#these are entirely hypothetical scenarios I plucked out of the air

[scramjettracy]

ATTENTION YOUNG PEOPLE

It’s fun to be spontaneous, I get it.

The YOLO approach to life is intoxicating. I know. It’s my vibe too.

BUT

If you are faced with any of the following situations… I beg you - please take some advice from a professional wild child:

- a recent landslide has revealed an intriguing-looking network of caves just waiting for you to explore!

DO NOT EXPLORE THE CAVES

- That half-built skyscraper has no security and your engineering-minded buddy has just managed to reroute power to the newly installed elevator!

DO NOT ASCEND THE HALF-BUILT SKYSCRAPER IN THE UNTESTED ELEVATOR

- Obtaining your Level 1 PADI makes you feel empowered and amply qualified to run Titanic sightseeing tours for your buddies

DO NOT! JUST…. PLEASE NO.

Why not go sky diving (with an trained instructor and approved equipment) or throw a spontaneous pie-baking party instead.

None of this advice is negated by the fact you have twenty bajillion followers of your vlog/insta. They cannot save you with their remote adulation.. some other idiots will have to drag their exhausted asses out of bed to do it instead.

[destiny-smasher]

The rest of Chapter 1 is posted! Nemona gets a call from her Big Sister as she unpacks, finishing her move into Penny's flat.

Familial tensions are brought to a simmer.

Excerpt:

[“Anyway,”] Cordia went on, oblivious to Nemona's current state, [“All I'm saying is that if, in this hypothetical scenario, you were in a position to be prepared to demonstrate all of this 'battle knowledge' you insist you possess... you ought to consider what your family could do to elevate you higher.”] Nemona flinched a little, sucking in air through her teeth as a sharp pain shot up her spine – Puñito's attempt at a back rub was a sweet gesture, but he was being a little too forceful. She eased him to stop, and was reminded again that he was still wearing one of her bras. She sighed, plucking it off of him and resigning to the idea it would need to be washed again, lest she wanted static-electricrical bits of fur scratching her in the boob... “... 'Elevate' me...?” she pondered aloud dubiously, dropping the static-charged bra into a laundry hamper in the closet.

[“That's what we do, Moanie,”] Cordia insisted when she received no reply. [“We elevate each other.”]

“Híjole, Cordia... I... I'll think about it, but...” Nemona started stuffing neatly folded, recently ironed shirts into another drawer. “Jódeme... That's a lot to spring on me all of a sudden.”

[“I am not springing it upon you, I am preparing you for the impending-... And another thing, ugh... You still do that...? Seriously?”]

Leaning over a drawer half full of variants of shirts for her work uniform, Nemona felt her heart skip a little bit, as she had no clue what her Sister was accusing her of this time. “St-... Still do what?”

[“Tossing out phrases in Paldean at random, and such filthy language, at that.”] Cordia sighed dully. [“Si vas a hablar el antiguo idioma de nuestra familia, entonces hablalo correctamente.”]

Nemona's chest was suddenly wound up tight. 'If you're going to speak the language, speak it properly', was basically what her Big Sis was scolding her for. With a hot puff through her nose, Nemona began slipping pairs of work pants and shorts into her third drawer.

“Wh-... What's wrong with using a bit of Paldean here and there? It's-... I'm proud of my heritage. It's fun. It's—”

[“Let me guess: it's cute? It's quirky? You think it projects 'personality?' Well, for you, maybe. But for me – and Mother and Father, I'll have you know – it's insulting.”] Cordia put on a lower pitched voice than usual with a dash of rasp, seemingly mocking her younger sibling. [“Ayyee, Arceus mio, venga, tío, buenas buenas, ¿en serio?...”] Cordia coughed, the impersonation having strained her throat. [“I have news for you, Little Sister: it makes you look like a stereotype. All right? It's like you fetishize your entire race when you do it. That childish nonsense just promotes negative ideas that our family doesn't need, you understand? You're an adult now. Pick a language and speak it. Galarian's the world's language these days, you were brought up to speak it fluently, so speak it fluently. You don't need to show off that you're bilingual every other sentence, by Giratina's wings...”]

Nemona felt as if a dagger had been thrust into her stomach. How long had Cordia been harboring such a deep-seated loathing of her quirk like this...? Was it really that terrible of her? Did she make Paldeans look bad by doing it...? A maelstrom of stressful self-gas-lighting overtook her. It was just like when Arven and Penny had made her realize just how privileged she was because of her upbringing... only with a sharper edge due to it feeling like a personal attack, here, and from her own Sister, no less. She was so stunned by the blow that she'd stopped putting laundry away and plopped her rear onto the edge of the bed. Puñito squirmed around on the bed lazily, dropping his head with concern against her thigh.

[youzicha]

Visible Cities

Marco Polo is still entertaining Kublai Khan by describing fictional cities, but during his sojourn in Xanadu he has been practicing drawing, so now he illustrates them while he speaks…

MP The marvelous city of Zed, oh Khan, is arranged in long neat rows of identical houses, stretching out in both directions forever. In front of each house there is a single flower pot, and in each pot grows a single sprig of mint. In the morning, while the sun is still low in the sky and the air is bracing cold, the wives in the houses step out to rub the mint leaves with their fingers, but without plucking them. They pause to—

KK Hang on a second. What’s behind the houses? Are there flower pots there as well?

MP No, the pots are only in front of the houses. The space in the back is empty.

KK I can’t see that in the drawing though. The house blocks the view. Really, there could be anything behind it.

MP But, um. Okay. Let’s do it this way; I’ll change the drawing to make the houses transparent. This way you can see the back lot also, and confirm that it is empty.

KK Very clarifying, thank you. Although I can only see the back lots in the foreground. Near the horizon they get so small that they are unreadable. Maybe there are still flowers behind those houses?

MP I actually intended all the houses to be identical, even if it is hard to put that into the drawing. I think this line of questioning goes a bit against the spirit of the exercise, which was more like a— But wait, it seems some of your courtiers have comments too.

DZ Yes. I wanted to ask, earlier you said the city stretches away forever?

MP That’s right.

DZ I think that’s wrong. Actually the city is on the surface of a cylinder, so it is bounded in size. If you walk far enough in a straight line you will get back where you started.

MP But look at the drawing! I made the ground completely flat.

DZ It looks flat in practice because the city is very big. You can’t see the subtle bend.

EN If I may interject. I think we may trust the artist that this part of the city is flat and infinite. But that doesn’t mean that the entire city is like that. There might be another part, hanging in the sky, which is curled up in a giant loop.

MP But the sky is completely empty, I didn’t draw anything at all there.

EN The disconnected part might be floating very far away, so it would just look like a tiny speck, too small to see. That’s consistent with what you drew.

MP Could I have one more cup of this excellent jasmine tea? And I think I will need another hash brownie.

✵✵✵

This is of course an allegory for the philosophy of math that I tried to sketch in a previous post (prompted by @raginrayguns). Mathematical structures (e.g. the integers) are fictional and imagined; the mathematician describes the setting, and then you try to think through hypothetical scenarios (if you rub the mint in your fingers, what will it smell like?).

