#the divorced parents vibe is strong

[dracrownian]

Nagano Snowy Mountains case has to be one of my favorites for Conan & Rei interaction. From Conan asking Rei if he knows who Rum is and Rei's non-answer -

to Rei giving him a hint anyway -

which Conan then proceeds to not think about ever again, probably...

And then to have Rei like. Protecting Conan from Rum by acting like they barely know each other.

This was before the actual Rum identity reveal, but it was super obvious (imo) from the moment you meet this guy that he's Rum, and that's all beside the point anyway. The point is that, whether Rei knows this guy is Rum or not (which I believe he does), he's protecting Conan. And I love that.

Rei obviously thinks highly of Conan and his intelligence, and mostly treats him as an equal when it comes to investigations (and even needles him occasionally when Conan does something obvious, such as the most recent chapters in Poirot), so to have this moment where Rei realizes Conan's intellect could get him in trouble and act accordingly just sticks out to me as such a good moment for their relationship.

(Another thing I love about this case, unrelated to Conan, is the fact that Kuroda definitely called Koumei to be like "hey if you recognize Rei, no you don't.")

Anyway I just think about this case a lot. And definitely not for the case itself. This is one of those where I figured out the culprit from the moment they appeared based entirely on vibes.

[ladykailitha]

The Au Pair Boy Part 1

Surprise!!! I have six chapters of this and really need to start getting it out, so I figured with Act 1 ending last week and my backlog on this and Of Butterflies and Backstrokes (Olympic Swimmer) being so low thanks to me trying to the Halloween themed sequel to Icarus (Metal Band) that I would put this out until I build that back up and lower the amount of backlog this one has.

Summary: Eddie Munson is a in bind, set to go on a three month reunion tour, he is in need of nanny for his twin girls Janice and Joan since his partner, Ethan blew up their lives a year ago. Enter nanny extraordinaire, Steve Harrington. Both men struggle with treading the line between boss/nanny and their strong attraction to each other. Will Eddie learn to trust again? Will Steve realize that he was always meant to be right there by Eddie's side?

~

Eddie hung up the phone with a sigh. He wanted to do the tour, because of course he did. But he also had two very rambunctious little girls now. Eddie was a good dad, but he wasn’t the nurturing kind the way Ethan was. But sometime in the last year, Ethan had changed.

He had grown distant and cold, going as far as yelling at the girls which he never used to do. So Eddie quit producing music to give Ethan some much needed time for himself. Fat lot of good that did.

Because apparently Ethan was banging...well, just about everyone but Eddie’s friends. The pool boy, the guy who delivered their food, the cleaning lady, their personal trainer, hell even the barely legal dog walker got more of his husband’s dick than Eddie did.

Which he didn’t find out, by the way. Ethan had told him after handing him divorce papers and legally renouncing parental rights to Joan and Janice. He threw it in Eddie’s face the numerous affairs he had. The one thing he wouldn’t tell him was why.

Why was Ethan so unhappy when Eddie had done everything right?

He buried his head in hands. Janice and Joan were only four and they had been adopted at birth. They never met the mother and were only told that she didn’t want them and never wanted to see them ever again.

So how could Ethan look at those two little angels and decide the same?

Eddie was heartbroken and not ready to move on. So he had agreed to the tour as a way to cope with the sudden explosion of his life. His friends knew Ethan had left, but they didn’t know the extent of his ex’s destruction.

He thought about taking the girls with him, but they were too little. They wouldn’t have fun and would be more terrified then thrilled. So live-in nanny it was.

Thankfully he had a month to find someone who would cook and clean and watch the girls. Especially after having to fire all of his help in the wake of Ethan’s destruction.

He had this.

~

Eddie did not in fact have this. He only had three more days until he left and he was at his wit’s end. He had rejected candidate after candidate for a myriad of reasons. One only wanted part-time despite the ad before a live in nanny. Another said she was strict disciplinarian and thought spanking was the only way to teach a child. And even another just gave off weird vibes.

So he called the agency one more time.

“You’ve gone through all of our female nannies,” the woman huffed on the other end of the line. “We only have male nannies left, surly you don’t–”

“Just send the best male nanny you’ve got!” Eddie barked. “I don’t care about gender for fuck’s sake.”

“I’m not sure–” the woman protested but Eddie hung up on her.

He didn’t have time to listen to whatever excuse she was going to come up with. He was running out of time before the tour and needed someone. Anyone.

He got a call back five minutes later from another woman telling him that they would be sending over their best male nanny at 2pm if that was acceptable.

He sighed with relief. “Yes, that will be perfect. The girls will be down for their nap then.”

“That’s wonderful, Mr. Munson,” she said cheerfully. “The gentleman we are sending over, his name is Steve Harrington, and I sincerely hope he will be a good fit for you.”

“You and me both,” Eddie sighed again. “You and me both.”

~

When Steve got to the house, he would have liked to have said that he wasn’t impressed because he had seen dozens of large houses and even larger sprawling mansions in his time as a full time nanny, but he was. Very much so.

It wasn’t a gaudy modern monstrosity for starters. It liked a Victorian era manor that had been modernized for living in today. It gave off a spooky vibe, but in a fun way and not a horror movie way. Like the Addams family or the Munsters kind of vibe.

He really dug it.

He went up and knocked on the door. It swung open almost immediately to reveal a pretty, petite woman with sparkling green eyes and strawberry blonde hair. She had a sweet smile.

He knew this wasn’t the mother, the file said that it was a single father of twin girls. A rockstar of some sort, though Steve didn’t recognize the name. This must be some kind of servant or PA or something.

“Hi, I’m Steven Harrington,” he greeted putting out his hand for her to shake. “I have a two o’clock appointment with Eddie Munson about the nanny position.”

Her smile widened, dimpling her cheeks. “Hi, I’m Chrissy Cunningham, I’m Corroded Coffin’s manager. Come on in, he’s waiting for you.”

Steve followed her through the house. It was just as impressive as the outside. It was beautifully decorated in dark browns, reds, and black. God, he hoped he got the job. He could really see himself living here.

She opened the door to the office allowed him to walk through, closing it behind him. Which normally wouldn’t have been a problem for Steve but now he was in a room with the hottest guy he had ever seen in his life and he really didn’t need an erection at a job interview.

Eddie looked up, and yup. Steve was done for. He had the biggest brown eyes he had ever seen outside of a Disney cartoon.

“Mr. Munson?” he said, reaching out for a handshake, mustering up every ounce of professionalism he had. “Steven Harrington, how do you do? You can call me Steve.”

Eddie grinned back. “Hey, Steve. Thanks for coming at such a short notice. I understand you’ve been brought up to speed on everything I’ll be needed you to do?”

Steve crossed his legs and put his hands on his lap. Shit, even his voice was sexy as fuck.

“Yes, I’ll be watching the children twenty-four/seven,” Steve recited dutifully, “with doing all of the cooking and some of the cleaning.”

“That’s right,” Eddie said. “That normally wouldn’t be the case, but I’ve had to recently fire all of my staff. In fact, if you are hired on, you’ll be working with Chrissy over the next couple of months to help bring staff back on. I would be putting a lot of trust in you not to fuck me over.”

Steve nodded. It was a bit like Robin’s period dramas. He would be running the household while Eddie was away.

“Wouldn’t Chrissy be needed on tour with you?” he asked, not sure what her role actually was.

Eddie shook his head. “She usually does, but I need her here to help to get this house running again. It was hard enough trying to explain to the girls why everyone had to leave. Especially their other dad. She just has her own place and a very demanding job. And the other people I trust with my kids are going on tour with me, so...”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Steve said huffing out a chuckle. “I’m willing and able to take the job. There is just one more thing we have to do first.”

Eddie cocked his head to the side. “I don’t think I offered you the job yet.”

Steve burst out laughing. “No, I don’t suppose you did. But you really should. I’m really good with kids, I’m great cook, my references are impeccable, I have a degree in early child development, and you’re desperately out of time.”

“I noticed that all your previous families had older kids,” Eddie said picking up Steve’s resume. “Can you explain that?”

“Yes,” Steve said with a sigh. “Unfortunately, despite being practically perfect in every way,” Eddie huffed out a small laugh, “if I was a woman I would be the most sought after nanny in the whole god damned state. Even more so if I was older fifty. But because I’m a young man not even thirty yet and all they see is a predator.”

Eddie winced. He held up a finger. He picked up his phone and called the agency. “Hello? Hi Nancy, this is Eddie Munson. Yes, I will be taking Steve Harrington on as my nanny. Thank you so much for sending him over. Can you tell me who it was the first person I spoke to this morning? Yes, yes that’s the one. Kindly inform her that pushing harmful stereotypes only makes you look stupid. Mhmm. Yes. Yes. I want her fired. Thank you. Goodbye.”

Steve looked at him in awe. “Oh wow.”

Eddie grinned at him but before he could open his mouth to say something more, Chrissy poked her head in. “Sorry to disturb you but guess who woke up?”

“Janice?” Eddie replied with a fond smile.

“And guess who woke up her sister because she wanted someone to play with?” Chrissy said.

“Also Janice.” He sighed and turned to Steve. “You want to meet my little monsters?”

Steve smiled and stood up. “That was the one thing I was going to suggest we do before you hire me, is meet the girls. But having met their dad, I can already tell they’re going to be a handful.”

“Hey!” Eddie protested. But Chrissy laughed.

“Come on,” he said grumpily, “let’s go see the munchkins.”

Chrissy opened the door all of the way and Eddie and Steve followed her out. They reached the kitchen and there seating at a table were two of the cutest kids Steve had ever worked for. They both had light, curly brown hair and deep brown eyes, but that was where their similarities ended.

The one of the right had her hair pulled back in a messy ponytail with a denim overalls over a pink shirt. The overalls had a cute pink kangaroo on the pocket on the front. The girl on the left had her hair carefully braided and wore light blue shirt and a black pleated skirt. They were both munching on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

“Meet Janice and Joan,” Eddie said brightly. “Janice is the one on the right and the other is Joan. Janice is the oldest by seven minutes and she never lets Joan forget it.”

Joan stuck her tongue out at her dad around her sandwich and then went back to munching on it. Janice looked over at Steve and cocked her head to the side.

“Who’s that, Daddy?” she asked. And suddenly Steve was struck by how much the little girl acted like her dad.

“Girls,” Eddie said sternly, “do you remember when I said that Daddy was going to be gone for three months and you were going to be looked after by a new friend?”

Joan scrunched her nose and Steve was endeared. “Is he like one of those nannies that were so mean to us?”

“No, of course not, Joanie,” Eddie said, “not a nanny...” He looked to Steve for help.

“I’m what’s called an au pair,” he said brightly. “I’m here to watch over you and do a little of the cooking and cleaning, too. A nanny wouldn’t do that right?”

Joan and Janice shared a glance. And Steve was struck for the first time that they were really were twins. They acted so differently that he had already put them in separate boxes. But they moved in unison as they both shrugged.

“I guess not,” Janice huffed. “Are you going to be fun like Chrissy or strict like Daddy?”

The adults laughed as Steve walked over to the table. “My hope is to be somewhere in the middle. But I guess we’ll just have to see.”

He turned to Eddie and Chrissy. “If it’s all right, I’d like to get started now, give the girls time to get use to my presence while you’re still here, Eddie. That way we can smooth out any real problems before you go.”

Chrissy and Eddie shared a glance.

“Yeah,” Eddie said, “that’ll be fine. Great even. I’ll give you a couple of hours to get your things and come back here. Would you be okay making us dinner?”

