constantly dehumanizes Cloud and generally doesn’t give a damn about him as a person, while Cloud resents Sephiroth but can’t resist his manipulations. In a lot of ways, I think Sephiroth projects his own trauma onto Cloud here, because if Sephiroth had to suffer as Shinra’s puppet for his entire life, then Cloud should suffer as Sephiroth’s puppet as well. As a victim of horrific abuse, Sephiroth has a lot of justified anger, but he takes it out on the wrong person entirely. It’s definitely a very unhealthy situation.

But of course, unlike Sephiroth, Cloud doesn’t let his trauma define him. He reaches his breaking point and falls apart completely, but he gets back up, because unlike Sephiroth, he has a support system of friends who stand by his side and work together with him to defeat Sephiroth at the end of the game. For most of his life, Cloud has been chasing Sephiroth. This is where he finally catches up and surpasses him.

And here, the tables turn. Cloud kills Sephiroth but that’s never stopped Sephiroth before. This is where Sephiroth first develops his Cloud-obsession. He fixates on Cloud so hard that his hatred keeps him from completely fading away into the Lifestream. Cloud is literally his lifeline. (Isn’t it romantic? lol) He returns in the sequel movie Advent Children, where he fights Cloud one-on-one and basically just taunts him for 10 minutes before Cloud kills him again.  It’s implied that Sephiroth can keep coming back as long as Cloud exists as well.

Canon beyond this has, for a long time, been unknown territory. There’s a sequel game called Dirge of Cerberus that the fandom at large pretends doesn’t exist because it’s... kinda weird to say the least, lol. And it doesn’t really have anything to do with sefikura anyway. People have written post-canon sefikura as something that continues to be toxic, but there’s also fic that offers redemption and forgiveness for Sephiroth, acknowledging that he was a victim too. It’s left very open-ended.

All of this basically explains how I see sefikura. They’re two people who were alike in many ways, who could have been friends before everything fell apart around them, if things had been different. But they never did meet, before it was too late. Instead, they keep chasing each other, full of hate even though they’re probably the only people in the world who could truly understand each other’s trauma. The only real difference is that Cloud had friends to back him up while Sephiroth was abandoned, and I really, truly wish they could get an opportunity to reach some sort of understanding. And that would basically be it...

...but then the Remake happened. Diving into speculation territory here. I firmly believe that the Sephiroth we see in the Remake is a time traveller, or is at least aware of the future to some degree, and that the remake is actually a sequel where Sephiroth is quite literally remaking OG ffvii. He’s completely obsessed with Cloud to a degree that he never was in the OG, and considering how loyal the developers stayed to the characterization of basically every other OG character this immediately stuck out to me like a sore thumb even though it took me until the end of the game to piece it together.

I’m not kidding here. Sephiroth is desperate for Cloud’s attention in the Remake. He's constantly trying to touch Cloud, everything he says to Cloud makes him sound like a pining ex-husband, and he generally doesn’t do anything to harm Cloud except scaring him shitless simply by showing up. He actually has quite a few moments when he’s very gentle with Cloud. At the end of the game he basically even proposes to Cloud by asking Cloud to join him and genuinely seems upset when Cloud rejects him. And even then, he claims he doesn’t want Cloud (nor himself) to die.

For the life of me, I can’t wrap my head around what Sephiroth’s goal is in the Remake and I have no idea what they’re planning to do with his character in future parts, but I’m very excited to find out. The sefikura content in the Remake was very delicious and at this point the only thing they could do to surpass it in the future would be to have them actually make out on screen, lmao.

I hope this is coherent enough to read, I basically just tried to condense everything I could into a neat little essay and there’s definitely things I didn’t mention here, lol. I’ll write a proper, more well-thought out analysis another time!