My point of transposing it into art/fiction is to say that the suspension of disbelief that this requires seems pretty modest, comparable to what we do when think about any kind of fiction or hypothetical scenario. When Doron Zeilberger writes “I believe that finite integers, finite sets of finite integers, and all finite combinatorial structures have an existence of their own, regardless of humans … What is completely meaningless is any kind of infinite, actual or potential. … the sum and product of any two integers is well-defined only if the result is less than p”, that seems to imply that Marco Polo’s story is “completely meaningless”, which seems too harsh! Can you really not use your imagination a little bit, Zeilberger?

Similarly for the claim that it is impossible to pin down what the “standard” integers are, because any description we could write down in first-order logic will also apply to some nonstandard structures. When it comes to something as simple and natural as the natural numbers, that also seems odd to me. Could Edward Nelson really not guess which layout, of the many city plans consistent with the drawing, Marco Polo had in mind? Is it really pointless to say that something would be true in that city, even if it might not be true in some of its nonstandard sisters? And are there not lessons to be learned from the imagined life in Zed that can guide us in our own grids of asphalt and silicon..?

[certifiedskywalker]

Academic Misgivings (Part Ten) - Peter Parker

You and Peter Parker aren’t friends, but you’re not entirely enemies either. You don’t like him but he always tries to be nice to you. He has everything you’ve ever wanted and you’ll do anything to show him that you can make it on your own. But can you?

Things are looking up! The truth is out there and Y/N and Peter finally know where they stand with each other. But will this relationship last? Or will outside forces bring it crumbling down?

/ PART ONE / PART TWO / PART THREE / PART FOUR/PART FIVE / PART SIX / PART SEVEN / PART EIGHT / PART NINE

It felt like there was pure electricity in your veins. Every inch of you buzzed and hummed with a new sense of life. After Saturday, after you told Peter how you felt about him, your whole body thrummed in some Spring-like symphony. You barely registered Sunday when the Sun knocked on your windowsill. 

You only got out of bed when your phone chirped with a text alert. In a flash, your covers were thrown to the side and your cold feet hit the floor in a matter of seconds. Your phone was charging on your dresser, it’s screen illuminated and reflected in the small mirror of your vanity. The sight of yourself, oddly, made you smile. Your lips were stuck in a smile, as they had been the moment Peter grabbed your hand. Silently you hoped that you would see yourself smile more. 

Your phone chimed once more, ever impatient when it came to your attention. Although, you the alert that greeted you sent a flurry of all sorts of insects a buzz inside your stomach.

PETER: mornin :)

YOU: good morning

PETER: i told May about shopping

PETER: but she has a shift tonight so she cant 

YOU: Oh, okay. 

PETER: she can do Monday after school but we dont have to wait

You bit the inside of your cheek in a poor attempt at suppressing a grin. Eager to reply, your thumbs hovered over the keyboard of the texting app as you thought of your answer. Peter added to his last message both you could reply.

PETER: i mean it we would be getting to it late so the dresses and stuff might not be cool

PETER: but you would make any dress look cool

PETER: pretty, i mean.

PETER: sorry

PETER: i’m screwing this up

You beamed at the series of texts and shook your head. As you typed out a reply, you rocked back on forth on the heels, too happy to keep still.

YOU: You’re not screwing anything up, Pete. You’re being endearing

You waited for a beat and when Peter didn’t reply you wrote out another message.

YOU: It’s sweet and very cute 

PETER: cute?

YOU: Yes, cute. :)

PETER: your cute too

YOU: You mean *you’re and thanks Pete

A laugh slipped past your lips. Loud giggling was a sound so foreign to you it sounded fake as your laugh echoed within the walls of your room.

PETER: wow ok i see how it is

PETER: call me cute then insult my grammar

YOU: Maybe…. :) and I don’t mind waiting until Monday. I could use May’s help with finding a dress.

PETER: your mom still isn’t home?

You felt your smile fall flat, but not entirely give into a frown. You had been so consumed with what had happened the night before you hadn’t been paying attention. During the night, you thought you heard a door slam but your mind was so lost in some fantasy you felt you had imagined it. Even if your mother was home, dress shopping would not be on top of her to-do list.

YOU: No. But May is more fashionable anyway.

PETER: ok, she’ll be happy to hear that 

PETER: i gotta run, see you tomorrow?

YOU: Yes, you’ll see me tomorrow. We have school.

PETER: oh yeah :)

YOU: Go you goof 

You set your phone back on the top of the dresser and left it to charge as you padded out of your bedroom. The apartment held a chill trapped in the air. One so strong you shivered and wished you had snagged your sweatshirt for the trip to the kitchen. Dirty dishes piled up in the sink, some bowls tucked in on the top looked freshly used. The next step you took creaked and a shuffling sound to your left made you jump.

On the couch, the crumpled form of your father laid on his side. One arm was completely extended, flailing off the edge of the cushions entirely. His mouth was pressed in a line and even in sleep, his jaw moved, tensed, working through some stress that haunted his dreams. Your mother was nowhere in sight. She hadn’t been for three years.

The euphoria that Peter’s texts had given curved down, off the high. You had been pitched off a cliff and back into reality. A reality where brilliant boys like Peter Parker did not mix with girls like you. Bravely, with Peter’s words repeated in your mind like a mantra, you pushed the doubt away. He wouldn’t care about your family, about their flaws; Peter accepted everyone, helped everyone. He would stick by you.

Quietly, you back over to the couch and plucked the blanket from off the back of it. With a tenderness you remembered from your childhood, you rested the thick blanket over your father's sleeping form.

“Sorr-ry…” he whispered, his body shuddering as he spoke. You pressed your lips together to keep from making a sound. Whatever dream he was having was not a good one. It felt more and more like worst fears and nightmares ran in the family.

You remembered times of his smiling face. Trips to the zoo to marvel at dozing lions and laugh at funny the penguins looked when they waddled. His smile had faded, alongside his presence after aliens fell from the sky and destroyed the home he had built for you and your mother. Now he worked day in and day out, with Sunday and Monday mornings off every other month to make sure you both had enough to eat. When you mother had left, he barely spoke. He wouldn’t smile anymore, ask you how your day was and that was all. It was like living with a ghost sometimes, a haunted, weary soul. 

Tiptoeing, you crept back down the hall and into your room. It was best to leave him to rest. Plus, you had studying to do. Your books laid on your small oak desk with book covers taunting you as you took a seat in your rickety desk chair. A sigh passed over your lips as you grabbed The Great Gatsby. Hopefully, you could stay focused and keep your thoughts about Monday at the side.

As you ducked into the books’ pages you realized, that would simply be impossible.

Sunday had dragged with little excitement. You had spent the day studying or trying to study at the very least. Too many ideas and hypothetical scenarios about Monday swirled about you, pestered you as you moved through the day. Your father had left for work soon after you had seen him. An all-day shift at a grocery store outside of Queens took him away and left you to your own devices. Although your mind was too lost in thought too much of anything productive.

Even as you eagerly tucked yourself into bed as the Sunday sunset, your brain still worked. You thought of Peter as you and May studied fictitious dresses. His lazy smile when he would see you in a dress for the first time. Would May be able to tell that you were both something more? Had Peter already told her? 

The steady flow of worrying questions turned into a somewhat tumultuous lullaby as you drifted in and out of sleep. A hybrid of dream and nightmare gave you what you wanted only to take it away. Peter’s face with a smile then a frown as his figure faded from your sleep-vision. Needless to say, sleep did not come easy. If it did, it didn’t stay long as you woke up a few times during the night.