Steve beamed at him. “Sure, give me an idea of what you guys like and I’ll find something to make you. Let’s consider it part of the interview.”

Eddie smiled back. “Well I think you have yourself a deal.”

Steve and Eddie shook hands.

This was either going to the best decision of Eddie’s life or his worst. Currently the jury and his brain were still out on that one.

~

Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

Tag List: CLOSED

1-@mira-jadeamethyst @rozzieroos @itsall-taken @redfreckledwolf @zerokrox-blog

2- @gregre369 ​@a-little-unsteddie @chaosgremlinmunson @messrs-weasley @cryptid-system

3- @maya-custodios-dionach @goodolefashionedloverboi @val-from-lawrence @carlyv @wonderland-girl143-blog

4- @justforthedead89 @irregular-child @bookbinderbitch @bookworm0690 @forgottenkanji

5- @anne-bennett-cosplayer @yikes-a-bee @awkwardgravity1 @littlewildflowerkitten @genderless-spoon

6- @dragonmama76 @ellietheasexylibrarian @thedragonsaunt @useless-nb-bisexual @disrespectedgoatman

7- @counting-dollars-counting-stars @tinyplanet95 @ravenfrog @swimmingbirdrunningrock @lingeringmirth

8- @gutterflower77 @a-lovely-craziness @just-a-tiny-void @w1ll0wtr33 @beelze-the-bubkiss

[egcdeath]

out in the open

pairing: patrick zweig x f!reader

summary: your wedding night doesn’t go as smoothly as you expect it to. succession au - tomshiv adjacent (previous parts: part 1, part 2, part 3)

word count: 8.8k

warnings: failmarriage, fluff in the beginning, cheating, angst, jealousy, hurt/comfort, mentions of alcohol and smoking, suggestive content, insecurity, patrick is kinda the worst in this. he does get better though.

author’s note: full disclaimer things are pretty angsty and they only get angstier from here. cheating is a major plot point from this point forward. there will be a few happier moments but it’s mostly bad vibes and tension from this point on.

i say this with every fic i post in this universe but i truly could not have written this without the help of my succession anon!! weddingnightgate (WNG) is such a big moment in this au and they really helped me get my thoughts in order and helped me world build. i hope you all enjoy the upcoming pain!

When you were young, you always dreamed about your wedding. You fantasized about a huge venue somewhere halfway around the world that would easily fit all of your closest friends and family members and of celebrity guests who would give you well wishes for the marriage and smiled at you in spite of their envy at your beautiful event. You imagined a gorgeous, intricate dress with a train so long that you’d need assistance going down the aisle, a cake the size of your tallest guest, and a groom who was as handsome as he was loving, pressing the promise of True Love’s Kiss onto your lips after he read you his vows.

Maybe your enthusiasm for weddings was fueled by a few too many movies where the princess found her prince charming and lived happily ever after with him, but you still fell in love with the idea of love, and the thought that a wedding should be as beautiful as the love itself was.

You would never forget the first wedding you attended, despite being so young that you shouldn’t have really recalled it. You somehow managed to worm your way into being the flower girl at your aunt’s wedding, skipping excitedly down the aisle of the beachside venue, tossing flowers with reckless abandon. As you watched the rest of the ceremony from the safety of your mother’s hip, you couldn’t help but to imagine yourself being the one to walk down the aisle someday. 

Much like your first wedding memory, you also couldn’t forget the first time you learned about divorce. Though you were young, the memory of your best friend crying next to you during recess as she sobbed out the news that her parents were splitting forever stuck out in your mind. You’d been fed the idea that love was strong and everlasting for so long, that the very notion that there were some things that love couldn’t withstand rocked you to your core. 

From that point on, you became more grounded in your approach to love. Love was rarely a fairytale, and it was naive for you to assume that your future wedding would be one either. 

As the years went by, you grew more realistic about your expectations for the future. You found a boyfriend who you dated throughout the latter half of your undergraduate years and through your time in business school, and fully expected to settle down with him—though you knew you’d be settling in the most literal sense. While he was a stable figure in your life, he was boring, and his aspirations in life for both you and himself didn’t align at all with what you saw yourself doing. He wanted a wife, and you wanted to make a name for yourself doing the work that was meaningful to you.

When he got down on one knee in front of you, you realized that you had two options in front of you: follow your own dreams or follow his. 

Naivety be damned, you chose yourself and never looked back. 

In your pursuit of making your non-love related aspirations come true, you abandoned all hope that your pipe-dream of a fantasy wedding would ever come to fruition. It occasionally felt like your hopes were incompatible—to be a successful businesswoman meant giving up all prospects of a romantic life. It seemed like everyone you encountered was put off by your lack of work-life balance, or wanted to hunt you for sport and turn you into a trophy wife. 

You’d practically given up all hope by the time you met Patrick, fully expecting to be able to use him for a brief fling and a connection to get into his family’s company. What you weren’t expecting was to find someone whose company you genuinely enjoyed, who understood you on a level you hadn’t experienced with anyone else, and a love that occasionally left you wondering if you were a protagonist in the movies you loved watching as a girl. 

If someone told you that years after meeting Patrick, that one day you would be gazing into his eyes with tears in yours as you listened to his vows, or telling him that you do take him to be your husband, to have and to hold, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, ‘till death did you two part.

Your wedding ceremony felt straight out of your girlish dreams, with Patrick’s beautiful family castle serving as the venue, paparazzi-worthy guests, a dress that felt like a direct product of your wildest imagination, and a groom that seemed to be as close to a prince charming as reality could get. 

You were on cloud nine throughout the ceremony, basking in every single moment. You felt like you were floating by the time you got to the reception, your brain in the clouds as you and your now-husband cut your massive cake and gave toasts. 

It was all a blur in the best way possible, your elation making what you thought might be an embarrassing moment of a first dance exciting, and the subsequent socializing with guests substantially more bearable. 

What was slightly less bearable was the speed at which you were separated from your husband, the two of you occasionally catching the others eye from across the room, but otherwise being separated from surprisingly demanding guests who wanted to wish you luck on your marriage or excitedly share how amazing they found the ceremony to be. 

Occasionally, you were able to squeeze in a brief moment with your spouse, bringing him a flute of champagne and momentarily pulling him away from an exceptionally chatty shareholder, but you seemed to be frequently whisked away from each other. 

After what felt like a lifetime apart from each other, you felt the familiar, comforting warmth of Patrick’s hand on your lower back as he approached you from behind. When he announced to the extended family members standing across from you that he needed a moment alone with you, you almost leapt with joy. Nothing seemed more appealing than a private conversation with him after a long night of socializing with friends and colleagues. 

It almost felt ironic that during an event that should’ve been focused on the two of you as a pair, you were separated and kept apart by people with business pitches and opposing interests, excited to hop onto whatever opportunity your union might bring them. 

Patrick took you by surprise as he led you up the stairs and to your bedroom. It seemed a little early to begin your wedding night festivities, but if he was really that enthusiastic about it, you were certain that you could share some of his excitement. 

“Thanks for getting us out of there,” you commented as you shut the door behind you. “So much for not talking about work at the wedding. I guess it’s too much to ask for one day to celebrate you being my husband before talking about the business again.”

You walked over to the vanity, preparing to touch up your makeup. You shot a glance over at your partner, who cautiously sat himself down on your bed, fidgeting with his hands as he did so. Not paying him any mind, you began to reapply your lipstick in the mirror and looked at his reflection, catching that he seemed to be in deep thought, but not thinking too much of it. It was probably something a shareholder told him. Maybe his sister was planning yet another attempt at a hostile takeover of the business. 

“Husband. Wow, you’re my husband now. That feels so crazy to say. Husband, husband, husband,” you mused, a ball of excited energy.  “Well, husband, what did you pull me in to talk about? Is it Sherry’s dress? It’s really hideous. I can’t believe she would wear something like that to our wedding,” you continued to ramble. “Or do you want a sneak peak of what I’ve got going on under this dress?”

You were shocked to find Patrick mostly unresponsive to your rapid words. He was never one to turn down the opportunity to gossip about his social circle or flirt with you. You pulled your attention away from yourself in the mirror and turned your head back to look at your husband, only to be met with a mostly unreadable expression, apart from the hint of a sad smile on his face. 

Suddenly, things didn’t feel so fun. For some unexplained reason, you felt a small pit appear in the depths of your stomach. While you didn’t know exactly what was wrong, something obviously didn’t feel right. There was no reason for your partner to be looking as unsettled as he did on his own wedding night. 

“You’re not having second thoughts already, are you?” you stood up and began to approach him from where he was sitting on the bed, making it more apparent to you that his brows were drawn together in what could only be the beginning of a frown. 

“Of course not,” he assured you, though guilt was written all over his face. You weren’t sure how you should interpret your husband looking like a child who just broke an expensive vase on your wedding night, but whatever it was, it couldn’t be good. “But I need to tell you something.”

“What?” you laughed nervously, the small pit that appeared in your stomach growing into a slightly larger pit. As much as you wanted to dismiss it as nothing, the heavy tension hanging in the air warned you that the odds of his confession being nothing were growing slimmer and slimmer with each passing moment.  

“Uh,” he paused as if he was considering his next words very carefully—almost as if he didn’t want to say them at all. You desperately wanted him to speak, rather than keep you hanging. With your nerves exponentially growing with every passing second, you began to feel like if he didn’t say anything soon, you might throw up all over your reception dress.  

“Patrick, please spit it out. You’re kinda scaring me,” you could already feel yourself growing upset, despite the fact that he hadn’t said a single word to indicate what was going on with him. Your heart quickened in your chest as you anticipated his next words, despite not having a clue about what might come out of his mouth.  

“We always said that if something happened, we could handle it like adults,” the statement was vague and simple, yet Patrick seemed to be choking it out. His cryptic message rattled around in your brain as you desperately searched for meaning in them. Before you could even begin to ask him what he meant, you registered the dismissive, callous language. 

Though he didn’t say it often, he had confused you with those very words before—the verbiage alarmingly reminiscent of what he told you before your bachelorette party, or when you brought up the lack of an infidelity clause in his prenup. 

If anything ever happened with anyone else, we could both handle it. We’re adults and we can handle things like adults.

Though his words were curious, you dismissed them at the time, never expecting that to be an issue. Of all of your problems with Patrick—his difficulty expressing his emotions, his complicated relationship with his family, his lack of experience in love—you never expected infidelity to be one of those problems. 

You swallowed, your saliva feeling thick and poisonous as it slowly crept down your throat. “Honey, what do you mean?”

Patrick didn’t speak, looking down at the pristinely folded sheets in front of him rather than at you. “I’m sorry,” was all that he managed to get out. 

You looked at Patrick blankly, waiting for him to tell you that whatever you were assuming wasn’t true or that he was pulling some sort of cruel prank on you. Instead, all you were met with was the sound of blood urgently rushing through your ears and the faint bassline of whatever song the DJ was playing at your reception. 

“You know that love is complicated for me,” he looked in your direction, but couldn’t sustain eye contact with you. “Can we be adults about this?”

Once it became clear to you what exactly Patrick was trying to tell you, your knees gave out on you, the rest of your body overwhelmed with the unfathomable information that your brain was trying to process. Patrick cheated on you—and he was telling you just hours after you got married. 

The truth of the situation sucked the air right out of your lungs and the strength right out of your body. Your knees buckled under you, and you desperately seeked out anything you could sit on. You settled on the foot of the bed, across from where your husband nervously sat. 