Also, if you want to ask me anything else or talk to me about sefikura in general, my DMs are always open, both here and on twitter ;D

[novelconcepts]

Okay, but all silliness aside: I owe a ridiculous amount to Critical Role. Or, more specifically, to having found CR when I did. I came in around the beginning of the second campaign, and I had no idea what this thing was. I didn’t know a damn thing about D&D. I didn’t watch gamers stream. I think I’d been on Twitch a handful of times to watch Jim Lee draw, and that was...it. 

I came into Critical Role having seen a handful of gifs on my dash from people whose opinions I trust, and I realized Ashley Johnson was involved. That was my full base of knowledge: Ashley “hey, I know her from Recess/Growing Pains, I like her” Johnson was the whole deal. And that could have been a breaking point early on, because the first thirty episodes of Campaign 1 are a little rough if you don’t know what you’re getting into. The audio is questionable in places, it can be hard to track what’s going on, there’s the whole...obvious cast issue. And if you came in knowing only Ashley, you didn’t even get that lifeline the whole way through. 

But here’s the thing: this was 2017? I had just gotten married, and while I married the love of my life, who I had been engaged to--we originally had a slapdash courthouse wedding the day after the election, because it was the only safety net we could grab hold of. At least it would be a legal marriage, in case something really cataclysmic happened before our actual wedding date. I was obsessively refreshing six different news sites every hour while at work, and falling down the darkest political rabbit holes on Twitter every night. I was have terror dreams of nuclear fallout and panic attacks over climate change...and, on top of all the fear and the anger broiling in me, my dysphoria was getting worse by the day. My anxiety. My depression. I was sinking. Fast.  So I did the only thing I know how to do when things get truly bad inside my head. 

I hid inside stories. 

Namely, I hid inside Critical Role. The new campaign wasn’t quite on its feet yet, so I went back and started with Vox Machina. I went into these 3-5 hour episodes, letting them play in the background at work, letting these people I did not know or even really get yet into my head. And, at first, it was just the fascination of the concept. A long-form narrative built by upwards of 8 people, all sitting around a table, just...improvising. Not an inch of that is the way I tell stories, so it was brilliant and baffling, and curiosity had me straight out the gate. 

And, if it had just been the concept, that still might not have been enough to hold my attention. If it had just been the idea of it, it might not have been loud enough to drown out the voices in my head telling me the whole ship was going down, that there was no hope, that there was no point in even getting up in the morning to face more bullshit. 

But...it was Matt Mercer. Matt, with such an incredible array of characters and maps living inside his head, who could so easily have been That Guy--the English Major Asshole who knew he was smarter than everyone in the room and played it up--and instead chooses to be so kind. So utterly engrossed in the desire to give everyone a seat at the table, to let everybody into the narrative he’s weaving. It takes a certain kind of person to not only write the sort of stories he invents for CR, but to be open enough to lean back and let other people take the wheel every night, and to roll with whatever comes his way. 

And it was Travis Willingham. This huge dude who had to sit at the edge of the table because he was all muscle and thumping energy, who I kept expecting to be tight-lipped and brewing with that toxic masculinity judgment straight dudes are taught to value--and, instead of even a modicum of that, he was so excited. So invested in these characters and this game, in these friends, in playing the wisest dumbass ever to cross a screen. Travis, who hugs his male friends, and doesn’t pull the no-homo card, and stans his wife with such delight, there is no way you can watch even half an episode without falling in love with their love. 

And it was Liam O’Brien, who could have played the arrogant Cool Dude, and instead leaned so hard into having fun with his place at the table. Into deep-cut jokes, and his love for his friends, and such an affinity for Laura that I genuinely believed they were siblings. Liam, who wears his soft heart on his sleeve, and understands that sometimes the best way through tragedy is to weave it into a story, to let that be a kind of therapy among friends. 