When you woke for the last time, with the sound of your alarm ringing in your ears. Like a ghost, the shrill haunted you as you got ready for the day. Your walk to school was one of belly aching excitements. You were going to see Peter after you told him that you liked him. He liked you too. It all felt like a dream, some horrible trick; but it was real. 

It was as real as Peter as he leaned against the lockers near your own. His lips were pressed in a line, brown eyes searching the faces of all who passed by. Peter was looking for you. The smile that spread across your features must have acted as some sort of beacon or maybe your heart was hammering louder than you thought because Peter met your gaze in an instant. A soft smile and the scent of Peter’s cologne greeted you as you walked to your locker.

“Hi,” he breathed out as if the word had been waiting for its appearance as well as your own. You felt heat rush up your neck and curl like wisps of smoke in your cheeks.

“Hi,” you returned, “you waited?” Peter’s expression shifted from relaxed to shuffling and stuttering. His arms crossed and uncrossed in record time. 

“I did but I...if you don’t like it...I thought it would be nice.” Pink kissed the tips of his ears and you smiled at the sight.

“It is nice.” You lifted a hand and brushed it against his arm. The touch shocked you, literally and metaphorically. A zap of static zipped up your fingers and you felt your heart melted into a puddle of a surprise when Peter leaned into the touch.

“Ok, I’ll do it again then,” Peter said with a calm smile on his face. You nodded before you turned your attention to the lock. As you entered your combination, Peter pressed the side of his head against the neighboring locker. When you snuck a glance at him, you saw that he was already staring at you.

“Hi,” you murmured again in the hopes of deterring your growing bashfulness

“Hi,” he repeated and you let out a shy giggle. “Oh, and should we meet here after school?”

“We can, yeah,” you said as you opened your locker. You plucked your math textbook from the dark depths before you shut the metal door with a clang. Peter’s brown eyes studied your face and you gave him a soft smile. “What?”

“Is it weird now?”

“What is it?”

“Us,” Peter admitted. “I mean, I like you and you like me so it’s not weird but it kind of feels that way, right? Maybe it’s just ‘cause I haven’t-”

“Pete,” you rested a hand on his cheek, something you had wanted to do since you realized you had feelings for him. “It’s not weird, you’re being weird.” 

He let out a laugh and you grinned at the sound. “Am I?”

“No, but I get what you’re saying,” you let your hand fall from his cheek. While the action was new, it felt right; it felt natural. “But the circumstances were weird. It’s not every day a tutor and a tutee gets together.”

“Tutee?” Peter raised a brow at you with a grin splayed out on his features.

“The person being tutored,” you explained. You paused before sighing, “you think it’s a funny word.”

“I don’t think it is a word,” Peter said through a laugh. 

“Well...it is now,” you took a step away from your locker and out into the current of the hallway. Students marched to and fro, getting ready for first period as the clock ticked down the seconds. 

“Y/N, what about proper grammar conventions?” Peter teased as he fell into step at your side. You let out a huff but your amusement was clear on your face. 

“Maybe this was a mistake,” you pondered aloud and you heard Peter stifle a laugh. 

“Our mistake, though. A good mistake.” As Peter spoke, his knuckles brushed against yours. The entire world melted away until all that remained was you and Peter. Your fingers splayed and reached for his. When you pinkie knocked against his, you curled yours around it. 

You heard Peter hum something but you were too lost in this new reality to totally hear it. Mindlessly, your feet carried you through the hall with Peter at your side. He spoke up again but your world was still so fuzzy. You kept walking until you saw a figure sulking towards you and Peter, headed straight towards you.

“Y/N? Why is MJ looking at you like that?” Peter’s questions finally broke through as the rose-colored lenses lifted from your eyes. MJ’s dark eyes were glued on you as she pushed her way through the hallway. It didn’t look as if she were angry but slightly panicked. The mild annoyance in her face was always there. 

“I-I-”

“Y/N,” MJ stopped right in front of you and Peter. 

“Hi, MJ,” Peter chirped. She sent a look his way, something entirely unreadable. 

“Peter,” she turned her gaze back to you, “I ran into Flash.”

“Oh?” You furrowed your brows in confusion. However, your befuddlement did nothing to quell the sudden and furious storm of dread brewing in your stomach. Flash.

“He asked if I had seen you or if we had a class together.” You untangled Peter’s pinkie from your own and you felt the air drop around you.

“Why?”

“I don’t know, I just told him to shut up and he told me he had a surprise for you.”

“What does that mean?” Peter asked, cutting through the conversation. You looked at him and saw his jaw was tensed. Was he jealous? He turned his gaze to you and, instead of anger, you saw concern. “What does he mean?”

“I don’t kno-”

A high pitched whine pierced through the air, out from the intercoms that lines the walls of the hallway. Students stopped shuffling at the sound, waiting for whatever early-morning announcement couldn’t wait until school had actually begun. Crackling on the end of the microphone broke the whine and someone cleared their throat. 

“Midtown High, I have a special announcement from our very own Y/N L/N. You may think that aliens are the true villains or maybe that Spiderman is the true menace, but it seems Y/N has been the darkness in our midst all along.”

“Who is that?” Someone asked but you knew. It was Flash. Whatever voice modulator he was using could not hide the goblin quality of his voice from you. You glanced in the direction of the voice that asked the question and saw a few people from your history class. With widened eyes, they stared at you, waiting for whatever villainous message Flash had planned to share.

“What does that mean?” Peter’s voice pulled you back to yourself. You grabbed his hand and his brown eyes met your gaze. It hit you all at once. Flash was going to tell them about Peter, about how you both had schemed to ruin him.

“Peter, I have to tell you something,” you gushed. You had to beat Flash to it, tell your side of the story before he got the chance. “Before this, before I got to-”

“I..want Peter off the team ...I'm...using Peter. ...leave me alone...Peter ...entitled piece of shit.” Your voice with gravel quality rang out over the speaker, but it wasn’t your voice. It was too low, too edited and pieced together. It almost sounded mechanic but the words spoken were your own. Your stomach dropped. The phone call on Saturday, Flash’s threat….

A profound silence filled the hallway as the speaker cut off. An echo, your own heartbeat pounded in your ears. With a simple audio trick, Flash had ripped a hole in the hope you had built for yourself. You felt your limbs grow cold and numb with the realization. The whole school had heard.

“Y/N, “Why didn’t you tell me?” Peter’s voice broke the glass that had gathered around you and the vacuum of silence stopped whirring in your ears. The happiness you had held, in the shape of Peter’s hand, slipped from your grasp. His brown eyes were squinted but it didn’t stop the welling tears as they threatened to spill over. “Y/N?”

“I…” You took a step back away from Peter. His brows were knitted together in confusion and you felt bile rise up in your throat.

“Y/N, is this...did you...a lie?”

“N-No, Peter, it’s not...it’s not like that.”

“But it was? This whole time?” His voice cracked and you imagined it was nothing compared to the shattered pieces of his heart.

“No…” you whimpered, your voice failing you. “No, Pete it…” Eyes. All the eyes in the vicinity were glued on you and Peter. The Shakespearean drama unfolding in the middle of the hallway had captured everyone’s attention. Your throat was closing with panic, making so you could only choke out the next few words. “I-I’m sorry.”

You turned around and ran down the hall, as far away as you could from Peter Parker.