“Fuck,” you dug the palms of your hands into your eyes, surely smudging the makeup on your eyelids as you attempted to collect your thoughts. “Who was it?”

“It didn’t mean anything to me,” he pathetically attempted to explain away. It all sounded like gibberish to you. For all you knew, your husband was speaking a totally different language to you. 

Despite your question and Patrick’s non-answer, you somehow felt like you knew exactly who he’d been with. The answer was all over his discomfort when he saw you talking to the woman without him by your side, and the way she sized you up and attempted to psych you out of marrying Patrick not even 24 hours ago. 

“Was it Tashi?” you asked, not even listening to his empty words and keeping your face frighteningly neutral. You spoke the words like you were playing a round of Guess Who, calm and even despite the budding feeling of dread in your stomach. 

He didn’t respond, but he didn’t need to. His deafening silence was answer enough

“Can I kick her out?” you asked with an alarmingly stable tone, still mostly unable to process this information, but knowing that it wasn’t good. 

“Yeah,” he replied quietly, head still hung and unable to make eye contact with you. 

As you took in the truly depressing sight in front of you—your husband’s hunched over posture, a shame so strong that he couldn’t even look at you, and his clipped, short answers—you couldn’t deny that you were tempted to comfort him. In any other situation, if Patrick was feeling a fraction of the negative emotion he seemed to be feeling in that moment, you would instantly be at his side, holding his hand reassuringly or holding him close in a way that told him that if no one else was there for him, you would be, but you weren’t sure you could legitimize his bad behavior with such a response. 

Instinctually, you reached out to touch him like you’d done a thousand times before, giving him a hug before a big event or spooning him after a family member said something that got under his skin, but you instantly reprimanded yourself. Despite how sad he looked, Patrick was the one who hurt you. You were the one who deserved comfort. 

You opted to pat Patrick’s back instead, a strange and impersonal action. For a moment, you felt less like his wife and more like a practically estranged family member, not sure how to greet you after meeting you for the first time three Thanksgivings ago. 

Your husband barely reacted to the stiff action, only looking at you wordlessly with glossed-over eyes. You got up from the foot of the bed and left wordlessly and neutrally, a robot whose only orders were to get out of the bedroom and shut the door behind you. 

The moment the door closed, the next goal settled into your mind—you couldn’t let Tashi spend another second in the venue, socializing with your family and drinking the wine that your parents so kindly provided to the wedding, as if she hadn’t been partaking in an affair with your husband. 

You felt half a bride and half a zombie as you left the confines of the bedroom and wandered the hallways. You were stone faced as you made your way back to the reception, trying to wrap your head and heart around devastating information that was shared with you at the most inopportune time possible. 

You made a slow march down the stairs, movement hindered by your dress, and imagined what you might say to Tashi once you saw her. You should’ve known something was off from the start. You should’ve trusted the bad feeling you had when she sized you up at the bar, smirking at you like the cat who got the cream before feeding you anecdotes about how sleazy your husband used to be for no apparent reason. You should’ve trusted that feeling when Patrick rushed over to pull you away.

You wished you paid attention when Patrick faintly smelled of feminine perfume when you surprised him by coming back from a business trip earlier than anticipated, or when you noticed a bracelet that didn’t belong to you sitting on your coffee table, one that disappeared the very next day. It was so easy to write the signs off at the time–the fragrance of your personal chef and the jewelry of one of his sisters–but it no longer felt that simple. Patrick was a lot of things, but you never expected that a cheater was one of those things.

The thought of Patrick with someone else made you nauseous, especially in your own home. You faintly wondered if they’d fucked in your bed or on the couch. If the answer was yes to either, you desperately wanted to burn the pieces of furniture. In fact, that would be the first thing you set out to do when you returned home after your honeymoon. Maybe you would even beg Patrick to move to a new place, one not haunted by the memories of him and another woman. 

That was, if your relationship even survived through the honeymoon. Let alone the night. You didn’t have a clue what your next steps would be. Would you be the fool who stays with a man who proved himself to be disloyal? Or would you be the fool who offered herself to the wrath of one of the most powerful families in the world? You would lose your husband, your job, and your livelihood in one fell swoop, surely being banished back to your family home in Minnesota, destined to be a receptionist at your father’s law firm for the rest of your life. 

The entire situation felt surreal in the worst possible way. You couldn’t believe that while you were dealing with the aftermath of this information, Tashi was waltzing around at your reception. More than that, you couldn’t believe the information itself: Patrick cheated. Your fiancé cheated. Your husband cheated on you. 

The same Patrick who became a groomzilla, laser-focused on giving you your dream wedding, cheated. The same man who confessed that he didn’t know what love felt like before he met you cheated on you. Your husband, who went out of his way to do anything to make you happy, even at the expense of his very powerful family, hadn’t been loyal to you. 

None of it made sense. Maybe you would walk back into the room and your guests would jump out from behind tables and reveal that this was all a cruel joke—a little hazing as you officially became a Zweig—their laughter filling up the room at the thought that you would ever believe something as ridiculous as Patrick cheating on you. 

You bit back bile as you walked into the room, the party continuing on the same way it had before you left and before you reentered—no prank to be found. The cacophony of loud music and the chatter of your guests filling your ears once more—what felt fun and exciting just moments before, now being far too overstimulating for someone trying to process information that could fundamentally alter the course of their relationship. You did your best to block out all of the extra noise and focus on your goal at hand. 

Find Tashi. Send her home.

You weren’t sure what you would actually do when you saw her. Would you yell at her? Slap her for being a homewrecker? Cry at the sight of her? Laugh at the absurdity of your husband telling you that he’d been having an affair with her on your wedding night?

Peripherally, you heard someone call your name excitedly, only slightly pulling you out of your trance. Still, you couldn’t find it in you to acknowledge whatever excited friend or family member as your eyes set on your target. Tashi Duncan, Patrick’s coworker and ex-girlfriend.

Where you admired her beauty and confidence just a day before, you found you now resented every positive aspect about her. As she stood by a table and talked to one of Patrick’s sisters, surely bored out of her mind by the delusional ramblings about his sister someday being the president, she nodded and smiled diplomatically. 

As you really began to think about it, you realized that she was the perfect candidate to be Patrick’s wife. She came from a background similar to his, his sisters liked her far more than they liked you—though that didn’t mean much—and physically, she seemed to be exactly your husband’s type. 

Part of you wondered if she was feeling as miserable as you were; if she’d spent the day imagining your wedding to be her own, if her own jealousy was blinding her the way that yours currently was blinding you, or if she’d begged Patrick not to marry you during their work meeting the previous night. The other part of you wondered if she thought of you as pathetic as you currently felt—a stupid woman so blinded by her own love that she overlooked every beaming, bright red flag.

Your pace quickened as you walked towards Tashi, heels clicking annoyingly as they marked your pace. As you made your way to the table, you found yourself growing more anxious, the first real feeling you’d felt since Patrick shared with you the truth about his infidelity.

“Hey,” you greeted Tashi and Patrick’s sister, voice surprisingly even for how agitated you were. “Mind if I chat with Tashi?” 

“Go ahead,” Cornelia shrugged. “Let’s stay in touch?” she asked Tashi, who politely agreed and watched the other woman walk off. 

Tashi opened her mouth to speak to you, presumably to comment on something asinine about the wedding, or to make an observation about your wedding that you’d already heard a thousand times that night. If you weren’t so upset, you would make a bet with yourself on whether she’d tell you how beautiful the wedding was, or how beautiful you and your husband looked at the altar.

“Your housing for the night fell through,” you explained in a very level tone. It wasn’t the best excuse, but it was what came out of your mouth.

“Oh?” she asked, sounding more than a little skeptical, before lifting her drink to her lips. “Do you know where else I might be able to find lodging at this hour?”

“No,” you replied quickly and with ease. “Actually, it’d probably be best if you just went home now.”

“Home like…?” she trailed off and eyed you curiously. 

“Like back to New York. I’m sure you can find a flight.”

She laughed in slight disbelief. “You realize this is a work function for me, right? I have work to do.”

“I’m sure you can do that work back home,” you dismissed, not backing down. By now, it was clear that Tashi was putting together the pieces of what you knew. In fact, you could pinpoint the exact moment when it occurred to her why the two of you were having this conversation in the first place.

Maybe it was the lack of your now-husband beside you, or the barely concealed emotion on your face. Regardless of what was your biggest tell on the situation, you continued to stare her down, resenting the way her lips shifted into a small smile, as if she still had the upper hand and knew something that you didn’t. It was almost as if she found the whole ordeal to be a little amusing, which only bothered you more. 

“No need to make a scene at your wedding. I’ll be on my way.” She lifted her glass up once again to finish the drink off, but you stopped her. 

You returned intense eye contact with her as you took the stemware right out of her hands and put it to your own lips, finishing the drink in a few large gulps. Though your action was impulsive, it felt like somewhat of a necessity. You desperately needed the liquid distraction from your less-than-ideal situation, and you didn’t want to give her an excuse to linger at your party a single moment longer than she needed to. 

She continued to stare at you, her expression somewhere in the middle of being impressed and weirded out. “Alright then. Well, congratulations on the wedding.”

“Fuck off,” you spat out, turning on your heel and walking away without bothering to see if she stayed or left. 

You made your rounds around the reception, smiling and talking to your guests with a fake smile plastered on your face. The shock of Patrick’s initial confession wore off shortly after you told Tashi off, but you still couldn’t help but feel completely numb to the situation. How else were you supposed to react when you found out the love of your life was sleeping with someone else? 

You continued to man the reception on your own, occasionally scanning the room but not catching a glimpse of your husband. You wondered if he was still in your bedroom, head in his hands as he wondered if he just opened a Pandora’s box on your relationship, or if Tashi went to go find him to discuss how poorly you reacted to the information. For all you knew, the two of them could be laughing at you or having sex in your wedding bed at the same time that you attempted to pretend that everything was perfectly fine. You grew faint at the mere thought. 

Eventually, you felt a familiar hand on the small of your back, something that typically was a welcome, comforting gesture. Instead, you wanted to flinch away from his hand like it was hot. You couldn’t believe that Patrick had the nerve to touch you like everything was fine after dropping such devastating information on you. Then again, at least he wasn’t hooking up with Tashi one last time. 

Still, even under the spell of a sadness that hadn’t quite settled in yet, you leaned into his touch instinctively. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t feel as comfortable as it did a few hours ago. 

“Such a beautiful ceremony,” a family friend of Patrick’s gushed to you. “You two have something really special.”

You felt Patrick’s eyes sear into you, desperately pleading for you to look back into them and show him that everything was going to be okay. That what you had was special enough that you’d be able to move past this. Like adults, as he said to you earlier.

You weren’t so sure that you could. 

The rest of the night moved painfully slowly. Where the two of you socialized separately before his private conversation with you, he seemed to be attached to your hip now, bringing you apology offers of champagne flutes and hor d'oeuvres.

Though he pleaded with you to handle your situation like adults, you wanted to act more like a petulant child. If you had it your way, you would reject his offerings of food by tossing them onto the floor, or throw a glass of sticky alcohol in his face as if you were a Real Housewife. 

If you had it your way, Patrick wouldn’t have cheated on you in the first place, and you’d be celebrating your wedding without the baggage of uncertainty for the future of your relationship. 

As you walked through the reception, you weren’t particularly angry or sad, you just felt numb. There was a strange concession in knowing that what happened in the past already happened, and that there was no way for you to change your husband’s behavior. For a moment, you wondered if the numbness was a symptom of the shock that was Patrick’s confession, or you would feel the dull thud of nothingness for the rest of your life. 