And it was Taliesin Jaffe. Tal, who is just gonna be him, and not even fuck you if you don’t like it--he doesn’t even seem to notice. Tal, who is physical with his friends, and who laughs with his whole body, and who has the quickest one-liners in the world one minute and “life needs things to live” the next, and who just is such a joy to watch as he immerses himself at the table. He’s gonna have his hair, and he’s gonna wear mismatched socks, and he’s gonna paint those nails, and love his people, and inspire everyone around him to do the same. 

And it was Sam Riegel, who--I’ll be honest--I didn’t get for a while. He was hilarious, and he was a quick-draw, and I loved his songs, but I didn’t understand how much he cared, how truly in it he was. Sam has said he’d do anything to make these people laugh, and I don’t think everyone realizes just how valuable it is to have someone who understands the need of a good laugh in a bad situation. Sam lights up the table in the strangest, silliest ways--but he also brings some of the most vital human moments to the story. 

And it was Laura Bailey, who was just so...warm, it bleeds straight through the screen and envelopes me every time I watch her play. Vex is cool as shit on the surface, but Laura is so full of affection, so quick-witted, so hugely into this game that she transforms herself utterly when she plays. Laura comes to the table to play with everything she’s got, and she’s so honest when she does it. Impeccable voice work one minute, flirtatious wink the next, and then she’s dying laughing at a dick joke. It’s so open, it’s impossible not to love. 

And it was Marisha Ray. Marisha, who took so much shit, and came out the other side standing taller than ever. Marisha, who commits wholeheartedly in voice, in affectation, in climbing up on her chair or lunging backward out of it. From day one, I was rooting for Marisha--I was inspired by Keyleth getting to grow up onscreen, as I’ve been invested in Beau slowly cracking open and letting herself shine out from the spaces she’s spent so much time shoring up. She loves these characters like true friends, and she loves her people, and she loves her husband, and she loves this craft to such a degree, I want to quit my job and come work for her instead. There’s such a strength and a dignity to her that I find myself needing to be stronger, too. 

And, of course, it was Ashley Johnson--deceptively sweet, intensely funny, so much tougher than she looks, and when she turns up in a game, the affection could fill a stadium. Ashley being in town or on Skype for a game is like coming into a party and finding a friend you hadn’t gotten to hang out with in six months waiting for you. Everything just feels brighter with her in the game.

And it is a game, and it is a story, but the family these people have built--people I’ll likely never meet, people who live on the opposite side of the country--is somehow big enough to let complete strangers bask in its reflected glow. I built a habit of listening to CR at work...and then talking about it to my wife, with all the hyper-fixation glee I can’t help when I fall in love with something...and then I was putting it on at home so she could fall in love, too. I was putting on Talks or Between the Sheets while I ran on the treadmill, or when I needed to focus on a project. I put on episodes I’d already seen when I was sad, or when I was lonely, or when I just needed something to fill the silence and keep the darkness in my head behind a wall. For two years, I’ve gone back to these people again and again. To the silly videos. To the serious conversations. To the Twitter feeds and the fanart people can’t resist making to commemorate these characters who feel so tangible. 

Matt always ends the stream with a claim of love, and with most shows, with most streamers, with most people, that just feels like words. With these guys, with the way they open up and share this lightning in a bottle family and story they have created with the rest of us, it feels honest. It feels like these are long-lost friends who may never be in the same room, but are always there when I am drowning because the world is a nightmare, because work is kicking my ass, because this gushing essay is the most I’ve written in months. They are so good. They are human, and fallible, and invested in telling stories that get dark and ugly one minute, and devolve into hysteria the next, because that’s what life looks like. Even life with gods and magic and talking swords and goldfish deaths. 

Critical Role keeps me throwing my shoulders back, keeps me laughing, keeps me insisting on showing the people in my life how much they mean to me. Critical Role keeps me on the board when the demons in my head have me thinking it’d be easier to throw the game. It’s a show, and it’s silly, but it’s given me such a safe, warm place to curl up in some of the bleakest times of my life, and I love them so much for being willing to share some of that light with the rest of the world. They’ve given me a place on the internet that truly does feel like home.