 Your feet carried you out of the school, wove through the crowd amassing at the entrance as the bell rang. By the time you made it down the block, your chest was heaving. You hadn’t run that fast in a long time and it didn’t help that a series of silent sobs racked your form. To catch your breath, you slumped against a brick wall of a storefront for support. People, much too busy to wonder what you were doing out of school, passed you by with cups of coffee clutched tightly in their hands. 

You looked up from the passersby and across the street. The slightly yellowed lights of the coffee shop’s interior shown through the front window. The tables lining the windowsill were empty, letting the glow shine out in the still brightening sky. Golden edges of the horizon stood out against the dark blue of morning. 

A sudden hunger overwhelmed with sharp stomach pain. You hadn’t eaten breakfast, too eager to see Peter to spend a minute longer in your apartment. Now, you felt too nauseous to eat despite the pang of hunger. What you wanted was a place to be alone.

You crossed the way, barely caring to look either way down the street. A car honked as you darted along the road but you were too consumed with wiping the evidence of tears off of your face. When you felt satisfied with your effort, you pulled open the door of the coffee shop. The heat of brewing javas and the smell of freshly baked cookies welcomed you with a warmth that, in the present moment, you felt you didn’t deserve.

“Hey, you! My favorite customer!” A soft voice greeted you from behind the counter although, at first glance, you didn’t recognize the face accompanying it. At least not the hair. “Oh, yeah, changed it up a little,” the perky barista explained as she pinched a few strands of her now blue hair between her fingers. “Got tired of the pink.”

“It looks nice,” you sniffle as you speak, eyes glancing over the menu. “Any new teas?”

“We have a cinnamon apple tea,” she said with a smile, “it’s like apple cider but not as tart, ya know.” You nodded and gave her a half-hearted smile. She returned the expression, mirrored the sadness that you knew was much too readable in your red-rimmed eyes.

“I’ll take one of those then.” You sniffled again as you pulled out a few dollar bills to pay. The brightly colored barista hit a few buttons on the cash register and recited the order. 

“So one apple cinnamon tea and one fresh snickerdoodle cookie,” she said pleased. She looked up at you with a smile, even as your eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“I didn’t order a-”

“You look like you need one,” she said and tipped her head at your eyes. She handed you a tissue from the counter, “and it’s on the house. Don’t worry about it.”

“Thank you, I don’t know what to say,” you gushed, overwhelmed by the kindness. You were only used to Peter being so kind. When the rest of your life had been lonely it felt like every good thing someone did for you was a treasure.

“You don’t have to say a thing. It’ll be right out.”

It felt like a mere few minutes had passed before a warm cup of tea and baked cookie were in your hands. With another series of ‘thank yous’ said to the barista, you made your way to the table tucked in the far corner. As you waited for your tea to cool down enough to drink, you picked at the snickerdoodle. You broke off pieces of it to eat, weary that if you ate it too fast it might not stay down. 

When you had worked through half of the delicious snack, you looked up. The empty seat across from you seemed to echo. If you listened hard enough, strained your ears to the point of lightheadedness, you could almost hear Peter’s laugh. It was the same laugh that he showed whenever you made an inadvertent joke or mocked the sentence structure of a decathlon practice question. That laugh was not the same as the little chuckle Peter gave you when you teased him. 

Part of you cringed at the thought. There had been a point where you had meant the words you teased him with. At some point, you had told yourself you hated Peter. How could you have done that without knowing him? Had you jealousy been that deep?

Obviously it had been, you thought to yourself bitterly. You had willing teamed up with Flash, that was how deeply your envy had been. Now, through some twisted sense of fate and Peter’s charm, all you felt was shame. Shame and sadness seemed to come hand-in-hand. With the regret came tears, tears that cascaded down your cheeks and on the napkin placed before you. 

You wanted to blame it all on Flash. He had turned green with envy whereas you had grown. Grown to like Peter, more than you ever thought was possible. Flash had ruined it, manipulated words, the only tool you had and made sure he was right in the end: Peter wouldn’t sick with you now. Only the pain in his face as your voice, but not truly yourself, spoke over the speakers and told a stale truth.

Your heart began to pound as reality set in fully. Nothing would be the same now. Whatever you and Peter had started, shared with each other, would flatline. There was no longer a pulse left in that relationship and it was your fault. All you could do was apologize, try to tell him how things had changed when you got to know him better. 

Deep in your heart, you felt like you need Peter. Through him, through learning about him you learned more about yourself. Through liking him, you learned to like yourself. Now it felt like you were free-falling. The foothold Peter had made for you both had broken under the weight of past mistakes. You couldn’t fix it, so you would have to learn to be okay on your own.

And the coffee shop didn’t feel like the right place to start. Too many memories of Peter haunted the place, times when you felt like the best person you could be. You needed to tap into that person, that version of you, without the ghost of Peter helping you. You needed to be with yourself. 

So, after you finished your cookie and tea, you thanked the barista one last time. It was noon by the time you had felt, time seemed to have sped up in your panicked state. With traffic somewhat calmed, you were able to cross the street without cars honking in distress this time. The path your house was peppered with browned leaves carried in on the breeze. Autumn’s end was near, sharp and sudden as the end of bare branches. 

It would have surprised you if snow were to fall as you unlocked the gate to your apartment building. Instead of thinking about how you and Peter had said a heartfelt ‘goodbye’ in the spot you stood in just a few days ago, you thought about the impending Winter. Maybe you could convince your parents to go to your cousin’s place for the holiday season so you weren’t locked away in your room like last Winter break. It would be an unexpected trip but you couldn’t stand the thought of being home alone for two weeks.

What was also unexpected was the sight of your father when you opened the door to the apartment. He looked just as tired as he did Sunday, but he was cleaning the kitchen. Cleared plates and shining utensils were sat out on the drying rack. When you the door closed behind you, your father looked up. 

“School?”

“I-I…” your stomach twisted, “I wasn’t feeling well. Can you...you call me in sick?” Your father’s brows scrunched together but he nodded nonetheless. 

“Y-Yeah, you...you alright?” There was a softness in his voice, the type of concern a father should have for his daughter. How long had it been since you had heard him speak like that? He had been gone off on work trips, struggling to make ends meet and all the while hoping that your mother would come back. Yet, it seemed, he had a bit of softness saved for you. And that broke your heart. 

“N-No….” Tears fell from your eyes before you had the chance to stop them. They blurred your vision until the home you had known for the past seven years was turned into muddled shapes. You relied solely on sound. So when, instead of asking about what had happened, you heard the footsteps of your father’s work boots against the floorboards, you were shocked. More so when two warm arms wrapped around you and your backpack to pull you to his chest.

Sobs racked your frame, so loud that your cries seemed to echo through the apartment. Despite the sound, you heard your father’s voice. “I wish I could fix it.”

“Y-you can’t,” you hiccuped. You felt his arms tighten around you as if holding you together was all he could do. In that moment, it was all you needed.

You didn’t remember falling asleep or how you got in bed in the first place. The note on your nightstand scrawled out in rough script from your father told you what you needed to know.

Called into the school. You should get some rest, honey. Feel better.

-Dad 

You set the note back down and sat back up against your headboard. Fresh from sleep, your eyes were still clouded lost in the haze of slumber that called out to you to return. The moment the darkness behind your eyelids welcomed you back, an image of Peter smiling entered your mind’s eye. Crinkles by his eyes and the wide grin made your heartache.