You let out a breath you hadn’t realized you were holding as you watched the last of your guests filtered out of the venue, relieved to finally drop the façade of being a happy newlywed and to embrace the true feeling of shock that had been biting at you all night.  

Somehow managing to break away from your suddenly very clingy spouse, you wasted no time gathering an unopened bottle of wine for yourself, along with a cigarette and a lighter, which you unceremoniously exchanged with a caterer for a Venmo payment. You then headed outside to a balcony that overlooked a beautiful sprawling garden. 

You looked out on the neatly trimmed hedges and the bench where you sat with Patrick not even twenty-four hours ago and distantly thought about how perfectly the night should’ve gone. You got married at a beautiful venue, had every detail down to the positioning of napkins meticulously planned, and most importantly, were marrying someone you genuinely loved and couldn’t see yourself living without. 

It was all rather devastating now, to see how just a few words managed to ruin what was supposed to be the happiest day of your life. 

You took a swig from the bottle, lamenting the fact that his affair partner had been drinking this very wine earlier that night. At the thought of Tashi, you took yet another hefty swig. 

Just as you reached for the lighter to light the cigarette you so desperately needed, Patrick burst through the doors of the balcony, slightly out of breath and sweat beading on his forehead. In between his heavy breaths, you swore you caught a sigh of relief. 

You couldn’t say that you were pleased to see him—after all, you’d escaped to the balcony to get a little time alone and to think through the night—but as you took in his dramatic entrance and disheveled appearance, it became abundantly clear to you that he’d been urgently looking for you. 

“Want some?” you asked, gesturing to the bottle. Your question was more than just an offer for a drink, but a peace treaty, offering Patrick to stay outside with you despite your more complicated feelings towards him. 

“Sure,” he agreed, still slightly out of breath. He collected himself as you passed him the bottle, locking eyes with you as he took a swig from the expensive drink. It felt like time moved a little slower as you watched his lips wrap around the opening of the bottle and the way his Adam's apple bobbed while the drink went down. 

You suddenly realized that complicated didn’t even begin to cover how you felt towards Patrick. You loved him more than anything, and you were sure that you needed him in your life—but beneath the thick layers of numbness was a reservoir of hurt, far deeper than you ever imagined you could harbor for the man. 

He passed the bottle back to you, his hands gently brushing over yours. Momentarily, you felt scandalized by the action, unsure if you should feel your cheeks heating up from the small touch or if you should flinch away from it. By the time the brief moment was over, you hadn’t done either, electing to set your gaze back over the rail instead of at your partner. 

Patrick stood silently beside you, not requesting anything more to drink or even attempting to make small talk. It seemed that he was just as aware as you were that he’d changed your entire dynamic with just a few words. You wondered if he realized just how much he’d fucked both of you by fucking someone else. 

You shivered in the cold night, your dress not providing you much coverage in the elements. If your wedding night had gone any differently, Patrick would’ve offered you his suit jacket, draping the item over your shoulders and kissing you sweetly. Then again, if the night had gone differently, you likely wouldn’t be shivering on the balcony in the first place. 

You squatted to set down the bottle on the ground and rediscovered the cigarette and lighter. Though you weren’t usually one to smoke, you desperately needed it after the shitshow that was your wedding night.  

Though you put the stick to your lips, you struggled to light the cigarette, the frigid breeze making everything slightly more difficult. It didn’t help that you hadn’t smoked since you were a teenager, giggling with your friends as you clumsily attempted and failed to light up the stick, the match pinched between your fingertips quickly burning down. The contrast between the silly memory and your far less silly reality felt jarring, to say the least.  

“Here, let me,” Patrick said softly, taking the lighter from you and cupping his hand around the tip of the cigarette. You tried not to look at him too closely as you listened to the soft clicking sound of the lighter. Though he should’ve focused on the action so he didn’t burn his finger tips or the palm of his hand blocking the wind, he didn’t seem to be able to look at anything but you. The light of the flame briefly illuminated both of your faces, momentarily giving you a better look at his sad eyes. 

You inhaled as the flame touched the tip, and turned your head to exhale the smoke, not wanting to blow it in the face of your partner or have to spend another second under the scrutiny of his intense eye contact.

Even as you looked away and into the garden below, you could feel Patrick’s eyes burning into you. You were sure that if you looked back over at him, you would see him looking particularly downtrodden, lips parted for words that were on the tip of his tongue that he couldn’t quite say yet, and eyebrows drawn together in a way that only seemed to highlight the sadness in his eyes. 

Unspoken questions lingered in the air like the smoke from the cigarette dangling from your lips. Though you didn’t care for the smell, you were pretty sure you preferred the smoke to the questions. 

Finally, a quiet question was spoken into the air,  “Can I?” Patrick asked, his eyes flitting from your eyes to your lips. 

“Sure,” you replied noncommittally as you pulled the cigarette away from you and passed it to your husband. Electing to watch him instead of the unchanging garden, you observed as Patrick’s lips closed over the space where yours had just been, covering the hint of a lipstick stain that you’d left on it. After a long drag, he passed the cigarette back to you, his hand brushing softly over yours once more as you did so. 

This pattern continued, a heavy silence falling between the two of you as you shared the cigarette, your hands caressing the other’s softly.

“Here,” you murmured as you approached the filter. Instead of passing it back to Patrick, you brought it up to his lips, watching him intently as he breathed in the smoke. 

For a moment, all you could see was his face, illuminated by the burning end of the cigarette, pupils blown with something you couldn’t quite place. You weren’t sure if you wanted to ravish him right there on the balcony or push him off of it.

He blew the smoke right back into your face, electing to still share the last of the cigarette with you. You wondered if that meant anything. It probably didn’t. 

The two of you stood looking at each other, staring wordlessly as you waited for the other person to move a muscle or say something—anything. For a moment, you considered telling Patrick that you wanted an annulment. But then again, that wasn’t exactly the truth. 

“I’m going to bed,” you broke the silence with your announcement. “I need to change out of this dress.”

You wished it were that simple. You desperately wanted to scrub the day off of you and to pinch yourself until you woke up. Surely, this couldn’t be your actual wedding night. Maybe you could wake up in the morning and find that this was all a bad dream—the manifestation of anxiety before your big day.

But, as Patrick trailed behind you in the hallway as if you would disappear if you left his sight, you were pretty sure that this was the reality. You wouldn’t wake up and find that your husband had been loyal to you. 

Your return to the room was a silent one. The moment you stepped foot through the door, it felt like you were back in that horrible moment; like Patrick was moments from revealing to you that Tashi was the tip of the iceberg. 

Bile rose in your throat once more. You made a beeline to the bathroom, hoping that the change of scenery might halt your thoughts altogether. 

You stepped out of the bathroom with an entirely different mindset than what you had as you entered. Sure, your wedding night wasn’t at all what you expected it to be, but it didn’t mean that you couldn’t put it back on the right track. In the bathroom, you slipped on a silky nightie, what you hoped would be a reminder to both of you that this wasn’t any old regular night, but your wedding night. Though, with the day you just had, you weren’t so sure that either of you would be up for a particularly romantic night. You guessed it couldn’t hurt. 

You left the bathroom as a woman on a mission, your eyes set on Patrick as you crossed the bedroom floor to get to him. Though he’d been laying on the bed, staring up at the ceiling like it had the secrets to the universe written on it, the sound of your entrance drew his attention over to you. You gently bit your lower lip and hoped that your face said ‘sexy’ rather than ‘so nervous you might be sick.’

His eyes stayed locked on you as you crawled into bed, and you hoped once more that the action of you moving towards him on your hands and knees didn’t appear as desperate as you felt on the inside. 

It felt like your evening consisted of one desperate plea after another: Please don’t do this to me. Please just pretend that everything’s fine. Please don’t leave me. 

He followed your lead as you trailed your hand up his arm and looked at him as seductively as you could manage before pushing him down onto the bed and straddling his lap. Distantly, you wondered how Tashi imitated things with him—if she did anything that Patrick liked more about her than you. You did your best to push that thought away, but failed miserably. 

Mechanically, you ran your hands through his hair and kissed him passionately. You tried to ignore the lump in your throat and reminded yourself that it was just Patrick. Things weren’t all that different, except for the fact that he was your husband now—and that he cheated on you.

You tried once more to push that thought out of your mind as you moved your hips against his lap, but your attempts were in vain. It certainly didn’t help that as you kissed him, you tasted the cigarette you shared earlier in his breath—an unwelcome reminder of the awkward tension that lingered between the two of you after he shared the truth about his infidelity. And surely, it was just your mind, but his lips almost tasted like the chapstick of another woman. 

Suddenly, all you could think about was Tashi with your husband. Him and Tashi in your bedroom, or in a hotel room, or on your couch. Did she do anything special that drove him crazy? What did she have that you didn’t? 

Your body said one thing, but your brain said something completely different. You did your best to power through the thoughts of your husband being with another woman, but you were beginning to realize that when it came to cheating, you weren’t all that tough. You bit down on Patrick’s lip in what you hoped would be a light nibble, but the taste of iron quickly filled your mouth. 

You slowed down your movements as your thoughts sped up before you gave up entirely. You supposed it was a classic case of mind over matter, and your mind was not nearly as strong as any of your physical urges. 

You shifted off of Patrick far later than you should’ve, feeling like a complete and utter failure. You couldn’t even do the one thing you should’ve been able to do during your wedding night. No wonder he found solace in someone else’s body. 

“I’m sorry,” you said weakly, your voice barely above a whisper. “I can’t do this. I’m sorry.”

It took you rolling off of Patrick to realize that his face was damp, eyes glossy with a thin layer of tears threatening to fall. The pit in your stomach that had been steadily growing since Patrick pulled you aside to tell you something finally came to a head when you realized that your husband was crying.

“Why are you sorry?” he asked, his voice cracking on the last syllable of his question. 

A fresh tear rolled down his cheek, which was then followed by a few other droplets. He turned his head away from you and wiped them away quickly so you wouldn’t notice them, but the damage was already done. 

You’d never seen Patrick cry before—not when you watched sad movies that left you bawling, not when the two of you watched advertisements for puppies in shelters, not even when he thought his dad might be dying. To see him shed tears over you felt particularly unsettling. 

“Patrick?” you said his name softly, like he was delicate and going to break. 

“I should be the one who’s sorry,” he looked towards you once more, eyes now rimmed with red. “I ruined everything already. I'm so sorry.”

This was a complete wild card on top of a stack of wild cards. If someone told you that your wedding night would end with your husband telling you he cheated on you, a pathetic failed attempt at sex, then watching your partner cry for the first time in front of you, you would’ve laughed in their face. 

His crying continued, becoming slightly more intense as sorrow racked through his body. You’d never been in a situation like this before, so you were completely unsure of what to do. 

With all prior restraint to show him physical affection gone, you awkwardly slotted your arms around your husband. He automatically leaned into you, burying his face in your shoulder as he continued to shed quiet tears. Your shoulder quickly grew damp as you threaded your fingers through his curls, the repetitive petting being just as soothing for you as it was for him. 

Despite it all, you still felt a general sense of nothing at all. You were beginning to grow concerned, knowing that deep down there were certainly emotions that weren’t ready to approach the surface. You worried about what it might look like once those feelings finally came out, but that was the least of your worries when it came to your weeping husband. 