Your eyes flew open and you scrambled to your nightstand again. In a mad, groggy search, you looked for your phone. Your fingertips traced the smoothed wood of the side table and found no trace of it. With a sudden rush of mild panic, you got up from your bed. The fabric of your worn, blue backpack poked out from under your desk chair. 

With the knowledge it was the last place you had it and pure hope, you kneeled in front of your bag and rummaged through the pockets. Your hands brushed against folders and paper in your quest. The familiar feeling of earbud wires tangled between your fingers gave you a rush of relief. Pulling gently on the wires, you lifted it out of your backpack. Still plugged into the port, your earbuds suspended your phone before your eyes. 

“Shit,” you whispered to yourself as you unplugged your earbuds. The screen of your phone illuminated with text notifications. One from MJ asked where you had gone while the message from her gave you details on what you missed during English class. You had even received a message from Ned who, after telling you that it was him, told you that he hadn’t seen Peter and that he had heard about what had happened. There was nothing from Peter himself.

You finally unlocked your phone and scrolled through your contacts. It didn’t take long until you found Peter’s name littered among those of people you no longer spoke to. His contact picture was an open book, a picture you had taken during a tutoring session instead of asking for one from him. Now, looking at it, you wished you had. 

Without wasting another moment on regret you hit the dial button and pressed your phone to your ear. The dull, repetitive ringing had you biting on the inside of your cheek nervously. Pick up, please, please pick up.

“Hi, it’s Peter….” His voice, animated, almost happy, answered a twisted sense of happiness flooded through you, even if it was short-lived. You had to tell him you were sorry. 

“Pete, it’s me. I-I-”

“And I can’t get to the phone right now because uh...I’m busy? I guess? You can leave a message though. I don’t really know what else to-” A loud ‘beep’ stopped the automated message. Tears welled in your eyes at the sound before you found the courage to speak up.

“I know I’m the last person you want to hear from but I need to talk to you. I need to explain so you don’t think…” you paused and sighed. You should have written it down, planned out what you were going to say. It was too late now. “I’m sorry, Pete. You know I’m not...I’m not the best person, I sure wasn’t before we started talking. But with you, I feel like I can be a better person. I hope...I hope you can see that. I’m sorry.”

Your phone fell away from your ear as you pressed the ‘hang up’ button displayed on the screen. As you did, another text alert popped up. The number matched Ned’s and you tapped the notification. 

NED: um, I don’t want to worry you or stress you out more than you probably already are but I still can’t find Peter. 

NED: he normally tells me when he’s gonna go out but he didn’t and May doesn’t know where he is either. have you heard from him?

YOU: I gave him a call. He didn’t answer. 

NED: okay, thanks. 

NED: and, Y/N, don’t worry, he’ll come around.

You didn’t have the strength to thank Ned or ask how he even got your number. Instead, you peeked into your backpack again to find a notebook and a pen. Peter was gone, probably angry and upset. The thought filled you with worry.

 Your eyelids grew heavy at you wrote out four simple words. On shaking legs, you stood from your spot and strode over to the window of your bedroom. Carefully, you leaned the notebook against the glass so it could easily be seen:

Spiderman, I need you.

Bitterly pleased with your handy work, you strode over to you bed and collapsed once more.

The light tapping of rain against your window slowly coaxed you from your slumber. Slowly, you sat up from your bed and hit the button on your phone to catch the time. It was ten o'clock at night meaning the dance tomorrow was merely sixteen hours away. The calculations in your head made you feel sick with dread and sleep. 

The steady tap against your window pulled you out of your own mind. In the small second of peace, you let your thoughts drift again. That was, until, the pattering at your wind intensified. You shot up from your bed and you feet hit the floor. Blindly, you swung your hand towards the lamp on your nightstand and flicked it on.

Two white eyes of a familiar red mask came into the light. A gloved hand waved on the other side of the glass as you threw yourself off of your bed. Your bare feet padded against the carpet of your bedroom floor as you neared the window. You weren’t entirely sure if your lack of pure shock was from the lingering haze of sleep or the fact you had seen Spiderman before. There wasn’t much thought to give it before you opened the window. 

“You got my message,” you whisper as you poke you head out of your window. Your teeth clattered as a gust of night air swirled into your room. “Are you cold?”

“I, no, I’m okay. You’re lucky I was swinging around.” He said, his voice not as low as the last time you saw him. Something about the pitch was familiar, so familiar in fact it gave you goosebumps. Or was that just the cold?

Now was not the time to dwell. “I….I need help...”

The blank eyes of the mask stared at you in wait. Quiet oozed between you and you remember Spiderman being more talkative before. More confident, even. Perhaps it had been an off day for him too.

“His name is Peter, Peter Parker, you might know him. He works with Iron Man and he...I messed up. I don’t know where he is he won’t answer his calls and his friends can’t reach him either. Can you...do you find people?”

“That’s more of a Jessica Jones’ thing.” Your brows furrowed at the snappy tone and you opened your mouth slightly in shock. 

“But can you help?”

“Why do you want to find him?”

“Because he’s missing!” You yell in a whisper. You threw your arms up in the air but Spiderman only cocked his head to the side like a confused puppy. Or perhaps a dog too wise for his own good.

“Just because of that?” Angry bubbled up inside you, spread flames from your stomach up to your chest; but your resolve turned to ash in your mouth. All you wanted was to know Peter was okay. 

“I...I need to tell him that I’m sorry, that I-I...” The words got caught in your throat. Why were you telling a total stranger about this? A masked stranger at that. You were desperate...that was why.

“Tell him what?”

“That what I did, what I wanted, it’s different now.” Spiderman fell quiet and you felt it was due to the lack of context. But you were too tired to explain so you continued. “ I need to tell him that...well the voicemail I left him already covers most of it…”

“So he’ll call you back when he’s ready.” The superhero’s curtness was not something you had expected. Yet, despite the tone, you knew he was right. Peter would speak up when he was ready. There was no point in worrying until then. If he truly went missing, you were sure you would have felt it. With all that had happened, Peter probably ran off as you had.

“Yeah, sorry for bothering you. You’re probably busy.” Spiderman only nodded in reply and got up from his crouched position. As quiet as a shadow, you watched as he leaped on the fire escape railing and readied to jump off. When he lingered, you quirked a brow at him. Almost as if he sensed your change in expression, he craned his neck to look back at you. 

“Do you...do you care about him?”

“Yes,” you said without missing a beat. “More than anything. He’s my closest friend and I….” The words teetered on the tip of your tongue but you bit them back. If you went too far you could never make it back. Spiderman nodded; sometimes there was no need for words to explain the most complex of feelings. All you had to do was look at someone’s face and just know.

“Then you can trust him to come around, Y/N.” With that, Spiderman lept and webbed away in a matter of a few seconds. You watched as the bright reds and blues of his suit faded into the haze of the light-polluted city. With your chin balanced on your elbow, you rested your head against the frame of the window. The white paint of its surface was chipped and had flaked off due to weathering over the years. 

You too had lost parts of yourself as you had gotten older. Childhood memories felt more like an old movie now, one that you used to know the lines to but had since forgotten. When Peter asked you to tutor him, unknowingly, he had given you a chance at a starring role in a movie that promised a happy ending. So why did it feel like the reel had been cut short?

[a-mad-scientist-approaches]

Multiverse is a Curse Word (6)

Okay, hiatus time after this one, but I’ll try to get the next one out as soon as I can. Everyone who has been keeping track of this crazy thing so far, it has meant so much to me. Thank you!!

As always, Adeline Marks is @hntrgurl13‘s awesome OC, and the Dimension Jumper and Drifting Dimensions AUs are her creations also.

@the-subpar-ghost made the Adrift AU, a goldmine of feels, angst, and Ford-Mabel bonding.

The Addiford ship is from the mind of @scipunk63. I think you’ll like this chapter.

@deadpool-demon-diva and @thejesterlyfictionista. Here’s a new one, enjoy.

Minor spoiler: There’s flashbacks to alternate lives, and in one of these Stan is mentioned to have read Tolkien. This is from @amolecularmachine‘s brilliant fic By the Skin of Your Teeth. Go read it.

AO3  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11

Chapter 6: Naturally-Occurring Nerdy Stuff

Addi felt guilt begin to crush her as soon as she heard Mabel whimper in her sleep. She had given Stanford the sword; she hadn’t tried hard enough to convince Wesley she could handle the job; she had encouraged her two companions to stay with the resistance even though she knew Wesley might try to get them involved; she had become entangled in the resistance herself. Addi sighed. The mistakes just kept piling up.

At another whine from Mabel she abandoned her position on watch and padded through the silk-soft green grass to where the girl was sleeping. The beauty of this planet’s forests would be a sight to behold in the morning.

“Hey, sweetie,” she said gently, running a hand through Mabel’s short brown curls, “hey, it’s okay, you’re safe, you’re safe …”

Mabel opened her eyes and looked around, reorienting herself. Addi continued to stroke her hair until her breathing evened out. The sound of wind rustling through delicate leaves soothed them both.

Eventually Mabel sat up and rested her chin on her knees, shifting her blanket so that it wrapped completely around her. Stanford hadn’t been eager to retrieve their supplies from the shuttle (delaying their departure through a portal), but Addi was now glad she had insisted. Having a halfway decent campsite encouraged a feeling of safety and homeliness, something they all needed.

“Not sleeping tonight?” she asked. Mabel shook her head silently and leaned against Addi, who enveloped her in a hug.

“You know it wasn’t your fault, right?”

Mabel remained quiet for a few seconds, then replied, “I keep going over and over it in my head, but I can’t see it happening any differently. I mean, when I swung the sword I didn’t know she was there, and I needed to shut the security doors.” She turned to Addi with anguish in her eyes. “Am I missing something? Was there anything I could have done to make it go right?”

Truth be told, Addi had no idea. Thirty years of travelling through the multiverse had pretty effectively demolished all her certainty and guarded scepticism. There was undoubtedly a universe where everything had gone right for Mabel, where no one had died or come near to death. There was also a universe where nothing had gone right. The chaos that perpetually engulfed the multiverse meant that Addi had rarely been able to do more than hope like hell she was not part of the latter, and wish that she occasionally caught a glimpse of the former.

“No. I think that was entirely out of your control.” Addi answered. “Everything has to happen somewhere, and that was what happened to you … but let’s play out a hypothetical situation: if you had missed that guard, and hit the control panel, what do you think would have happened afterwards?”

The teary girl thought. “She still had her gun … and she was definitely not afraid to use it,”

“Right. So regardless of whether she was simply trying to do her job, or protect her friends, or was hyped up on adrenaline, anger, or fear, she was also trying to hurt you and your great uncle. You were trying to keep yourself and your family safe.” She let that soak in for a moment before continuing. “Mabel, it is wonderful when you can find a win-win scenario, but they are not guaranteed all the time.”

The girl sighed as though some of the weight had been lifted from her. There was still a long way to go, but it was a start.

“It’s not your fault either, Addi.” She said unexpectedly. “Blaming yourself for being betrayed is something overly-dramatic TV action heroes do to gain tragic sympathy from viewers. It’s compelling, but silly. And you’re not silly, Grauntie Addi.” She finished sternly. Then she nestled into the speechless woman’s lap matter-of-factly.

⃝

Ford was awoken by daylight streaming through a parting in the trees to hit him precisely in the eyes. Rolling over to avoid it, he found he was the last to wake. Adeline and Mabel were both enclosed in a blanket, softly playing a hand game.

“Morning sunshine,” Adeline said when she saw him.

“I’m awake enough to recognise sarcasm,” Ford warned, sitting up.

“Sarcastic? I? Your paranoia is getting the better of you again, Stanford,”

“Here you go, Grunkle Ford.” Mabel deposited a fruit in his lap and crouched next to him. “It’s not poisonous, I ate one before you woke up.”

“You what?”

“She’s just messing with you,” Adeline said, shaking her head.

“Oh, so you have learnt some caution,” Ford said, relieved.

Mabel laughed. “Oh no, I totally ate, like, three. But Addi knew it was okay,”

Still mildly concerned, Ford finished the sweet tasting food.

“Are you okay, though?” he asked tentatively after swallowing. He could tell by the shadow which temporarily dampened her light mood that she knew he was not talking about the fruit.

Mabel shrugged slightly, avoiding his eyes. “I could do with a couple million stuffed animals and a huge family hug pile,” she said, her voice catching because they all knew that neither were possible.

Regardless, he would do his best. He put as much love into the following embrace as he could muster, and the surprised giggle Mabel made when Addi joined in allowed him to believe that they were equivalent to at least a hundred fluffy toys.

⃝

“I wish we could stay here,” Mabel said wistfully as they packed up.

“As do I, however I think it would be safer if we continued to move on. That threat Wesley gave you was decidedly ominous,” Ford directed at Adeline.

“I don’t think he’d come after us.” She frowned. “Then again, I didn’t think he was a flipping insane-” she paused.

“Butthead!” Mabel supplied.

Ford nodded his agreement and checked the readings on his analyser before altering his calculations.

“Another portal should be opening up around here-”

“There!” Mabel shouted. “Bye forest!”

They stepped through the bright blue circle.

Ford had never gotten used to crossing dimensions, and he doubted he ever would. The experience was the same for everyone. They caught flashes of events from their alternate selves’ lives.

… he was in a darkened room and a terrified boy who could only be Mabel’s brother was pointing a memory gun at him …

… he was in a hospital bed and feeling worse than ever in his life, but Stan was making him grin like an idiot by admitting he had read Tolkien …

… he was staring down in shock at the lifeless form of his niece, who had just managed to plunge Adeline’s sword into the control panel before being shot down …

⃝

Addi shivered and took a deep breath, throwing off the lingering feeling that she was falling off a cliff towards the Gravity Falls river. Stanford was looking pretty shaken up too.

“Hello forest!” Mabel said cheerfully. Their new location was rather less pleasant, but it did seem to be another forest. It had dry, browny-green, tough-looking trees rather than the earlier lush, deep green ones, and raw, baking heat emanated from every available surface, reflecting the sun’s glare. The pale pink sky was stubbornly clear of cloud cover.

“We’re going to need water,” Addi stated.

It was almost three hours before they found any. By then, all of them were exhausted and soaked with sweat. They were also extremely tired of the rocky, uneven terrain.