Patrick continued to cry quietly, the only sound in the room being his soft, occasional sniffles. You couldn’t even place how you felt or how long you sat there stone faced as you cradled your husband. 

Eventually, the tears on your shoulder dried and the intervals between sniffles grew further and further. Soon, the soft sounds of weeping turned into the long and deep breaths of rest. Between you playing with his hair and holding him, he must’ve fallen asleep. You couldn’t really blame him—given your eventful day, your all-nighter the previous day, and the energy it took for him to cry. 

You gently laid Patrick back down on his side of the bed, pulling a blanket over his chest and pushing back the hair on his forehead to press a kiss to him. He stirred slightly against the forehead kiss, but didn’t seem to wake up all the way. Even when your feelings were complicated towards the man, you couldn’t help being affectionate towards him. In some ways, you felt like you needed that affection just as much as he did. 

You let out a long sigh as the reality of everything truly began to set in, and you no longer had to be strong for your weeping partner. You couldn’t wrap your head around the sight of Patrick crying for the first time, or the fact that he cheated on you. You flicked off the bedside lamp, the only source of light in your otherwise darkened bedroom. 

You rolled over in bed and laid on your back, setting your hands on your stomach and staring up at the ceiling. You traced your eyes over the pattern of the ceiling, though it was dark and not all that clear. You wondered if you looked at it long enough, if you’d be able to make some sense out of it. You glanced over at Patrick and wondered the same thing. 

You just couldn’t understand why he’d cheat on you. You’d always been under the impression that he was just as happy in your relationship as you were. Despite his promiscuous past, he never seemed like the type of person to not be loyal to you.

You noticed a teardrop trail down his cheek in his sleep, and you gently thumbed it away. The small movement turned into you tracing a line down his nose and over his lips, then over his eyebrows and back down through the few freckles that dotted his face. Maybe if you watched him long enough, if you learned every detail of his face, someone would reveal to you why he’d done something so illogical and cruel. 

You worried about how the two of you could move forward from something like this. Though Patrick always approached the topic of infidelity with a dismissive attitude, cheating had always been a deal breaker for you in your past relationships. It shattered your trust in a way that was so foundational, you couldn’t fathom a world where your relationship with Patrick stayed exactly the same after this. 

Part of you knew already that moving forward, you’d constantly wonder if he was genuinely working late or if he was having an affair, or if his eye was wandering at events despite you standing by his side. And that was just trust when it came to relationships—obviously his lie was far deeper than just that. Now, you knew that Patrick had the capacity to hold a secret that massive from you, then share it at the worst possible time. 

In fact, his timing felt so terrible that you momentarily wondered if it was some sort of power play. Was Patrick trying to remind you that you weren’t equals in this partnership? Was he trying to manipulate you by only sharing this information to you after you were married to him and couldn’t easily call everything off? 

Your stomach turned at the possibility that Patrick wasn’t really who he said he was, and that you’d been baited and switched. You recalled the first time you met Patrick’s family, how he switched on a dime and became far more calculated and cruel to them than you’d ever seen him be with you. Was that the realest version of your husband, and the person he was with you just a façade? Was this some sort of long game he was playing with his family to piss a few people off? Did Patrick even love you?  

For the first time in your relationship, you felt like you didn’t know who you were sleeping next to. Surely, this couldn’t be the same Patrick who you set out to have a quick hook up with, and ended up talking to him for hours. It couldn’t be the same Patrick who held you tight at night and gave you kisses every morning in your kitchen. The same Patrick from your vows a few hours ago, whose hands shook as he read from notecards and declared his love for you.

You frowned as you looked over Patrick once more. You resented how he was able to sleep so peacefully after inflicting such hurt on you. Did he even understand how destroyed you were? You couldn’t see yourself sleeping through the night in the foreseeable future, your head too filled with questions about your relationship and questions about his relationship with her. Would they continue the affair? Would they still work together after this, leaving you to wonder for the rest of your life if they were still going behind your back?

You desperately wished the thoughts would stop, but they kept coming, punctuated by the sounds of Patrick’s soft snores behind you. 

By the time the sun began to peek through the blinds, your hand was on Patrick’s face once again. You wondered how it was possible for him to hurt someone he loved as much as he loved you, if his definition of love was so skewed by a lifetime of abuse labeled as love from his parents, and siblings who used cruelty as a form of affection. 

Maybe you should’ve listened to the warnings everyone gave you, from your parents who warned that your husband and his family may be more than you bargained for, from his sisters who never seemed to be able to fully wrap their head around Patrick committing to someone, let alone you. Maybe you should’ve even listened to Tashi’s coded warning about his inability to commit and stay loyal. It seemed like everyone saw the fate of your relationship coming except you. 

With the early morning light illuminating the room, things felt a little clearer for you. Beneath the numbness that protected you the previous night was a more painful undercurrent of hurt that was already beginning to eat away at you. 

For the past several years of your life, you hadn’t had to deal with any painful feelings on your own. Patrick was always there beside you to hold you tight and reassure you that everything would be okay. As you laid next to him, you realized that despite all the pain he’d inflicted on you, all you really wanted was to be held by him. 

Knowing that he was sleeping peacefully beside you, you opted to hold him, draping your body over his and pulling yourself as close as you could manage to him. You leaned your ear against his back, taking in the warmth he gave you and listening to his heart beat. As the two of your breaths and heartbeats began to match the other’s pace, you lamented that even now, your hearts beat as one. 

For the first time that evening, your eye prickled with the threat of tears. 

You lost track of how long you held your husband, but it was long enough to notice the pattern of his breath changing. You’d woken up beside him enough times to recognize that he was clearly awake, yet he made no other indication to you that he was awake. He wanted you to hold him. You wondered if he thought this might be the last time you ever do that for him. You wondered if it was the last time you’d ever do that for him. 

The two of you pretended to be asleep despite the fact that you were both obviously awake, but no one commented on anything. After your arms began to grow numb, you turned your back to Patrick, hoping that he would return the favor and give you what you really wanted. You were pleased to find that he just as eagerly wrapped his arms around you, holding you tight and breathing quietly in your ear. 

The two of you sat in complete silence, pretending you didn’t know what the other person was doing. Somehow, it felt like that was about to become a recurring theme in your relationship.

[twig-tea]

TsukuTabe S2 Is Perfection

I’ve been waffling about what to write about Tsukuritai Onna to Tabetai Onna s2, which completed last week (and which we have access to at all thanks to the hard work of @furritsubs). I have had to just give up on getting across how much this show means to me; there's no way I'll be able to communicate these feelings with words. Season 1 was excellent but Season 2 was everything I wanted and more that I didn't know I needed. This is going to be more disjointed than usual because I don't know how to be coherent about this show (and because tumblr ate my first two attempts).

At its core, Tsukuritai Onna to Tabtetai Onna asks what if we were all just a little bit more conscientious and kind to one another? What if women were given space to be themselves and to make the choices that were best for them? This is the world of TsukuTabe, and I'm so grateful to have had the chance to inhabit it over these last four weeks. 

I have so much love for the way Nomoto and Kasuga develop their relationship in conjunction with their relationships with the other women in their lives. Nagumo, Sayama, and Yako are integral to the success of Nomoto and Kasuga’s relationship, and they're also important relationships for the happiness of Nomoto and Kasuga in their own right. The found family vibes are immaculate. 

The conflict between Kasuga and Nomoto this season was so perfectly them; the way they struggled with the transition from friends to lovers and being two people who are kind and giving in a relationship together and how that requires honesty and trust were both familiar conflicts that hit me hard in the feels. 

Kasuga's conflict with her family also hit me really hard. I once did the wrong thing and showed up to support my family in caring for someone who abused me, and it was a horrible experience that was ruinous to my mental health and took years to get over (and in the end they had to find a different solution anyway, which they could have done in the first place). Watching Kasuga refuse to make a similar decision, standing strong in the face of the social pressures of her parents and her aunt was so healing for me. And then to have her decision affirmed by someone of her parent's age? I sobbed in those scenes. 

I also loved the way this season handled Nagumo’s anxiety issues and how she was given space to decide to get professional help on her own time and terms. The way her parents tried to help was also very familiar to me and realistic, and it was just a little heartbreaking how they tried and didn't understand how their attempts at helping added pressure in a way that wasn't helpful. 

The way this show covers this important beats in a person's life through these small, everyday moments, and in such a gentle way, is what I love so much about it. The show itself makes a safe space so that these subjects can come up and not feel overwhelming. 

And it's also really important to me that all of the characters get to have these moments. Sakae not only reflects on her insensitivity and the unfairness of Japan not having marriage equality, but she also reflects on the pressures on her to marry and whether she actually wants that for herself. Fujita not only helps Kasuga gain proxy acceptance for her choices but gets the same back for herself around her decision to divorce. All of these women live in ways that invoke social stigma, and the way this show gives explicit permission to these women to live their best lives is both cathartic and critical.

I can't end this disjointed ramble without talking about the character I most identified with this season, Yako. Yako is an older, self-actualized asexual lesbian who makes friends with Nomoto on the Internet, recommends lesbian films to her, and mostly listens and affirms as Nomoto goes through her own process of discovering herself. I ran a GSA and have been on the Internet a long time, I've been in Yako’s position a lot (though I can only aspire to be as kind and wise). She is so patient and so genuinely happy for Nomoto when she and Kasuga get together, and she seems so quietly thrilled to have more wonderful people in her life willing to indulge her random party ideas. Her sharing a connection to a LGBTQ+-friendly real estate agency while being angry on their behalf that she even has to was perfection. 

It's so important that these characters say the things they say aloud. I want to inscribe every sentence of this show into everyone's brains. This show is perfect, and lovely, and a warm bath, and a hug, and a cup of your favourite warm beverage perfectly fixed to your liking all in one. If you haven't done yourself the favour of watching yet, I highly recommend that you do so immediately. 

[not an ID: Real footage of the entire audience's satisfaction and catharsis after watching TsukuTabe S2. Actual ID in alt text].

[ancha-aus]

Some thoughs on Medium Dust from the Ghosts & Medium AU you guys have seen me spam reblogs of.

Dust could always speak to ghosts. Always. When he was little he didn't always knew when it was a ghost/spirit or not but he learned to feel the difference.

So even ghosts that perfectly mimic living people or who don't realise they are dead? Dust knows because he can just kinda feel it. Vibe check to the max.

He never really did anything with is. Except for talk with the nice ghost children that did want to play wiht him at night on the playground.

Not until his brother one day just disappeared. and the ghost of his brother apart in tiny flashes before him.

Dust wasn't the strongest medium, seeing as he was a child. so who he could see was limited.

Papyrus was a newly made ghost and young when he died. so not that strong either.

( i do think the two were very close in age if not like fraternal twins. Or maybe they both had their own parents who divorced and married each others parent. that kinda deal) (Edit!! I actually think Papyrus is older in this AU :D Five years older and Dust is the younger brother <3)

So... Dust now knew his brother was dead. and was pissed. Who the fuck killed him?! So he went to solve his brother's disappearance and murder.

Turned out it was the creepy teacher that Dust never trusted.

So murderer had been caught. cool. right.

Waht now?

Dust went to learn necromancy as everyone who he asked if papyrus could be broguht back to live would tell him it was dark and forbidden magical becuase something was always left behind if you did these things.

Dust obviously still tried because papyrus told him he wanted to live again.

It didn't work.