Mabel let out a groan of relief upon seeing the river. Without saying another word she threw off her boots, her black coat, and her sweater, and flopped into the coolness, remembering to keep it away from her face until they knew it was a fresh water current. Addi, too, immediately stripped off her outer layers and sat beneath a tree on the river’s edge, allowing the cool liquid to soothe her burning feet.

Stanford held off his moment of peace, of course. She expected nothing less from the man who would work himself to exhaustion on the portal before he slept. He took out a capsule-like device and trickled some water into it. It beeped and flashed green.

“Okay, it’s fresh,”

Mabel instantly dunked her head into the water and lay face-down. Stanford added his own contributions to the pile of clothes, including a starry, dark blue sweater that Mabel had obviously made. This revealed something that made Addi snort.

“Nice tat,” she laughed. Ford flushed slightly and instinctively clapped a hand over the cheerful little star inked onto his neck. Its yellow colour exactly matched Mabel’s shirt.

“Shut up,” he said irritably, and waded into the river.

“I want one just like it,” Mabel enthused, coming up for air to hear the exchange.

“No. Never,”

“Aw, you’re no fun,”

Stanford narrowed his eyes. “What is this? My niece has suddenly become deluded and irrational! She must have been bitten by the deadly Lunacy Beetle of Madron, whose poison can only be flushed out by,” he surged over to Mabel, “extensive water exposure!”

Mabel shrieked and caught him in the face with a blast of water. This did little to deter him, and Mabel was plucked out of the river and mercilessly dunked back under over and over. Droplets trailed sparkles through the air. The girl’s war cries and vows of vengeance were interspersed with splutters, rendering her as threatening as a kitten. On Dunk Number Five however, she managed to grab onto Ford’s shirt effectively enough to pull him under with her, and when they emerged again they were both coughing up water.

“So is the madness all out of your system? Do you consider me sufficiently ‘fun’ again?” Ford asked once his lungs were clear.

“Yeah, yeah, you’ve made your point.” Conceded Mabel. “BUT, that water fight wasn’t fair. You are way out of your league, old man.”

“Oh, well in that case, maybe I need to enlist Addi’s help. Together we should surely be a match for you.” He turned to look at Adeline, but she was already crashing towards them. Ford’s confident expression was wiped away however when Addi dived at him rather than his niece. Mabel cheered as they went under.

Below the surface it was difficult to discern much of anything, the silt being so recently stirred up, but Addi did see a glint as Ford’s glasses came off. She caught them in one hand and grinned mischievously down at him, close enough to see his matching expression. She was very conscious of how he had not removed his arm from around her waist since they had fallen. Also, she needed air.

“Is that a jet ski?” asked Mabel when they resurfaced. They looked, Addi returning Ford’s glasses.

The river was very broad, so much so that the opposite bank was a blur. However, there was what looked like a small vehicle heading in their general direction.

“I don’t think they’ve seen us. It’s most likely a patrol of some kind. Nevertheless, we don’t want to be noticed,” Stanford said warily.

On the bank they shoved their feet into their boots and Addi hid their dry clothes and bags in a bush. A layer of leaves combined with rock-hard dirt eliminated the need to cover their tracks, so they retreated straight into the refuge provided by the forest, and waited. It was only then Addi realised she had forgotten to grab their weapons in her haste.

She expected the vehicle to pass by on a quick sweep, then continue down the river. Instead, it came to a stop not far from their supplies and the rider dismounted. The amphibian-like person walked unassumingly forward, bulbous eyes fixed on a monitor in their hands.

Seriously? Our luck cannot be this bad, Addi thought disbelievingly as they were forced to back away indefinitely as the stranger moved innocently towards them.

After a ridiculous sixty feet of this, the alien even following their evasive and curved paths, there were more footsteps off to their side. Another person with a monitor was heading their way. Addi stopped breathing as herself and her friends crouched in the middle of some large bushes and waited for the beings to pass them by. Through the leaves, she saw them gesture to a sick-looking tree and compare monitors. Mabel released a breath and Stanford relaxed.

Environmentalists. No threat. Unless you hurt their trees.

She jerked her head towards an outcrop of boulders a reasonable distance from where the scientists were working. Quickly and quietly, the three of them left the site of interest.

“That never happens to us!” Mabel said happily to Ford. “It always turns out to be bounty hunters, or space police, or some other person you’ve upset.”

“I’ve upset? Allow me to remind you of a certain gambler who destroyed half a market square not a week ago,” Ford responded in mock offence.

“Ooh, shiny.” Mabel noticed, deftly changing the subject to look under the gap between a boulder and the ground. “I think I can – ACK!” She suddenly disappeared from view.

“MABEL!” Both adults yelled. Stanford leaped to where she had been sliding into the gap, and he too disappeared.

Knowing it probably was not a good idea, but going ahead with it anyway, Addi grabbed a sharp rock and followed. There was a near invisible hole under the boulder with a small, glittering white crystal on its other side. Bracing herself, she dropped into the darkness.

It was like a slide. A really rough, nearly vertical slide. Amid the tumbling of rocks, she heard shouting coming from below her and prayed the others were okay. She hit the floor of a cavern with a jolt, but managed to stay on her feet, and spun around with the rock raised, searching for some sort of cave-dwelling monstrosity. Instead, she saw Stanford and Mabel both gazing around in ecstasy, spouting off half to each other and half to themselves about the wonders surrounding them.

The wonders in question were many, many, larger versions of the crystal marking the entrance to the hole. The entire place was filled with stars. Addi dropped the rock.

“Addi, Addi look! It’s so pretty, it’s like magic! Is it magic? It could be magic! What if there’s fairies down here? -”

“Adeline, the luminous properties of these crystals is amazing! It appears they can absorb and store energy almost perfectly, and only release a small amount as light, creating this wonderful glimmer!-”

“-fairies use them for building houses! Or maybe there’s an underground society of dwarfs that come and mine this place! Or even-”

“-significant usefulness as batteries or even devices of their own! Do you think we could fashion some sort of communicator out of them? Maybe-”

“-dragon treasure! I could probably make a bracelet out of these-”

“”-look, even as we’re speaking they’re growing brighter from the kinetic energy produced by sound vibrations!”

“I need some!”

“I must take a sample!”

“So, I guess you two haven’t encountered endo-ergon quartz before?” queried Addi, amused at their excitement.

“You have?” replied Ford, carefully unearthing some and placing them in a pocket.

“A few times. I’ve never seen a deposit of this size before. You are right, they make good batteries. I use them when I can to power things like Big Bertha, my transmitter, my portal beacon …”

Which reminds me, I should set that up, Addi remembered. She grabbed a couple of crystals for herself.

“Wow, they’re pretty handy.” Called Mabel, collecting some of the smaller ones. “This cave is full of naturally-occurring nerdy things! Except these rocks are actually beautiful and useful, which is completely different to Dipper’s collection at home. I think he has some gravel in there.” She mused.

There was an exit at the back of the cavern which returned them to the forest. Once they were in the open Mabel turned to Addi.

“Grauntie Addi, I’m going to make you a friendship bracelet. And you Grunkle Ford. And one for me too,” With that decision, she began to run back up the incline to where the rock pile was situated.

“Grauntie?” Ford said in surprise.

“Yes. I’m very proud,”

“I guess that decides it,” said Ford absentmindedly.

“Decides what?”