So they just kinda sat there. and at first Dust just spend sometime solving murders and stuff. putting ghosts to rest and working on a kinda part time basis with the police. Eventually dust got fired from that. (not because he didn't do his job bad but because he did it too well. corrupt leadership you know the drill)

Dust then went into the medium and seance busines. Letting people say their final goodbyes and stuff. Just those kinda things. Then later he went into the exorcist business. (It would surprise you how many rich families buy obivously haunted houses)

And that is what he did. Because of the nature of his job Dust generally lived out of a van that had his ghost stuff and a tiny seance table in it. it was cramped but Dust likes that.

He does have a very cheap and small apartment. but that is just to get his mail delivered and to make taxes easier.

And then he met Killer and everything got complicared.

[holopossums]

This is Cedrus Draxum, one of my ROTTMNT OCs — he is Baron Draxum's older brother!

A bit about Cedrus below the cut:

As the eldest of the Draxums, he's very serious and a bit of a mother hen.

Has a regal, traditional vibe. Calm and genteel but with a strong, commanding presence. (But he comes off differently in private or around his brother.)

Standing at 5'9, he is far shorter and a bit stockier than his younger brother, but he makes up for it with an impressive set of horns.

Cedrus considers things like the law and bringing honor to one's family to be very important, perhaps to a concerning degree.

He has a prestigious job as an orator/politician and as the main representative of an elite guard for the Hidden City.

Cedrus' mystic powers are tree growing and wood manipulation. He possesses extraordinarily powerful magic but with unique limitations.

His voice claim is the Turtle Pope (Miriel) from Elden Ring. Yeah, I gave the Turtle Pope to the sheep.

One of his main hobbies is woodworking, specifically a traditional kind where he does not use power tools, only hand tools. He also limits his use of magic as a challenge. He considers not doing either of these to be cheating himself out of a good time.

He is a twice divorced gay man who never got to have children, though he desperately wants them. Due to his demanding job he does not consider adopting and single parenting, he definitely wants a partner if he's to have kids. Please help this senior citizen find love again.

Cedrus will eventually make an appearance in my AU fic, Radiant Souls! We're not there yet, but we're getting there. You'll know when he appears.

Old bonus pic of these two fossils:

[vampirae]

Astrology observations

𓆩♡𓆪 Usually people tends to ignore rising sign when it comes to love and relationships, tbh it's such an underestimated placement even if in my personal opinion it's the most important. It's not only the hyped appearance or vibes, it literally dictates your life path, your life choices in every area, after all without a rising sign we can't even have the other houses.

𓆩♡𓆪 About love and relationships, I've noticed that fixed rising signs tend to be more drastic about their choices. It doesn't matter in which sign is their venus or moon, once they've decided to cut of a person or break up there's literally nothing that will convince them otherwise. Usually fixed risings tend to be dramatic and have many "break ups" with a lover but once they finally decided even if you become their ideal lover they literally don't care, will ignore your presence and avoid you like pestilence. They can't forgive or continue to support your ass, when it's over, it's over. Some tend to be bitter or have negative memories about their ex lover(s), all they see in you are flaws and faults.

𓆩♡𓆪 On the opposite are mutable risings, which are way too sacrificial, patient and giving the benefit of doubt whenever you need it. It's unfortunate to see how they continue to "makes excuses" for their lovers. Like bitch (affectionate), don't avoid reality. They are guided by hope, hope in a better future, a better you which usually continues to fade, particularly in youth, in fact I've seen many individuals that have toxic relationships, or attract toxic people that tends to use them. Don't be surprised if you see your mutable rising buddy telling you "yeah I'm too goodhearted/understanding/comprising but".

𓆩♡𓆪 Cardinal risings tend to be more balanced but impulsive which lead them to encounter some heartbreak, sometimes because they have rushed into things; like trusting the wrong person without being objective, or because they misunderstood their lover, or just because. They're action driven, so it happens that sometimes they're the only one to blame for their unluckiness in love.

𓆩♡𓆪 Not really an observation but a suggestion, dear water moons you need therapy. Whatever the fuck is in you or happened to you needs to be resolved otherwise you'll be a victim of your own emotions and thoughts.

𓆩♡𓆪 Mutable suns with Cardinal suns parents have the right to a big ass refund. Usually cardinal suns tend to attract eachother but most of the time they end up fighting and hating eachother, which leads to "vent" their frustrations on their kids. Usually they have great expectations from their kids, can be very bossy and strict, they like to control their children's life since they doesn't have any control on their private life (easily influenced by friends, other family members or societal expectations).

𓆩♡𓆪 Sun sign attraction is real, usually I've seen same quality attraction. Like fixed with fixed, cardinal with cardinal etc. Cardinal signs usually are a mess, they fight a lot and usually ends up in break up or divorce. Mutable signs fight a lot yeah, but usually with time they develop a strong friendship which helps them to safeguard their relationship. Meanwhile fixed sun signs tend to have long relationships but usually one of them tends to hide something from their partner, like weird behaviour, and they break up unexpectedly, like it's a big surprise for everyone except them.

𓆩♡𓆪 Venus conjunct Mars can't stay single or without dating for a long time. Love, attraction, being desired and having attention it's a basic need for them. They can even jump into relationships just because. Furthermore they're considered attractive by many people, so many tries to court them.

[jjwho]

Who is your Next Lover

Pile 1. Pile 2

Pile 3. Pile 4

Pile1

Cards pulled out: Five of pentacles, ten of pentacles reversed, seven of wands reversed, three of swords reversed.

Okay pile oneee

Oof so what im getting is that your person might feel left out in the cold, having it ruff especially if its financially, maybe their parents are divorced because of financial issues.

This person really genuinely has it ruff, like they mightve unexpectedly lost a lot of things, like family and espically money, I'm seeing a scene of being in their parents debt and repaying their debt.

Shame man and I see them always surrender so easily and just saying yk fine I'll pay for their debts even though they should. I feel like this person is trying to stay optimistic

This person is someone who has it really ruff but still smiles yk. Hides the pain through a smile and just tries their best and stays optimistic even though the circumstances are bad. I do feel they are trying to ket go of pain and grief but shame man you should take care of them😭🥲

Physical traits:

-Might look German, Dutch or Afrikaans or raised there

-Dark skinned

-Youthful appearance

-Doe eyes

Awww so innocent. I hope that helps you pile one. Just know this is a general reading si nit everything is gonna resonate

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Pile 2

Cards pulled out: Revered- King of pentacles, death, ten of swords

Upright- The High Priestess

Okay pile 2 so uh

This person might not have the best background or past, cause this person might of been very unstable with money and just an unstable person. May come off as cold and rude and greedy. Now they also have a fear of change, they don't want ti change their old habits for some reason. Or didn't want to.

Now maybe they are trying ti change that now, but it takes a really long time for a man or woman like that to change so yeah. Just live your life and don't stay with this person if they aren't gonna treat you well.

They also might come off as mysterious at first or they have a thing for mysterious people and this person really has a thing for desire like he can't control himself and just takes and tales that's what im getting.

(Sorry very toxic masculine energy that's why I called it a him.)

Physical traits:

-oop they may appear to be more feminine, but personality might be masculine

-They have nice nails

-Curvy

-Asian(Asian also means Indian people)

Okay hope that helps pile 2222

Byeee

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Pile 3

Cards pulled out: five of cups,ace of pentacles,seven of cups, seven of pentacles revered

Okay pile 3 sooo

Your next lover is giving me daddy boss vibes

Like this person gots lots of money and opportunities and shit, but idk this person is always focused on the negative, this person is a workaholic doe

This person just needs to set their mind straight, like this person might have a kit of set backs or procrastinate or put their decisions on hold which they shouldnt cause.

Money.

If yk what I mean.

But that's really all that I'm getting tbh, they might a little lazy too when it comes to live, not too experienced in it and enter really been in love. To focused on work yk.

Physical Traits

-They got abs-

-Freckles

-Strong arms

-summer aesthetic

Damn they work out. Hot for uuu

Okay byeee hope that helps pile 3333

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Pile 4

Cards pulled out: eight of pentacles, the devil, judgement, ten of swords reversed

Okay pile 4 so uhm damn

Uh

So you might know this person from work, might be a new worker, they work really hard and might attract a lot of the higher ups. They're confident in there work too, now they might be a bit of a sexual person who's a bit obsessive and yk very sexual and naughty ooop. Yeah yeah. Like a dark but attractive aura. Pure and cool at work but sexy and whatever around outside yk yk.

Some who likes fairness though. Very strong taste in justice. And someone who stands up for themselves and other yk yk.

Sexy, hardworking, good morals, sexy again.

That's all that I'm getting tbh

Physical Traits:

-Doe eyes

-Light skinned

-Brown eyes

-they might not smell the best tho-

Hope that helps byeee

[thequeenofsarcaasm]

I think a JJK x Winx Club crossover would heal the world so I started thinking about my favourite JJK characters and which Winx Club character they would vibe with.

(I grew up with the French dub so Aisha is Layla to me 🤷🏾‍♀️)

1- Geto

Geto would adore Layla because she somehow reminds him of Gojo. She's a princess who was sheltered from the world as a kid and only had one friend, for the longest. Her character arc in season two is literally about overcoming loneliness and opening up to others. Layla is kind, smart, athletic, loyal and trustworthy, she has an admirable fighting spirit and takes pride in sacrificing herself for others. They'd be besties.

2-Gojo

His favourite character would be Stella. As a kid he thought she was obnoxious (takes one to recognise one and disliked how much she reminded him of himself. She's a young lady who grappled with loneliness as a kid and who is always seeking human connection with others. Her loud and insufferable behaviour sometimes works as a facade, a way to cope with the distress she feels over her parents divorcing (and her Mom lowkey abandoning her). He's not loud about liking Stella. However, he is about Layla cause she's mentally strong, utterly admirable (and Geto’s favourite)

3- Yuuji

Yuuji would love Bloom. Just like him, she's a sort of anomaly. She went from being an ordinary girl living an ordinary life to a powerful fairy everyone expects the world from. Also, turns out she was kinda destined for greatness. Just like him. She’s funny, creative and kind. Once again just like him.

4-Maki

Maki would love Musa and Layla. Layla because she's good at combat, courageous and very athletic, Musa because she's a girl who came from nothing and had to fight for her dreams. In terms of personality they are also quite alike (especially season 1 Musa). They're both assertive, unique and won't take disrespect.

5- Yuki

Valtor. He's the best animated villain ever and he deserves the love. Yuki is just like me.