“Oh, er, I was going to ask whether you wanted to stay with us.” He said, a bit awkwardly. “I mean, you’ve saved our lives so many times already, and you are extremely capable, and amazing at, well, everything. I honestly cannot thank you enough.” He drew in a breath. “I know that I’m asking a lot, for you to keep helping us, so hopefully we’ll be able to return the favour at some point.”

Addi opened her mouth to deny the notion that she expected anything in return, to say that it had been her privilege to meet them, and get to know them, and spend time with them. However, Ford didn’t seem to be done.

“Mabel clearly loves you and wants you to come with us. I have to say, it would be greatly beneficial for her to have someone other than myself to care for her, especially someone who actually seems to know what they’re doing with kids.” He gave a quick, but nervous, grin at that. “I, myself, value your company exceedingly, and I would … greatly appreciate it if you decide to remain.”

Are you kidding? She wanted to scream. Of course! She figured that would be fairly alarming however. A shout of joy was all she wanted to do, though, because she could feel a swell of emotions about to explode from her like a volcano of happiness. He couldn’t know how much what he had said meant to her. He hadn’t even known her in his dimension! At home she had always thought of herself as good, but nowhere near as brilliant as her two friends. Yet here she was, and Stanford was telling her that she was the capable one, was nervously asking her to stay with him as though there was any other option she had considered, and above all was completely trusting her with the life of the wonderful child he had in his care when only a week ago he had seen her as his enemy.

“So … will you stay?”

The volcano erupted.

Completely impulsively, but without any regrets, she stepped forward and kissed him, entwining their fingers as she did. After a moment of uncertainty, she was relieved to find him kissing her back.

⃝

Whatever Mabel had expected was the reason Addi and Ford were taking so long, seeing them making out in a clearing full of light was not it. The first thing she did was react appropriately.

“MATCH MADE!” she screamed.

[phoenixyfriend]

Since alternate realities are canon, this technically makes all aus canon. How's it feel knowing JaLD is a canon alternate reality for VLD? ;)

Honestly? I’m amused as hell. Partially because this is something I already kind of believe about the nature of fandom, fiction, and the universe. (Well, maybe not that last one, but it’s a fun thing to think about.) Want to know more? There’s a link to a fic called “That’s, Like, Sixteen Walls” below. Read it, and hopefully it’ll make sense.

NOTE: if you guys haven’t read the Author’s Note on the Epilogue of Just a Little Death yet… please do. There’s plenty of ridiculous things going on there regarding dimension hopping crossover one-shot sequel ideas.

Okay, story time!

So, I spend a lot of my chat time with @firebirdeternal, my beta, brainstorming for existing fics. Sometimes it’s angst, but USUALLY I’m over in crack-verse cooking up a storm of whatever I think is hilarious.

(Note: It’s probably not as funny to anyone except me and firebird. Still, we have fun.)

One of the default “I feel like talking about a crack scenario I’ll never write” concepts we mess around with is the mega-fic multicrossover scenario, which is basically just me going “Okay but what if a BUNCH of my fics’ casts all went through some kind of multiversal glitch that resulted in all of them being in the same Castle?”

The most common fics I bring up in that scenario, in order:

Just a Little Death

Half-incubus Lance, basically canon+modern fantasy elements

Ninjas and Aliens

Team Voltron found a planet that happens to be home to the Naruto cast; they are loaned a team of A/S-ranked shinobi to help in the war. This is great, except for the fact that this Team is Taka, and thus full of assholes who don’t give a shit, and Juugo.

That’s, Like, Sixteen Walls

Lance can break the fourth wall. Unfortunately, the fourth wall annoys him right back.

Let It the Quiznak Go

Blue decided that humans were too fragile, so she gifted her paladin ice powers. She did not gift him a user’s manual.

The Mermaid!Lance fic I’m working on and a handful of other ideas that haven’t quite taken form yet. (Stuff like the canon au where Hunk can see ghosts and is creeped out by all the dead wandering the Castle’s halls, or the one where Keith is followed by Norse Myth’s Loki in fox form because SURPRISE you’re part god, but watching you be frustrated is fun, so nobody’s going to tell you who the godly grandparent is. Instead, Loki is going to stick around and be a very sarcastic trickster mentor because they find it funny.)

A hypothetical A/B/O fic that I’d be using because the character interactions would be hilarious when the rest of these fics would be taken into account. I’m probably never going to write the basic omegaverse fic, but in this context? Imagine Alpha!Keith growling at someone, and then JaLD!Lance fucking with him by leaping across the table, going full demon (hissing and ominous smoke included), and pressing down very lightly on everyone’s psyches with the fear illusion for a few moments, just to show off.

This scenario is one of my favorites to imagine because it involves JaLD!Keith throwing an apple at Lance while the non-JaLD characters are watching in horror (save for Sixteen Walls Lance, who can’t be surprised, and Team Taka, who are constantly unimpressed by literally everything because… well, they’re them). Lance catches the apple by stabbing it through with his tail without looking, and turns to Keith, who’s already yelling, “HEY ASSHOLE, GET OFF THE FUCKING TABLE, WE EAT ON THERE.”

JaLD Lance’s response is basically just to take the apple off of his tail, hop off the table while shifting back to human form and pretending he wasn’t just summoning a taste of hell, and going “I’m keeping this.”

I don’t care if anyone else finds it funny. I love imagining it.

I almost never include Turn Back the Clock, because… yeah. That’s a much more serious fic and I don’t want to give Lance more trauma than he already has.

Keep in mind, I have incidents in mind for each of these where the cast goes through a corrupted wormhole again and gets spat out into a different fandom entirely. Sixteen Walls? They end up in Heathers or Hairspray. Lance with ice powers? Obviously have to do a Frozen crossover. JaLD? I’ve got those fuckers going everywhere in my mind from Disney’s Descendants to the Marvel Cinematic Universe to Firefly to other people’s fanfics.

(After I read Watercast, I kept imagining the sheer chaos that JaLD!Lance or NaA’s Taka would do if they got dropped there. I will never even consider writing it, but I like to imagine JaLD!Lance doing a trust fall with Blue off of a cliff. Everyone expects him to go splat, but Blue just swoops down and plucks him out of the air like it’s nothing instead.)

…You would probably find it amusing that my first thought upon finishing the AU episode of Season 3 was actually “Oh god, what if Marisol showed up and got into an argument with Lance about disappearing at random instead of paying attention to the armed guards, etc.?”

Anyway, that was probably a much longer answer than you were expecting.

TL;DR: I adore the implications that all fanfics are potential AUs of canon, because I’m a sucker for personally writing inter-fic and normal crossovers, as I find them a lot of fun, even if I can’t always handle reading people meeting AU versions of themselves/their friends, because awkward.

EDIT: The Lances would be the driving force behind this. One is half incubus. One constantly acts like he’s high because the Void is fucking with his head by giving him Fourth Wall access. One is a mermaid from Plaxum’s planet. One of them freezes over the ENTIRE FUCKING ROOM by accident if he makes a mistake and falls asleep in a common area. One of them is in a FWB relationship with a seduction specialist ninja (hi, Konohamaru). Like… just three of these would be enough, though eyes on the prize JaLD and Frozen!Lance are the most capable of accidentally causing chaos.

(And NaA’s Team Taka is… not necessarily a SAFE chaos…)