@galaxynajma thanks for the idea btw

[stitchwraith-stingers]

I would like to hear a FOP (or ANW) headcanon for any of your favorite female characters. Smiles

I WAS ABOUT TO GO TO BED.................. HNGHGNGGHNGHNGHNG UNLEASHES A PACK OF DOGS ON YOU (LOVENGLY)

trixie tang

her family is kinda confusing??? shes adopted, but then her father remarried so her step brothers are chad n tad but then he got divorced AGAIN and kept the twins custody

her father also implanted the idea of "everyone should give you attention because umm money i guess" whomp whomp

i imagine if she got out of her shell more and was like, ur typical kid shed be kinda snarky n cheeky.... elbowing u and jokenly insulting you type of deal

the zone outer... shes just like me where after 20 min of class shed just spontaiously start to not pay attention and forget... idk how to explain it like when everything just feels so light that thing

by the time middle school rolled around she started to slightly blend in more w the crowd cuz no one rlly cared much for the idea of popular kids that much, started to rebel against her father while doing that (intentionally picking less fashionable clothing when going outside by herself etc)

she still likes fashion though, its just a VERY minor interest

probably has a obscure webcomic with a patreon chloe carmicheal

she gives me horse girl vibes, if you show her mlp she will completely loose her shit

the lonley-er....... ppl found her kinda werid cuz of the fact she stayed at the top of her classes and so they just kinda speak to her weridly (<- projecting cuz this is somewhat happening to me idk whats their problem either)

has a horrible habit of impulse buying random nicknacks if let loose cuz she hasnt rlly thought about it

probably becomes rlly close friends w kevin!!!!! aj and chester look at her from afar like small ktitens being introducted to a whole home and looking all puffed up, sanjay and elmer are indifferent lmao

im going to be so honest chef she is probably going down a rlly happy jolly girl -> completely deranged and lost it if shes still staying w her helicopter parents

chronic liar for useless information, she can already do anything (litterly) so its like, why not, but also because if she shows she fucked up its like the world is ending next tuesday

probably watches a bunch of random movies

hazel wells

slaps roof of car this kid could hold so much anxiety and stress inside her

she has SLEEP PROBLEMS!!!! and probably has alot of nightmares... TERRIFYING!!!!

she just happens to know how to play the drums

she HATES strong smells, and is extremely sensitive to onion

hates eye contact..... dont stare at her like that

her main stim is rocking back and fourth, she could be doing is mindlessly in class and the kid in the back would constantly tell her to stop doing that, shes trying to stop doing it buttt its not working out too well for her

she also really likes those tangle stim toys....

i went more indepth abt her autistic traits here

the crane wives liker

therian!!!!!!! jackalope!!!!!!!!!

transgirl, her fathers a transman... twinning

idk where to put this but arospec lesbian cuz im also one yay

she can barely cook on her own, like yeah fries and noodles are just fine but pancakes and bacon are notttt going to go well

she has the most bizzare turn of hyperfixations, and its mostly of things ppl dont tihnk about, like one day she could wake up and go "hm yknow i saw a really cool chair the other day at walmart" and completely spiral

she NEEDS to let her emotions out!!!!! she bottles them up like she could be so pissed at someone and still just smile at them and go yep bye untill a certain point, she should punch a wall and scream i think, i would let her

she lived next to a mine back in the day and antony just showed her around n it all went downhill from there

yk the way ppl would bully autistic kids before they knew it like they went in such a specific way, that thing happened to her so she didnt really have friends, she and jasmine just clicked and were like "huh werid that never happened before" neurodivergent to neurodivergent communication

jasmine tran

i have a whole post for this thing so

INATTENTIVE ADHD!!!!! UNDIAGNOSED!!!!!!!EXECUTIVE DYSFUNCTION AND REJECTION SENSITIVE DYSPHORIA AND ATTENTION SPAN HELL

i also have the same thing going on so ik this is ooc but shes always slightly insecure abt showing what she likes, but she still does it anyway so its like an oxymoron...... if that makes sense

she also has just rlly bad memory in general, like the planets of the solar system, dont get her started on math

stays up wayy late at night so occasonally you will see her sleep in class

LOVES EYECONTACT!!!!!!!!!! SHE CANT SMILE WELL BUT SHE WILL DO IT ANYWAY!!!!!!!!!!!! BUT IF U TELL HER SHES SCARY SHE IS GOING TO HIDE IN HER ROOM FOR THE NEXT 6 DAYS

grew up with a family who loved to playfully make fun of eachother often but she just couldnt tell

was THIS close to being assigned a fairy untill fearless which was like the catalyst on why shed have one and then they dropped her case, however life can be dream and i still gave her one anyway

BITER! BITER! BITER! so much chewlery, and shes so used to this that when her grandma packed her lunches with metal cutlery instead she STILL has bitten the handle expencting it to be wooden but ends up shocking her teeth in the end, she also does it out of stress but thats not as common anymore

also has pica but i already made an indepth post abt it replying to you so

popular on pinterest, makes moodboard requests on tumblr

xenofiction liker, rip jasmine u wouldve loved selling neon wolf adopts for 10 points on deviantart

on that note, i know damn well she'd have the warrior cats art style, thats her one thing like the moment winn recognised the characters she turned tothem with a stone sfx you know the one, her fave characters r sorreltail n mothwing btw if u even care, she has secrelty made every kid at school she knows a character based off them in a story shes brainstorming

angela wells

had a godparent read my lore boy

had SUCH a hard time with depression and anxiety during her early kid years, she was such a wreck, and got better as she got into teenhood dw (unless you count the time she got postpartum depression)

also had codependancy problems regarding godparent mentioned above, hazel gets those from her whoops

is def ace but it hasnt rlly set in for her yet yk, like she knows abt how different she feels but shes just like meh whatever . shes 45

didnt have a bad relationship w her family, just didnt like to share her feelings w her family, which is what shes trying to not do

i think this was specified in canon? but she does notttt really know how kids work psychologically speaking... she read psychology books for older people when she was strating to recover slowly and bc she was like 13 she was like wow im so mature with how im handling this and might be accidently handling hazel the same treatment, but also bc she didnt rlly go in the field of specifically childrens psychology, she doesnt do it out of malicious intent it could just probably backfire on you in 5 years if that makes sense

probably also autistic . looks away

[mia-does-nonsense]

Walkis Gang Headcanons - Charles Contini:

Warnings: None; Some slight manga spoilers

Being the only third year and the oldest out of the Walkis gang, Charles is the closest thing to a Responsible Adult™ this motley crew of madlads have. He has definitely looked at his juniors and thought, "Wow, thank god I'm the only normal person here" (No, Charles, no you're not).

Charles had probably one of the happiest childhoods out of the whole gang, because like I said before, most noble families (+ Innocent Zero) are shit at raising their kids. It wasn't 100% that great at first because Charles' father was a dick to Charles and his mom, until Mama Contini had enough and divorced her husband when Charles was still a little kid.

Honestly, shoutout to Mama Contini. One of the few good parents in the upper crust of magic society, and the one who introduced painting to Charles. Her only fault is that she coddles him a bit too much despite him being literally eighteen.

Mama Contini didn't raise no fool, though, because any household chore that needs to be done, Charles does it without being told to and without complaints. He finds it preposterous that there's guys his age and older who don't know shit about cooking, doing their own laundry, or cleaning up after themselves.

Whenever Charles visits his juniors in their dorms, 7 times out of 10 he gets an aneurysm because of how disorganized they are ("Do you make your mothers clean up after you at home, you pigs?!"), and kicks them out of their own rooms so that he can clean the place up from top to bottom. Galuf and Malcolm are the biggest offenders.

GREAT with kids. If anyone at Walkis needs someone to babysit their little siblings, Charles is their guy.

In terms of his magic ability, Charles is strong enough to have a Secondths. He just didn't get a chance to use it during the Tri-Magicathalon because 1) the rules of the Whack-a Mole room prevented him and Lance from directly attacking each other and 2) he underestimated Lance that badly. (I have no idea what his Secondths could be though 😭)

His personal magic, Vorp, currently has a distance limit. Charles can portal himself to anywhere in Walkis and is therefore never late to his classes, but he can't, for instance, create an effective portal connecting his dorm at Walkis to his mom's house. He's working on being able to travel longer distances via portals and is also trying to expand the size of his portals.

He has definitely jump-scared people by suddenly appearing behind them. Even though it's mostly by accident, almost the entire Walkis gang thinks he does it on purpose, and Charles at this point is too tired to correct them. The first time Charles accidentally portaled behind Galuf, Galuf let out a high-pitched scream, and no one has let him forget it since.

I have nothing to back this up, but Charles gives me dorm prefect vibes.

Charles is, in general, a pretty cheerful guy; you just can't tell at first though because his default expression makes him look bored to death at everyone and everything.

An absolute crybaby when he was in middle school at Walkis. It was his first time away from his mom, and the rabbiphone wasn't invented yet, so the homesickness hit him like a truck every damn day for like about a year.

The rest of the Walkis gang is pretty certain that Charles has some sort of pocket dimension in his, well, pockets because whenever someone needs something, Charles always comes in clutch with that exact thing. Galuf's dry eyes? Charles always has eyedrops at the ready. Levis, Lovie, and Domina's hair keeps getting in their way? Charles' got so many hair ties, it's ridiculous. Kenny's feeling more chilly than usual? Charles is already pulling out a handmade scarf. Anyone sneezed? Not to worry, Charles has spare handkerchiefs. And of course, there's his rabbiphone.

If there's anyone from Easton that Charles would actually get along with, it would be Margarette because they both have 'maternal instincts'. Listen, just imagine these two having brunch and gossiping about the shenanigans their rowdy kids juniors get into at their schools. Heck, they'd probably try to out-mother each other like it's some competition.

For the love of god, do NOT leave Charles alone in the same room with Lance ever. They will throw hands (wands?) at the slightest provocation. Charles is incapable of withholding snide remarks, Lance's Divine Visionary status be damned, and Lance won't hesitate to put him in his place. The siscon vs mama's boy beef is eternal.

[asexual-spongebob]

meet Fran!!

here’s ms franny herself. my beloved mean girl.

I have a lot of lore 4 her, vela n ghost so yea.

fun fact: her jacket is based off one that I have irl.

here’s some other info abt her:

has/had internalized homophobia bc of her parents.

Has very strong Brooke Hayes / Regina George vibes. Also some Pacifica Northwest vibes. And also kind of Angelica Pickles vibes too.

Her parents are both famous people, her Dad’s an actor and her Mom is a pop singer. Both of them aren’t very great at it, yet they are rewarded for their lackluster work. Her Mom has a crazy, rabid fan base/neg. Both of them are homophobic assholes. However, her Dad starts to realize that homophobia is wrong. And tries to make up for his past actions. Her Mom tho? She stays the same, unfortunately. Her Mom isn’t exactly the nicest to her, and constantly compare her to her peers. She especially have a tendency to compare her to her best friend, Dexter. Unfortunately, her father often does the same.

She also has a secret interest in the paranormal, her parents have no idea that she is into that stuff. She believes her parents would not approve, so she keeps it hidden, under wraps. She’s also a member of the Swollen Eyeballs, and had no idea that Dib was the iconic Agent Mothman. Who had become a well respected member of the organization over the years, especially given he’s literally married to a fucking alien.

She had grown kind of close to Dib, (under the agent name, agent fairy dust .) and even saw him as a father figure , until they both learned who they were after the whole fran and vela incident.

She has a little brother named Sam who she tormented and put the blame on. She later goes on to regret her treatment of him.

Her parents hate Zim and Dib with a burning passion, however her Dad starts being nicer to them, after his realization of homophobia being wrong. Her Mom tho? She just starts hating them even more.

Fran, Vela and Ghost had a enemieship/rivalry, much like Zim and Dib’s when they were younger. Fran, believing that Vela and her parents were up to no good, constantly tried to expose Vela for what she truly was, a Sirken (Siren and Irken hybrid.).

However, Ghost and Vela always managed to put a stop to her plans.

One day, Fran and Vela then got into a nasty fight at Skool, the two injuring each other in the process. Her Mom believes her little Franny could do no harm, meanwhile her Dad is very mad at her. The Membrane’s were fucking pissed (and rightfully so) and Dib yelled at Fran to “Stay away from his daughter”.

Ghost told Fran to go fuck herself, and punched her in the nose.

However, later on, the three have to do a group project together, leading them to bond. Dib was very wary of Fran at first (and rightfully so.) but eventually warmed up to her.

Her and her Dad start to have a better relationship, same with her Dad’s relationship with Sam. He understands that his kid’s probably won’t forgive him for what he’s done, but he still wants to try to be a better parent. Fran’s relationship with her Mom just gets worse though, especially after her and her parents divorce, and how she and Sam chose to stay with their father.

Fran, her Dad and Sam have family therapy. And her Dad (Rick) starts trying to get to know Zim and Dib a bit better, and his view of them and Vela starts to change :)

Meanwhile, Fran’s mom just starts becoming crazier. Crazy headlines about her and her fans just start popping everywhere, ruining her reputation. People start seeing through her bullshit.

eventually, fran, ghost and vela fell in love with each other, and started dating. Dib gushed over them and thinks they’re very cute. Kind of like how Keef does the same with him and Zim. :)

I’ll probably write a fic about them eventually, as soon as I get some ideas and shit down.

[mushroomnoodles]

Simon gives vibes to be the son of a Latina or at least half Latina mom that migrated to usand married Russian descendant, neither introduced him properly to either culture and both most have been more interested on him getting A's and that shit; but Simon wasn't the kid to just do what he was asked for, he was a curious being so he would always extend on hus opinion on exams and would get B or C by that and his father would go mad, so they had a bad relationship and that's why he got along with his mother better even when they have some disagreements--> religion. she was a hard believer and he was always questioning the world.

yeah, that kind of vibes.

not entirely the vibes i have for my simons parents but i wanted to answer this because i find the ask too fascinating to leave rotting in my inbox and id like others to see it

i dont have a whole lot in mind for my Simon's parents, mostly only camila. heres my notes about more domestic stuff and upbringing

simon is an only child

undiagnosed autism

father is socially distant + very busy, rarely home (russian descendant, culturally american in all but surname)

mother was born in mexico and is bilingual. the family simon interacted with was on his fathers side

simon can understand and read/write spanish but can't speak it very well/self conscious of his pronounciation, he is not fluent. most was picked up from observation of his mother

simon was an adventurous child but struggled socially, like a completely different kid in social situations

he played a lot by himself, but mostly lived with his nose stuck in books

read a lot of fantasy (loved the tale of the sword in the stone + that universe as a kid) and history

very picky child, refused to eat a lot of foods, hated strong scents much to his mother's dismay

smart. So Smart

bullied. So Much

simons mother does not understand his interests but supports them

camila is a mostly passive woman but divorced Simon's father. she grew more assertive after the divorce.

camila was well intentioned but put a lot of focus on how simon appeared to others in the hopes of helping him, it was her main method of persuasion to get him to behave

called simon lots of nicknames

betty made her nervous LMAO

[pinkarsonist0]

I'm watching the Craig of The Creek movie rn, and oh my God, MY SCOUT BABIES IT'S THEM.

Spoilers for Craig Before The Creek below:

WHOSE THAT GURL WITH THEM IS SHE LIKE LIKE AN OLDER SISTER/MENTOR TO THEM. OKAY, SO SHE'S CLEARLY A FELLOW SCOUT AND WOULD BE LIKE A MENTOR TOWARDS THEM.

Based on how Boris held her hand and the way Jason smiled at her comment towards getting the friend group name correct, that could be to imply they were rather close to her. Especially Boris. I doubt they're related by blood or law. However, I do think they had a big sister bond with her when they became scouts. According to Google, you can be a scout as young as kindergarten to 5th grade, and the oldest you can be a scout is 18.

My headcanon is that she is the reason why the scouts started going to the creek, and she would show them around it and guide them, I get a very strong older sister vibe from her. Much like Mari from Omori, let's hope she didn't play the piano...

I don't know how many years the movie takes place before the movie (at least not yet). However, I stirred up some guesses. Jason seems to be 10-11 in the show like Craig, so based on how young the scouts look, my guess will have to be that they are 6-7 years old (possibly 8 years old for Boris). So, 3-4 years before the show.

Imo, Jason seems to be happier in that scene, and in my opinion, Jason in the show isn't a very happy child if we exclude certain scenes. So, assuming the theory that Jason's mother is dead is true, we can assume the movie takes place before the tragedy.

In conclusion, this is what I stirred up for Jason (after the movie and before the show): I still have my headcanon that Jason's mother cheated on Jason's father, rooting their divorce. Jason's clearly upset by this as he begins seeing his mother a less, and his father is growing distant. However, he still had the girl we see in the movie for guidance and comfort. I do think that Jason was still pretty lonely in his childhood, so when his parents weren't around, he had her to act as an older sister for him.

But then, tragedy strikes, and Jason's mother is dead. Life begins to suck more for Jason, he now lives with just his dad and now he's straight up ignoring him and only remembers he exists in order to brag about Jason's achievements as a Forest Scout and to top it off he drags in Jason's step mother. And she clearly doesn't like him as much.

But at least he still has-

Oh, she's leaving too.

Jason's sister figure ages out of being a scout and leaves, leaving him to handle his new home situation.

I still think that Boris and the girl were the closest to each other and meant the most to each other. I think she loved them like little brothers and she loved showing around the new Forest Scouts and showing them the ropes. But Jason, Boris, and Tony stuck out to her THE MOST. She acted as an older sister to the younger scouts and maybe even stood up for them when the fellow older scouts were teasing them. She loved the scouts like little brothers, but time caught up with her, and she could no longer be a scout.

I love overanalyzing so much, you have no idea. I missed my scouts so much but now that they're back I can do SO MUCH WITH THEM NOW AHH

Also, do not think I didn't see the girl and (present) Tony having similar hats. Imma just go crazy with that and make the headcanon that she gave Tony that hat when she left. (I know her hat is a little different, but let me have fun).

And another thing, maybe she's the camp counselor we see in Camper On The Run. They have a lot of physical similarities, I need to see the episode again after watching the movie.

Edit:Just got done watching the movie, and the credits confirm that girl is the woman we see looking for Roxy in Camper On The Run and that she was indeed a fellow scout. Shannon is credited as Shannon the Scout rather than just Shannon. So, this could be a lead for my theory/headcanon being true. Someone on the COTC subreddit said that in the movie, Kelsey says she is in the second grade, and she is 9 in the show, so that would mean that the movie takes place 2 years before the show.

Now, let's get back to Shannon with this new information. The youngest to become a camp counselor is 16 and when I googled the age you can no longer be a scout I got multiple answers, but the most common one is 18. So we are safe to assume that Shannon left at 17-18 aka the estimate for when a Junior Forest Scout can no longer be a scout. I assume Shannon is 15-16 at the time of the movie and left at 17-18. So we can assume Shannon is probably 18-20 at the time of Camper On The Run.

Since she went to the creek, I wonder if she got to see Boris, Tony, and Jason again briefly. I NEED SOMEONE TO WRITE A FIC WITH ALL THEM PLEASE.

[jinxed-sinner]

I love Hell's Greatest Dad so much.

It really started off as Lucifer stroking his own ego and quickly devolved into Lucifer fighting with Alastor over who's better at being a parental figure because Alastor thought it'd be funny to get under Lucifer's skin. That's not even the funniest part of it though, Lucifer was pissed off by Al's existence from the moment they met if the visuals are anything to go by. Like this is the first time Alastor directly speaks to Lucifer:

This one is after Alastor says everyone at the hotel is "very proud" of Charlie:

But if we go into Hell's Greatest Dad specifically, we get these:

^All before Alastor joins in and starts antagonizing him for fun. I specifically chose that screenshot of Lucifer frying Alastor because Alastor's expression is hilarious^

As someone on TikTok put it, "they literally act like divorced parents trying to be their kid's favorite parent" and I feel like that vibe is especially strong in Hell's Greatest Dad. I also really like that if you look at the background, Vaggie, Husk, and Sir Pentious are like "is Alastor seriously antagonizing the king of Hell"

Additional Lucifer expressions from Dad Beat Dad, because Hazbin Hotel has some of the best expressions I've ever seen in a cartoon, plus an additional Lucifer and Charlie:

i love this man. awkward short king

[zombiefishmonster]

My Personal Kickin' It Headcanons

- yes another kickin' it post. i'm making as many as my heart desires. enjoy.

- Rudy Gillespie

+ big anime phase in highschool, specifically dragon ball z and naruto

+ had a HUUGE crush on bobby wasabi in grade school. his dad showed him his first movie, and he was obsessed. he doesn't feel romantically towards him now at all but he still holds him in a higher regard.

+ trans rudy bisexual rudy.

+ ty, lonnie and him have "guys nights", they sometimes invite bobby and phil but only sometimes.

+ the reason why he became a sensei and cares so deeply for his students is because his parents were neglectful, so he's determined to be there for any other kids who need it.

+ he definitely goes to all their weddings/events

+ i'd like to think he and ms. applebottom stay together.

- Jack Brewer

+ definitely had a crush on jerry at a point

+ he really likes percy jackson (this is me projecting)

+ the only social media he has is instagram, and it's just because everyone made him get it.

+ we know about his haircare, but i think he'd also take incredible care of his skin. he's also very naturally tidy, despite having his less than classy moments

+ divorced parents, but they really try despite having busy jobs

+ his grandpa mostly took care of him growing up

+ he got his first tattoo at 18, he got it for his grandpa

+ bisexual jack.

- Kim Crawford

+ the most Normal home life

+ i can't decide if she's pansexual or straight.

+ has mostly guy cousins

+ she's such a lowkey nerd. but like in the way she doesn't realize she's nerdy. she's really interested in the history of martial arts

+ she stayed in contact with sloane, and they moved in together, with jack, after high school

+ her room is a clothes MESS.

+ even though her parents are normal, most of her cousins and extended family are batshit

+ i also think she draws, mostly just sketches of things around seaford

+ even though she can't dance for shit, she can sing (this is kinda canon)

- Eddie Jones

+ repressed queer

+ he left seaford because his mom got a better job offer

+ unfortunately, this made him fall out of karate but he got way more into dancing

+ he has REALLY nice handwriting

+ he has an older sister, like 10 years older, but they're still really close

+ literally LOVES tv dramas. he really likes greys anatomy

+ his mom has a cat that she got a few years after he was born

+ he tries to keep house plants alive, but it always ends up dying

+ he keeps in contact with milton and jerry a little

- Jerry Martinez

+ he's a big frequenter of the hospital

+ he had a crush on jack at a separate time

+ he and milton move in together after highschool, that's when they start dating

+ takes milton to dancing lessons/teaches him himself

+ started dancing wayyy before karate, only started karate in middle school

+ he has dyslexia

+ like eddie, he's close with his sisters (wiki says he has 7 unnamed sisters; i think 3 younger, 4 older, making him pretty much middle)

+ he's not "good" at painting, but he enjoys it

+ he has a strong appreciation for country music

+ eddie got him in to greys anatomy, they text each other on episode release days

- milton krupnik

+ the MOST online of them all, he definitely had a tumblr

+ surprisingly, he made the first move on jerry

+ despite the fiasco in "the commercial," he continued baking and actually got wayyy better

+ he's got a single dad, who does really try but he struggles a lot

+ probably the most mentally unstable. i can't explain it but it's his vibes. (im projecting)

+ he got more into hair and makeup as he got older

+ after julie, he realized he was gay and likes jerry

+ he had a warrior cats phase

+ he helped the rest of them study for all their finals, and he doesn't like to brag, but it's DEFINITELY the only reason why they passed

+ he spends the most time at the dojo, his dad works a lot, so it's just easier for him to stay at the dojo and help out with different classes / help around the mall

+ huge huge HUUUGE HUGE. enjoyer of the ocean. i can't explain it but it's true.